So I just finished the Ivalice content... (No Spoilers)

Yeah Ivalice was/is my most favorite, the current Nier AR's are just bad even though I was looking so forward to it since I love the Nier games.

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Originally Posted by glitteringcosmos

Was just having this conversation with an FC mate tonight. If this is your first FF game like it was ours, Return to Ivalice makes very little sense and is overly convoluted and dialogue-heavy. We both are heavy lore buffs in this game--and to us, Ivalice cutscenes were boring and hard to understand/follow. Don't get me wrong, the raids are great fun, but even now I still don't quite get the story and I've NG+'ed it twice. I get that it's feeding the Tactics/XII fans, but personally, I would rather they give us content that's capable of standing on its own in XIV. Someone else mentioned Crystal Tower, and I agree; it works in XIV because they enmeshed it into the canon of THIS world, not the other way around. RTI felt very much like they tried to shoehorn in an entire canon into XIV's lore and it just didn't work for me.

I also had some beef with the illusion of choice in this raid... ZeplaHQ did a very good video that summed up my feelings on the matter. Seriously, that entire wine-fetching sidequest can go pound sand.

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I honestly didn't like it even as a FFT/XII fan, as most of the exposition between raids felt like they were just giving a plot recap of the two games with slight alterations to try to make them feel more natural within XIV's setting (Which they failed at, IMO).

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

I feel like an oddball for having the opposite feelings from the TC and preferring that other FFs not be overly integrated into XIV's setting. I didn't mind stuff like the Crystal Tower raids because they actually made it mesh with existing lore instead of basically turning a previously unknown region into a FFT/FFXII theme park.

I'm glad Bozja has mostly stood on its own feet so far...though I've still found it to be a bit subpar storywise regardless.

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Though I am glad OP enjoyed it, I am in agreement. I feel like FF references work better when they feel self contained within the universe. I feel like this was the difference between Omega and Eden. I liked Omega's story towards the end, but everything else felt like a fan service to reference old Final Fantasies (and ended up disappointed by Kefka). Whereas Eden itself, despite being an FF8 reference felt like it was part of the universe and had a purpose within it, whilst requiring no design change.

And I agree about Bozja too, whilst its story was weak it felt like it existed within the world. Ivalice didn't, but I think was maybe half way there, but tried to keep too like-for-like with Ivalice.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

I honestly didn't like it even as a FFT/XII fan, as most of the exposition between raids felt like they were just giving a plot recap of the two games with slight alterations to try to make them feel more natural within XIV's setting (Which they failed at, IMO).

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As an FFXII fan (I didn't really play Tactics myself, except Tactics Advanced), again I found the same.

FFXIV wouldn't exist in its current form without the Ivalice games. They've long since been a huge source of inspiration for the style of world building, story telling and art style - to say nothing of the fact that a decent chunk of developers worked on those games.

So I think it does a major disservice to claim that the Ivalice content was 'forced'. It was dialogue heavy, yeah, though I don't think anything about its story was particularly difficult to understand...nor did it feel out of place. Furthermore, reading between the lines it's pretty clear that a lot of the plot threads weaved into the Ivalice story are, in fact, likely to be picked up again and made relevant in the MSQ's.

I enjoyed it thoroughly, especially compared to the Nier raid which has absolutely nothing of interest to me whatsoever...beyond the music.

I really enjoyed the Ivalice content, as well as Ultima. With this cryptic description to her, I hope they somehow tie her to some of the big mysteries in the MSQ...

https://i.imgur.com/8OIBkUL.jpg

The exposition was a bit much at times, and could've been better layered (perhaps cut down in parts), but honestly I still much prefer it to the Nier raids, which truly do feel jammed in.

Ironically i find Ivalice to fit really well. Compared to the Nier raids and even Crystal tower to an extent with how much it’s shoved down our throats i thought Ivalice was really well done.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

FFXIV wouldn't exist in its current form without the Ivalice games. They've long since been a huge source of inspiration for the style of world building, story telling and art style - to say nothing of the fact that a decent chunk of developers worked on those games.

So I think it does a major disservice to claim that the Ivalice content was 'forced'. It was dialogue heavy, yeah, though I don't think anything about its story was particularly difficult to understand...nor did it feel out of place. Furthermore, reading between the lines it's pretty clear that a lot of the plot threads weaved into the Ivalice story are, in fact, likely to be picked up again and made relevant in the MSQ's.

I enjoyed it thoroughly, especially compared to the Nier raid which has absolutely nothing of interest to me whatsoever...beyond the music.

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No one was dissing the Ivalice games... It's one thing for XIV to be inspired by and be worked on by the same crew from those games. But that means nothing to crossover content implementation... which was objectively poorly done. When you have multiple reddit threads all along the same lines of "someone please explain the Ivalice story to me" and many comments on said threads saying "yeah I have no idea either, here's my stab at it," I have to disagree that the story wasn't difficult to understand. It should feel self-contained within 14 for those without any prior knowledge of the other games to understand while having the references to cater to those who do have that knowledge, and it just doesn't. It's absolutely fine if you enjoyed it, and I'm happy that OP did, too. Just don't discount the multiple people who found the story hard to follow just because you personally liked it.

I actually felt ff12 was a rather weak game ...but the Ivalice raids just nailed all the best qualities from it. For an Alliance raid it was very enjoyable. They did a great job with it.

I like Matsuno's plots, just wish his characters were more interesting. The main characters of Matsuno's stuff are almost always dull, be it in FFT, Tactics Ogre, FFXII, or his FFXIV stuff. The only characters of his that have an interesting and endearing personality were Vyce from Tactics Ogre (law route Vyce. Chaos route Vyce is a completely different character), Larsa, Dr. Cid, and Al Cid from FFXII (it's especially sad when the side characters have more personality than the playables), and (Garlean) Ramza from FFXIV. And I guess I like Lyon from Bozja.

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Originally Posted by RotoLoto

I am ELATED. I love the Ivalice stuff. We absolutely need more of it. I hear Bozja is a partial continuation of the story setup in Stormblood, but what I really want is to go to Dalmasca and help with the Resistance there and hang out with some Bangaa and Seeqs. I know I can't have my dream Ivalice MMO, but I'll take as much of it's world integrating with FFXIV as possible!

Also, when are we getting Ivalician Moogles as a playable race?

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You’ll get some semblance with Bozja. It’s not quite the same but it’s set close to Dalmasca, and the DR raid feels similar to how the Ivalice ones did in tone.

Personally I really liked the Ivalice raids but I found the whole thing with fake ramza and fake ramzas sister to be a little bit story for stories sake.