Wings of the Goddess Completion

[Camiie]

I noticed in the previous census, that very few people have completed the WotG storyline. I have my own reason for not having done so, and I'm sure there is no single reason for everyone who hasn't finished them yet, though I'd think there must be some good reasons for it.

I wonder if the lack of completion is a concern for SE, and if they have any plans to make any changes that would encourage or help players get them done.

Also, what's the take of posters here on the state of these missions? What would you like to see done, if anything? What would you recommend SE could/should do?

[whmsyrup]

the reward wasn't the greatest, which is probably why most people haven't completed it. the story line was really great and some of the cs were just unreal! :D it would be interesting if SE released more missions of the same quality as wotg :)

I was sad to see that so little people had finished it(or barely even started). it seems like all anyone does is abyssea burn these days. :s

I recommend everyone at least try to complete them. it shouldn't be too difficult since the cap will be 99 pretty soon. who knows? maybe people might find the story enjoyable if they give it a chance! ;3 I sure did

it's just my opinion though... surely there's no need to flame :O

[Swords]

I think the majority of it is the very slow release and quite numerous missions in the storyline (seriously it was like 2 years before they finished the storyline). Roughly by time the ending missions came around, Abyssea was released and the level cap was raised. The new aspect of higher level content and the mindset that all the gear that players worked for for the previous 7 years was for naught, was pretty much was a kick in the nuts and gave players little reason to even think twice about revisiting older endgame content, for lack of challenge and (now/would be) useless rewards other than for the sake of completion.

While I won't argue that the rewards are still not grand in their own right (some are irreplaceable), the earring reward gives me mixed results. For lack of better or worse we already have 3-4 universal kick ass earrings, and frankly I would have felt better if the item was devoted to another slot such as ranged/ammo slot (keeping in mind this was before we got all the JSE ammo items that were released in Scars).

[Kristal]

For lack of better or worse we already have 3-4 universal kick ass earrings, and frankly I would have felt better if the item was devoted to another slot such as ranged/ammo slot (keeping in mind this was before we got all the JSE ammo items that were released in Scars).

You really must hate PUP...

[Camiie]

While SE isn't directly responsible for my static leaving the game, although I guess if the game had been more fun they would have stayed... kidding kinda... I think tying the nation quests to the main mission line was a huge mistake.

I know, the answer is for everyone to do all 3 paths, so we can all help each other with everything, but it just isn't working out that way.

My simple minded solution is for SE to allow anyone to help with the nation quests no matter what their progress is through the quest lines. Use the precedent set by the add-on scenarios. I know some of the quests are field based and anyone can help, but the OPs-style/battlefield ones are still restricted. Drop the restrictions and it might give more of us a fighting chance.

[Ladycandygem]

... I think tying the nation quests to the main mission line was a huge mistake.

This was a big part of it for me. I was in a small linkshell where people belonged to different nations. I got to a quest that was difficult to solo (as did they, this was back at 75 cap) and thought we'd team up, but we were unable to due to nation requirements.

The final mission was not available, so nobody thought it was worth the time and effort of changing nation and starting the missions from the start. We never did get round to finishing them.

[Retsujo]

I think most of it had to do with the national storyline quests that were listed under "Quests" and not "Missions" that got people confused and made them quit doing it because they eventually just forgot where they were.

Not to mention people didn't know you could do any national storyline quests regardless of who you were allied with. Lots of people still don't know that.

Which is too bad, because WotG is probably the best expansion they've released in terms of story.

[Swords]

You really must hate PUP...

Yes, I absolutely loathe those repulsive puppet masters and their overly poofy af and jester like appearance...

Nah, I was actually just throwing something out there not really thinking about the importance of the slot to other jobs. RNG, COR, and BRD would also be equally effected as well.

[Zarchery]

I recently finished the WOTG main mission line, doing the Windurst path. Now I'm doing the Bastok and Sandoria path, with some of the same people so that I don't have to redo the missions. It's been a pretty rewarding experience, but that's just me. Storyline stuff is my main motivation in this game.

I think the biggest improvement WOTG could use is either decoupling the nation quests from the main mission line, or making them so that anyone can enter the battlefields. It sucks that if you pick up some people for one mission in a pick up group, you have about a 2 in 3 chance of not being able to continue with the same people because they picked a different quest line. I was only able to get around this by starting a static from scratch where we all agreed to do Windurst missions.

[whmsyrup]

I think it was a good idea to tie the nation quests into the main story line; it made it more interesting and gave more background information. granted, some of those damn quests were pretty difficult and it was hard to find people to help, especially since they had to be on the same missions, but it was fun. I think it gave us something to do on the weekends aside from just getting exp.

I do see how it was a bad thing... not being able to progress because not everyone was all caught up. it may have been better if they let you do the main storyline regardless and made the quest line optional.

I wish I could re-do them all! they were so exciting! :D

[Tohihroyu]

Before Abyssea (at least on Levi) most who did wotg did San'dOria & only San'dOria, if you did Windurst (Now popular only due to the earring) or Bastok you where screwed. Before I found a wotg static I was often spending looong hours shouting for help with the bastok wotg battlefields (of corse before 95, I think 80 was the cap then I Don't remember...and possibly bugging/annoying Syris & some of his ls members, I'm sorry D: ) most who did join from shouts where people who where doing all 3 nations.

I guess if you got time for an alt you can repeat that way? thats what I'm doing but due to some...unfortunate circumstances wotg is on Hiatus for my Galka alt (This current PC lags HORRIBLY when I try to use fraps or Camnista) since I made a habit of recording the cs's as him since there's like no cs's with Galka players on Youtube ^^; (besides that I don't know what augs to get for him, he's not a spellcaster all the time so refresh would be useless on a dnc & thf, I do melee on sch when I solo if that helps as /nin or /dnc)

Sorry for veering off track a bit.

[Camiie]

Any word at all from the devs on this? Even a "No, we don't see a problem" or "We'll get back to you in a few years" would be better than nothing.

[Teraniku]

Having completed 3/4 of the WotG Storyline (Still have the last set of Windy Quests to do) I've really enjoyed the themes of the missions / quests. From the "Horrors of War" Windurst Story, to the "Political Intrigue" Bastok story, and the "Coming of age, Disney-fied" San D'Oria story they gave you a real scope on how the war affected the nations. WotG holds the unique status of having the only mission in the game that has your entire party in one of the cutscenes.

[Dragoy]

I think it is/was largely due to the fact that the reward(s) were not known, and after they were, they didn't (and still might not) seem useful enough as a large portion of, if not most of the players couldn't not care less about the story and just smash their ways through the cutscenes.

I didn't start it before I could actually solo some things at 75, and only really started and finished it at 90, as a duo/trio. I actually had done only Bastok quests at the point I think, but I started doing the San d'Oria quests to help my friend finish them (which was my main point of doing them at all at the time). Was indeed great fun with a close friend (miss those times sooo much), and the cutscenes and the story was really nice, even if it has its flaws.

Some time after that, the friend quit playing so I didn't really play much either (and still don't), but I have since completed the other quests as well (twice for myself), and helped numerous players with them and at this day, it should be even more easy to do with less people so that should not be an excuse to anyone who at least sort of has a friend or few around (or is able to team up with strangers).

It even has some use for the Abyssea-addicts as the Atma are not that bad but not like they are overly useful, either.

I do miss the quests and missions... and my friends. Especially the fights, those were very nicely done. Maybe I'll do them on a third character some time. Would need to level another one up though hah.


As for the fact how the missions are tied to the nation-quests, while I always have disliked very strongly the fact that with some fights people can't help if they have not progressed to that point themselves, I do understand it as the fights are very much story-related. It would spoil things and they would make no sense but it is true that most probably would just not care as they don't need the story parts in the first place, but only the reward(s) in the end.

The difficulty level of the quests and missions fer sure should not be a problem anymore, but I do realise that not everyone want to put so much time into just helping someone. Even so, I implore anyone and everyone to complete all the quests if one has any liking towards the stories in the game.

Sometimes I even wish there was someone I could help with these again... Don't even have an active Linkshell. S:
Some things of course can never be replaced as I do so much enjoy the journey. More so than the goal. ^^;


Okay, I'm going to stop now before I go on for pages. :þ
To the Assault mobile, blubb!

[Zarchery]

WotG holds the unique status of having the only mission in the game that has your entire party in one of the cutscenes.


Was that the one for the fight against the 4 Spitewardens? I heard about that when one of my guys reacted to it, but didn't see it for myself because I soloed all the cutscenes a week before. Now I feel like I missed out. Maybe I can get one of my guys to come to the goblin footprint in Walk of Echoes and take another look.

[Dragoy]

Was that the one for the fight against the 4 Spitewardens? I heard about that when one of my guys reacted to it, but didn't see it for myself because I soloed all the cutscenes a week before. Now I feel like I missed out. Maybe I can get one of my guys to come to the goblin footprint in Walk of Echoes and take another look.
Probably that one is what is being referred to, yes, but as I remember it, it shows only one of the party members. Or that's how I remember it at least. I had a party of 3, and it seemed to pick one from the party, in my case, the one that was not in the area, and thus there was just emptiness instead of my friend! S:

[Teraniku]

Probably that one is what is being referred to, yes, but as I remember it, it shows only one of the party members. Or that's how I remember it at least. I had a party of 3, and it seemed to pick one from the party, in my case, the one that was not in the area, and thus there was just emptiness instead of my friend! S:

Showed my entire party in the cs, but only the party leader is duplicated for the fight.

[Dragoy]

Hmmm, how odd.

Purrrhaps the Glitch Gremlin was at work behind our scenes.
Or...

[whmsyrup]

when we did that spitewarden fight, we had our party leader(taru) dress in the santa gear and equip a dream bell. it made such a cute sound when he used hexa strike on our tank haha :3

[Mirage]

I noticed in the previous census, that very few people have completed the WotG storyline. I have my own reason for not having done so, and I'm sure there is no single reason for everyone who hasn't finished them yet, though I'd think there must be some good reasons for it.

I wonder if the lack of completion is a concern for SE, and if they have any plans to make any changes that would encourage or help players get them done.

Also, what's the take of posters here on the state of these missions? What would you like to see done, if anything? What would you recommend SE could/should do?

Better rewards. Not just from storyline completion itself, but from battlefields and quests made available when getting near the end of the mission line. WotG wasn't really completed until after the level cap was raised. In my opinion, there should be tons of gear coming out of this expansion that is actually still relevant. And not just WoE stuff.

[Babekeke]

The rewards for WoTG were terrible. I completed the missions, but only because I play SMN as one of my main jobs, and I was sure that new avatars were going to require WoTG completion. This was before SE even said that next avatars would be Cait Sith and Atomos.

[Retsujo]

What does your job preference and future outlook for avatars have to do with the rewards from WotG?

That being said, I can agree with the lackluster reward. It's not really SO bad for the level, but the fact that they're augments notes that we won't really be able to upgrade them in the future like they're planning with all the other expansion rewards.

[Zarchery]

Not contributing anything to this discussion, but I would like to announce that I have just finished the Bastok line of quests for Wings of the Goddess. Having done this, I finished the entire mission line and all 3 nation quest lines. It was one of my goals for a while, and when I started this endeavor back in April, the whole thing seemed impossibly daunting. I had to start a static from scratch. I had to deal with scheduling conflicts and unreliable people who sadly I had to kick from the static. I had to fill in some spots with new people along the way, and for the last two missions I picked up 2 extra people from Jeuno yelling, one of whom joined me for the Sandoria and Bastok quests.

All in all a frustrating at times but rewarding experience. It got a lot easier when I realized I didn't NEED 6 people to do this stuff, and that even with 3 or 4, most fights were easy (though Darkness Descends was a challenge with 4 at level 90).

Overall, Windurst had the most interesting story line. The cutscene after Howl from the Heavens was the best cutscene I've ever seen in FFXI. Sandoria's story line was pretty boring. It's a shame because I thought their nation missions had a really interesting story. The Bastok missions were probably the hardest, but that was mainly because of all the crawling through Xarcabard [S] and Castle Zvahl [S] that we had to do. None of the fights were particularly difficult, though the last fight for Windurst was a shocker when Fenrir used Astral Flow and killed the whole party (NPC and BST pet ended up finishing the fight while we raised and waited out weakness).

Wings of the Goddess itself had a nice storyline, but I still liked Chains of Promathia best of all.

Now I just need to work on Crystalline Prophecy, Moogle Kupo d'etat, and Shantotto Acension....

[Zarchery]

What does your job preference and future outlook for avatars have to do with the rewards from WotG?

I think he was saying that he thought new avatars would require WOTG completion, like how Alexander requires TOAU completion and Diabolos requires a certain level of progress in COP.

Also, the atma you get from finishing WOTG Windurst quests looks pretty nice for SMN.

[saevel]

The real problem is that you can't assist unless your on or have beaten that particular story lines mission. So if I need assistance with a particular fight I can't just grab anyone willing to help, I need to get someone who is beat the sandy mission line. Makes progressing annoyingly difficult.

[Tohihroyu]

Getting any assistance in the wotg missions is like pulling teeth (well anything thats NOT Abyssea), my alt is now currently (possibly permanently) stuck on "A Journey's End" been shouting for almost an hour...just just like before abyssea, only difference being I didn't do any of the nation quest in Sandy, just Windurst .-. wont be surprised if I end up having to get a merc.

And before anyone says anything Yes I did try to solo it... :/

[Zarchery]

Getting any assistance in the wotg missions is like pulling teeth (well anything thats NOT Abyssea), my alt is now currently (possibly permanently) stuck on "A Journey's End" been shouting for almost an hour...just just like before abyssea, only difference being I didn't do any of the nation quest in Sandy, just Windurst .-. wont be surprised if I end up having to get a merc.

And before anyone says anything Yes I did try to solo it... :/

Yikes! Too bad you're not on Carbuncle or I'd help you out. Only other reccomendation I have is do what I did and try to build a static from the ground up.

[Dragoy]

Getting any assistance in the wotg missions is like pulling teeth (well anything thats NOT Abyssea), my alt is now currently (possibly permanently) stuck on "A Journey's End" been shouting for almost an hour...just just like before abyssea, only difference being I didn't do any of the nation quest in Sandy, just Windurst .-. wont be surprised if I end up having to get a merc.

And before anyone says anything Yes I did try to solo it... :/
Stumble upon Fenrir and I'll help you out... if you want, that is. :V

[whmsyrup]

Getting any assistance in the wotg missions is like pulling teeth (well anything thats NOT Abyssea), my alt is now currently (possibly permanently) stuck on "A Journey's End" been shouting for almost an hour...just just like before abyssea, only difference being I didn't do any of the nation quest in Sandy, just Windurst .-. wont be surprised if I end up having to get a merc.

And before anyone says anything Yes I did try to solo it... :/

if I see you shouting this thursday, I'll help you out :3

[Kikorimo]

Would love to finish the missions myself, however I need to find some people to do them with in order for this to likely happen. I did some solo, and the story seems interesting so far... I'm just concerned with not being able to handle the rest of the way solo so am holding off until I can find some others to do the missions with.

[Dragoy]

While many, if not most of them, can indeed be done solo, I do hope you will find the people you need as it (depending of people of course) tends to be more fun!

Some of the fights certainly can still be tricky with few people even, not to mention duo or solo...

Perhaps they will add some more incentive in the near future so that those who have not been able to advance, will have abundance of chances then! Would like it very much if they somehow continued it all but it did end quite thoroughly one might say...

But what if?!


Either way, best of luck to us all~

[Tohihroyu]

Yikes! Too bad you're not on Carbuncle or I'd help you out. Only other reccomendation I have is do what I did and try to build a static from the ground up.

I did have a static, did all of Bastok's nation quests plus the wotg missions after. (this is on my main btw) But...when I went & joined 1 small group for "When Wills Collide" I was marked as a traitor & kicked from the static, seems saying I was willing to go back & help was a bad thing. (not kicked from the ls...just that part of it)

For my Galka alt I had friends help me out with whatever I could not solo, but after Syrs helps me with the last Windurst fight I'll be taking a 4-6 month Hiatus, since I can't record the cs's on this PC

[Babekeke]

What does your job preference and future outlook for avatars have to do with the rewards from WotG?

That being said, I can agree with the lackluster reward. It's not really SO bad for the level, but the fact that they're augments notes that we won't really be able to upgrade them in the future like they're planning with all the other expansion rewards.

I thought it was quite clear from how I worded it originally, but I'll try again. I would not have bothered doing the missions were it not for the fact that I wanted the avatars (though it now looks like VW could be a prerequisite instead of/aswell as WoTG.

I would not have bothered to do the missions because of how rubbish the rewards are (though releasing it in stages meant that we weren't to know this until the last part was released).

[Retsujo]

I see. I guess I didn't consider avatar quests that require the completion of WotG as a potential WotG reward.

[Soranika]

I didn't have a static through WotG until I got to the battle of jeuno (whatever that mission called, but it wasn't a nation mission). I was doing it on SMN and went to shout for help in Jeuno. I was pretty much told that I should solo it and "take pride" in my ability to so.... I think that kind of mentality for an story mission and just a final fantasy game in general to be down right... just.... ugh, some word that I can't seem to think of at the moment.

I went a head and tried to solo and failed miserably because I could only keep one general alive and still fail cause of time constraints. Ran into a PUP and another SMN before my second try and we cleaned right through WotG in about a week and a half. Super convenient that were were all on Windurst path.

As for speculation on avatar acquisition of Cait Sith and Atomos, a lot of us SMN assume that the two will be obtainable after the completion of WotG, much like Odin and Alexander required completion of ToAU. However, I don't share the same speculation of of VW completion being part of this. From the very start of the Jeuno VW path cutscene....SPOILER:Highlight for infoThe Cait Sith involved with VW is not of the same world as the Cait Sith we know. That much is apparent by her color and the fact that she says so.

I haven't gotten that far into Jeuno VW path, so I'm not certain that they'll cross paths, but it'll be a general kick in the face to SMN and oddly out of place for the two be acquired through some steps of voidwatch completion.