Steam Deck has been available indefinitely for a while now and MeinMMO author Irina Moritz took a look at how her favorite MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV runs on it.
Since my school days, the handhelds have always been an integral part of my bag content. I liked these gaming devices for their portability and compactness.
Some of my favorite games are only available on the Nintendo (3)DS and the PlayStation Portable, and it made me a little sad that handhelds were gradually supplanting smartphones in the gaming market.
When the Nintendo Switch was announced, I got it without hesitation. With the Steam Deck, however, I had been at odds with myself for a long time. The main reason for this was that I was already working from home before the pandemic, which eliminated the “portable” advantage of handhelds. I can play Steam games just as well on the PC.
AAA MMORPG on a handheld – A strange feeling
I’ve watched handhelds live over the past 20 years and I still have a few of them sitting in my drawer. So you’d think that the technical improvements and performance of the Steam Deck shouldn’t really surprise me.
Still, playing an MMORPG as big as FFXIV on a handheld felt strange. Almost as if it shouldn’t actually be possible. Once I got used to the controls (reasonably), there were no more problems. FFXIV runs smooth and easy on the Steam deck.
According to internal Steam Deck analysis, FPS fluctuate between 60 and 30, although they can sometimes drop below 30 in zones like Limsa. GPU utilization is around 50% – 70%. In Dungeons and Raids there are no noticeable performance drops that would affect the gameplay.
When it comes to the battery, things look a little bleaker. After a lot of tinkering with the graphics settings, I was able to get up to 4 hours of life out of the Steam Deck. It helps if you set the FPS cap to 30 and turn down the effects, but everyone has to decide for themselves whether it’s worth it.
Since I’ve only used the Steam Deck at home for shorter sessions so far, I didn’t care much about the life of the battery. In the case of FFXIV, using it on the go is very difficult or impossible anyway, since you need a stable internet connection and that is not quite possible in Germany in 2022 (unless you establish a hotspot via your smartphone or similar).
I only see “on-the-go use” during longer visits. For example, the next time I go on vacation with family, I will definitely pack the Steam Deck. I won’t be able to get the weekly raid drops with it, but checking off dailys before bed and farming stones for the week won’t be a problem.
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Controller players will feel at home, I suffered
The first thing that awaits you when you want to play FFXIV on the Steam deck is the settings. Before logging in, you should upload your character setups to the SE server so that you don’t spend more time setting up your user interface than you already do.
Settings such as UI, macros, gear sets, etc. are saved locally in FFXIV on your PCs and consoles. However, there is an option to upload them to SE’s server. So, to save myself some extra work, I backed up the data and downloaded it to the Steam Deck.
But that didn’t mean that I could start gambling right away. There were 2 reasons for this.
On the one hand, the resolution and position of the individual UI elements had to be adjusted. The Steam Deck’s screen has a slightly unusual resolution of 1280×800, which is quite a bit smaller than my 2560×1440 PC screen.
As a result, I first had to shrink and move various UI elements before I could even see anything properly. Especially those of you who play on 4K televisions or larger screens can expect this.
On the other hand, I got to spend a lot of time customizing the controller controls and setting up FFXIV’s famous cross command menu. Since I had only played the MMORPG with mouse and keyboard until now, the controller was new territory for me.
It also took me a good while to hand out the skills for all my combat jobs, crafters and gatherers. Only to then redistribute them again because I found my layout sucks.
I was actually born with a controller in my hand. I got my first console when I was 7 years old and since then I’ve played almost exclusively on consoles. FFXIV’s controller controls still bother me though, not because they’re bad. On the contrary, among MMORPGs it is considered one of the best. But because it takes a lot of getting used to and requires a lot of muscle memory.
So if you’re a PC gamer who’s only played with a mouse and keyboard so far, it’s best to look for a controller guide first. There are many very useful keyboard shortcuts and shortcuts that are not explained by the game. You can also search for suggested layouts for your job’s skills and then customize them as you wish. From experience I can tell you that the first try will result in total finger salad.
Controller players, on the other hand, should quickly feel comfortable with the Steam Deck controls. The only change will be in the controller type. Steam Deck uses the Xbox layout, while many FFXIV controller players will likely be playing on Sony consoles and need some adjustment.
Perfect for lounging on the couch
While I also play a lot of other games on the Steam Deck, the main reason I wanted to play FFXIV on it was the flexibility. The advantage of handhelds is that you can take them with you almost anywhere.
While this flexibility is limited in an always-online MMORPG, it still has benefits. So if I want to laze around in bed and do a few daily chores, I can do that now. Steam Deck lends itself perfectly to more relaxed FFXIV content like:
You can also run random content with it without any problems and also the 24-man raids, provided you are used to the controller control. It took me a while and a few laps on the manikin to get into the content (and even after that I kept playing total crap together).
But I will avoid the heavier content like Ex-Trials or Savage for now. On the one hand, I don’t have the necessary muscle memory for controller controls to perform the same as on PC. On the other hand, the smaller screen of the Steam deck can be a disadvantage in fights with many mechanics.
As much as I like my PC, if you work every day in the home office in the same place where you also gamble in the evening, then at some point it just becomes too much. It is also not always possible to switch to the couch, since the TV and consoles have to be shared with a partner (or with the kids in families).
The Steam Deck is therefore a versatile alternative for me, which also offers me FFXIV among other options. I wouldn’t buy the device for the MMORPG alone, but being able to play my main MMO on it is a huge plus.
PC gamers have a problem
Before some of you pull out your credit card to order a Steam Deck and play FFXIV on it, you should urgently check your account first. The account system of the MMORPG can namely become a problem.
The thing is, FFXIV’s accounts are managed centrally through the Moogle Station. This ensures, among other things, that you can use one account for different platforms.
For example, you can link your Square Enix account to your PlayStation account. Now, if you purchase FFXIV for PC and PS5, you can play on both devices with the same character as the MMORPG has unlimited crossplay. In this case, no additional monthly fees have to be paid.
The problem is that this is not possible on Steam and PC, as strange as it sounds. The MMORPG has separate Steam and PC accounts that are incompatible with each other. If you have FFXIV on Steam, you cannot connect this account to the in-house PC version of FFXIV.
That means in plain language: If you don’t play FFXIV via Steam, you won’t be able to use the MMORPG on the Steam Deck with your existing account. At least not directly.
Even if you purchase FFXIV on Steam, the Steam version cannot be linked to your account through Moogle Station. You then have two options:
I can’t tell you what the reason for this strict separation is, but there is no user-friendly solution from Square Enix, which can be very annoying for PC gamers.
So pay attention if you’re looking forward to playing FFXIV on the Steam Deck. There are various people in my circle of acquaintances who had to google an emergency solution because they have a PC account.
Have you tried FFXIV on the Steam Deck yourself? Tell us in the comments.
Those interested in other MMORPGs on Valve’s handheld can check out the article from us:
I played 2 MMORPGs on the Steam Deck for you guys and was surprised