Goodbye Shadowbringers

A friend of mine made this, I wanted to share it. Spoilers through 5.3.

https://youtu.be/YciE0CDAvPc

I'm not crying you are!

Graha is such an amazing narrator, Shadowbringers was just so fantastic I honestly don't think Endwalker can top it, but God I can't wait to find out

Amazing expansion. However my emotional investment was very low, and a lot of things did not register. I suppose I shouldn't call it amazing if that's the case, but I fault myself. Not the story.

I think EW with such strong ties to the moon and FFIV, things will be much different the next go.

Shadowbringers was okay, notthing to write home about, it was better than Stormblood lol

I did get bored of SHB storyline at the end, let's see if EndWalker has a good story

20 days till a healer job that wont put me to sleep

Shadowbringers was good but I enjoyed Stormblood abit more. Shadow gets points for making my character throw up tho. But the raids were better in blood. - the 24 mans -

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Originally Posted by Gameovers

Shadowbringers was good but I enjoyed Stormblood abit more. Shadow gets points for making my character throw up tho. But the raids were better in blood. - the 24 mans -

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Yeah the neir raids were a terrible choice imo. Ivalice was better but weren't much better.
Eden was a hell a lot better than Omega though. My static powered through A3s but we got so bored of Omega by O6S that most of us took.a break from the game.

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Originally Posted by Andy_T93

I'm not crying you are!

Shadowbringers was just so fantastic I honestly don't think Endwalker can top it

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any expansion that kills zenos permanently is the best expansion ever

By far the worst expansion in my opinion.
Heavensward was still this game's peak but I'm genuinely excited for Endwalker.

It was a great ride Storywise, and I am eagerly awaiting how Endwalker ties it all up.
Still salty about what they did to healers at the start of it though.

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Originally Posted by _Pigzig

20 days till a healer job that wont put me to sleep

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How so? I mean Sage is not doing anything that WHM or SCH aren't doing already. (well except fake Dark Arts to get a dot)

Definitely my favorite expansion to date. It has hit hard emotionally just as hard as HW, has given backstory to characters who once had none, and made us care about people we never thought we'd ever actually care about. It's the peak of FF14's writing, and soon we will witness the end of it all, the end of an entire storyline, the end of an era.

I will wait for Endwalker to drop when they finally reveal the Zenos back story to watch all of the nay sayers suddenly say "DUDE ZEONOIS IS THE BEST CHAD EVER" Shadowbringers is the best expansion. There is no denying that fact regardless of your misguided opinion folks. The Nier story did suck but the actual raids were decent. It was not a great idea for a collab though and I think they should stay away from collabs in the future outside of events.

I liked Heavensward more, Shadowbringer was lackluster on many aspects. I do like the addition of Viera though.

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Originally Posted by Sani2341

How so? I mean Sage is not doing anything that WHM or SCH aren't doing already. (well except fake Dark Arts to get a dot)

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isnt it supposed to be more interesting gameplay wise?
on healer forum they call whm glare mages for a reason

I feel this, and i agree

Thank you for the tears on 5.0 and 5.3 MSQ.

I also had fun moment on Ishgard Restoration, and seeing people excited with the spa there :)

Loved the first "arc" of the expansion (what was released at the launch) but it lost me a bit overtime.

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Originally Posted by _Pigzig

isnt it supposed to be more interesting gameplay wise?
on healer forum they call whm glare mages for a reason

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Just because SE calls it a dps healer, doesn't mean it has interesting thigns to do for dps. For the majority of the time it will do the same 'upkeep DoT and spam nuke' the other healers do, just with a small heal attached that's basicly a targeted version of the SCH fairy. It's got a bigger dmg sspell on a 45s cool down, but that's not really much to break the monotony.
And while it does get a dps resource from shields breaking, the spell that consumes this resource, durign the media tour build, was a gcd aoe equal to your basic nuke, thus resulting in a net dmg loss no matter what(due to needing gcd cast shields to generate the resource). Even for movement, it's the same at not casting anything at best, and looses out to just refreshing your dot to soon.

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Originally Posted by Hysterior

Loved the first "arc" of the expansion (what was released at the launch) but it lost me a bit overtime.

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I feel the same way. It was a good xpac with a good story and I really liked a lot of the gear sets and weapons (quintana ravel healer set for example and my current lady Maria cosplay I didn't even have to glam). Music was really nice as well and I really liked the zones. I'm eagerly awaiting endwalker and like most people I am I'm dire need of new content. The eden raids were fun, the neir raids were cool minus red girl dolls and since I hate zones like bozja and eureka I can't comment on those. Aumourot can do exactly that and rot in the depths of forgotten garbage forever. I will never forget the first time i ran Holminster switch and thought "woa this is really cool", and I still love how it breaks every Fibre of a tanks confidence. I can't emphasize enough how much I enjoy the music in shb. Imo much better xpac then SB. Here's to endwalker being a slam dunk (with awesome striking sets :p)

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Originally Posted by Hysterior

Loved the first "arc" of the expansion (what was released at the launch) but it lost me a bit overtime.

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Same here. Loved that part much more than Stormblood and nearly as much as Heavensward.

Have to say 5.3 story was just 10/10 with the fight, will remember that.

I thought Shadowbringers was amazing until the post expansion patches. Same issue Ive had with every other expansion.

ARR 8.5
Heavensward 10.0+
Stormblood 9.0
Shadowbringers 9.0

Its hard to explain what Shadowbringers was ... a high-end budget version, with a lot of questionable moves.

Shadowbringers was once again tame ... no one (really) died that was important to the player. Which is a ongoing trend of "everything will be fine" which takes out the treat of the story and makes it unbelievable and yes I'm aware its a fantasy story but it still makes it unbelievable on a fantasy level.

My main problems were:

Story, throughout the entire MSQ the game pushes a narrative of "darkness is not always bad, light is not always good" which is a great flip of the story and then just goes completely 180 at the end "darkness bad again, you are the light", imo the 5.3 boss and the 5.0 boss should've been swapped, now of course the story would've needed tweeks as you cant simply change those 2 bosses and nothing else but i feel like a Light based final boss which we as the shadowbringers fight ... would've nailed it better.

Music, while mostly nice can be put in 2 sections, "recycled" and "we fall". 2 Trials had either a remix of the dungeon boss theme or used it straight. The weapon trials are recycled music, Nier is ... Nier, Eden is a lot FF8.
Noteworthy: Soken was really sick so i can understand this, it however can be felt.

Fights, did we need 5 Versions of Shiva? Yes they are alternate versions but it felt like a LOT of stuff was reused from other FF games or FF14 itself, which is not bad but Eden was basically just rematches, and the weapon trials yea ...

Lack of deep dungeon, they did address this and seemed surprised players were missing it, the missing exp was added to Bozja so that was not lost

Relic was added to late and even missed stages, we jumped over the 2nd to last stage which used to be the non glowly, which can be bought from the replica npc however, they need the relic grind earlier imo.

Lack of additional dungeons, yes the quality did increase a lot of the dungeons we got and one can argue you run these once and then get bored of them, i feel the problem of expert roulette having only 2 dungeons its likely connected to this.

Nier Raid started out real good and then flatlined on a weekly quest that went nowhere.

Personally i dont understand the hype, or how players on day #1 can give 10/10 to a living system that takes 2 full years to unfold but thats how most of the rating have been polled.
ARR>SB>ShB>HW in terms of story
ARR>HW>SB>ShB in terms of quality, which gives high hopes for quality in EW.

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Originally Posted by Voidedge_Ragna

Lack of additional dungeons, yes the quality did increase a lot of the dungeons we got and one can argue you run these once and then get bored of them, i feel the problem of expert roulette having only 2 dungeons its likely connected to this.

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Honestly I feel the dungeons only looked better. It's mostly corridors at the end of the day. That's not exclusive to ShB dungeons, but I do enjoy older dungeons more because they just feel different. I don't know if it's the mob placement or surprises, or rose-tinted glasses.

ShB got the story right but the gameplay department.. it depends on your taste and what you consider fun; for me it really wasn't. Also the last stage relics just look like a joke tbh.

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Originally Posted by Shin96

Honestly I feel the dungeons only looked better. It's mostly corridors at the end of the day. That's not exclusive to ShB dungeons, but I do enjoy older dungeons more because they just feel different. I don't know if it's the mob placement or surprises, or rose-tinted glasses.

ShB got the story right but the gameplay department.. it depends on your taste and what you consider fun; for me it really wasn't. Also the last stage relics just look like a joke tbh.

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I 100% agree on all you say regarding the dungeon, the problem however is ... if the dungeon wasn't a corridor players would likely beeline to key points and get out asap. The only true "open dungeon" we had was 3.x Diadem, which has its fair share of other problems.

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Originally Posted by Voidedge_Ragna

Its hard to explain what Shadowbringers was ... a high-end budget version, with a lot of questionable moves.

Shadowbringers was once again tame ... no one (really) died that was important to the player. Which is a ongoing trend of "everything will be fine" which takes out the treat of the story and makes it unbelievable and yes I'm aware its a fantasy story but it still makes it unbelievable on a fantasy level.

My main problems were:

Story, throughout the entire MSQ the game pushes a narrative of "darkness is not always bad, light is not always good" which is a great flip of the story and then just goes completely 180 at the end "darkness bad again, you are the light", imo the 5.3 boss and the 5.0 boss should've been swapped, now of course the story would've needed tweeks as you cant simply change those 2 bosses and nothing else but i feel like a Light based final boss which we as the shadowbringers fight ... would've nailed it better.

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I feel the same on that front. I'd go even further and say with a bit more tweaking you could have Innocence finish off 5.0, Hades 5.3 and leave Elidibus for later exploration, which would require more substantial tweaks to the story as-is, although that already seems to have been tweaked to move forward more quickly with wrapping up the existing arc with 6.0 rather than 7.0. What they did achieve is disentangling darkness and light from evil and good, respectively, (and the same frankly with regard to the associated primals, i.e. Zodiark and Hydaelyn), and I am looking forward to seeing how they resolve it in EW. I'd have liked to see a bit more "meat" to becoming the WoD, rather than just a title, but it is what it is...

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Lack of additional dungeons, yes the quality did increase a lot of the dungeons we got and one can argue you run these once and then get bored of them, i feel the problem of expert roulette having only 2 dungeons its likely connected to this.

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Yep, they need to re-think this going forward, IMO.

I agree with a lot of your points, and while I enjoyed chunks and parts of the story, I also don't subscribe to the view of "best story ever". It's good, it has some nuance to it, but not perfect. Mechanically, absolutely agree with the stuff you raise. Irrespective of whether some of it was due to COVID or not, it was felt.

Storywise Shadowbringers rocked
Character wise Shadowbringers rocked
Location wise ARR and Heavensward beat it (imo)
Dungeon wise I still preferred Heavensward (Tho Mount Gulg was great)
Raid wise Ivalice was better than Nier
Eden Raids were top so far

Shadowbringers and Heavensward are the best in my opinion. Didn't cake too much for Stormblood, although patch msq was better than the actual expansion msq.

Heavensward has a special place in my heart. ;w; But Shadowbringers was very cool and really enjoyable to play from start to finish, and I didn't feel like I had to slug through a lot of filler quests. Nice zones, nice gear, nice dungeons to go all around. Plus it was interesting to have my character finally struggle a bit during the storyline.

I AM looking forward to the story's conclusion though, and to how the game will develop beyond Endwalker.... hopefully it will become more open-world.

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Originally Posted by Voidedge_Ragna

Music, while mostly nice can be put in 2 sections, "recycled" and "we fall". 2 Trials had either a remix of the dungeon boss theme or used it straight. The weapon trials are recycled music, Nier is ... Nier, Eden is a lot FF8.
Noteworthy: Soken was really sick so i can understand this, it however can be felt.

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Do you know...LA HEE?

Shadowbringers (disregarding job beef) was pretty good, then the story patches came out

Dungeons were incredibly bland and the advent of trusts really ruined them to glorified solo instance

Eden was a mixed bag, a lot of the fights were just forgettable in NM. But no one cares about NM so the savage ones were standard with 1 or 2 honorable mentions and 1 very blatant dishonorable one. Fighting remixed primals just seemed so…idk boring

Nier is weird, like stupid weird even more so that they tried to make it plot focused. And it was abit too easy compared to Ivalice that I wasn’t really sure we fully wiped at all

Trials were top notch tho….warmachine being story focused was nice but zero voiced lines in the whole arc, very boring weapon designs, and generally inferior mechs compared to stuff like SOS & 4lords which were varied diverse and fun.

No deep dungeon no new housing district only 1 ultimate compared to SB content speaks for itself. SHB is alright

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Originally Posted by Voidedge_Ragna

Shadowbringers was once again tame ... no one (really) died that was important to the player. Which is a ongoing trend of "everything will be fine" which takes out the treat of the story and makes it unbelievable and yes I'm aware its a fantasy story but it still makes it unbelievable on a fantasy level.

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uhh the emperor is dead...they killed off 90% of the first...there was literally future where you died and everyone else...one of the main characters is now paralyzed and will never walk again...Thancred probably is going to die extremely soon....Y'shtola has been hinted at constantly as being on borrowed time jumping into the life stream...They killed off the Graha that I liked.

Always thought Heavensward was seriously overrated when they told me the dragon ate Shiva to bond with her. I assume when he took a crap she came out?

Looking back, I'm mostly positive on ShB but do find myself a little split. While there were a few bumps in the road like Yshtola's "death" and the slog of the Twine and north Kholusia bits, I really enjoyed it up to basically the credit roll for 5.3 and then it started to go downhill a bit for me. The Elidibus scene with the memory crystals is probably the scene that hit me the hardest in the entire game so far. Post credits for 5.3 is where we ended up with grating fanboy/stalker being cheated of his well earned death and being placed as a now constant annoyance, and Zenos coming back to the fore as the main villain. Both things I really don't like, and both things that have the real potential to continue to taint the whole game for me moving forwards.

Unlike a lot of people, I actually liked the Nier raids but did find the story totally petered out at it's end (though I didn't hate it) and the Tower was easily the worst of the 3 actual raids.

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Originally Posted by Puremallace

uhh the emperor is dead...they killed off 90% of the first...there was literally future where you died and everyone else...one of the main characters is now paralyzed and will never walk again...Thancred probably is going to die extremely soon....Y'shtola has been hinted at constantly as being on borrowed time jumping into the life stream...They killed off the Graha that I liked.

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Side Characters, or evil Characters, the bad ones always die/lose and the good boys have a plot Armor as thicc as it gets. Of course there's deaths, but meaningful ones are never seen. The closest was the cursed cat, and that one is still running around (for now)

Yshtola has been "dieing" in almost every expansion now, from "oh we use the bad magic" to "im gonna suck on my own life energy" to "i wonder how hard zenos can hit me"

I started playing FF14 when 5.2 was already out. Following the MSQ nonstop from ARR to ShB, I have to say that ShB is my favorite expansion story-wise, and HW being the second. Now I feel that Endwalker would be more like a closure, but I'm going to wait for SE to surprise me otherwise.