Games

I still have my 1.0 disc, given how useful it is now, it horrifies my friends when they find out I’m using it as a coaster. I stopped playing before I could get the rewards too, so seeing people with the tattoos always makes me sigh.

The combat gets better, FFXIV has a massive issue of most classes only playing the way they're supposed to on max level. I guess that's common for many MMOs, but it's especially bad here imo. I also stopped playing during Endwalker, so I don't know what's been revamped since then.

Even if they've continued to simplify and homogenise the classes, the dungeons and raids will get better. Once you get into the expansions you'll start having more fun mechanics to play around.

Healing is definitely its own little animal. My main job is Scholar, so I’ve had to create a couple of mostly healer specific things to help out. (You may already do some of this, so forgive me)

I don’t really use any macros for casting spells or anything like that, but what I have found helpful are three really simple ones that help with targeting.

The first being simply a focusTarget one that lets you set up, well, a focus target: /focustarget Since as a healer you are most oftes worried about the tank, I generally set them as the focus target. By itself that doesn’t do a whole lot, but then…

…I have two others that help. One that when you use it it selects whatever your focus target is: /target <f> So no matter where you are, you can get to the tank (or other focus) super quick for heals.

And the last one is one that jumps to whatever your current target is targeting. Kind of a mouthful, that, but pretty helpful: /target <tt> So in practice if you are doing damage to the boss and just need to quickly swap to whatever the boss is targeting, you can hit this, swap to a party member, heal them, and then press it again to go back to the boss.

Along with these are some settings that you might look into if you haven’t already. Control Settings -> Filters -> Filter Customization. In this section you can filter target groups by hitting LB + [one of the face buttons]. I basically 100% of the time use one that targets only enemies because you can always hit up and down to select party members. That lets me always use right and left for bad guys and there’s no confusion.

Lastly for targeting, pressing LB + up/down will select just enemies on your enemies list (this is obviously super handy for tanks). And LB + right/left will target Alliance members on other parties. So if you see that some healers are down on another team, that’s the shortcut to cycle through those members to help.

And then lastly lastly: there are some extra crossbars you can put up on the screen at all times under the Custom tab of Hotbar Settings. You may already know about these at this point, though.

So anyway, again, if you already know these things, then obviously feel free to ignore. But I hope at least some part of that helps a little.

Steam Deck was how I chose to play it too for my first time yesterday (though I played on the dock with PS3 controller). I chose arcanist, and it’s really smooth sailing for me.

The subscription fee imo is warranted given they release new content every 3 months, which includes voice acting, new dungeons, and new raid content. If it was a monthly sub with nothing released between expansions it wouldn't be acceptable imo. Highly recommend not having a recurring sub