Write your Positive Experience on FFXIV

[Astronis]

1) When Did you Start?: Before 6.1 sometime.

2) What keeps you playing FFXIV?: Friends, roleplay, I enjoy the fights. I want to see where they go with the story.

3) What do you enjoy most about the game?: Mastering challenging content (within the constraints I'm willing to put up with--not hardcore raiding any time soon even if I'm confident I could).

4) Favorite memory or moment?: I was telling one of my friends (who finally dragged me kicking and screaming into this game) that after playing through ARR, I was wondering if it would ever happen that the other characters would get theirs for treating the WoL like a convenient weapon to point at things and not a person...I was getting legitimately frustrated about it. So he said, "Go play the dark knight quests". Now I am a DRK main. It's a nice treat for the writers of a game to understand how players might feel about the story and respond so brilliantly.

5) What makes FFXIV different from other MMOs for you?: It respects my time more than other MMOs I've played. I don't think I'll ever play another f2p or b2p MMO again; this one isn't trying to swindle me at every turn.

6) What would you say to someone thinking of trying FFXIV?: That it gets much better, and if you can get past Titan in ARR it'll be worth it.

7) Favorite emote?: /playdead, probably.

8) Favorite job to relax on?: Dancer. I main Dark Knight, but if I want to just ignore everything and faceroll my buttons, I play Dancer.

9) Preferred server or data center?: Crystal. We may not be able to collectively press our buttons on Crystal, but it's very friendly and that's important to me.

10) Glam style you always come back to?: My WoL is forever in tight leather pants, no matter what else may be going on.

11) A dungeon, trial, or raid you secretly love?: Barbariccia. Proper chaos. Also Chaotic Cloud of Darkness. Best fun I've had in this game.

[Infindox]

1) When Did you Start?:
December 2016

2) What keeps you playing FFXIV?:
lore, I like some of the grinds, I like hanging out in the space

3) What do you enjoy most about the game?:
Content

4) Favorite memory or moment?:
Beating tier of Eden Savage with Shiva in it on content

5) What makes FFXIV different from other MMOs for you?:
the only MMO I have had an interest in (Warframe I don't consider an MMO)

6) What would you say to someone thinking of trying FFXIV?:
Play Free Trial first, then if you like it buy it

7) Favorite emote?:
/getfantasy

8) Favorite job to relax on?:
Red Mage

9) Preferred server or data center?:
I don't really have one, though I tend to just stay on Aether and not really DC hop unless I'm looking at another MB.

10) Glam style you always come back to?:
Jeans and sneakers

11) A dungeon, trial, or raid you secretly love?:
Rathalos EX in Mentor Roulette lol

12) Closing thought:
One of you who posted before me just needs to quit if that's all you view the game as, you will feel much better.
Still love the game but I think it's been lacking recently.

[Drakolos]

1) When Did you Start?:
ARR 2.2

2) What keeps you playing FFXIV?:
The endgame content (Savages/Ultimates)

3) What do you enjoy most about the game?:
The endgame content (Savages/Ultimates)

4) Favorite memory or moment?:
Clearing my first Week1

5) What makes FFXIV different from other MMOs for you?:
Great music and combat design

6) What would you say to someone thinking of trying FFXIV?:
I wouldn't recommend it because the early game is far too tedious and takes far too long.

7) Favorite emote?:
/Pet

8) Favorite job to relax on?:
Redmage

9) Preferred server or data center?:
Light i guess?

10) Glam style you always come back to?:
Midan Set of Casting

11) A dungeon, trial, or raid you secretly love?:
Edens Gate Turn 4 - Titan

12) Closing thought:
I hope that with 8.0 the focus will be on the classes. The fact that the classes have barely changed at all from EW to DT took away a lot of the fun for me.

+Discord (optional):
Drakolos

[TeresaFortell]

1) When Did you Start?:
During the start of SHB, 2019.

2) What keeps you playing FFXIV?:
It is a chill game filled with many different activities, so I play it on and off.

3) What do you enjoy most about the game?:
Crafting. I enjoy this game's crafting system.

4) Favorite memory or moment?:
Clearing my first raid with my party, and subsequently getting a 90s roll on a mount.

5) What makes FFXIV different from other MMOs for you?:
I think the significant difference is that it is a jack-of-all-trades. When you compare it to other MMOs, they cater to a specific kind of player; however, this game offers content that can moderately satisfy everyone.

6) What would you say to someone thinking of trying FFXIV?:
Try crafting, then you will get into gathering, and so on.

7) Favorite emote?:
/beesknees

8) Favorite job to relax on?:
Warrior

9) Preferred server or data center?:
Used to play on crystal before moving to aether, but I would prefer crystal.

10) Glam style you always come back to?:
From the pandamonium tiers

11) A dungeon, trial, or raid you secretly love?:
P10S

12) Closing thought:
I think the game could be better, certainly it is currently in a pretty tough spot. However, we are seeing major improvements throughout recent patches, so it certainly has the potential of being better.

[justausername]

1) When Did you Start?: I downloaded free trial in 2015, but never stuck with it til July 2021

2) What keeps you playing FFXIV?: my friends, the story, raids.

3) What do you enjoy most about the game?: raids, extremes, hunt trains, story.

4) Favorite memory or moment?: going into new raids with friends while in VC.

5) What makes FFXIV different from other MMOs for you?: I don't know what it is, all I know is I can't stick with others. But I have with this for years.

6) What would you say to someone thinking of trying FFXIV?: dont listen to the haters. Form your own opinions. Take your time.

7) Favorite emote?: /malevolence

8) Favorite job to relax on?: reaper

9) Preferred server or data center?: aether

10) Glam style you always come back to?: casual Gothic

11) A dungeon, trial, or raid you secretly love?: secretly? Nier?

12) Closing thought: there's been a lot of hate recently. Yeah the ddos stuff is very annoying. But Dawntrail wasnt that bad imo. Especially the patches.

[MicahZerrshia]

1) When Did you Start?:
Version 1 beta

2) What keeps you playing FFXIV?:
habit and legacy sub pricing

3) What do you enjoy most about the game?:
Being able to switch between all classes on 1 character. This should be an mmo staple

4) Favorite memory or moment?:
The night version 1 went down and being on voice chat with my ls as the screen went black and Answers played for the very first time. Hearing nothing by silence while the trailer played followed by a few sniffles and then everyone just logging off without saying a word

5) What makes FFXIV different from other MMOs for you?:
It's by far the most frustrating, but that is due to developer choices more than the gameplay

6) What would you say to someone thinking of trying FFXIV?:
Wait it out until 8.0 and see if they make changes that are worthwhile enough

7) Favorite emote?:
I rarely use emotes and when I do they are custom ones you can do by typing in /emote "whatever you want to emote"

8) Favorite job to relax on?:
smn is great and one I can play by playing almost 0 attn

9) Preferred server or data center?:
Been on Sarg/Aether since reboot, was on Mysidia in v1

10) Glam style you always come back to?:
Always something that makes my character look like the job they are playing.

11) A dungeon, trial, or raid you secretly love?:
The Binding Coils of Bahamut are still the best they have ever made

12) Closing thought:
Game needs to get back on the rails, stop relying on the same 5 manga tropes and allow itself to be a little more dark thematically, which is what made both XI and V1 so great. Story lines of complete despair balanced by brief moments of levity vs what we have now which is mostly tween comedy with a touch of drama here and there.

Also Yoshi PR needs to do right by us at this fanfest and stop misleading us by saying things like "You will need to become the Warrior of Darkness!" or "Scions will get into a major conflict!" when the acutallity of these statements are throw away lines/scenes that have no impact on anything. It feels bad to not be able to believe a word that comes out of his mouth anymore.

+Discord (optional):
phht hate discord with a passion

[Esmoire]

1) When Did you Start?: Post Stormblood, end of 2018.

2) What keeps you playing FFXIV?: PvP, the franchise, and my little pocket of the community.

3) What do you enjoy most about the game?:PvP. Primarily Frontline.

4) Favorite memory or moment?: My first month of the game, I was ready to quit, because it was a really boring story that was kind of wasting my time. That said, healing Titan as scholar convinced me to stick around. Mechanically, the situation wasn't hard, but somehow it's remained vivid in my mind.

5) What makes FFXIV different from other MMOs for you?: It's Final Fantasy! I love that series. I started with the first game all the way back around the early 90s. It's so wild to see characters from that game brought into 3D over three decades later.

6) What would you say to someone thinking of trying FFXIV?: Take your time and enjoy. Remember that you aren't "catching up". You can meet with people and have fun experiences with them as early as the first dungeon at lv 15. So just enjoy it. After you get to the current MSQ, that's it. You only have that first experience once, and then you join the rest of us waiting 4+ months for scraps of story.

7) Favorite emote?: /atease. It's almost like a second idle pose for me. I also hotkey /highfive to thank people quickly.

8) Favorite job to relax on?: MNK. I'm bisexual because I like to fight opponents of all genders equally.

9) Preferred server or data center?: No matter what, it always comes back to Ultros, where I began. I think Primal has the most fun Frontline, and it's the best balanced of NA DCs.

10) Glam style you always come back to?: I roleplay as a deceptive merchant character, so she has a variety of outfits reflecting different parts of the world. They're all grounded in fantasy, and the closest I come to modern clothes is the occasional magitek glamour.

11) A dungeon, trial, or raid you secretly love?: Until Doomtrain, Ruby Weapon was my favourite trial. That said, if you want to hear my secret, I have a weird Stockholm Syndrome situation with Eureka Orthos. I know it's the worst Deep Dungeon. It was the least satisfying to solo. It's ugly. The design is the bottom of the barrel. Pilgrim's Traverse is better in every way. Heaven-On-High is overall better, too. But here I am doing another solo file on it because I must secretly hate myself, ha ha.

12) Closing thought: It's been a fun ride! I know overall community sentiment has been negative with DT. I don't think hateful remarks towards the developer are healthy, but that aside, I think the distaste with the direction of the game is justified. I felt the same about EW as many people feel about DT. That was my dark time with the game, and DT has been my start of seeing the game improve even with all the misses. Really, make the jobs more fun in PvE from level 50 onwards and other than that, I am a happy camper.

[VeyaAkemi]

Right, yes, I should fill this up.

1) When Did you Start?:
August 26th, 2022, I had my account for longer, but only got as far as creating the character before that, so it doesn't count.

2) What keeps you playing FFXIV?:
It is a comfortable, enjoyable game to me, the cyclical nature of makes it predictable, but predictability isn't inherently bad, and I see it as reliable.

3) What do you enjoy most about the game?:
The overall art style, to me this is the best looking MMO in the world, there are MMOs with more advanced graphics, but "best" to me isn't necessarily the most realistic or detailed, it's about a specific threshold.

4) Favorite memory or moment?:
The absolute emotional breakdown I had when I played through E8N the first time.

5) What makes FFXIV different from other MMOs for you?:
It has a world that I am thoroughly invested in, it is hardly without flaws, but the focus on story has made me care for it in a way I was never invested on for Tyria or Nirn.

6) What would you say to someone thinking of trying FFXIV?:
To quote Doc Mitchell of New Vegas fame, "Take it slow now. It ain't a race.".

7) Favorite emote?:
/twirl

8) Favorite job to relax on?:
Dancer, but in recent times also Viper, both of them just *click* with me, maybe I just enjoy simple Jobs.

9) Preferred server or data center?:
I really like my home server in Marilith, sure Dynamis is flawed, but I enjoy the relative emptiness of it, it is not completely empty, but also not crowded, it is a happy medium.

10) Glam style you always come back to?:
Black dresses, Frontier Dress, Blackbosom Dress, a chunk of the YoRHa catalogue, I adore that stuff.

11) A dungeon, trial, or raid you secretly love?:
"Secretly" is hard, because I don't tend to hide how I feel, I already mentioned I adore E8 to bits, but I also adore the Nier raids, The Final Day features the hypest moment in the game, I also deeply enjoy instances where something unusual happens, something as simple as the Wardens in Meso Terminal are a blast to me..

12) Closing thought:
I used to be a bit of a MMO tourist, I played some insane garbage on my way to get here, and perhaps that leads to me having a higher tolerance to the game's issues than most, even at its lowest, XIV is still one of the best online experiences I ever had, and by now I will keep going with it indefinitely.

[Anienai]

1. ARR-ish
2. I like the game.
3. I get to hug Roes all day (daily quest 10/10).
4. Tanking fates in ARR for exp.
5. The player base is way more forgiving than other mmos.
6. Skip ARR
7. /point
8. WARRIOR
9. Zalera
10. N/A
11. Mt. Gulg



12. Your avatar looks amazing!!

[Aidorouge]

1) When Did you Start?:
December 6th of 2022, which I think was mid/late-Endwalker.

2) What keeps you playing FFXIV?:
Partially sunk-cost fallacy, but partially the hope that if the game's playerbase drops low enough, SE will bring over Final Fantasy 11's Trust system in full so I can play any part of the game without hoping the stars will align so I can play with other people that aren't going to mock/kick me for not knowing how to clear something perfectly on the first try.

3) What do you enjoy most about the game?:
Probably the Final Fantasy aesthetic/references as a whole. I've been playing the series since Final Fantasy 4 (back when it was still called Final Fantasy 2 on SNES), and it remains my most favorite franchise despite not loving all of its entries.

4) Favorite memory or moment?:
Hmm... probably that time me and three other people ended up talking about various things at the end of Sunken Temple of Qarn (Normal) until the timer ran out. It was the first (and sadly, only) time it felt like I was actually playing an MMO and not just a roulette grind wheel.

5) What makes FFXIV different from other MMOs for you?:
That it felt more relaxed, and was about the journey instead of rushing to endgame to be a raid simulator. The social element failed to live up to what was advertised though.

6) What would you say to someone thinking of trying FFXIV?:
Roll anywhere but Dynamis, because having an ACTUAL population that PLAYS the game is crucial to making it feel alive and active. A bunch of housing alts AFKing in their estate will give you a very warped, and likely negative, view of the game and leave it feeling quiet and dead (as opposed to just being anti-social).

7) Favorite emote?:
Usually the ones I unlock from society quests. I make frequent use of Moogle Dance, Moonlift Dance, Yol Dance, and now the Lali Hop along with Gratuity and Charmed.

8) Favorite job to relax on?:
Machinist, because sometimes I just want to shoot things stone-cold dead when I'm in a rush and one Drill, Air Anchor or Chainsaw does the trick.

9) Preferred server or data center?:
I suppose I preferred Primal even before I moved here because I could get PVP to pop even in the late hours, or how its the only data center that sometimes cares about Rival Wings outside of mogtome events.

10) Glam style you always come back to?:
Bikini armor. The Light Steel set has been a core part of most of my glamour plates with only the gloves and boots changing from expansion to expansion. When they finally gave it double dyes so you could change the color of the actual metal parts, it blew the doors completely open on what it could be matched with.

11) A dungeon, trial, or raid you secretly love?:
Can't say I really have any favorites... though any with NPCs I can't save (either due to story reasons or people rushing through and skipping them) or cooperate with to achieve something always stick out to me.

12) Closing thought:
It would be nice if Final Fantasy 14 felt more like an actual MMO, but in lieu of that given how conflicting and hostile the playerbase can be, I'm willing to settle for anything and everything that just lets me hang out with the NPCs all day. Trusts, dungeon/trial/raid objectives, relationship systems, and so on.