part 2/3

Every place you go to is dead. The only other people you see are in Duty Finder or people mostly AFK:ing in cities.

There's no general chat to communicate with others. And finding groups to do the MSQ requires 8 man raids is next to impossible. The Duty Finder Queue is of no help for these things as you will sit 400+ minutes without finding a group. Every now and again a DPS or two will queue with you ( you can see it on the UI ) but they leave after ~30 min of getting tired of it.

The only way I was able to progress here was spending about 200 minutes in a city/location where people AFK/gather/loiter and posting in chat ( every 5 minutes ) that I was looking for a group for these MSG raids. After about 200 minutes some high lvl would stop by, feel sorry for me and ask what was going on and basically invite me to a group and clear the dungeon for me dragging my sorry pathetic ass with them.

That has happened 3 times so far, for every 8 man raid I had to do for the MSQ so far.

And that's what's probably best in this game. The other people. The other people that you barely interact with or see, by the way, but when you do they are helpful and supportive and very nice.

Some of the boss fights have been quite interesting and fun like the Leviathan fight and this Ice Dragon guy but only because the boss mechanics were good - not because of the core combat mechanics.

I'm progressing through the MSQ but after two days of mindlessly going and teleporting and clicking on the things to the place it wants me to go just in hopes of unlocking a new dungeon... I just feel absolutely distraught. Is this the game?

The best parts of this game I can see are the RP aspects. Customizability and emotes etc. The fact that you can take on any job is great if only the jobs were unique or the combat interesting which they are not.

Also I see players playing flutes and stuff which looks cool and having small RP-like sessions/events every now and again. All of that is very cool.

Granted the combat system isn't that much different from early FF ATB systems but at least there was some strategy to them while these newer systems ( they were single player after all ) ( including the one in this game ) just just a meaningless splash of colors. The don't stand in red area mechanic is good but it's not enough to carry the combat system anywhere beyond the ditch it is in. Plus the GCD is way too long and you get hit even if you walked out of the red area 1 second ago because the server tick timer is so goddamn slow so everything feels extra sluggish and rubber-bandish.