Final Fantasy XIV (Guide in first post)

Caeden · Aug 17, 2022

I started down the omega line last night. I’m also going to unlock reaper because I bought endwalker in a random moment of “by golly this is my new mmo and here have money.” I’ve been playing DK and RM.

Chysamere · Aug 17, 2022

Caeden said:
Sooo kinda mentioned this in our tiny FOH guild, but I dunno. Just wrapped up the main part of Stormblood.

I just couldn’t give a shit about Ala Mihgo. At all. And I keep waiting for the story to take this dark and sinister turn or set lose so much of the bindings of the talkiness, but it doesn’t. The empire is a bland villain. The ascians seem ok but i want more. Eikons can be cool but then they come back. I’ve played a decent amount of mainline FF 4-7, 9. And this is like those but overall worse story because the beats have to be drawn out over an xpac. And the world isn’t that interesting. However, the base MMO parts are fun to me. Combat got a lot better post-50. Dungeons and stuff are fun. I suspect Shadowbringers and Endwalker are just more of the same. I’m on a quest to finish the story out, but of all the bigger MMOs this has grabbed me the second least. GW2 I had a major problem with the childishness of the writing. I find that here too, which yeah FF always had some of that. I just want more combat and more out in the world for the story than the talky talky at the quest hub for 10 minutes then fight two mobs. I’m rambling. Might be that the game isn’t for me. Ironic though I dipped into SWTOR to do a class to 50 and the story grabbed me almost immediately. And it wasn’t that much better really. FF14 is a shit ton of content though. Good lord a lot to do.

Once you start digging into the post Stormblood content you won't be able to put it down until Endwalker is done. You've done the hard part, now it's time for you to reap the rewards.

... · Aug 17, 2022

Yea stormblood is disjointed and uninteresting for the most part

sakkath · Aug 18, 2022

I thought the kugane part of stormblood was good. Helped greatly by the compelling psycho bitch of a villain and also old man samurai. The villain of the ala migho part sucks and that's why that half of the xpac sucks.

Rezz · Aug 18, 2022

It also doesn't help that the Ala Mhigan areas are absolutely boring. Shitload of brown and some forest. Even a certain zone in Endwalker has more variety than Lochs or the Fringes. They are just absurdly bland areas.

Imo easily the weakest of the content, including Vanilla. I honestly liked the Garlean storyline and all the Scion stuff, it just gets a really bad rap due to how long the 2.x content is after you complete Praetorium. It's not bad at all imo, especially since they cleaned up quite a few fetch quests.

The Kugane/Eastern portions were substantially more interesting in Stormblood - The Steppes are probably one of my favorite zones ever (and even though FF13 is much maligned, it gave me a heavy "Pulse" feeling and I honestly really enjoyed that part of FF13)

Chris · Aug 18, 2022

Caeden said:
Sooo kinda mentioned this in our tiny FOH guild, but I dunno. Just wrapped up the main part of Stormblood.

I just couldn’t give a shit about Ala Mihgo. At all. And I keep waiting for the story to take this dark and sinister turn or set lose so much of the bindings of the talkiness, but it doesn’t. The empire is a bland villain. The ascians seem ok but i want more. Eikons can be cool but then they come back. I’ve played a decent amount of mainline FF 4-7, 9. And this is like those but overall worse story because the beats have to be drawn out over an xpac. And the world isn’t that interesting. However, the base MMO parts are fun to me. Combat got a lot better post-50. Dungeons and stuff are fun. I suspect Shadowbringers and Endwalker are just more of the same. I’m on a quest to finish the story out, but of all the bigger MMOs this has grabbed me the second least. GW2 I had a major problem with the childishness of the writing. I find that here too, which yeah FF always had some of that. I just want more combat and more out in the world for the story than the talky talky at the quest hub for 10 minutes then fight two mobs. I’m rambling. Might be that the game isn’t for me. Ironic though I dipped into SWTOR to do a class to 50 and the story grabbed me almost immediately. And it wasn’t that much better really. FF14 is a shit ton of content though. Good lord a lot to do.

The levelling gameplay doesn't change and you are right about it being dogshit, that's just modern RPG design unfortunately. However at endgame you'll be practising and executing some of the best raid bosses ever created, so yes it will change. The PvP is fun too and you can do it right now I think.

Storywise Stormblood is the odd one out because they made the zones before writing the story in an effort to put out content quicker (they never did that again). They also split the writing team into Ala Migho and Doma halves to see which would be best and therefore who should lead the next expansions - the lady who wrote Doma won and promoting her payed off big. So yeah Stormblood is boring until you hit the patch content and I actually quit the game because of it.

Shadowbringers into Endwalker is probably the best story ever told in a video game, you persisted this long, go get the payoff (and it's all Ascian stuff and they are so much more than you can possibly imagine).

Endwalker levelling in particular is much easier in most of the zones because of how outstanding the story is with minimal side quest shit.

Folanlron · Aug 20, 2022

HP restoration over time will no longer generate enmity with each tick of healing.

* Please note the initial execution of these actions will still generate enmity.

Holy shit healers rejoice, no more pre-pull massive agro.

Lots and lots of info in the prelim-patch..

Sanctuary is much bigger than I thought it would be, which is good a crafting area + a granary should be interesting..

but fuck it's out of Limsa...

Pyros · Aug 20, 2022

Folanlron said:
Holy shit healers rejoice, no more pre-pull massive agro.

Lots and lots of info in the prelim-patch..

Sanctuary is much bigger than I thought it would be, which is good a crafting area + a granary should be interesting..

but fuck it's out of Limsa...

Well it's more like bad tanks rejoice, I've never had an issue even if I pulled a few things(or everything if the tank was shit) by just sitting on the tank at the end for the aoe to pull off me. Once in a while though you'd have the shitty tank clicking stuff off because they couldn't be bothered aoeing as they ran past, or just not aoeing in general, or complaining because "it's impossible to get aggro with hots running" or whatever but yeah that's purely a bad tank issue.

Nothing too surprising about the notes, the crafted set looks neat though and sanctuary should be kinda fun. Gonna be resubbing since I also want the seasonal summer outfit thing so might as well do that at the same time, and maybe try to learn P5S to P7S in pubs and see if I want to find a static for P8S or wait until 6.35 instead.

Merrith · Aug 20, 2022

Caeden said:
Sooo kinda mentioned this in our tiny FOH guild, but I dunno. Just wrapped up the main part of Stormblood.

I just couldn’t give a shit about Ala Mihgo. At all. And I keep waiting for the story to take this dark and sinister turn or set lose so much of the bindings of the talkiness, but it doesn’t. The empire is a bland villain. The ascians seem ok but i want more. Eikons can be cool but then they come back. I’ve played a decent amount of mainline FF 4-7, 9. And this is like those but overall worse story because the beats have to be drawn out over an xpac. And the world isn’t that interesting. However, the base MMO parts are fun to me. Combat got a lot better post-50. Dungeons and stuff are fun. I suspect Shadowbringers and Endwalker are just more of the same. I’m on a quest to finish the story out, but of all the bigger MMOs this has grabbed me the second least. GW2 I had a major problem with the childishness of the writing. I find that here too, which yeah FF always had some of that. I just want more combat and more out in the world for the story than the talky talky at the quest hub for 10 minutes then fight two mobs. I’m rambling. Might be that the game isn’t for me. Ironic though I dipped into SWTOR to do a class to 50 and the story grabbed me almost immediately. And it wasn’t that much better really. FF14 is a shit ton of content though. Good lord a lot to do.

I can pretty much echo most of the others by saying you've gone through the hard parts, now all the good stuff will begin (although HW is pretty universally liked). I will say the "talkiness" doesn't really stop, although later expansions have much more voice acting versus having to read everything, which does help it some. The only weakness you might find is that a lot of the MSQ will just be solo back and forth talking/fetching with minimal fighting of mobs in between. But the dungeons are fun, and you seem to enjoy the rest of the content as well, which should scratch your itch for combat.

I have a bit of a soft spot for Stormblood b/c was the first expansion I was playing when it released, as I quit during the 2.X stuff in ARR and didn't come back until like 3.3 in HW. People are right about the pacing and a few of the zones being problematic, though.

Caeden · Aug 20, 2022

Merrith said:
I can pretty much echo most of the others by saying you've gone through the hard parts, now all the good stuff will begin (although HW is pretty universally liked). I will say the "talkiness" doesn't really stop, although later expansions have much more voice acting versus having to read everything, which does help it some. The only weakness you might find is that a lot of the MSQ will just be solo back and forth talking/fetching with minimal fighting of mobs in between. But the dungeons are fun, and you seem to enjoy the rest of the content as well, which should scratch your itch for combat.

I have a bit of a soft spot for Stormblood b/c was the first expansion I was playing when it released, as I quit during the 2.X stuff in ARR and didn't come back until like 3.3 in HW. People are right about the pacing and a few of the zones being problematic, though.

I did like HW overall. It’s storyline stuck with me most of all so far. And I did enjoy the ending of ARR, just not the fakeout. The DK quest was pretty good too, though I found the continuation in SB to be weak whereas RM was fantastic in SB.

I’ll say “stopping” each xpac and doing unlocks and just playing with crafting and other mmo-ish things before charging into more MSQ helps me.

Chris · Aug 20, 2022

Caeden said:
I did like HW overall. It’s storyline stuck with me most of all so far. And I did enjoy the ending of ARR, just not the fakeout. The DK quest was pretty good too, though I found the continuation in SB to be weak whereas RM was fantastic in SB.

The DK quest writer got promoted to the Doma side of Stormblood then lead writer for Shadowbringers/Endwalker.

Caeden said:
I’ll say “stopping” each xpac and doing unlocks and just playing with crafting and other mmo-ish things before charging into more MSQ helps me.

Yeah this is the right way to do it. The optional Shadowbringers raid series, Eden, is particularily good.

Also a bunch of the optional raids (Crystal Tower, Alexander, Omega) are key to understanding how Shadowbringers happens.

Cybsled · Aug 20, 2022

CT isn't optional anymore, they made it mandatory in 5.1 I think (Shadowbringers 5.0 had dialogue options that were not available if you never did CT).

I wouldn't be half surprised if they make the Omega series mandatory in the future.

Caeden · Aug 20, 2022

Cybsled said:
CT isn't optional anymore, they made it mandatory in 5.1 I think (Shadowbringers 5.0 had dialogue options that were not available if you never did CT).

I wouldn't be half surprised if they make the Omega series mandatory in the future.

Yes. I think I had to do CT as part of the MSQ. Alexander and Omega are optional.

Caeden · Aug 20, 2022

Chris said:
The DK quest writer got promoted to the Doma side of Stormblood then lead writer for Shadowbringers/Endwalker.

Yeah this is the right way to do it. The optional Shadowbringers raid series, Eden, is particularily good.

Also a bunch of the optional raids (Crystal Tower, Alexander, Omega) are key to understanding how Shadowbringers happens.

Hm. I’ll be honest. Doma was shit to me also. The zones were nice. But nothing about the tribal storyline or ala mihigo we’re great to me. Shit might be strong but I had a hard time being invested. All I saw was that the empire did these people a favor. At least Lyse was some good eye candy.

Chris · Aug 20, 2022

Caeden said:
Hm. I’ll be honest. Doma was shit to me also. The zones were nice. But nothing about the tribal storyline or ala mihigo we’re great to me. Shit might be strong but I had a hard time being invested. All I saw was that the empire did these people a favor. At least Lyse was some good eye candy.

Did you not enjoy Yotsuyu?

Chysamere · Aug 20, 2022

Chris said:
...

SPOILERS JESUS CHRIST CHRIS

Why is it that you cannot seem to help yourself but talk about things that haven't happened to people doing the MSQ?

Merrith · Aug 20, 2022

Caeden said:
Hm. I’ll be honest. Doma was shit to me also. The zones were nice. But nothing about the tribal storyline or ala mihigo we’re great to me. Shit might be strong but I had a hard time being invested. All I saw was that the empire did these people a favor. At least Lyse was some good eye candy.

Trust me, you're basically at the point where any MSQ concerns simply won't exist anymore. SB patch content is very good ramping up to excellent, and the bread crumbs leading up to Shadowbringers just top tier. Obviously at that point you're in the butter zone.

Chris · Aug 20, 2022

Chysamere said:
SPOILERS JESUS CHRIST CHRIS

Why is it that you cannot seem to help yourself but talk about things that haven't happened to people doing the MSQ?

I didn't say anything

Chysamere · Aug 20, 2022

Chris said:
I didn't say anything

Are you fucking stupid? Do you not remember how the end of Doma went? Mentioning certain peoples names saying that the end of that storyline is not finished?

You also mentioned a raid by name and gave a list of things that are relevant to Shadowbringers, which again, are spoilers.

It's like your brain doesn't work correctly when it comes to realizing what is a spoiler and what isn't.

It's very very simple - if it hasn't happened for someone yet, don't talk about it, don't allude to it, don't give advice or feedback about it.

Grizzlebeard · Aug 22, 2022

Chysamere said:
Are you fucking stupid? Do you not remember how the end of Doma went? Mentioning certain peoples names saying that the end of that storyline is not finished?

You also mentioned a raid by name and gave a list of things that are relevant to Shadowbringers, which again, are spoilers.

It's like your brain doesn't work correctly when it comes to realizing what is a spoiler and what isn't.

It's very very simple - if it hasn't happened for someone yet, don't talk about it, don't allude to it, don't give advice or feedback about it.

Can I check, am I okay with saying I thought the EW storyline was dogshit without it ruining anything?

Final Fantasy XIV (Guide in first post)

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