That's why when I queue first time for something, I have take to go "hi first time o/" and then immediately change the chat tab to a custom one that has ONLY FC chat. You can explain your stuff where I don't see it, thank you very much, I rather figure this out myself/ask for help when I need it.
I mean, DMing involves finding what is most fun for you and your players
I have four players, of which one enjoys fights and the rest don't. So we found a balance by me getting rid of the random encounters and of me changing up stuff to involve skill checks or give them a CHANCE to resolve things peacefully if they're smart and careful. Dungeons and bosses are still fights, so the one player gets his fun dice rolling and the rest can enjoy their time with the rest.
If you have people more battle focused, then this might be too boring. And if you have entirely battle-averse people, then all except boss fights might be the way. Finding the sweet spot is a journey ^^
I keep confetti and those allagan platinum piece thingies in it
If I spontanously need confetti, then I can (almost) always access it, and the allagan pieces I usually only need once a week for the doma thing.
Best of luck to all of us, may the winner have an amazing game to play soon! :D
You could ask a tank you see running around in-game if they'd be willing to answer questions and give you pointers (that way you can train) OR watch youtube guides. Typing "ff14 tank guide" immediately gave me 8 videos between 2 minutes and 1,5 hours, explaining how and when to mitigate, how to pull, keep aggro, etc.
I personally learned by asking a tank friend to run me through the whole thing like I am an idiot, said friend though originally had watched a "how to Warrior" guide. And then just train by tanking for the AI or with friends/FC. You can even make a duty finder and mention that you're a new tank trying to learn and there's likely gonna be people most willing to run a dungeon with you while giving insight.
As a german, name-wise it's obviously Il Mheg (or more specifically Voeburt). From the looks.... Gridania or Limsa. The area where I am at has loads of fields and is pretty flat, but drive for an hour and you get to a massive forest area. And the weather is mild regardless.
........There's a strike?
I am in six different FF14 discords, I am a WHM main and this is the first I heard about or even noticed it. You sure you're not just amplifying like 4 really loud people who are yelling on Twitter or something? Cause in-game, I notice neither a drop in healers nor heard a single mention about any of this.
Y'shtola for people that play games related to Final Fantasy, cause she got featured in some of them.
But, amusingly, from people that DON'T actually play much Final Fantasy? It seems to be Emet-Selch. I had multiple people question me why "my player base" is so horny for a mediocre looking middle-aged man (lol). Might have lessened a bit by now, but especially before Endwalker, Emet was on a lot of advertisements and you could tell by the amount of people that had no idea who he was, what his name was or even what game he was from, but who could nonetheless immediately recognize him as "the weird dude from that Square Enix game!"
I played up to SB as a Miqote dude. Then changed to Lalafell. That was...5 years ago or what? Never went back. Can't even remember anymore why I had started as catboy, and why I decided to change to Lala.
Pull a "The Last Unicorn": he is essentially the Keystone for an entire area. A forest, a grove, a spring, whatever. That druid maybe had dared to leave, fell in love, but then at some point heard of the draughts and illnesses or whatever. And he understood that him having left did it, so he went back once he was certain that his family would be fine.
Considering the story meant for Thundertree, all the blights could be his way to try and defend the place against the dragon that has recently appeared. The zombies are one of the remnants from when he had been gone, and he can't bring himself to destroy them since they are reminders of what'd happen if he leaves.
Just: if he would leave, the forest there will die, and with it all animals. The close-by river will turn foul, possibly poisoning villages and towns along it's path, any travelers passing by are at risk of catching terrible plagues. And he can't bear ignoring that responsibility, so he went back to hold vigil. Your choice if he is essentially playing barrier maiden for something cursed (which will poison the place) or if the area is naturally dead and he is actively keeping it alive.
You are genuinely wondering if the player base, of which the majority highly praises the story, of which many are big into lore theorizing, with many many celebrating the inclusion of New Game + to re-experience the game and a lot of people even making multiple alts to do it again and again.........will enjoy callbacks?
You can be damn certain that people went nuts about the ton of big and small threads that got picked up and finally tied. In fact, the biggest complaint about EW is usually that they RUSHED it and did NOT do that enough.
If you have the time and ability, you could make a small "summary video". Depending on the mood of your group, you can make it epic, or creepy, or just on purpose funny. Just a 1-5 minute recap video of the biggest achievements and the last 3-4 things that were actively going on. If you guys have recorded sessions or a discord for meme-ing or anything that 'is historic', you can easily add the images or audio for extra reminders.
Like, my group had a big-ish break of multiple months right before the dinner, so I took inspiration from this Reddit and made my own "Be our guest" song and my group was immediately on board again. And we had another right after Argynvostholt, but I recorded the session before that and got them back into it by making a minor meme collection of one of my players nerding out about ball-dancing spiders (it made sense in context).
I am way more into music rolls than glam, so I am glad you didn't ask about THAT.
I think I spent like about 13 million gil in the 5 years I've been playing. Though, to be fair, at least half of that wasn't glam for me. I LOVE to buy lvl 4 sprouts their first fancy dress/suit in their favorite color and help them unlock the glam quest. It's always very cute when you have a female character just excitedly cheer at you because you got them a cute frilly dress, totally worth the 10k-100k gil.
Danheim is great for anything "old natural" (Winery raid, Yester Hill, Werewolves). Ravenloft got classic dark music (Beethoven, Stokowski, Bach), especially since plenty of classic music got rock and epic covers (my favorite for the Strahd fight is "Night on Bald Mountain"). For Vallaki & Krezk, I mostly use music from the german games "Die Gilde" and "Drakensang" for the more medieval flair.
I have never blocked a path. If my players seem interested in a "bad" area (aka Berez at lvl 4/5), I go "btw, OoC? That area is one of the late-game things, meant for when you're somewhere between lvl 7 and 10". If you put an obstacle down, your players will think you're trying to give them a challenge (see the tower of van Richten, getting into the Werewolf cave, exploring Ravenloft). Something that SEEMS possible always makes players curious and try to find a way.
If you don't want them to go somewhere, talk with your PLAYERS, not with the characters. Tell them "You might wanna come back in a level or two" and they make a note and then do other things, 99% of the time. And that 1%? Is them going "eh, we can probably manage!", just like some people in Zelda BotW decided to run butt-naked with nothing but a stick to the big evil castle. And then you either stare with impressed horror as they indeed manage to survive...or well. Lesson learned (?)
I absolutely think so, yes.
My five players all got 2 cards per person: one card that alludes to their backstory (aka a hint that the cards are magical) and then one that alludes to how to resolve it. I let them draw the cards but had the 'result' fixed and just spontanously improvised on how the card connects to said result.
To give two examples:
- Diviner: Your aim for knowledge of the beyond has brought great sorrow, but it may also become your greatest strength (PC had accidentally made his brother into an undead); Myrmidon: Find the one long lost and he may soothe your greatest grievance (Exethanter knows how to undo undeath)
- Broken One: Your body is broken, your spirit is split. You are closer to death than to life (said brother who is undead); Swashbuckler: Only through thievery may you regain what you have lost (in Strahd's treasury is a magical necklace that allows the spell True Resurrection, as Exethanter knows)
As such, two PCs, four cards, but essentially one quest. They naturally don't know yet what the solution is cause they haven't been to Amber Temple yet. But they're having a lot of fun constantly looking over their cards to try and see if new people they met might fit any of the descriptions.
I feel you severely underestimate people.
I had plenty of runs in Crystal Tower where people essentially fought over whose markers get put down and people chatting over each other trying to explain a base mechanic or two. There's people who even have jingle macros for the final boss so the sprouts don't die to the Flare.
Yes, no one waits unless cutscenes are involved. But there are MANY people who are very fine with helping and explaining. It makes the run a bit less same-same after all.
Apart from it taking FAR longer and being WAY more inefficient (50 AoE damage on 3 enemies = 150 damage, but 50 AoE damage on 10 enemies = 500 damage), you are not just underestimating your own abilities, but also that of your team.
If you use your mitigations properly, you should be able to survive for quite a bit without your health just dropping in 2 seconds, even with a big pull. If it does, then you either aren't mitigating well enough or the Healer is asleep. Because, and I feel like this is where you misunderstand how tanking works, YOUR survival is teamwork.
Your writing implies that your survival depends entirely on your mitigations, but that is just 1/3rd of how a tank lives.
1/3rd is you, sure.
Another 1/3rd are the DPS that kill what attacks you. If you pull small, most will NOT use their bursts and best attacks, because they keep them for emergencies or in case you suddenly continue running. But if you pull big from the start, they will unleash their full kit, and the mobs usually die before you would even need to pop your second mitigation.
The last 1/3rd is the healer who is watching your health. Just like the DPS, with a small pull, they will not use their good spells. Those cost a lot of MP, your health can be ignored during small pulls and they will probably just DPS to kill those few mobs faster instead. This MIGHT make you think that you die quickly even with small pulls, but its just the healer not even doing their job cause there's no need for them.
If you pull big though, then the healers actually use what they have: regens, shields, big heals, cooldowns.
I am a WHM main and latest at lvl 40 I can usually keep a tank alive during a big pull, even if they don't pop a single mit (Is it fun? No, but I CAN do it).
Announce that you are a new tank, but will try to pull big. That way the DPS know that they might accidentally pull aggro and will bring them to you as well as burst properly since you might struggle with mitigation. It will also alert the healer to pay attention because you might make mistakes, so they are more likely to use emergency heals when they'd usually wait in the belief that you will invuln or such.
If you give your best, communicate and still are met with hostility? That's usually grounds to report the offending player (especially since they likely got into the dungeon with you due to 50/60/70 or Leveling roulette, which can always have newbies and they KNOW that).
Viera or Lalafell probably.
Viera have quite ambiguous faces, especially if you use a hairstyle that is androgynous. I have a long-haired male viera and definitely had gotten mistaken for a female ones when I was playing a mage and thus wore robes. Their movement and poses is - in contrast to Miqote - also not as obvious.
Lalafell are the other option, considering that with the right hair and clothes, it is near impossible to tell which gender one is unless you use emotes that are different based on gender (eg /dead, /dance, certain idle poses, etc). If you put eight lalas in a row that all have shoulder-long hair and wear the same outfit and four of them are female? You will not be able to tell which is which with a neutral idle pose. The female lalas have a HINT of a chest, but if you can tell that, then you are REALLY close to one.
Some of them hide titles, minions, mounts or hide a questline that unlocks something bigger (such as Beast Tribes, Custom Delivery or Bozja).
All of them establish and further the lore of the region the quest is from, which plenty people find interesting (such as the military campaign and need for Ceruleum in North Thanalan, the still very active grief about the loss of life and land in Western Coerthas, how to deal remaining garlean soldiers in the south of the Peaks, how law and lawlessness co-exist in Limsa Lominsa, etc).
And, as other's noted, it empties out the mini-map, making it much easier to orient yourself or find specific/new quests such as event quests.
If it's content above lvl 30, then Healer. I am used to babysitting PF parties that have a "do everything wrong" challenge going on by how shit they're playing
For lower duties tho, I pick DPS. I rather need an hour for a 20 minute run than begin crying because the tank died to a jelly fish. AGAIN. While I can't do shit except try and spam Cure 1.
Yes and no. You need to use one glamour prism to EITHER put the glamor onto your gear OR place the gear into your glamour dresser. The former is just for your current gear, and you have to repeat that process each time you upgrade your gear. The latter has the glamor inside a special chest in which you can design outfits, and putting those onto yourself is free.
Here is a video on how the dresser works, in case you want to properly see and understand it: Glamour Guide
A glamor prism can be gotten in multiple ways, the easiest are usually: you buy them with gil (pretty easy to do, they're not super expensive) or buy them at your "Grand Company" (a guild you pick with NPCs) once you've unlocked a higher tier with them.
At the very beginning, it might be a tiny bit tricky to get prisms, but latest when you're around lvl 30-50, you can very easily have more prisms than you will ever need.
You could check out riddles from other modules.
My players for example quite enjoyed the dance riddle from Van Richten's tower in Curse of Strahd, because it was a bit silly and gave them a breather between multiple stressful quests: Image of dance riddle
This is why I run EVERY first time (except savage/ex, obviously) with chat in Event mode. I say my greeting at the beginning and then chat is nothing but NPC text for me. People can yell the grandest spoilers of their lives and I see naught of it. IF I want to know how a mechanic works because I struggle with understanding it, I will ask. But there's joy in noticing your mistakes and correcting them yourself. It was fun to understand which gate in Rhalgr does the smash, to die to proto-buncles jumps, hells there's fun in realizing what Amon's Curtain Call does.
If it's the 2nd+ wipe and it's been 3 weeks to a month after release, ok. But first try, not even a week after full release? The dude was either fishing for comms, impatient or quite misguided. It's not a spoiler per se since he at least waited for a wipe (I have gotten spoiled before even entering a boss arena once in SB), but it's definitely not playing nice.
Is it wrong to call out mechanics?
ffxiv