Is now a good time to come back?Follow

Hello everyone,
So here's the deal: I started playing FFARR at release and played it pretty casually. I'm a slow leveler and am sometimes hesitant to do dungeons in lieu of solo quests or just plain exploring. I managed to get my main (monk) to 50 and started the relic weapon quest. Then I hit the wall. First off I don't have a lot of free time, maybe 2-3 hrs tops a day 3 days a week. When I found out what needed to be done to get my relic weapon it was very disheartening. Multiple dungeons, more trials, grinding dungeon/fates for currency. And while I was still able to do more questing via post 50 story quests it all seemed tedious. I tried to start and level another job but that quickly got tiresome trying to find quests my level and not wanting to fate grind all the way to 50. So eventually I played less and less until I wasn't logging in at all.

Well now Heavensward is about to drop. And I've been keeping up with all the announcements and it sounds very exciting. But now I'm in a place where I feel I missed my window. I understand that all post main storyline quests need to be finished in order to access the new areas. What I'm unsure of is if all this content is soloable? I don't mind grouping but if I have to after HW is released I feel like I'm going to have a hard time finding a party. And how important is it to finish my relic quest? Are there other viable weapon options out there? Have they made getting the tomes or atma or whatever it was called I forget, any easier with better drop rates? Are people going to still want to do the H-trials anymore? I feel like I'm going to be the minority going back in trying to catch up on content that no one is doing anymore. I guess what this whole post is about is I'm looking for pros and cons of coming back. Am I going to be beating my head against the wall trying to get groups together to do content that's old? Or does it seem like I'm making my problem bigger than it is. Just some feedback on the state of things.

Well that pretty much covers it! Thanks for answering all my concerns. It puts things into perspective for sure. I think I'll give it a go and like you said, take it step by step. I'll take a look at the Ilv100 weapons. I have/had a good FC as long as I haven't been kicked out due to inactivity.
I really enjoyed my journey to 50. It was after 50 that tedium set in but I guess I'm not ready to hang it up for good yet. Must be the FF fanboy in me lol.

as for not being able to complete relic because of limited play time... that shouldnt hold you back... even if you can only do it 2 ours a day sure it might takes you forever to get it done compared to everyone else... but since youre playing casually surely you dont care about not being able to "keep up" with everyone else...... so it might take you 6 months to do what they can do in 3.. but you CAN very well still do it. So if you really want it Id go for it regardless to how long its might take with my playtime.. I mean you need SOMETHING to do to occupy your time while waiting 3 months between content updates after youve blasted through the story and hit your weekly tome cap in 1-2 days after all.

Gearing up isn't a necessity with Heavensward coming out in a week. Just focus on banging out the rest of your storyline missions and you're good to go.

define "keep up" I dont considering ppl having full sets of coil gear in 4-8 weeks while I cant even get into a party for the FIRST turn of said coil because i have no previous clear or experience in said battle. I dont consider that "keepin up" when i have to wait til urns remove theyre weekly lookout and go to duty finder to farm gear thats been "old news" for months by everyone else thast not really keepin up (heck infac tright now Im farming my final piece of il130 gear in t13... which is what.. awhole week away from being obselete?) Hows that keeping up?

Here's the reality of the situation:

You didn't "miss a window" but you will have a ***** of a time catching up, especially 2.x as the only people running that content will be stragglers/botters (read the official forum sometime, it's actually pretty funny that botters are the ones complaining about this most) and the potential new people that may or may not be joining at 3.0's launch.

So content is soloable to an extent, while everyone is leveling the 3 new jobs you may get faster queues especially being a less established players on some stuff, but story wise..be prepared for a hellish wait for awhile. Especially if you didn't do 2.0 fully. If you did complete 2.0's story but stuck on say 2.3 or 2.4's before you left off..it's gonna be rough, so just be prepared for that as you will need to be in HW's unlock in order to utilize your roulettes again so you won't get that benefit.

It's easy to catch up but the population will be HEAVILY tilted towards HW content and leveling, so story progression would be your only problem if anything. Poetic tomes is the top gearset you can get even when 3.0 launches because i170 will not exist until August and mr Yoshida said i110 (Second Coil, 115 Weapon, Soldiery Gear/Weapon) is more than enough, and I130 will last till 55 (60 realistically, they overestimate a lot.) So if you're behind, just grind out poetic tomes even if it remains capped at 900/week you could get a magitek weapon.

Come 3.1 there will be a new relic line as stated, your zodiac weapon is obsolete once 3.1 hits and the only reason they didn't at 3.0 is yoshida jokingly stated he just got his so he wanted to use his zeta for 3.0, otherwise it will be "adjusted" to make it faster to acquire if only for glamor purposes.



You will, especially if you're not a tank or healer. In a perfect world queue times will be gloriously short for all content due to returning players but in all actuality, just prepare for long queues for some extremely old content or content with very little reason to redo it, for example Cape Westwind no one logically queues for it and usually hits it if it lands in the trial roulette.

In your specific situation, they said they're boosting main story quest and rewards, so you'll have a much easier time in terms of leveling at least.

To the OP,

In case you haven't noticed, Duo is one of our resident trolls. Take what he says with grain of salt.

You'll have no problems getting caught up... every other patch provides a new opportunity. After playing through ARR, I think a lot of people learned that the relic questline isn't essential, and it's totally possible to just gear up through side content, tomes and primals. Also, Yoshi-P said the new relic quests will be a bit easier than the 2.x relic quests, so the grind shouldn't be as bad.

With a huge expansion looming, though, the reality is now is THE best time to return. As Hyrist said, focus on finding a great FC and you'll be set. I've got a great one on Hyperion, and some of the other Zammers are together on Lamia.

Have to agree with Broken here. I recently (3 weeks ago) started a brand new (3rd alt) character and just finished the final cs of 2.55 this pass weekend. This is playing at an incredibly casual pace as my priorities are focused on my main and 2nd characters. Having finnished my 3rd alt a few days ago she is sitting at ilvl 115 blm. Considering yoshi-p stated a few weeks ago that ilvl130 is a bit high (i believe recent interviews says its good up to level 54) for the expansion 115 should be a pretty solid ivl going into heavensward. Catching up is incredibly easy especially if its on a main character and not an alt.

My suggestiong to the OP is to unlock the newest dungeons you can and sit in que for them as your doing the msq. That way you can gain soldiery/poetics at the same time as getting the msq done. 2 birds 1 stone and you wont even noticve the que times because you will be busy doing the msq. The only fight I had a particularly hard time getting into was the one for leviathan. The rest were pretty easy and quick. Was a breeze for me and I'm sure it will be for you as well. Just dont think too hard about it. take your time and enjoy the game. Make some friends along the way and im sure they will be glad to help you catch up! I know I would be! If your on sargatanas feel free to shoot me a PM or friend invite at E'rock Lledo! Pld ilvl 125 at your service! Will help you with any dungeon :)

wheer is that information at because that sounds too good

I'm not saying that you're not 'cut out' for XIV, but it simply sounds like you want something you can do at your own pace. At it's core, XIV is an MMO. Generally speaking, many of the things you would do in the game are going to require several other people to do. Just based on this comment...


It sounds like you already know XIV isn't really your speed.

I guess it all depends on your mindset coming back in. If you realize that you're going to face these situations again, but you think you can stick it out then you could try it. Personally I'd probably look for either a single player game or a multiplayer game in another genre that doesn't require any commitments you're not able to make.

There really is only as much of a grind as you want it to be. XIV allows for, and encourages to some extent, specialization in one class only. You can do all of the main scenario quests as any battle class pretty effectively, so if you really want to be a white mage, you're able to solo battles as a white mage.

(By "encourages" specialization - there is a cap on the highest level of tokens you can earn in a week, making someone who only has enough time to run a daily dungeon roulette possible of capping out the tomes needed for one job over the course of 8-10 weeks doable, but making it much harder to do that for multiple jobs. The cap only doubled from 450 to 900 in the last month, and that's still not enough to kit out more than two jobs fully before the expansion.)

You don't have to do the relic weapon grind. You didn't have to do it in XI either. It's there for the people who want to sink a little deeper into the game, to give them something else to do besides level more jobs.