The great streamer Asmongold is joining FFXIV

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Originally Posted by Plastics

Having leveled through ARR to Shadowbringers about 7 times now, I will heavily disagree with this. SB is much worse than ARR. The reason people quit during ARR is because they're constantly told how bad it is, and so any negative reinforcement demotivates them and they stop playing. If your goal is to just skip through it and not care about anything, it is a lot of work to get through and you feel like you're wasting your time.

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Not to mention that ARR is where new players get a feel for if this game is up their alley or not.

On all of that ARR stuff-

I've said it almost every time I make a comment on it, that my perspective is suuuuper dated, but I do remember some moments in ARR where I was doing it to do it and not because I was like YEAH, TIME TO BOOT UP THE GAME, but there were absolutely moments that I did have that excitement. That said I also make that comment as FFXIV being my favorite for story as an MMORPG, unlike most mmorpgs I tend to stick FFXIV in the "you get to compete against sRPG" categories :3 lol. Some pacing issues, and personally I still kind of wished the first hour or two was a bit more tailored (scripted? like FFXIV I felt let me out in the town so early and I just ran around for hours getting basic quests, my own fault yes, but I always imagine a FFVII, IX, X, etc, like intro or something where stuff just starts slapping right from the start), that said I've heard people who have been helpful and informative about all the changes to ARR and I'm confident it would be a lot smoother if I had came to it with fresh eyes again. From what I've heard it honestly sounds fine now, I think now I'm just mostly worried about people getting excited about 7.0, 8.0, and literally being told you wont be there until about playing Witcher 3 100% 4 times in a row, 4x binge watching friends, harry potter saga 18 times, etc lol. Although right now with WoW having all the issues that it is having FFXIV doesn't really need to worry about it yet, but if an MMO catches the good wind that FFXIV is currently enjoying (well deserved), that might be more important suddenly later and not really right now (like if one of these other new mmos coming out finally gets it right lol).

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Originally Posted by Krotoan

People who said he wasn't gonna get through the ARR patch quest desert don't realize he was tempered in the original WoW release quest grind. He even said so himself ".. yeah and? that's how you used to level for the whole game in WoW. This is gonna be EZ".

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When I heard him say that I was like "lol- well then, he's making it to ShB no prob".

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Originally Posted by Plastics

Having leveled through ARR to Shadowbringers about 7 times now, I will heavily disagree with this. SB is much worse than ARR. The reason people quit during ARR is because they're constantly told how bad it is, and so any negative reinforcement demotivates them and they stop playing. If your goal is to just skip through it and not care about anything, it is a lot of work to get through and you feel like you're wasting your time. It's mostly just a tutorial, but there's a ton of stuff to do and unlock in ARR, and by the time you get to the "pre-HW grind" as people call it, the story has picked up. Slow down, enjoy it, and it's completely fine.

I would happily recommend people skip SB and just watch a MSQ synopsis video, and it's the only part of the game where I think that recommendation is warranted. Specifically the MSQ, not the raid content, which you can do at any time.

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As someone who did ARR blind pre 5.3 without any review or such, it is a different case on how people stop at base game.
There were way too many unnecessary quests piling up, some were nice but it just dragged the whole thing and combat being slow at beginning can do much along with constant back and forward type of quests.
Looking now at 5.3 changes, I am baffled how it took so long to act, it is a lot smoother.

SB is just pacing issue, very slow start, then it picks up and then pacing dies again, I disagree on skipping on the expansion, there are many good things in it between dungeons, trials and more.

And can't see how people are just going to skip a whole expansion if they did ARR, it is not the end of the world, just take your time, do even sidequests to learn more about the world building and that's it.

Speaking of Asmon and ARR, he just released his review of the ARR experience now that he made it to HW.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Z3JRJ2GnSk

Asmongold's presence in FFXIV is like an injection of steroids.

https://i.ibb.co/LPtCpWN/lul.png

I will always defend SB because I feel it's better then people give it credit for. For one, all the classes played the best in SB, we had pretty much the best group of villains in SB. Dungeons hit a high point in the leveling content, and the raids were top tier. Yeah there were some misses in SB but not as many as HW. For one, SB didn't put the raiding scene in the ER, it also didn't have the longest break in content like HW did. Which made content creators like Mr.Happy stop his weekly podcast because there was just nothing there. Storywise HW had one of the most WTF plotlines like throwing the eyes off the cliff like a looney toons character. There was nothing like that in SB.

The only thing really that was a miss was abit of the pacing in SB but that was short lived. And nothing like the massive slog you had in HW. Skipping SB is a mistake and you should feel bad saying that. Honestly I'll be that person and say I think SB had more highs then SB2 honestly. Maybe not in plotlines but dear god can we stop this SB is worst than everything when nothing played as good as they did IN SB? Monk, DRK, Astro, Ninja, PLD, Sch.. were all REALLY good in SB. Monk and ninja being the best there. In SB2 most if not all of them were gutted and aren't as fun as they were in SB. If you're going to grade an expac then it should be graded on all fronts and not just the parts people go goo goo over.

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Originally Posted by Controller

Monk, DRK, Astro, Ninja, PLD, Sch.. were all REALLY good in SB. Monk and ninja being the best there. In SB2 most if not all of them were gutted and aren't as fun as they were in SB. If you're going to grade an expac then it should be graded on all fronts and not just the parts people go goo goo over.

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Everything you said is entirely subjective. This, however, is just... wrong. Stormblood Dark Knight is by and far considered the worst iteration of the jobs since its existence, Paladin has never been better and Monk was in the same place it is now: the dumpster. While the Astro cards have been controversial, their old iteration simply didn't work in the current landscape. Balance was objectively the best card and everything else was either weaker balance or straight up worthless, especially with TP being deleted and MP essentially being a non-issue. Ninja is entirely debatable. Some dislike the changes while plenty others feel it's in the best state its ever been in. What really baffles me is you listed all those examples and neglected to mention BRD, the one job that has unquestionably been despised in Shadowbringers over its Stormblood iteration.

Asmongold went Dark Knight. If he can't be convinced to shave his head in real life, then maybe he can be convinced to shave his character's head bald for the duration of Heavensward as a sort of challenge to see how long he can last with his character like that.

HeavensBald with a truly bald Asmongold character would be amazing.

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Originally Posted by Controller

I will always defend SB because I feel it's better then people give it credit for.

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SB was too smart and nuanced for players. They don't care about politics if their UWU BEANS catwife and/or husbando are not in it. Square realized this which is why they were a lot more prominent in the later parts of ShB almost to the point of characters asking "where is cat wife/husband" when they were not on screen.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

Everything you said is entirely subjective. This, however, is just... wrong. Stormblood Dark Knight is by and far considered the worst iteration of the jobs since its existence, Paladin has never been better and Monk was in the same place it is now: the dumpster. While the Astro cards have been controversial, their old iteration simply didn't work in the current landscape. Balance was objectively the best card and everything else was either weaker balance or straight up worthless, especially with TP being deleted and MP essentially being a non-issue. Ninja is entirely debatable. Some dislike the changes while plenty others feel it's in the best state its ever been in. What really baffles me is you listed all those examples and neglected to mention BRD, the one job that has unquestionably been despised in Shadowbringers over its Stormblood iteration.

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You're forgetting SB had the best version of monk by far. The TK monk. IT wasn't MY fav but tons of streamers loved it and so did a few players in the game. Monk compared to everything else has always been in a shit can, but SB monk was one of the better ones. Same with Ninja and Astro. They were the best compared to NOW. Give or take some things. I forgot about BRD to bbe honest.. but thats a point in my favor if I take that in.

I just remembered what I kept seeing on the forums and youtube videos during HW and SB. Details asides I just wanted to say SB isn't as bad as people scream about. It feels like people forget how bad parts of HW were actually. I can't forget it because I was there and remembered EVERYONE complaining about the devs taking a VERY long vacation, the stupid choice your character throwing the eyes off the cliff, how lame the Warriors of Darkness were in the end. I don't care how they were redeemed in SB2 because they STILL were lackluster in HW.