Final Fantasy XIV Hot Takes

1. Endwalker is the laziest content they ever done
2. Endwalker needs grind content

FFXIV is a great game

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Originally Posted by Asphhar

Hot Take: Only good thing about Endwalker is the music.

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Are you including Ultima Thule's BGM in that assessment?


Because it makes me actively avoid that zone.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

Are you including Ultima Thule's BGM in that assessment?


Because it makes me actively avoid that zone.

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Personally, I think the Cymbalta commercial music playing in the background of Ultima Thule was very brave of the dev team!

If they can make the manderville questline mandatory for a relic grind, I can't wait for the day when they make it so you must have bloodsworn/allied with all of the beast tribes to unlock some future relic. Currently 16 beast tribes by the way.

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Originally Posted by Chasingstars

If they can make the manderville questline mandatory for a relic grind, I can't wait for the day when they make it so you must have bloodsworn/allied with all of the beast tribes to unlock some future relic. Currently 16 beast tribes by the way.

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I would have a hearty laugh considering the devs gave away the beasttribe mounts away during their mogwhatever token event so the only reason to do that grind would be for the relic, lol.

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Originally Posted by Raoabolic

I would have a hearty laugh considering the devs gave away the beasttribe mounts away during their mogwhater token event so the only reason to do that grind would be for the relic, lol.

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Really only the ARR ones got affected for those mounts. Another reason to do the ARR ones is they have dye and materials, I know the ixal are fairly relevant to the ARR relic grind. But yea it would be very funny.

Plus there is only 12 beast tribe allowance per day for what quests can be taken. And the ARR beast tribes can eat a lot of that allowance if someone wishes to speed that up, as toward the later ranks you can do 9 of their quests per day. There is also the matter of rank ups, especially from heavensward onward, where the player is given 3 additional quests to complete so a player has to sacrifice what would have been 3 quests for another beast tribe for the one they are working on that day.

If one wishes to slightly speed that up, they would need to know about the mainteance and how it resets the dailies.

Basically a time-gated grind that can take a few months to complete if a person never bothered with them till then, or a simple hand in for players who already did their time.

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Originally Posted by Chasingstars

If they can make the manderville questline mandatory for a relic grind, I can't wait for the day when they make it so you must have bloodsworn/allied with all of the beast tribes to unlock some future relic. Currently 16 beast tribes by the way.

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I would unironically love this, getting rewarded for my obsessive completionist habits would be great.

Banana flavor laffy taffy is the greatest candy ever made.

More of a tepid take really but god I hate the Hildibrand quests lol. The fact they’re practically mandatory now because of relic is egregious. The only redeeming feature of them currently is Pupu because it’s so adorable.

Here’s a real spicy take though: it’s the same people complaining about ‘game too EZ’ who got the game designed this way in the first place. Since 2.0 player constantly complained about anything that would get in the way of optimisation. Support abilities, GCD healing, having to stop attacking for any reason (including complaining about having to cast lol), small hit boxes, melee disengage). Now the developers have removed any and all obstacles to optimisation in the only way they realistically could have - major simplifications. Can’t be sub-optimal if you only have one way to play. That’s why the developers get so confused when they hear complaints about it being too easy . They just made it easier to optimise which is what people kept asking for lol

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Originally Posted by Chasingstars

And the ARR beast tribes can eat a lot of that allowance if someone wishes to speed that up, as toward the later ranks you can do 9 of their quests per day.

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If you do quests from lower ranks you will get less progress. It doesn't speed the whole thing up, it slows it down.

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Originally Posted by Chasingstars

There is also the matter of rank ups, especially from heavensward onward, where the player is given 3 additional quests to complete so a player has to sacrifice what would have been 3 quests for another beast tribe for the one they are working on that day.

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Instead of doing 4 tribes, 3 quests each, you simply do 3 tribes. Not that hard. When you rank up and are below 7 you can take 3 more quests on the same day.

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Originally Posted by Chasingstars

If one wishes to slightly speed that up, they would need to know about the mainteance and how it resets the dailies.

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Knowing when daily reset is doesn't speed things up unless you happen to have spent less than 2 when reset hits. It's the normal daily reset time. You can look at it at "timer".

Having just redone it on an alt; the Loporrit section of the Endwalker MSQ is really no worse than dealing with the moogles, namazu, or pixies in previous expansions. Certainly a lot faster than dealing with the Moghome moogles, at least.

i hate moogles.
particularly their creepy little fingers. why do they have to have fingers.

Deep Dungeons are the laziest form of content. Randomly generated floors, rehashes of every enemy you've seen before, and the bosses are just old things you've fought with a new mechanic cycle.

we need a T pose emote that does nothing else. An emote where you go into T pose for 3 seconds and do nothing while T posing, staring blankly into the souls of those around you

actual hot take: I would appreciate if top surgery scars were an option during customization

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Originally Posted by Local_Custard

actual hot take: I would appreciate if top surgery scars were an option during customization

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Dang, pretty Spicy

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Originally Posted by Local_Custard

actual hot take: I would appreciate if top surgery scars were an option during customization

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honestly probably asking for a bit much considering we don't even have ANY body scar or tattoo customization, as nice as such options would be...

i don't think wanting to more accurately portray your character in-game is a hot take :)

I find Emet-Selch annoying, deeply unlikable, and I think his extended presence (among other things in the Elpis storyline...) made for a worse EW experience.

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Originally Posted by Turnintino

I find Emet-Selch annoying, deeply unlikable, and I think his extended presence (among other things in the Elpis storyline...) made for a worse EW experience.

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While i don't dislike Emet (i liked him as a villain in ShB), I do dislike some of the stuff they did with him. Making it that he was one of our closest friends in a previous life, all the "see he's not a bad guy, he's just grumpy" shit in Elpis (I hate the scene where we're forced to beg him for help "Please, Emet-Selch." ugh my wol would not have gone along with that shit.) and the way they basically force your wol to like him, like all the terrible shit he did is just forgiven and now he's just your slightly grumpy uncle giving you a travel bucket list. Yet another "redeemed" villain to throw in the pile.

For my own hot take, I also dislike a lot of the Ancient shit in general. The Pandaemonium raids are a prefect example. I just don't give a shit about what's going on and want everyone to just shut up. Like what does any of this shit have to do with me? Who are you people? No, I don't care about your daddy issues, Eric. Only story content I've been tempted to skip. We never should have gone back to Elpis. It should have been one and done for the story. Now we have even more time travel shit to deal with, and it was already questionable in EW MSQ.

The only Ancient thing I even really like is Hythlodaeus, and even then he just showed up, looked pretty, was funny and once all was said and done I barely ever thought about him again.

The new hairstyle isn't the problem, your abnormally big foreheads are. I'll even put on a tinfoil hat and say that is the reason why most hairstyles we're getting have rather large, borderline emo bangs to cover them up. Even Windcaller had a conveniently thick headband /think

https://media.tenor.com/irLHbF_s_gAA...head-silly.gif

PS:

I'm happy with it, it gives me petty satisfaction when the shoe is on the other foot. - signed, a male Roe that was tired we only ever got cutesy/feminine hairstyles.

https://vevmo.com/sites/default/files/bye-bitch.gif

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Originally Posted by Allegor

The new hairstyle isn't the problem, your abnormally big foreheads are. I'll even put on a tinfoil hat and say that is the reason why most hairstyles we're getting have rather large, borderline emo bangs to cover them up. Even Windcaller had a conveniently thick headband /think

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The Windcaller one in specific is an actual hairstyle from another game.
https://i.imgur.com/rANJwcg.png

Past that? Yeah. There's a ridiculous amount of short hair options in this game, but if you want to have amazing-looking locks, bowl cuts or bangs, the game all but spoils you.

And this is my Hot Take on the hair thing. Unfortunately, not every hair is made to cater to your race.
Roegadyn have felt this since the start of the game. Hrothgar know it. Pretty much every race out there that easily gets unflattering looks knows it. If you're a race whose model doesn't mesh well with the hairstyle, sorry but you got other choices to pick from. No need to get your knickers in a twist over it.

It's unfortunate, sure, but it's natural. Not everything is fit to other races, and the game can't always be having these issues on the same races.

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Originally Posted by ZeroInfinity

While i don't dislike Emet (i liked him as a villain in ShB), I do dislike some of the stuff they did with him. Making it that he was one of our closest friends in a previous life, all the "see he's not a bad guy, he's just grumpy" shit in Elpis (I hate the scene where we're forced to beg him for help "Please, Emet-Selch." ugh my wol would not have gone along with that shit.) and the way they basically force your wol to like him, like all the terrible shit he did is just forgiven and now he's just your slightly grumpy uncle giving you a travel bucket list. Yet another "redeemed" villain to throw in the pile.

For my own hot take, I also dislike a lot of the Ancient shit in general. The Pandaemonium raids are a prefect example. I just don't give a shit about what's going on and want everyone to just shut up. Like what does any of this shit have to do with me? Who are you people? No, I don't care about your daddy issues, Eric. Only story content I've been tempted to skip. We never should have gone back to Elpis. It should have been one and done for the story. Now we have even more time travel shit to deal with, and it was already questionable in EW MSQ.

The only Ancient thing I even really like is Hythlodaeus, and even then he just showed up, looked pretty, was funny and once all was said and done I barely ever thought about him again.

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Couldn't agree more.

Tangential, and I don't think this is a hot take by any stretch, but it was also just... insane to me that Venat got to keep her memory. I thought for sure that the convenient memory-eraser was inserted solely to tie up all the timey-wimey loose ends... A little lazy, to say the least, but it would've made what we know to be her behavior afterwards a hell of a lot less baffling lol.

Re: Emet, while I can see how he could make for a compelling villain to some players, I was already pretty burned out by the Ascians at that point, so it was just a miss all the way through for me. And even by the end of his storyline in SHB, it was clear we were meant to be sympathetic to him, and I was just, like... No?? Like you said, these writers love to redeem a villain, and while it's not exactly offensive to me that they'd try -- this is a fantasy game -- it's still almost breathtaking that they'd expect us to hand-wave all the genocide just because baby misses his fwends~ uwu

Obviously a lot of people love him, and they are free to do so, but man oh man does he leave me cold. And as you mentioned, it did not help that the narrative forced our character to fall in line with him. If the game had allowed us even a little more freedom to express any kind of distaste or resistance, I probably wouldn't have been quite as annoyed lol.

Ultimates are stupid content that only pander to a super tiny niche of players and are a complete waste of developer time. Also the weapons are really gaudy and ugly.

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Originally Posted by ZeroInfinity

While i don't dislike Emet (i liked him as a villain in ShB), I do dislike some of the stuff they did with him. Making it that he was one of our closest friends in a previous life, all the "see he's not a bad guy, he's just grumpy" shit in Elpis (I hate the scene where we're forced to beg him for help "Please, Emet-Selch." ugh my wol would not have gone along with that shit.) and the way they basically force your wol to like him, like all the terrible shit he did is just forgiven and now he's just your slightly grumpy uncle giving you a travel bucket list. Yet another "redeemed" villain to throw in the pile.

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One thing I feel the need to say is that the Emet we met in Elpis didn't need to be forgiven for anything, we were in the past, that Emet had done nothing and the grumpy-but-has-a-big-heart guy we met was who Emet-Selch used to be, before the trauma of losing everyone he loved and cared for set in and he lost everything, and that changes a man, plus a good chunk of Zodiark tempering which may or may not have been in effect, that's deeply debatable, and you get present-day villain Emet.

What bothered me far more is the scene in Ultima Thule, when Hyth and Emet are summoned, because at that point, that was present-day Emet, a purified Emet that had been returned to the star after his death, but it was still him, and while I enjoy the scene and this didn't ruin anything for me, it did get me thinking that it was a rather glaring flaw, maybe you could argue that the stakes were too high to be picky about who would help us, we accept help from Zenos of a all people shortly after, but it still glosses over everything he did.

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Originally Posted by Midareyukki

The Windcaller one in specific is an actual hairstyle from another game.
https://i.imgur.com/rANJwcg.png

Past that? Yeah. There's a ridiculous amount of short hair options in this game, but if you want to have amazing-looking locks, bowl cuts or bangs, the game all but spoils you.

And this is my Hot Take on the hair thing. Unfortunately, not every hair is made to cater to your race.
Roegadyn have felt this since the start of the game. Hrothgar know it. Pretty much every race out there that easily gets unflattering looks knows it. If you're a race whose model doesn't mesh well with the hairstyle, sorry but you got other choices to pick from. No need to get your knickers in a twist over it.

It's unfortunate, sure, but it's natural. Not everything is fit to other races, and the game can't always be having these issues on the same races.

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Let me tell you, most hair doesnt fit any race. Like modern legend has a kinda exposed forehead on everything but lalafell

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Originally Posted by Shinkuno

Let me tell you, most hair doesnt fit any race. Like modern legend has a kinda exposed forehead on everything but lalafell

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And that's fine. That's exactly what I'm saying: you can't expect generically-made stuff that isn't optimized to your race to always work on you. And that shouldn't come as a surprise. Yet it does to so many people.

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Originally Posted by Midareyukki

And that's fine. That's exactly what I'm saying: you can't expect generically-made stuff that isn't optimized to your race to always work on you. And that shouldn't come as a surprise. Yet it does to so many people.

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But you don't understand, I'm a paying customer so I'm always right and this small indie company needs to cater to my every whim or I'll cry.

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Originally Posted by Allegor

https://media.tenor.com/irLHbF_s_gAA...head-silly.gif

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That's a very unfortunate child.

They should make the raiding scene more desirable instead of cordoning off Salvage from Normal and such. I think we should be given totally new encounters, cutscenes, and story along with the higher tier raiding. And the raiders should be forced to sit through it like Praetorium, the first time.

Raiding hasn't ever felt quite as fulfilling as it did during ARR and ARR 2.1 to 2.55. So maybe I mean, I want more raids like Binding Coil. Higher difficulty, no savage / normal dichotomy(except for the inception of Savage during Second Coil because Devs were salty about those super fast Second Coil clear groups).

As it is now, due to the divorce of difficulty from story progress, you do the harder fights simply for the sake of doing them. The reward structure is actually non-reward once you actually git gud at XIV. The entry level gear is all that's required.

There's a greater Ludo-narrative dissonance too, ever since Heavensward. With there being one form of the fight that's pure fiction, and the real form of the fight that's no real challenge, it makes the WoLs that do, do Savage seem kind of insane. "I'm an extra hard bad ass because I beat the Minstrel's imagination! Yeehaw!"

I don't see the point in Thancred remaining a normal Gunbreaker. The fact he has a major weakness in that he can't use his own aether to charge his gunblade cartridges and is forced to rely on the Scions or anybody else for that matter to do it for him should really be treated as a last resort instead of a natural constant

We have Cid's Ironworks, the remnants of the Garlean Empire and the people of Sharlyan, any of whom could figure out an alternative method for Thancred to charge his gunblade cartridges.

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Originally Posted by Soge01

We have Cid's Ironworks, the remnants of the Garlean Empire and the people of Sharlyan, any of whom could figure out an alternative method for Thancred to charge his gunblade cartridges.

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Isn't MCH low on aether usage specifically so your average, every day commoner can pick up a gun and start blasting? I know we end up backflipping, but so much of it makes use of non-aetheric methods and gadgets.

Plus, he used to be a Ninja, he's used to backflipping even without the need for aether to guide him.

:T he literally could have gone for that than the one that specifically requires a crutch caster to load his gun.

Then again, Trusts needed a tank, and we couldn't rely on the Exarch to tank all the time.

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Originally Posted by Midareyukki

Isn't MCH low on aether usage specifically so your average, every day commoner can pick up a gun and start blasting? I know we end up backflipping, but so much of it makes use of non-aetheric methods and gadgets.

Plus, he used to be a Ninja, he's used to backflipping even without the need for aether to guide him.

:T he literally could have gone for that than the one that specifically requires a crutch caster to load his gun.

Then again, Trusts needed a tank, and we couldn't rely on the Exarch to tank all the time.

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The thing is, Thancred can't use his aether at all. Otherwise it can cause some really severe problems. His fight with Ranjit in Shadowbringers shows that. Thancred almost died using his own aether against him. So him being a MCH wouldn't be possible for him, not matter how little aether it uses, because it still requires the user to consciously convert their aether into lightning aspected aether in order to power their arsenal of weapons.

He was actually a Rogue, not a Ninja. But was pretty much on par with a Ninja and was strong enough to clash blades with Ardbert, a Warrior and force the latter back. So it actually does make sense for Thancred to become a Tank at some point, if you think about that coupled with his experience as a Gladitor, too. Gunbreaker is actually a pretty perfect job for him, its just that his specific gunblade still requiring external help from others to charge his cartridges jusr doesn't make any sense any more at this point.

It made sense for Thancred to have this handicap in Shadowbringers because he and the rest of the Scions were stuck in a complwtely different world and the people of the Crysterium were able to figure out to use some of the Crystal Tower's tech, but not all of it. Otherwise the Crysterium would look more like Allag than what it currently does.

So when the Scions finally returned to the Source, I was hoping Thancred's handicap would be resolved considering the literal arsenal of big brain tech nerds scattered across Eoreza alone. But it never happend, unfortunately and it probably never will, which is a shame. Because I was hoping to see Thancred finally get some of his self reliance back after he lost his ability to use aether and had picked up Gunbreaker in order to be the Scion's shield. :<

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Originally Posted by Soge01

He was actually a Rogue, not a Ninja.

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if anything.., story wise. the rogues gained some Job/Class intermingling with Ninjas at some point.., it's even more so obvious when you've done such Job quests.
[Kinda Similar to how monks are treated at a certain point..,]

But in either case.., it doesn't take much to do some swings he is more than capable of..,

But asides that, he really is held back..,[Or maybe not]
<but the fact we don't know how frequently he Replenishes.., he's a master DD like combatant. or The rest of the Scions got some made multitasking than we can normally see..,>

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Originally Posted by Soge01

I don't see the point in Thancred remaining a normal Gunbreaker. The fact he has a major weakness in that he can't use his own aether to charge his gunblade cartridges and is forced to rely on the Scions or anybody else for that matter to do it for him should really be treated as a last resort instead of a natural constant

We have Cid's Ironworks, the remnants of the Garlean Empire and the people of Sharlyan, any of whom could figure out an alternative method for Thancred to charge his gunblade cartridges.

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I don't recall if it was ever addressed, but if it was, I guess it's technically a hot take(?): we should've healed Thancred and Y'shtola when we remade their bodies using a mix of aether and dynamis. Both their handicaps are caused by aether, but I doubt the damage was such that it affected even their soul.

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Originally Posted by GTK0HLK

if anything.., story wise. the rogues gained some Job/Class intermingling with Ninjas at some point.., it's even more so obvious when you've done such Job quests.
[Kinda Similar to how monks are treated at a certain point..,]

But in either case.., it doesn't take much to do some swings he is more than capable of..,

But asides that, he really is held back..,[Or maybe not]
<but the fact we don't know how frequently he Replenishes.., he's a master DD like combatant. or The rest of the Scions got some made multitasking than we can normally see..,>

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I thought the whole Ninja and Rogue inter mingling thing happened very recently. :o

Yup! He showed off his swinging skills as both a Gladiator and Rogue. Particularly as a Rogue in Heavenward, if you think about it. He used a rather one handed blade in conjunction with his usual old smaller arm. He was quite the arm strength and it kind of annoys me we never got weapon with his HW cash shop outfit. :'<

As a fighter, he's pretty much great on his own. Its just the aether thing required for his weapon that's suprisingly never been confronted or dealt with. I think in Shadowbringers, it was Ryne and Y'shtola that were Thancred's primary aether dealer. Then in Endwalker, Urianger took over that role as well as becoming his traveling partner so he could keep giving Thancred the aether doses he needs for his gunblade.

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Originally Posted by Allegor

I don't recall if it was ever addressed, but if it was, I guess it's technically a hot take(?): we should've healed Thancred and Y'shtola when we remade their bodies using a mix of aether and dynamis. Both their handicaps are caused by aether, but I doubt the damage was such that it affected even their soul.

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I think the damage is just both physical and corporal damage. And it might extend to their souls? Souls are made of corporal aether, but I'm guessing there's second layer of aether surrounding the soul that acts as the internal fuel for their bodies. In Shadowbringers, it was pointed out that the Scions were nothing but souls with aether acting as their "new" bodies, thus making them solid, instead of being invisible and intangible ghosts like Ardbert.

I can only guess that the reason why the WoL didn't fixed their handicaps when they brought them back with Azem's crystal was because the WoL summoned them back as they most recently remembered them, damaged aether, eyes and all. Plus, I kind of wouldn't trust the WoL with restoring Thancred's ability to manipulate aether and Y'shtola's eyesight. Remember, WoL's the same person that created the Eden version of the ARR primals who look almost nothing like their ARR counterparts. So, I can't imagine how much they'd screw up Thancred and Y'shtola if they tried to fix their handicaps with aether and dynamis. xD

Rogue should have never merged with Ninja, it should have remained Thief. FFXIV Devs did a iconic job, THF wrong

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Originally Posted by Turnintino

I find Emet-Selch annoying, deeply unlikable, and I think his extended presence (among other things in the Elpis storyline...) made for a worse EW experience.

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don't worry, I hate him and that ugly cat boy, I find him extremely annoying with the other scions

End of Heavensward Spoiler:

Killing Papalymo only to essentially replace him with Krile was freaking lame. Like you killed him off and immediately substituted the dude with someone sitting on the bench. Papalymo deserved more development and more screen time. Did we get Krile instead because she's cute or what?

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Originally Posted by SeriousPan

End of Heavensward Spoiler:

Killing Papalymo only to essentially replace him with Krile was freaking lame. Like you killed him off and immediately substituted the dude with someone sitting on the bench. Papalymo deserved more development and more screen time. Did we get Krile instead because she's cute or what?

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I don't think she acts as his replacement at all. They're two Lala and that's it.
If anything Krile is Minfilia 2.0. (generic nice girl with no personality traits). Ironically more than Ryne, who's her own character.