Heavensward was sublime... I miss it already! Give me hope for Stormblood please!

I am a long time WoW veteran taking a break during the current expansion's... let's say "lame duck" phase to be nice... and I hadn't played FFXIV since the launch of ARR When I was on a WoW hiatus. I'm a big "lore guy" in WoW, and I feel almost embarrassed for my "main game" in the shadow of what I just finished while leveling my return reroll character here in XIV.

Heavensward is the greatest MMO expansion I’ve ever experienced (even just passing through it!) on the axis of storytelling, and I can’t imagine any other MMORPG ever touching XIV’s mastery in using this genre as a storytelling medium. Everything from its aesthetic to its music to its themes seemed handcrafted for my enjoyment and I loved everything about it! Now I'm greatly looking forward to shadowbringers, but man... can someone (without spoilers) please give me some hope that Stormblood isn't all "fantasy jewish people hiding in the desert fighting fantasy nazis?"

I have always been uncomfortable with everything Ala Mhigo, (let us not forget the rape quest... ugh) it's just such an ugly story on ugly brown scenery! Looking at the teleport categories I'm seeing the far east alluded to, and a "fantasy japan" in Doma would be so much better... is there hope? Am I stuck in this dirty resistance story until Shadowbringers?

I'm just gonna go cry through another listening of Dragonsong to feel better!

Two resistances story's. on the bright side. Raubahn didn't block you! i though SB was alright. but HW was certainly better. the boss fights were fun in SB though. it's when they started experimenting with new mechanics. SB does get much better near the final patches though.

They also added the whole "Role-play" quest mechanic which i find a nice way to tell the story of other characters.

Cool, thanks for the input.

Well you're probably going to be disappointed with the Stormblood Campaign then, I know I was.

If Heavensward wasn't so good.... and if the Al Mhigans weren't such sleezebags most of the time through ARR and Heavensward it might be different, but as it stands i was completely averse to the entire Stormblood campaign as I went through it. Well that's not true, I did at least enjoy and was into the Doman portion.

Shadowbringers though... that's a whole different story. That one is every bit as good as Heavensward was. Not sure the Raids are all that great, shockingly I prefered the Stormblood Raids to it.

But the MSQ for Shadowbringers was every bit as excellent as Heavensward was.

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Originally Posted by Omedon

I have always been uncomfortable with everything Ala Mhigo, (let us not forget the rape quest... ugh) it's just such an ugly story on ugly brown scenery! Looking at the teleport categories I'm seeing the far east alluded to, and a "fantasy japan" in Doma would be so much better... is there hope? Am I stuck in this dirty resistance story until Shadowbringers?

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That quest shouldn't cloud your judgment what to expect from the Stormblood story. IMO, the Ala Mhigans are just as good people as anyone else. Don't let the bad apples draw you away from the potential they have.

Lyse is the only good thing about the Ala Mhigan portion of Stormblood. And not because she's well written, because she isn't.

The Doman side, however, is pretty good. Not great, but it's better than average. Except the turtle things. Those things are just creepy.

Basically Stormblood comes down to...

Lyse waifu
Hien husbando
Story is meh.

Stormblood feels like it was planned as two expansions and then smooshed into one because they couldn't make Ala Mhigo interesting enough on its own. Dunno if spoiler tags are really necessary, but in case the OP would prefer not to know.....

We leave Ala Mhigo behind for Doma before the level 61 dungeon and don't return until after the level 67 dungeon. Six or seven out of ten levels in the Ala Mhigo expansion aren't even in Ala Mhigo.

The patches don't help much either. 4.2 and 4.3 are almost entirely Doma-centric, and 4.4-4.5 only bring a little more of Ala Mhigo, mostly just as a set piece to set up Shadowbringers.

Fortunately, Shadowbringers is stellar.

Will be hard to fully top HW. SB was good once Hien and his/kugane come into play.

I was totally uninterested in the whole ala mhigan stuff though

I liked Stormblood, but will admit its not as great as Heavensward.
I think SB had better content, but HW has a better story. Plus an easier Relic Quest

In my opinion the Ala Mhigan portion of the story is pretty dull. Though pretty much everything related to Hingashi and Othard is a lot more engaging. Stormblood felt very much like a setup expansion for future expansions if that makes sense.