What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

WoL(Meteor) is just the Scions prize fighter. Only seen as a hero or weapon/tool they can use to solve all their problems. Only characters that saw WoL as a adventurer/person are either dead or presumed dead. Which were Haurchefant Greystone and Zenos Galvus. All other big names see the WoL as Hero First and Adventurer/Person second.

If they wanted to expand the WoL beyond the Scions they would have done so across multiple expansions where the WoL is there during these big events but the main character of the expansion is a new NPC.

WoL amounts to little more then the Scion's Enforcer. The Scions serve as the body while you serve as both their Sword and Shield.

You got side stories with little to no Scion involvement but even then the WoL is just taking orders from questgivers.

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Wow aren't you so cool calling out the typical MMO format for MC interaction.

This thread continues to be a joke even when it has been derailed by random "um achktually the characters are just x when you really think about it" keyboard authors.

That boot flavored ice cream is really popular I see.

At any rate, I figure it's worth posting another invite to the Discord server that formed around this thread since it's a good way to keep in touch with those who invest in the game's story but who have since quit or are taking a break:

https://discord.gg/4Ea8Rd4X

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Originally Posted by ReynTime

By the way I can't put any faith in the current English localization manager when she can't even pronounce Bozja right, even right after Yoshida himself said it a few seconds before her translation.

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Eh, that's just localizers in general now a days. Personally, i'm still waiting for them to fix the lelumanati to blueblood like the JP script.

For all its faults, I can't remember disliking any of the voice acting in Endwalker. Man, are they committed to sacrificing Dawntrail to make EW look better by comparison? :/ I need to go to bed. Giving this too much thought.

When they split the staff to make FF16 the scenario writing took a nosedive. Dunno what happened to the writing and pacing after the fantastic job they did in Shadowbringers but it's pretty mediocre in comparison. I quit playing for 5 or 6 months because post EW launch was so boring I just stopped caring. Only resubbed to accrue gear for Pictomancer in advance.

I don't think the Voice Acting in EW sucked at all. The writing and pacing was just not good.

It's by design, I suspect. They now appear to be writing not for those who actually took the time to pay attention to every little bit of lore but the most basic, surface level takes that shy away from nuance and allow for the game to trend on social media.

If I wanted to get spicy I could also also point out how the consistency and tone of the writing took a nosedive right around the same time that the development team ceased pretending that they weren't just catering almost exclusively to the players who heavily alter the game files, proudly upload screenshots of doing as much and who basically treat it not as Final Fantasy XIV but some creepy Second Life sequel instead.

I do not think the game was ever the deepest story ever, mind you - though it gripped my attention the most in Shadowbringers due to how it chose to handle the Amaurot reveal. Endwalker then attempting to excuse genocide so long as the pretty mother goddess figure is the one conducting it simply made me roll my eyes as it retroactively lessened the previous expansion's highest moments.

My problem with the writing these days is coming from the fact that square utterly refuses to write in side content lore into the MSQ because they are afraid that people won’t understand if they only do the MSQ

Big examples of this were Gaia in 5.5 and the entire void crew from the role quests in the void storyline

People are actively being punished for doing side quests with worse lore because the justifications for why they don’t include these characters and lore pieces is paper thin and doesn’t even make sense half the time

Start including side content as you would expect it to appear and if people don’t want to do it they should just look up who said character is, it shouldn’t be the other way around

They do alright with smaller self contained stories and sidequests. I just don't trust the current team with high stakes plots anymore. So the fact they no longer bother with adding proper job quest scripts is pretty disappointing to me.
Again the sooner they move on from Endwalker's threads, the better. They've done enough sloppy patchwork with all the lore that wasn't even theirs to begin with.

It's one of the most frustrating elements of the game as a former lore enthusiast. When I was more deeply invested in the setting I would take the time to do every side quest and even pay attention to the little scraps of lore that you would see in FATE's and item descriptions. It was my belief that it would all ultimately tie together as something consistent.

I think a lot of the side content was actually pretty great and it's a shame so little of it ended up being acknowledged in the MSQ's even when and where it would make sense. One of the most jarring aspects to me was the fate that befell Regula van Hydrus. It's a pretty big deal for a high ranking soldier to put aside differences with the protagonists and sacrifice himself in order to protect one of them. Especially when his dying words directly referenced his best friend, the Emperor of Garlemald himself. Though by the time a confrontation with Varis zos Galvus came about there was no option to bring up Regula even in passing.

I never expected the story to be particularly deep, granted, though the only reason I bothered to invest in it in the first place was due to the high praise Yoshi-P was giving the Ivalice games. I assumed, then, that a similar level of maturity and tact was to be in store for us rather than just surface level references.

Perhaps it was originally the intention before the game was hijacked by the venue and modbeast crowd. The game is certainly catering to them more and more blatantly these days, both in terms of emotes, housing furniture and a lack of meaningful stakes for characters who seem to exist as little more than body pillows who gush over how amazing the player character supposedly is. Alongside the development team doing stuff like making sure that food is animated to look as realistic as possible and beats of sweat drip down Estinien's shirtless form even as it desperately tried to avoid showing the confrontation between Hydaelyn and Zodiark in its raw, unfiltered form.

It is what it is, I suppose. I don't expect much more from this game in the future other than increasingly tone deaf writing, overly preachy and hypocritical protagonists and bizarre Hildibrand style emotes. I get my fix from other games these days and intend to let my subscription lapse again very soon.

A lot of my disgust for the game in its current form stems from matters unrelated to the story, at any rate. The horrific treatment of Susan Calloway being a prime example. I predict that the community will continue to tear itself apart between now and Dawntrail since that's almost a year without any fresh content other than a minor crossover event scheduled for April.

Why make the effort to have well made food when ppl will eat shit and even praise it? Everything means nothing in the face of profit and if the momentum is at one side then the other does not exist. Literally telling ppl what to think or get punished. It's a facade and theatrics and will blow any way the ideologies are at the time.
I dunno how i would feel as a dev having been there from the start when you see everything unmade in front of your eyes or better yet get to undo it yourself.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

It's one of the most frustrating elements of the game as a former lore enthusiast. When I was more deeply invested in the setting I would take the time to do every side quest and even pay attention to the little scraps of lore that you would see in FATE's and item descriptions. It was my belief that it would all ultimately tie together as something consistent.

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What I recommend you do if you want to enjoy the game as it is is that you look for the scraps of inspirational greatness that is often hidden in the most unassuming of places within the game. If you want a cohesive whole, forget it, there's too many writers on board with contradictory sentiments who can't be as raw and personal as they would be with private projects. I remember another poster talk about how there might have been issues with one writer deciding to kill of characters that another one previously introduced with perhaps originally other plans for them which might have led to a sense of animosity within staff. Unfortunately such issues can only be addressed via raw communication that often will lay bare the very foundations of one's passions as a writer, foundations that may radically contradict each other's and that are only with great difficulty woven together into a cohesive mural. Especially when you write for a brand with a priori restrictions and have to deal with executive meddling on top of that.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

Perhaps it was originally the intention before the game was hijacked by the venue and modbeast crowd. The game is certainly catering to them more and more blatantly these days, both in terms of emotes, housing furniture and a lack of meaningful stakes for characters who seem to exist as little more than body pillows who gush over how amazing the player character supposedly is.

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There is an overlap between venue goers and story enjoyers, but let me assure you that your image of them is out of touch. These are often people who are invested in or even personally write stories (fanfiction often, sure) that number 1) do romance at all which XIV it seems will not touch with a five yard stick even though it's one of the greatest topics to write about ever and basically part of FF's DNA, number 2) do tragedy way better than XIV itself and that number 3) really dive deep into the complex, often dark psychology of their characters. There's a lot of meme-worthy junk around for sure, but don't underestimate the taste of venue-goers. These people know that you can still gush over fictional characters even if you can't romance them in the game or if they are in a relationship with another character - just look at fan-favorite Ameliance. No, the fact that none of the characters in our immediate vicinity have anything going on is because of the writer's idiocy, not your fellow player's.

It's that it's almost impossible to have a good story given the circumstances that an MMO finds itself in, even when it allegedly focuses on telling a story. You are lucky if you strike gold once. XIV did it twice, once with the Seventh Umbral Calamity plotline, once with Shadowbringers. There are countless little examples to be found as well. Focus on those if you want to enjoy the story.

As another example, look at what happened to FFVII's lore when it got infinitely expanded across the Compilation of FFVII. It became an absolute mess.

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Originally Posted by Eisi

Personally invested in/out of touch etc.

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The thing about anyone who plays FFXIV only to use it as artistic inspiration and what not, no matter how heavily they're invested in its story, is that it does not matter if they are not also equally invested in its gameplay.

The story is just one facet of any MMO, and while it does bring in the crowds, the game itself once was able to, too, without yet being able to be said to be one of the best storylines in all of Final Fantasy.

When the game itself is declining in quality, then it becomes harder to play to just enjoy the stories. When there's a lull or wait for more story, it is imperative that the game itself is still a fun game that prides itself on its gameplay. That is what keeps people around when the ink in the quill runs dry.

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Originally Posted by Vyrerus

When the game itself is declining in quality, then it becomes harder to play to just enjoy the stories. When there's a lull or wait for more story, it is imperative that the game itself is still a fun game that prides itself on its gameplay. That is what keeps people around when the ink in the quill runs dry.

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I am most concerned about this especially due to the content drought the game will be going through for the next 5-7 months. The quality of the gameplay has diminished greatly and what little story crumbs provided have largely been uneventful and do not inspire confidence about what is to come in the future.

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Originally Posted by ZavosEsperian

I am most concerned about this especially due to the content drought the game will be going through for the next 5-7 months. The quality of the gameplay has diminished greatly and what little story crumbs provided have largely been uneventful and do not inspire confidence about what is to come in the future.

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I am in agreement here, I did that thing recommended and played other games while maintaining my house/FC house. I now have a pre-order on WoW:War Within and have established I will wait for Dawntrail to be on sale as it doesn't seem worth full price for me when the content I would be wanting is a year out at best in an exploratory zone. Thankfully I can still maintain my houses without the expansion. As for the latest story I still haven't done it as again I found another game (as recommended) and am having more fun there and I know the patch content is probably about 3 hours I can knock out whenever.

I have started going back and doing New Game + during content droughts like this. I have forgotten a lot of things and I can make a run as a single job through the MSQ which only really means something to me.

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Originally Posted by ZavosEsperian

I am most concerned about this especially due to the content drought the game will be going through for the next 5-7 months. The quality of the gameplay has diminished greatly and what little story crumbs provided have largely been uneventful and do not inspire confidence about what is to come in the future.

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Yeah, I expect bitter videos surrounding XIV to become the norm again like half way through the lull. Then the typical forgetting how much they hated the game during the lull once the expac drops... Assuming it gives as much content on release as prior expacs.

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Originally Posted by SieyaM

I have started going back and doing New Game + during content droughts like this. I have forgotten a lot of things and I can make a run as a single job through the MSQ which only really means something to me.

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I've never actually utilized NG+ in XIV. To me it's kind of a worthless feature, though I'm sure many people appreciate it.

I myself, when I want to re-experience XIV, start a brand new character from scratch. I've done this a total of 7 times over the course of the game's history, the majority of characters I've done this on were between Stormblood and Shadowbringers, and I used to play 2 different characters for raiding purposes since Patch 2.1.

Endwalker was the first time I haven't remade a character from scratch to completely re-experience the story, and since I no longer raid, my second character is still in like 6.2.

I feel like a lot of people have already re-experienced XIV's stories at least twice, either through NG+ or through alts. I don't think it'll be something a lot of folks do during the patch lull.

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Originally Posted by SieyaM

I have started going back and doing New Game + during content droughts like this. I have forgotten a lot of things and I can make a run as a single job through the MSQ which only really means something to me.

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Yeah I did too again recently.

My views still haven't changed much even re-experiencing the stories all again. I still find Heavensward the best of the stories and most powerful, and ironically its the one with the least amount of Scion involvement. Shadowbringers being the second best. And admittedly ARR... as long as you don't include the after content... is also really good and feels very free and world content rich.

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Originally Posted by Vyrerus

Yeah, I expect bitter videos surrounding XIV to become the norm again like half way through the lull. Then the typical forgetting how much they hated the game during the lull once the expac drops... Assuming it gives as much content on release as prior expacs.




I've never actually utilized NG+ in XIV. To me it's kind of a worthless feature, though I'm sure many people appreciate it.

I myself, when I want to re-experience XIV, start a brand new character from scratch. I've done this a total of 7 times over the course of the game's history, the majority of characters I've done this on were between Stormblood and Shadowbringers, and I used to play 2 different characters for raiding purposes since Patch 2.1.

Endwalker was the first time I haven't remade a character from scratch to completely re-experience the story, and since I no longer raid, my second character is still in like 6.2.

I feel like a lot of people have already re-experienced XIV's stories at least twice, either through NG+ or through alts. I don't think it'll be something a lot of folks do during the patch lull.

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What I prefer about NG+ is that I don't have to mess around with any side content if I don't want to I can just run the MSQ.

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Originally Posted by SieyaM

What I prefer about NG+ is that I don't have to mess around with any side content if I don't want to I can just run the MSQ.

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Alts tend to be my preferred method of reexperiencing the story. Usually the alts have some RP-related restrictions applied to them as to make it so I dont end up pivoting to my main class (at least early on). Really only major thing on alts that tends to be a pain is leveling specific jobs to 30 for PvP since I do prefer running that on something I like.

I'm trying my darnedest to muster the gumption to do a replay to see the HW dungeon reworks firsthand, but every time I start up the game I just wind up closing it.

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Originally Posted by Vyrerus

I'm trying my darnedest to muster the gumption to do a replay to see the HW dungeon reworks firsthand, but every time I start up the game I just wind up closing it.

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Both A Realm Reborn and Heavensward dungeons had very little changes outside some of the bosses' mechanics becoming more consistent with Shadowbringers and Endwalker design.
They changed Toto-rak completely but the other dungeons' layout and trash mobs had almost no changes.

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Originally Posted by ReynTime

Both A Realm Reborn and Heavensward dungeons had very little changes outside some of the bosses' mechanics becoming more consistent with Shadowbringers and Endwalker design.
They changed Toto-rak completely but the other dungeons' layout and trash mobs had almost no changes.

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I'd have to kinda disagree,

They really did change entire schema for some of the boss fights. There's this one in Stone Vigil which was the Dragon fight with the whirlwinds and the Bertha cannons, that's gone now. They have a new boss in a new location but only includes the whirlwinds. They moved the cannon portion to Stone Vigil hard where its not in a boss fight anymore but rather groups of trash mobs with no whirlwinds.

Caught me off guard the first time I went through it again because I instantly turned right for the Boss fight and am standing in this ruined room while the rest of the party moved on and I'm going... wait this used to be a boss fight here.

And its not the only one like that' there's a lot of the old dungeons that had fun parts in them like that which have been completely removed. I just wondered... why... because they weren't overdone or that incredibly difficult to figure out. And the characters are so much stronger these days I find it hard to believe they'd have become some kind of unpassable challenge.

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Originally Posted by Silverquick

I'd have to kinda disagree,

They really did change entire schema for some of the boss fights. There's this one in Stone Vigil which was the Dragon fight with the whirlwinds and the Bertha cannons, that's gone now. They have a new boss in a new location but only includes the whirlwinds. They moved the cannon portion to Stone Vigil hard where its not in a boss fight anymore but rather groups of trash mobs with no whirlwinds.

Caught me off guard the first time I went through it again because I instantly turned right for the Boss fight and am standing in this ruined room while the rest of the party moved on and I'm going... wait this used to be a boss fight here.

And its not the only one like that' there's a lot of the old dungeons that had fun parts in them like that which have been completely removed. I just wondered... why... because they weren't overdone or that incredibly difficult to figure out. And the characters are so much stronger these days I find it hard to believe they'd have become some kind of unpassable challenge.

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I imagine the biggest reason is because gimmick mechanics like that were doing opposite of preparing people for actual content later down the line. ARR and even some specific examples from HW really experimented a lot before settling into a sort of a pace by Stormblood, hence why Stormblood dungeons were barely changed. That's why a lot of fights feel much more generic, they actually represent "low difficulty, early tutorial" fights much better now.

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Originally Posted by Silverquick

I'd have to kinda disagree,

They really did change entire schema for some of the boss fights. There's this one in Stone Vigil which was the Dragon fight with the whirlwinds and the Bertha cannons, that's gone now. They have a new boss in a new location but only includes the whirlwinds. They moved the cannon portion to Stone Vigil hard where its not in a boss fight anymore but rather groups of trash mobs with no whirlwinds.

Caught me off guard the first time I went through it again because I instantly turned right for the Boss fight and am standing in this ruined room while the rest of the party moved on and I'm going... wait this used to be a boss fight here.

And its not the only one like that' there's a lot of the old dungeons that had fun parts in them like that which have been completely removed. I just wondered... why... because they weren't overdone or that incredibly difficult to figure out. And the characters are so much stronger these days I find it hard to believe they'd have become some kind of unpassable challenge.

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The boss is still there. The room being redesigned and redesigning the boss is the same thing. It's in the same location. They changed boss mechanics to focus more on the type of design that is consistent with Shadowbringers and Endwalker instead of the more gimmicky mechanics that ARR and HW bosses had.
I've revisited most of the ARR and HW dungeons, and there wasn't any reduction of bosses, just redesigned fights and arenas. They're still 3 bosses in the same locations.

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Originally Posted by Silverquick

They moved the cannon portion to Stone Vigil hard where its not in a boss fight anymore but rather groups of trash mobs with no whirlwinds.

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The cannons in Hard were always there. See MTQ's guide from nine years ago.

I wanted to come back to this topic once i finally played through 6.5 and 6.55 and give my thoughts on the story. The stories have been so bad that i played through Eden for the first time and skipped all cutscenes and only skim read it. Played most of 6.5 and skipped all the game would let me. I know that Eden is not EW. I just can't stand another "Darkness is bad but light can also be" cringe fest and all those bad tropes FFXIV writing is drenched in. I started to hate the story. FFXIV - all of it - is the worst story i have ever witnessed. It's full of boring clichès, padding, making up stuff as you go, stakeless battles etc. I don't want to start a fight. I just realized FFXIV at it's core embodies basically all the tropes i hate in fiction and wears them as a badge. You can like it and i hope you enjoy it. At least i finally realized there is nothing for me there.

Got to reading TVTropes again, and going through a few of them in relation to XIV's narrative in Endwalker, I feel like these all apply but weren't invoked as I recall.

Ancient Conspiracy

"Sometimes the ancient conspiracy is neutral or a force for good, such as an Ancient Order of Protectors, but more often than not it is evil (when it is a force for good, it often still does extremely evil things because its members believe they serve the greater good). Occasionally (primarily in series by writers who understood earlier source material such as the Illuminatus! trilogy), the obvious ancient conspiracy is later discovered to be an offshoot of an even more Ancient Tradition which has lost its way; in such cases, the real Ancient Tradition may provide some veiled and ambiguous assistance to the protagonists, though they will remain aloof themselves."

Knight Templar

"It's important to note that despite being villainous within the context of the story, Knights Templar fully believe that they are on the side of righteousness and draw strength from it and that their opponents are not. Trying to reason with one isn't much good either, because many Knight Templar types believe that if you're not with them, you're against them. Invoking actual goodness and decency will have no effect, besides making Knights Templar hate you and demonize your cause as the work of The Devil. After all, they are certain that only their cause is noble, and anyone who stands in the way is at best a deluded fool who needs to be "corrected", or at worst an evildoer who needs to die. And doing so is not even Dirty Business (except sometimes, for how much it makes them suffer, having to hand out all this justice)."

Moral Myopia

"Moral Myopia is where some in-universe group’s moral standard is hypocritical because the morality of an action depends entirely upon who's doing it."

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Originally Posted by Vyrerus

Moral Myopia

"Moral Myopia is where some in-universe group’s moral standard is hypocritical because the morality of an action depends entirely upon who's doing it."

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Moral Myopia is an ever present trope you can find inside of the story, ranging from regicide, patricide, to other words that may or may not rhyme. Back in the older expansions, these points were at least addressed but in more current stories, this is not something you see as often.

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Originally Posted by TheMightyMollusk

The cannons in Hard were always there. See MTQ's guide from nine years ago.

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Maybe... I don't remember Storm Vigil Hard as well... but they used to be at that fight too. Here's the MTQ guide from that time period for Stone Vigil normal. That fight is way different now. @1:48. Now that fight is just the dragon and some whirlwinds, the fun parts are gone and there's no roof over it anymore. It's sleepwalk city now even though it actually managed to take out players on occasion back then. That is a major change which alters the entire thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zokx7g6VbbY

So I stringently disagree, they changed the entire scheme for some of those boss fights when it wasn't really needed.

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Originally Posted by Silverquick

Maybe... I don't remember Storm Vigil Hard as well... but they used to be at that fight too. Here's the MTQ guide from that time period for Stone Vigil normal. That fight is way different now. @1:48. Now that fight is just the dragon and some whirlwinds, the fun parts are gone and there's no roof over it anymore. It's sleepwalk city now even though it actually managed to take out players on occasion back then. That is a major change which alters the entire thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zokx7g6VbbY

So I stringently disagree, they changed the entire scheme for some of those boss fights when it wasn't really needed.

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I'm....not sure what you're disagreeing with? Your previous post implied the cannons in the corridor on Hard were new. I pointed out that they're not. I'm well aware of the ARR dungeon reworks. I'd argue that some are better for it (every boss in Copperbell) and some are worse for it (the final bosses in Haukke Manor and Brayflox come to mind), but that wasn't what the previous post was about.

What Silverquick is trying to drive at is that the dungeons didn't actually need to be changed, and the changes they made weren't actually for the sake of new players. Nor were they for better design.

They were for making them easy to tailor to Duty Support Trust NPCs. I don't know for sure, but since Trusts generally can only do one thing at a time.... deal damage, heal, or dodge an AOE, it's really more that these dungeons were changed and stripped of their real mechanics because Trusts could not be made to do them.

The entire philosophy behind Duty Support is that the Trusts carry the player, and the player only has to, at bare minimum, "Trust the Trusts." i.e. Follow NPCs to safe zones, let NPCs do the fight for you, let NPCs heal/tank for you etc.

He's basically disagreeing with the idea that the changes to the dungeons were minor.

While he may be mistaken on the exact particulars, I understand the sentiment. I don't like the loss of originality either.

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Originally Posted by Vyrerus

What Silverquick is trying to drive at is that the dungeons didn't actually need to be changed, and the changes they made weren't actually for the sake of new players. Nor were they for better design.

They were for making them easy to tailor to Duty Support Trust NPCs. I don't know for sure, but since Trusts generally can only do one thing at a time.... deal damage, heal, or dodge an AOE, it's really more that these dungeons were changed and stripped of their real mechanics because Trusts could not be made to do them.

The entire philosophy behind Duty Support is that the Trusts carry the player, and the player only has to, at bare minimum, "Trust the Trusts." i.e. Follow NPCs to safe zones, let NPCs do the fight for you, let NPCs heal/tank for you etc.

He's basically disagreeing with the idea that the changes to the dungeons were minor.

While he may be mistaken on the exact particulars, I understand the sentiment. I don't like the loss of originality either.

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Agreed. The changes generally caused a lot of the dungeons to lose their originality. Some of the dungeons suffer from this more than other, and it shouldn't be discounted that boss design was also impacted, granted some of the bosses from ARR did need changing due to how they work, as I would find it hard to find someone who would disagree with Copperbell's reworked fights.

All that said, this was ofc done for the duty support system since the support characters cannot do complex tasks.

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Originally Posted by ZavosEsperian

as I would find it hard to find someone who would disagree with Copperbell's reworked fights.

All that said, this was ofc done for the duty support system since the support characters cannot do complex tasks.

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Here I am. The slime boss trades one tedium for another, and largely removes the lesson that mechanics oughtn’t be ignored. The first giant not having minions removes emphasis on how long and deep they’ve been there - similar to but less so than the removal of estine’s heal check in the eyrie. The final boss doesn’t have minions emphasising his importance anymore either, the giant leader just having slow predictable aoes that aren’t quite the same shape as other giants untelegraphed swing/swipe/glower. On the positive side, they seem to have a more appropriate health pool for the average gear people wear there.

As an addendum, self-recentering bosses actively teach bad tanking and should be receive nothing but scorn. They could easily have turned the last boss into baby’s first coincounter, with helpful patterns on the floor when centred to show where the potentially threatening aoes are likely to be. Hell, make them deal a flat 50% damage if not dodged, the healer gets to heal and any clipped dps are likely to regen to full by the time the next comes out anyway.

They can’t do simple tasks either, aoe on two or more is beyond basic and yet they refuse. Utter waste of resources.

Sadly the game has been so dumbed down there won't ever be an epic fight for an msq boss/villain etc , they'll all be faceroll content. I didn't have any problems with endwalker story, I enjoyed it. Except that cutscene when you fly out to space on the ark... That was straight up like watching a super low budget kids puppet show , such bad animation.

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Originally Posted by ZavosEsperian

I would find it hard to find someone who would disagree with Copperbell's reworked fights.

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Copperbell's reworks miss the mark in my opinion. They were clearly designed by an SHB or later battle dev, placing far more importance on dodging particular AOE types, rather than having memorable dungeon encounters tied to lore.

In particular, the change to the slime boss got rid of an FFXI reference to the Gigaplasm from Bastok Nation mission 9-1, as well as its real mechanics, which sets up new players to expect ANYTHING from later bosses in the game.

Basically, old Copperbell Mines was designed for the Vitruvian Man whereas new Copperbell is designed for apes that haven't contacted the Space Odyssey monoliths yet.

It's actually the epitome of the changes made to FFXIV over the years. Even its old game tended to treat players like they were fully engaged and reading everything, and queued in to notice environmental storytelling. New XIV is literally just, "Don't stand in the colorful markers."

See the changes to Steps of Faith and Pharos Sirius as well to get earlier examples of this.

We will and have been robbed of everything that makes players grow and love the game.

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Originally Posted by fulminating

Here I am. The slime boss trades one tedium for another, and largely removes the lesson that mechanics oughtn’t be ignored. The first giant not having minions removes emphasis on how long and deep they’ve been there - similar to but less so than the removal of estine’s heal check in the eyrie. The final boss doesn’t have minions emphasising his importance anymore either, the giant leader just having slow predictable aoes that aren’t quite the same shape as other giants untelegraphed swing/swipe/glower.

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I don't think there was anything about the first two Copperbell bosses pre-6.1 you couldn't have already learned or intuited from doing Hall of the Novice (and probably not too), and I never had a party where anyone cared about killing Gyges' adds. If they had retooled those fights without duty support ever being a thing I don't think anyone would care (regardless of the above) since they were that boring.

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Originally Posted by Dorito_Burrito

I don't think there was anything about the first two Copperbell bosses pre-6.1 you couldn't have already learned or intuited from doing Hall of the Novice (and probably not too), and I never had a party where anyone cared about killing Gyges' adds. If they had retooled those fights without duty support ever being a thing I don't think anyone would care (regardless of the above) since they were that boring.

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Hall of the Novice is not mandatory.

I'm an ardent defender of ARR's game design.
ARR always had the best dungeon design in the entire game, and frankly anyone who disagrees might as well praise Final Fantasy XIII level design.

I'll concede that the removal of some of the boss mechanics in the MSQ dungeons from ARR were unnecessary. But Copperbell only benefitted from the redesign. The layout is literally the same as before. They focused on changing the bosses.
The boss design in that dungeon was horrendous. Duty Support is not engaging, but a boss where the whole party spends 2/3 of the time waiting to take any action and a boss that involves waiting for the weak adds to slowly make their way to you only to die in 3 seconds each are even less engaging. Boss fights where half the party just stands around waiting are trash.
Even the last boss was trash. Or rather became trash, because for the past 2~3 expansions you never had to bother dealing with its original mechanic unless your party had miraculously bad dps.

TO BE FAIR, a lot of the reworks are a result of the Trust NPCs not able to do crazy mechanics so the reworks were there to ensure they could be done with Trusts. RIP in peace Sohr Khai, your final boss will be sorely missed. ;_;7