Final Fantasy XIV (Guide in first post)

Chris said:

Chysamere was saying it's a Japanese character archetype?

We can't blame the SJW voice actress or SJW localisation lead. There's too much fucking text for it to be somehow good and they are not even using the good FF9 music.

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What the fuck are you on about? Pink hair = automatic SJW? I’ve never seen anything suggesting she is some agenda pusher - at fanfest she just comes across as a typical nerd. She lives/works in Japan

Cybsled said:

What the fuck are you on about? Pink hair = automatic SJW? I’ve never seen anything suggesting she is some agenda pusher - at fanfest she just comes across as a typical nerd. She lives/works in Japan

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That's what I've seen people say? I posted it's clearly not her fault.

This has nothing to do with Grummz, and until you mentioned it I was unaware he was trying to insert himself into the conversation.

This is poor writing and I am going to guess a self insert or at least a character she identifies with. She /is/ a writer, despite being a 'localization team' on the credits. YoshiP said the person who did the Faeries was one of the writers (Merlyt's writer being the other for DT) and interviews reveal she is part of the writing team. She is also 'woke' or SJW or whatever you want to call it. I don't really think that is overtly at play here. I think it informs her writing, but I think this is more lack of ability.


So it might not be entirely her at fault, but where is the writing and 'new direction' coming from then? The old writers got promoted to new positions and new writers are in. From what I can dig up, Kate is responsible for the first half of DT which is by far the weakest part. If you have another theory on the dip in quality, I'll happily listen.

I will pause to add, is it as bad as other games? No. But is it as good as FF14? Again. No.

Edit: Oh yeah. My picture post was originally meant as a joke, but after looking into it I'm realizing it might be less funny and more true than I realized. I blame you all for making me research Kate Cwynar. Its your fault.

Whoever is responsible for the quality dip, real test will be to see if they recover the fumble like they did in Stormblood

Cybsled said:

Whoever is responsible for the quality dip, real test will be to see if they recover the fumble like they did in Stormblood

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It's also just dumb things like not having a new Bojza zone, boring weapon quests, etc. I don't want every expac to be the same but you can't take away the only non template content and do... Nothing.

Eureka was 4.25 and Bozja was 5.35

Why do they, twice, focus on you babysitting npcs on A personal misson (lyse, wooklemon) and both times they agressively made them unlikable to start.

Im still baffled why they didnt literally just make it about erinville and then cash in on his popularity?

Palum said:

It's also just dumb things like not having a new Bojza zone, boring weapon quests, etc. I don't want every expac to be the same but you can't take away the only non template content and do... Nothing.

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We're getting a Bojza style zone this xpac - going to presume it will be next year given their past history.

They've also got some outer space exploration thing they mentioned at Fanfest, so TBD on what that looks like

On a side note, I finally did Tender Valley. I agree it redeemed the whole xpac lol

Mao said:

This has nothing to do with Grummz, and until you mentioned it I was unaware he was trying to insert himself into the conversation.

This is poor writing and I am going to guess a self insert or at least a character she identifies with. She /is/ a writer, despite being a 'localization team' on the credits. YoshiP said the person who did the Faeries was one of the writers (Merlyt's writer being the other for DT) and interviews reveal she is part of the writing team. She is also 'woke' or SJW or whatever you want to call it. I don't really think that is overtly at play here. I think it informs her writing, but I think this is more lack of ability.

Spoiler: Her own words

As to her SJWness, I would have to hunt it down again, but apparently she comes with the 'They/Them" pronouns. Also by her own words pushed for gender binary being removed for the faeries in the first. Not major, but another sign of an inherent thought process.
View attachment 535851
Now lets set aside her SJWness and talk about the writing.
She wanted to sideline the main cast for new characters, was convinced by other writers to keep them in.
View attachment 535852
Regarding Wuk Lamant
View attachment 535853
These are from PCGamesn.com articles.

So it might not be entirely her at fault, but where is the writing and 'new direction' coming from then? The old writers got promoted to new positions and new writers are in. From what I can dig up, Kate is responsible for the first half of DT which is by far the weakest part. If you have another theory on the dip in quality, I'll happily listen.

I will pause to add, is it as bad as other games? No. But is it as good as FF14? Again. No.

Edit: Oh yeah. My picture post was originally meant as a joke, but after looking into it I'm realizing it might be less funny and more true than I realized. I blame you all for making me research Kate Cwynar. Its your fault.

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Oh wow, well if she isn't just localisation and wrote the fucking thing, we may have our culprit.

Don't think this is conclusive yet.

So I will not claim she is the overall director of the story path. I think there are other issues underneath, but I do think Kate is a part of the problem. I understand that there is a bit of a collaborative approach as they want the story to be relevant to all languages so the EN localization team gets say in how things progress so that they can make sure it works in the US. Supposedly, Kate has been 'moved up' to lead on that now, instead of just contributor. I also understand she was in charge of the hiring of voice talent and overall direction of that for the US release as well. Looking back on the story, I wouldn't be surprised if the 'Story Boards', the major wickets the story went through were dictated from higher, but the exact path that was done to get there were handled by Kate and Daichi Hiroi.

Now for EN localization things. I switched to German voices with EN text to help get through it, cause Sphene being all mein Land und Reich und Folk was fucking hilarious and got me jilted Austrian painter vibes that helped me laugh my way through to the end. However, I speak a bit of German. Not a lot, but spent enough time there to get a beer and have some woman slap my face and I noticed...

There are... rather significant subjective differences in flavor. Not necessarily content but in the color of the words.


Finally finished the MSQ and holy fuck Woke Lament needs to be put on ice for a good while. I was starting to enjoy later bits of the story and at times was starting to get sucked in. Emotional moments between characters and.... Wuk Lamat butts in. Its like a bechdel test in reverse. By the end I had images of Jack Nicholson busting through the door in the Shining. Any moment of weight and who comes crashing through the door, "Here's Wooky!". The worst is, she has in no way earned any of those moments. She's telling the Scions what to do, directing actions. Taking the major motive moments that quite rightly should have been ours or other characters.

I have heard WoW refugees say its a WoW story. You are there to serve as gofer for the main characters and watch the story play out. So many times I kept thinking to myself, "Why is my character not doing this? Why are these characters who are directly relevant at this moment not doing this? And the last bit? Holy Jesus Titty H. Fucking Hoosevelt Christ. Shall I carry your bags for you madame?


One last post credits spoiler question

Mao said:

Spoiler: Former Citizens

Did I hear that right? As I said, I was doing German voice over but did they say the people in Solution 9's lives would continue as normal? They are still wearing the resonators, are they really still getting souls and shit? Holy fuck that is going to be a problem. Where the fuck are those souls gonna be coming from? We just stopped a soul vending machine cause it was an affront to existence, but Solution 9 is still running? Tell me I missed something cause of language issues. Please.

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I don't usally skip MSQ dialogue but jesus fucking christ shut the fuck up about making a dish for the contest and get on with what I need to gather.

The contest part is really bad and boring. I tried taking it slow but the characters need to shut the fuck up and move the story along.

3+ cutscenes to pick a bana like wtf...

I think there is near universal agreement that the 1st half of the MSQ could have benefited from some trimming or pacing improvement.

Mao, I'm also 99% sure that she did say she was proud of him in the garden area towards the end of it

Cybsled said:

I think there is near universal agreement that the 1st half of the MSQ could have benefited from some trimming or pacing improvement.

Mao, I'm also 99% sure that she did say she was proud of him in the garden area towards the end of it

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The problem is, I'm not so sure because the story has a massive impact on people you barely know so it already feels hollow. If it was just a random contest and surprise this is how I'm choosing the new leader at the end then maybe. But you can't have a new continent, new races and lore, a big weighty quest to determine the future of a new state and all that packed in 20 minutes that feels good. I already don't care about them at all because it's so hamfisted and I have no attachment to anyone who I just met.

The new CC map is pretty fun - the two hazards are it gets super hot and you start to lose HP unless you stand in some oasis water splashes and sometimes an antlion (sandworm lol) will appear and suck in everyone close by and instakill them.

Cybsled said:

I think there is near universal agreement that the 1st half of the MSQ could have benefited from some trimming or pacing improvement.

Mao, I'm also 99% sure that she did say she was proud of him in the garden area towards the end of it

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I realize I should have been more concise, and my 3am ramblings prolly should have waited till I slept.

She does say she is proud of him, but in a more oblique passive way. People have commented that they hate her character, and I wanted to get at that and how different she is in the other languages.

People have commented (and I feel) that the MSQ doesn't really resonate that well emotionally, and having done the ending in German it seems the EN writers tried to 'play it cool'. Almost like when you ask a teen girl if she likes some boy she's obviously enraptured with and she goes, "Yeah, he's ok I guess.". The German was much more heart on its sleeve emotional. It fit better for the situations. The EN felt like your final goodbye was more 'Sending my son off to college' than a last goodbye. A friend who understands moon runes says in JP she explicitly uses a word for the most intimate form a love, while that is never even said in the EN, just implied like the aforementioned teenager.

Now lets talk dungeons. The dungeons and trials are impressively structured. The last trial was laughable with how much shit is going on at once and would prolly be fun to revisit and learn if not for the atrocious cutscene. The EX is prolly going to be fucking brutal. That said I like it. I do have one complaint and that is the boss's tells are getting more difficult to read against the arena graphics and moving a lot of the 'tells' outside the arena is a personal issue with how I play, which is high and behind my character looking down at an angle. IF the boss indicators are happening outside the arena I will miss them unless I know specifically to adjust to look at certain parts. So I eat a lot of shit early on. Some specific fights I think would benefit greatly from having a 'caller' that lets you know whats coming. I'm looking at you 'hidden in the cup' game. The mechanic increase in difficulty is well done and it makes me curious what the raids are going to bring.

My one concern... these are farming dungeons on the roulettes. How are we going to feel about these in a month when the casuals are all queuing for their dailies? Will people catch on and learn, or is it going to be a brutal patch for your casual player? How many wipes will there be on the EX roulette?

Both EXs a really brutal at the start.

I will say this though, so far all 3 trials have some of the most unique abilities I've ever seen them make, I guess actually being able to print on screen has helped them greatly to be able to make callouts simpler(The boss will first literally "Tell you what he is doing," and from then on he will simply just give tells via body/background effects instead of repeating the same thing over and over on screen.(There is 1 exception to this so far but it's kind of needed)

The Tankbuster on the birb EX is so fucking creative, and is a simple show of what they will be able too do in the future.

Everkeep, better get use to looking outside the arena, even the danger birb has some callouts in EX that you can only see outside of it.

Overall I give the story a 5/10, but combat has been 10/10 although.... class balance needs a lot of work still.