Final Fantasy XIV Hot Takes

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Originally Posted by DiaDeem

I have one, actually: Footsteps in the Snow is better than Oblivion, and it's the best Shiva theme in this game.

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I just don't like Oblivion period.
I think Return to Oblivion is a much better companion piece to Footsteps than Oblivion ever was.

Speaking of this, here's another take: with the exception of Garuda/Ifrit every single Eden primal remix is superior to the original.

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Originally Posted by Kazhar

I just don't like Oblivion period.
I think Return to Oblivion is a much better companion piece to Footsteps than Oblivion ever was.

Speaking of this, here's another take: with the exception of Garuda/Ifrit every single Eden primal remix is superior to the original.

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Eh, Garuda/ifrit remix is better than primal judgement for sure but not fallen angel so it's win some lose some.

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Originally Posted by Kazhar

I just don't like Oblivion period.
I think Return to Oblivion is a much better companion piece to Footsteps than Oblivion ever was.

Speaking of this, here's another take: with the exception of Garuda/Ifrit every single Eden primal remix is superior to the original.

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I will not accept this Ysayle slander!

My hot take is that the majority of jobs are better now than they have been. RIP to healers and Dark Knights specifically but everything else is either better or maybe just slightly worse but not enough to be worth complaining about. Condolences to old smn mains though. I enjoy the new smn a fair bit and it's definitely my preferred caster now but I feel for the people who liked the old playstyle and then got something completely different.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

Y'shtola is basically the resident Ice Queen everybody is obsessed with for some reason despite her only personality being "cold and distant." She has basically been the one Scion I feel like my WoL would constantly argue with, and the only times I have felt like I've seen personality from her are when she's with Runar, and the goofiness in 6.1. Like seriously, it's sad that those have been the ONLY times I've seen actual personality from her.

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Actually, Y'shtola is easier to relate to if you think of her as a cat. All her personality traits mirror what you'd expect from a talking feline. It's why she's so popular, especially in Japan.

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Originally Posted by Kacho_Nacho

Actually, Y'shtola is easier to relate to if you think of her as a cat. All her personality traits mirror what you'd expect from a talking feline. It's why she's so popular, especially in Japan.

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...which may be why I dislike her so much.

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Originally Posted by Kazhar

Speaking of this, here's another take: with the exception of Garuda/Ifrit every single Eden primal remix is superior to the original.

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Really? I actually really like the Garuda/Ifrit Remix

Oh I have one...


I like the PvP kits more than quite a few job's normal ones. Particularly because the job identity seems better played out in the gameplay.

I don't know why people are hyped about Yawntrail and at this point i'm almost afraid to ask.

All we got was the basic stuff. 2 new jobs and the scions in the trailer... what is special about it? Same old, same old...

Yoshi even said the infamous claim that we need time to relax after WoL saved the universe. How long do we need? Wasn't this the excuse for Island Sanctuary? Will we stay at home for 8.0? Will we get into a nice retirement home and play bingo in 9.0? How much chill do you need in a VIDEOGAME???

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Originally Posted by BRVV

I don't know why people are hyped about Yawntrail and at this point i'm almost afraid to ask.

All we got was the basic stuff. 2 new jobs and the scions in the trailer... what is special about it? Same old, same old...

Yoshi even said the infamous claim that we need time to relax after WoL saved the universe. How long do we need? Wasn't this the excuse for Island Sanctuary? Will we stay at home for 8.0? Will we get into a nice retirement home and play bingo in 9.0? How much chill do you need in a VIDEOGAME???

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Did you stop to consider that most people are playing video games to chill out and destress from the other things they have going on in life?

There can still be things to do without everything having to tie into an end-of-the-universe-Calamity.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

Did you stop to consider that most people are playing video games to chill out and destress from the other things they have going on in life?

There can still be things to do without everything having to tie into an end-of-the-universe-Calamity.

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Play Proteus or read a book if you want to chill out, the rest of us want to play a damn fun video game.

"The Scion beach episode" might be the dumbest idea for an expansion I've seen in a while, and I had a front row seat for Pandas and Pokemon.

I’m actually fine with animation lock

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Originally Posted by Aword3213

I’m actually fine with animation lock

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Same. ...At least, conditionally.

Movement Lock:
For instance, I'd take fine trajectory-locks (wherein the direction of movement set when you actuate the skill will very briefly lock you into movement in that direction for the next finely-sliced 'step' of the animation) over nonsensical gliding animations (floor-sliding Stormbite, Venomous Bite, True Thrust, etc.), though it actually annoys me that I can't continue using WASD during the travel-time of most gap-closers in order to curve, shorten, or extend that gap-closer slightly, at least where the animation shows separate fine movements that would seem individually manipulable.

The Actually-Global Cooldown:
If you mean the <~0.6s + roundtrip_ping> period after using any action for which we can't activate any other action... also agreed on the 0.6s part, so that our skills don't ghost or convulse through their animations, also agreed, minus the being further penalized for our ping.

Here's to another 10 years guys!

I wanna see G'raha munch into a big slice of chocolate cake. :3

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Originally Posted by Soge01

I wanna see G'raha munch into a big slice of chocolate cake. :3

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Isn't chocolate deadly for cat ?

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Originally Posted by Syln

Isn't chocolate deadly for cat ?

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I see no problems with this

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

Did you stop to consider that most people are playing video games to chill out and destress from the other things they have going on in life?

There can still be things to do without everything having to tie into an end-of-the-universe-Calamity.

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Dorfromantik and turn based games and management games are all way more chill than FFXIV unless they want me to fall asleep during Dungeons which almost happened once. (Great healer design)

Idk why it has to be vacation mode. I never said it has to be "universe ending" edgelord stuff like EW. Typical fanboy answer from you

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Originally Posted by Soge01

I wanna see G'raha munch into a big slice of chocolate cake. :3

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I hate when the "joke" is just him biting excitingly. If however his face would be full of chocolate and he didn't realize it would at least add something.

Hot Takes:

Raiding Gear should be dyeable; all dungeon gear should be dyeable.

Tomestone weekly cap should be removed one month after a patch so you can level up other classes.

Mogstation items and story progression should be account-wide (new game plus for people who want to do it again).

The glamour & housing system should be fixed. It's been ten years, and it's just slightly less awful.

The main narrative needs less filler, be better paced and does not try to subvert expectations as it constantly fails, i.e. Endwalkers ending, of course, no one died.

Variant Dungeons are boring, and Criterion Dungeons need rewards.

Island Sanctuary adds nothing to the game and is parasitic. It should have fixed housing and been a crafter's dream.

Island Sanctuary should be available at the start of the game if you have completed the story.

Flying should be unlocked at the end of the expansion quests.

Zone design is terrible; all zones should've been more like exploritary zones.

Stormblood should have been two expansions, same with Endwalker; they did Garlemald and Zodiark dirty.

Hydaelyn is the true villain of the narrative who forced her perspective on society when her internal philosophy made no sense, and she lied to them all to justify a future that might never happen, where she had mutilated entire generations.

Replace raid gear with job gear so each class has a unique set rather than a recolour.

Relic quests were always terrible and never fun. They have less busy work now.

Viera and Hrothgar should have been fixed within Shadowbringers, not just another issue pilled onto the mountain of issues they refuse to address appropriately.

All materia should be slotted on the job stone, not the armour piece.

FF14 after Stormblood is a minimum viable product; most of the money has gone to other projects.

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Originally Posted by Syln

Isn't chocolate deadly for cat ?

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Miqo'te have evolved specifically to withstand chocolate poison intakes. Not sure about Hrothgar though. xD

I've got one.

Civilizations, also known as the "Lahee Song" sucks. It's obnoxious, grating and annoying. Love the meme and the meme potential. The actual song isn't great. It's the only reason I ever dread going to Rak'Tika, and I should love Rak'Tika. I love forests, I'm a Viera, and the home in the trees that the Viis ladies have (Fanow), and THAT area has a lovely peaceful piece from 1.0, but then you go outside and the freaking song starts again.

Everyone hyped up the shb msq and it was actually extremely slow paced and boring until well into the patches. People begged for more drama in the msq during SB, and in typical Square Enix fashion, the went super extra on it. Sos theme song isn't good. Vauthry isn't hot. Bozja isn't better than Eureka. Empyrium was a waste of resources (should've been a housing district elsewhere). Add phase in e12n is just a waste of time. Alphinaud needs to be removed from the story. Lyse is a great character. Kaiten sucked and shouldnt have been added, ever (that's a joke calm down). Stormblood is the second best expansion, story-wise, next to endwalker. Catgirls aren't hot. Face 3 au ra females are by far the superior to all fem ra (croissant horns best girl, fite me).

I could probably come up with more but I don't feel like it. I wonder how many people agree with some of these takes. /Ponder

Emet-Selch is not sympathetic.

Hermes is more sympathetic than Emet-Selch.

The Ancients were a failed civilizations that couldn't handle negative emotions.

The sundering was 100% necessary.

While the WRITING was great, the overarching plot of Shadowbringers is not that good. Kill lightwarden, restore darkness, repeat 5x. The character moments were good and that saved Shadowbringers story from being FF1 and FF3 level story.

Stormblood is underrated. After the boring ruby sea section, Stormblood story was perfectly fine.

Heavensward and Endwalker are 10/10, Stormblood and Shadowbringers are 8/10. A Realm Reborn itself is 7/10

For a game were the story and lore are so incredibly important they are making a huge mistake by having the same core cast of characters throughout the entire game. Esp ones that are there for no other perpuse than to tell instead of show.

Let's face it, the scions only reason for existance is to explain the world to us. We do not get to learn about the world by experiencing it in any natural way. Whenever they need to relay any information to us, they just have one of the scions info dump it on us instead of letting us go out into the world at large, meet new people, immerse ourselves in different cultures and actually experience the world. When we have a problem they tell us what to do, why to do it and where to go to do the thing. They don';t even have a dialog amongst themselves either. There is a conflict, one person speaks up and explains things, then everyone nods and we do the thing. There is absolutely no discussion which could be a great way to relay a lot of information to us in a short time.

If more information needs to be discovered, they just go off camera and find it themselves and then relay that information back to us. Or we are no better than a hired sword to guide them through a dungeon so they could find the information at the end of it before info dumping it on us instead of letting us go out and find it on our own. And the only other way they seem to know how to do this is just to have enemies monologue, which is another literary sin.

And there simply is no real reason for it when there are ways to make us, as players, feel like we have agency while keeping us going on the very strict path that want us to follow, without just being a glorified errand boy. I know many of you do not want to hear it, but FFXI excelled at this. You felt like you were the main character of the game who was making connections, dealing with political struggles, solving problems and being an intrical part of the world while at the same time giving us those connections with NPCs. And for each expansion you were able to get to know a whole new roster while still going back to revisit the friends you made along the way. Which did nothing but make the world feel more real and allow you to learn more about the lives of the people, the history, the current conflicts, struggles, joys and celebrations. Where as in FFXIV you are made to feel like you are a supporting role in the scions story and are often just no better than a mercenary. Even FFXIV version 1 was much better in this aspect than the 2.0 and on version has been.

Telling instead of showing is one of the biggest literary sins and it really takes away from the real greatness we could truly be experiencing. How the story is told is just as important as the story itself. And for a game that has nearly it's entire identity wrapped around being story heavy, it is shocking they have gone about it in this way.

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Originally Posted by Gordita

Everyone hyped up the shb msq and it was actually extremely slow paced and boring until well into the patches.

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I wasn’t around for the hype so can’t comment on that element, but do agree that ShB was slow paced. It had lots of ‘standout’ moments, which is what I think most remember it for, but seem to take a while to get to them. And the pointlessness that was Ranjit didn’t help matters in that respect.

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Originally Posted by Gordita

Vauthry isn't hot

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Nope - and even if one were to argue that his ‘evolved’ form, when we fought him, was nice to look at his hideous personality was no different.

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Originally Posted by Gordita

Stormblood is the second best expansion, story-wise, next to Endwalker

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Actually agree. For reasons I can’t really explain, I recall my time playing through Stormblood more fondly than Shadowbringers. Not that I didn’t enjoy Shadowbringers – it was great, but if I were to New Game+ either of them, it’d be Stormblood.
And I'll confess that Endwalker is my favorite expansion. Not a popular choice here, but that's how I feel and that's is what this thread is about. And currently replaying the second half of Endwalker on New Game+

lalafell ain't kids, never have been, the game has never represented them as such. edit: nor has yoshi-p, who has gone on record saying they aren't i think multiple times but at least once; short, flat chests, mannerisms and voices /=/ a child (super gross outlook there to begin with guys, this is how you get the florence pugh debacle); literally had an event (moonfire faire? i think? last year?) where they said children couldn't participate but i had no problem doing it on my lalafell, they didn't stop her; literally all the workers, merchants and soldiers that are lalafell; sastasha; momodi; pipin; tataru is crushed on by several npcs and has like, a dozen hingan admirers iirc; none of the ones i've ever met i would describe as child-like or acting with child-like mannerisms; to the people who are gonna disagree, you do you, fam. you don't care about my opinion and i don't care about yours.

i don't like any of the fortemps. neverminding that i immediately lose all respect for someone (fictional or not) who cheats on their spouse, edmont literally has a child working as a servant for one of his sons. yeah, absolutely, medieval fantasy, that's fine, and i do not care because yeah, illegal in real life but this is fiction so it doesn't matter, but i don't think he's a good person because of it and other reasons.

the post-endwalker patch quests are some of the best storytelling ever, flat out.

cool story, venat. don't agree with what you did though, and actually think you're pretty horrible for the sundering.

rp (every kind) is part of the gameplay and isn't some weird hobby that only basement dwellers participate in.

lyse is great.

hw is the weakest expac.

the msq is fantastic and the implementation is fine. i like visual novels, i like having npcs to run almost everything with nowadays so i don't have to deal with the extremely toxic community.

and yeah, there's one - the community is SUPER toxic nowadays. didn't used to be, but now y'all are. gg, wp!

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Originally Posted by Gordita

Vauthry isn't hot.

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His first form is.

Fight me.

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Originally Posted by Nononu

lalafell ain't kids, never have been, the game has never represented them as such.

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Hard disagree. The game itself often goes out of its way and infantilizes them, from emotes to voices to mannerisms. Look at Tataru specially, she's so uwu kawaii desu it's not even funny (at least JP Tataru). Lalafel are meant to be the 'small people' archetype, basically garden gnomes, but they could have, or rather, should have toned down the cutesy factor if they wanted Lalas to be taken seriously.

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Originally Posted by Thurmnmurmn

Japan is pretty big on chibi type characters and that's all Lala's really are. They may have the appearance of a child but it doesn't mean they are one. In fact we don't know how old most are.
Here's the definition from the FFXIV website.

"The Lalafell are a folk both rotund and diminutive. Small by any race's standards and possessed of a childlike countenance, it proves difficult for non-Lalafell to gauge an individual's age with any degree of accuracy."

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Nobody is saying Lalas are literally children, but they are overtly designed to be cute and childlike (not just "small") so it shouldn't be surprising 99% of people see and treat them as such. There are people who have...less than pure thoughts about that, but that's a them problem SE can't control.

Part of the race description for Lalafell in the actual character creator:
"A wee people sporting short, rotund bodies, the Lalafell appear as no more than children to the eyes of most."

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Originally Posted by Allegor

Hard disagree. The game itself often goes out of its way and infantilizes them, from emotes to voices to mannerisms. Look at Tataru specially, she's so uwu kawaii desu it's not even funny (at least JP Tataru). Lalafel are meant to be the 'small people' archetype, basically garden gnomes, but they could have, or rather, should have toned down the cutesy factor if they wanted Lalas to be taken seriously.

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Japan is pretty big on chibi type characters and that's all Lala's really are. They may have the appearance of a child but it doesn't mean they are one. In fact we don't know how old most are.
Here's the definition from the FFXIV website.

"The Lalafell are a folk both rotund and diminutive. Small by any race's standards and possessed of a childlike countenance, it proves difficult for non-Lalafell to gauge an individual's age with any degree of accuracy."

Zenos being a mirror of the wol and the inability to say this in cutscenes is a lost opportunity in character development. That said, his mirror squad in storm blood was a bit on the nose. Fordola/lyse, yotsuyu/yugiri, grynwahlt/goatse, aulus/urianger and of course asashi/alise.

Hot Take:

Final Fantasy XIV is terrible now, and it'd been getting worse for years before now.

On a narrative level its story is unusually weak with regards to actually showcasing both scale and reality of the main events that happen in the game. This wasn't much of a problem back in ARR and HW, because back then they did not limit themselves by trying to make the game appeal to all potential customers. They just crafted a game, and hoped that it would gain notoriety, which it did.

On a gameplay level, they peaked in Heavensward, and after that they merely rearranged the precedence set there, each new expansion after, gradually dumbing down all play while delivering few new battle mechanics.

To go into detail on the unusually weak narrative:

Starting in Stormblood, the ambition for the storytelling got out of control. Before Stormblood, the stories for FFXIV revolved around small scale operations and adventuring, where it was somewhat believable that just the WoL or just the WoL's 4/8 man group were getting things done. One exception being Operation Archon / Castrum / Praetorium, which adhere to what I've said about weakness in showing actual events.

In late ARR and in Heavensward they gave us things like original Steps of Faith, Final Steps of Faith, Aetherochemical Research Facility, and all their associated cutscenes. A hoard of dragons attack Ishgard's lead in bridge? We fight a giant dragon and the hoard in the actual instance, with dozens and dozens of Ishgardian NPCs throwing themselves into the fray as well. Think about those other instances and their associated cutscenes. You never get the feeling that the scale or actuality of what's going in game is questionable.

Walk into Stormblood, and pretty much immediately the sense of scale fails. It starts with a patrol skirmish with Raubahn against an experimental magitek unit, followed by a night time ambush on the Ala Mhigan Resistance's headquarters. The vaunted Warrior of Light loses a 3v1 that quickly becomes a 1v1 against Zenos. With the Eorzean Alliance moving into Garlean territory, we were supposed to be in all out war, but the fighting essentially gets paused/doesn't move at all from where the Resistance and Alliance were pushed back until we go to and have the entire Doman arc. Where the ocean voyage takes an unspecified amount of time, and very little of our story focuses on actual time spent at sea. Travel by ship across the sea is no small feat, and while we essentially bargain to be taken there by professional pirates (they don't have to wear a suit!) the actuality of this major worldwide traversal is incredibly downplayed. All we get is a dungeon that causes more questions, and then a little hush hush side comment that implies the voyage didn't take all that long because there's a ceruleum engine propelling the ship sometimes (Ceruleum engine not pictured).

We then wind up in Hingashi, which is actually not Doman at all, so that we get colorful and most importantly, non-committal, metropolis untouched by war. In the war expansion...

Doma proper consists of two hamlets and a third slightly larger pirate hamlet, and it leaves us to wonder just what was so great about Doma and what actual Doma is really like, with story events destroying the castle and then the post game having us restore and build up the Doman Embassy.

Once back in Ala Mhigo, after another suspiciously short ocean voyage with literally no troubles, we win our first major battle with the ole Berserk Golden Age arc decoy force holds the main force while the secret force takes the keep (bridge tower in this case). Except the secret force deals with more enemies than are shown in the decoy vs. main cutscene follow up...

Primal shenanigans and scouting ahead shenanigans occur, the villain goes, "Hey I want you to go on a fighting date with me, so just march right in, please." And the first time we get a set piece that makes it feel like we're fighting in a war is the level 70 Ala Mhigo dungeon where all of our allies are dungeon window dressing, bringing the good fight to the Imperials. We don't get a dungeon like this again until Ghimlyt Dark, really, and it's too little, too late.

We interrupt this showing of war to give our writing team something they know how to handle while we pay pesky lip service to the idea that the war we're shying away from is going to ever be relevant again. Here we're going to also rewrite the foundations of the entire narrative, reframe the "true" bad guys as tragic heroes, and show you the most important event in the setting's history via cave painting. I hope you like this cave painting, because it's the only direct, non-metaphorical reference to that most important of events (that's in game).

Endwalker comes in, and we're supposed to get a planet wide existential threat. But I suppose if I'd been paying attention, and hadn't just had one of the best Final Fantasy characters to ever grace the series make me emotionally invested to the point of absurdity, I would have realized from the outset that if they didn't have the balls to show us a war properly, then there's no chance of them handling the apocalypse with any mode of sincerity. Which makes the metaphor scene and its denial of actual events within the Ancient world all the more understandable.

At this point I'm just hanging on for friends and the FFXI crossover(which I have no faith in. Please surprise me SE, I beg).

Good, and interesting are separate concepts. They often overlap, but it's useful to recognize when they don't -- especially with job design.

The game is painfully repetitive and making a dangerously bad amount of poor decisions. In its attempt to make life easier and cater to as many as it could it has basically catered to everyone and noone. The game has no challenge anymore,, older fights and dungeons felt more rewarding and creative. Older raids has interesting mecanics besides spread stack + raidwide aoe. The games failure to innovate is killing it painfully and slowly. The combat system is rigid and stale. Boss fights are 1 dimensional dance rehearsals and the only escape is ridiculously hard content that was never designed for 90% of the players. (Ultimate) yet ppl are doing ult now just to escape the games repetitive systems. Every hub town is discarded after 3 years and left a barren wasteland..

All the new content can be predicted before it's even out. Same 7 dungeons with narration and easy bos mecanics that don't need even a healer.. the same horrible gearing system that makes playing the game more than 4 hours a week utterly pointless.

The savage raids are also getting easier and less fun to play. P10s was genuinely just horrible.

The msq is going downhill as a result if horrible writing that tries to play off nostalgia of arr+hw. Idk wat dt will do.. im worried itl be stormblood 3 tbh.. and I really don't want that. The game is in very big trouble and you can even see square accepting this with more and more cash shop stuff and less and less content.

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Originally Posted by sindriiisgaming

The game has no challenge anymore,, older fights and dungeons felt more rewarding and creative. Older raids has interesting mecanics besides spread stack + raidwide aoe. The games failure to innovate is killing it painfully and slowly. The combat system is rigid and stale. Boss fights are 1 dimensional dance rehearsals and the only escape is ridiculously hard content that was never designed for 90% of the players. (Ultimate) yet ppl are doing ult now just to escape the games repetitive systems.

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Given how active is PF and recruitment for old ults its clear there is not enough midcore content and its not changing with DW. So DSR and TOP gonna get some love in DW during content drought.

I don't think the story is as good as people say it is. It has it's moments and it's certainly made with quality, but it has all the same contrivances and convaluted plot issues that have plagued JRPGs for decades.

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Originally Posted by Ardeth

I don't think the story is as good as people say it is. It has it's moments and it's certainly made with quality, but it has all the same contrivances and convaluted plot issues that have plagued JRPGs for decades.

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Its more like a roller coaster of quality with some exceptional high points but some god awful low points that remind me of why I typically don't take MMO stories seriously

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Originally Posted by Ardeth

I don't think the story is as good as people say it is. It has it's moments and it's certainly made with quality, but it has all the same contrivances and convaluted plot issues that have plagued JRPGs for decades.

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Here is the problem. Content is locked behind story. It feels like a chore because of that implementation. The real bs is that l got to pay to skip the chore. Well, But l liked my lala enough to pay to skip that bs

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Originally Posted by Ardeth

I don't think the story is as good as people say it is. It has it's moments and it's certainly made with quality, but it has all the same contrivances and convaluted plot issues that have plagued JRPGs for decades.

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When people say the story is good they seem to regularly forget the qualifier "for an MMO", probably because it sounds a lot less impressive considering the competition.

But to bounce off of what Vyrerus has already said, XIV didn't just miss the mark when it comes to portraying the gravity and scale of it's events as those escalated over the years.
It takes little advantage of the strengths of it's own visual medium, video games, in general, the majority of the MSQ is just walking to an NPC and then reading a whole lot of textboxes.