Final Fantasy XIV (Guide in first post)

I don't think they're writing for kids, but they are definitely writing for morons. Fact is you can write highbrow, but you have to deal with a lot of thick brow people. Like I was watching some streamers get to the part where Bakool Ja Ja tells you how Blessed Siblings are made.


A lot of it could also be the new writers are just trying to emulate media they like and that media happens to be anime that skews younger. Blizzard had the same problem when it was clear some of the storylines were trying to emulate stuff like the Marvel movies or what have you.

The expac had some cool concepts worth exploring, like the "Eternal Sunshine on the Spotless Mind" element or the Altered Carbon elements. It just felt like they didn't explore them enough or were too heavyhanded in terms of how the player should feel. This is most apparent in the final zone of the game.

They should have closed down the mmo at the end of the endwalker storyline. Just blown the shit up and started everything in a new world with new chars. Used the opportunity to make the base game more fun from the lessons they learned. Keep gameplay mostly similar but tweak to higher challenges faster, more room for experimentation, just overall better in every way

They need more content before they can clean break from the original arr - ew. You don’t just flush a decade of content and then say “lol now u just have Wuk Lamat!”

Pasteton said:

They should have closed down the mmo at the end of the endwalker storyline. Just blown the shit up and started everything in a new world with new chars. Used the opportunity to make the base game more fun from the lessons they learned. Keep gameplay mostly similar but tweak to higher challenges faster, more room for experimentation, just overall better in every way

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I think they should have started a new 1-50 story and somehow scaled it for the 90-100 players. Then you could choose to start in ARR or Dawntrail.

Simultaneously they needed to evolve the formula and have more gameplay and less cut scenes.

As it is, Dawntrail 90-97 is actually far worse than ARR. At least in ARR you get Scion and Ascian storylines which actually will pay off between lv80 and lv90.

Yoshi did say that eventually they want to make a "skip" available for new players, basically it would just be a quick recap of the Ascian/Scion Story but would include the heavy hits of the story over all, you would technically start at DT ...

Chris said:

I think they should have started a new 1-50 story and somehow scaled it for the 90-100 players. Then you could choose to start in ARR or Dawntrail.

Simultaneously they needed to evolve the formula and have more gameplay and less cut scenes.

As it is, Dawntrail 90-97 is actually far worse than ARR. At least in ARR you get Scion and Ascian storylines which actually will pay off between lv80 and lv90.

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The issue isn’t cutscenes, it’s pacing and quality. No one cares about cutscene quantity if they are good and there is a good spacing of action and story. It was more of an issue here because the story wasn’t as engaging.

A “clean break” from the old stuff makes no sense until they’ve got a good new story arc going. If they had implemented your suggestion now, those new customers would have just had a low to mid quality story and skipped all the good shit.

I theorize they won’t do that until maybe 2 expansions from now.

Folanlron said:

Yoshi did say that eventually they want to make a "skip" available for new players, basically it would just be a quick recap of the Ascian/Scion Story but would include the heavy hits of the story over all, you would technically start at DT ...

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This would be a complete disaster now. DT is hilariously bad in a vacuum. On top of that you don't even do any gameplay until what like 4 hours in?

Cybsled said:

The issue isn’t cutscenes, it’s pacing and quality. No one cares about cutscene quantity if they are good and there is a good spacing of action and story. It was more of an issue here because the story wasn’t as engaging.

A “clean break” from the old stuff makes no sense until they’ve got a good new story arc going. If they had implemented your suggestion now, those new customers would have just had a low to mid quality story and skipped all the good shit.

I theorize they won’t do that until maybe 2 expansions from now.

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Well I used one word to sum up the issue, yeah pacing and quality helps. There's just no way to maintain the quality needed to have this many cutscenes and why would this even be an aim?

They need to find a way to have an alternate starting point to skip the ARR baggage.

Imo they could have had an alternate 1-50 story in Tural against some of the unused Ascians, then have the stories merge at lv50 in Heavensward. Max level players play this with some dialogue changes to do 90-100.

I don't have all the answers, you can pick holes in what I just said, but it would have been a problem to work through.

They absolutely need to put in more combat, and not just a Duty fight every so often like they do now. Tie it in to using more of the actual zones. So much real estate that just ends up being "X mining/botany node over here at some point" or "these mobs for your intermediate hunt bill spawn from here to here". Fates are good, but if there was a way to make them more dynamic it might be a good step.

Chris said:

mo they could have had an alternate 1-50 story in Tural against some of the unused Ascians, then have the stories merge at lv50 in Heavensward. Max level players play this with some dialogue changes to do 90-100.

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Im sure they will figure out something, but devoting that much resource to ancient content isn’t the way

Honestly if they did a future arc skip, they would be best served by skipping Dawntrail lol

One possible idea (spoilers for end of xpac)

They had the ingredients of a good story. Kriles missing grampa, erinvelles past. The wonder of a new continent. It just got vomited on by a poorly written, poorly voiced, unnecissary main character in a game where you were the main character for like 11 years.

They should have voiced the walk abouts and let you experience the enviroments while you hear the lore break downs. Combat and all. Let the little trader girl explain value as yiu kill shit. Except wook lamat. She should just have drown in the opening storm.

Cybsled said:

Spoiler

The dimensional key glowed with Azem’s symbol - if anything from DT has a lasting impact, it’s going to be that. All we know about it is it first appeared on the source as far as we know, has the power to allow cross dimensional travel, potentially can power dimensional fusion/rejoining, and has some connection with Azem. Basically making it one of, if not the most, powerful artifact in the game. So powerful in fact that you wonder why the Ascians never tried to use it. Emet clearly knew about civilizations in other shards and about the Golden City. That could be a good starting point for future stories

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Cybsled said:

Im sure they will figure out something, but devoting that much resource to ancient content isn’t the way

Honestly if they did a future arc skip, they would be best served by skipping Dawntrail lol

One possible idea (spoilers for end of xpac)

Spoiler

The dimensional key glowed with Azem’s symbol - if anything from DT has a lasting impact, it’s going to be that. All we know about it is it first appeared on the source as far as we know, has the power to allow cross dimensional travel, potentially can power dimensional fusion/rejoining, and has some connection with Azem. Basically making it one of, if not the most, powerful artifact in the game. So powerful in fact that you wonder why the Ascians never tried to use it. Emet clearly knew about civilizations in other shards and about the Golden City. That could be a good starting point for future stories

Click to expand...

We know the umbral calamity of ice takes place after the fall of the Allagan Empire and before the rise of the Mhach Empire. So over 2,000 years ago.

So i just got to the role quest. it appears to be about a bunch of white people who came across the ocean to be mean to the natives and steal their cultural relics for no reason but to be evil for evils sake. really?

... said:

So i just got to the role quest. it appears to be about a bunch of white people who came across the ocean to be mean to the natives and steal their cultural relics for no reason but to be evil for evils sake. really?

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You read the quest text? I've done three of them, are they all one storyline?

Chris said:

You read the quest text? I've done three of them, are they all one storyline?

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so the quest opens with the bar man saying "i over heard a conversation that has me worried". you do NOT use the fucking echo like you have for 11 years. you have a barman tell you the tale. in it, a white bunny literally says "i'm here to recuirt you all to my villian group". and the assembled other eorzean white people have names like "rude gentelman" "mean lady" etc. and then she explains how her secret villian group is there to sow chaos in the world by stealing t hese relics from the stupid natives.

and i think each quest giver is a tribal person who got a thing stolen, so we get more hamfsited writing about how smart these savages are.

... said:

so the quest opens with the bar man saying "i over heard a conversation that has me worried". you do NOT use the fucking echo like you have for 11 years. you have a barman tell you the tale. in it, a white bunny literally says "i'm here to recuirt you all to my villian group". and the assembled other eorzean white people have names like "rude gentelman" "mean lady" etc. and then she explains how her secret villian group is there to sow chaos in the world by stealing t hese relics from the stupid natives.

and i think each quest giver is a tribal person who got a thing stolen, so we get more hamfsited writing about how smart these savages are.

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Oh yeah I think we use the echo once in Dawntrail and it's jarring how unusual it is.

You’re reading too much into the role quests - the role quests are just some Team Rocket level villains and dumb quests plots

Although the end of the melee DPS one got a laugh out of me because it involves an imposter in the Azem Steepes and the anger once the fooled person learned it was an imposter (you can probably guess who it involves)