Why do the bosses/raids in this game feel so lifeless?

[Dzian]

I think that feeling is in part an extention of how most content feels lifeless or bland. everything in the game is tucked away in seperate instance completely disconnected from the world and everything in it. a result of that is that many players have said before Eorzea is bland dead and lifeless. it's just a stale and static world that never evolves or changes regardless of what happens. one big example of this could be tha azzimm steppe. your character goes through there in the msq and completely changes the balance of power (supposedly) and yet absolutely nothing about the azzim steppe changes as a result of that..

everything in XIV feels lifeless right down the basic fates. zerg a few mobs or completely ignore them it has absolutely zero impact on the world. and I think when the world itself feels so dead and lifeless. how can the things within it feel any different? this is part of why i think bosses and things are lifeless because the world they inhabit is.

it's funny because i've said before. FFXI is getting on for what 20 years old now? and Vana'diel issuch a vibrant living dynamic world that's ever changing with living dynamic and intricate little puzzles and things that help bring them to life. a maze that has a different route each game day in the sacrarium. or various gate puzzles to navigate through. a constantly changing baance of power across regions from one week to the next. "oh hay bastok has taken over ronfare wooooooo!" or beastmen stole the astral candescance lets go get it backk...

20 years old and they managed to create a vibrant living and dynamic world where everything felt alive.. It is so much more advanced and full of life than eorzea. which despite modern technological advancements actually seems to have gone backwards and devolved instead of evolved... it's uteerly lifeless and largely barren. i reckon i could leave uldah get on my chocbo and ride all the way to rhalgars reach and basically not see any sign of players or life..

it'skinda hard to create living things in a world thats so dead and lifeless

[Iscah]

To me personally, I HATE Suzaku's voice. Its warbly and super annoying as hell for me. Now, if that was the intention, that was part of how her character is, Well then, alrighty. Its spot on. However, I feel like the feel was supposed to be some regal 'high-class' female kind of feel bemoaning the loss of a loved one, but it just comes off as shrill and grating.

As such, I dont care for it, and frankly grates my nerves listening to it in fights. Its actually part of the reason why I dont like the fight. I hate having to listen to her talk.

In the system configuration menu, you can actually mute the voices separate to any other game sounds. (Or there's probably a text command line to do it even quicker.) So if you're going to be playing it and you don't want to listen to her voice, you can just turn her off and still get everything else.

[JackHatchet]

FFXIV's lack of voice acting for their best raids feels cheap.

Warcraft adds voices to even random pirates, but when you fight any boss in Deltscape, they just have a little chat bubble. I feel like a chat bubble compared to a voice actor is an insult to quality.

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Additionally, Deltscape itself has been a crappy raid story-wise. The story is basically big robot guy wants you to fight copies of previous FF bosses. Which is a neat throw-back if you've played those games, but comes off as confusing and lackluster if you haven't. Why are we fighting the Joker again? Man, he'd be so much better if he talked. Half of the Joker's personality is his voice.

[Vidu]

Why is there 2 Coeurl O’Nine Tails guarding magiteck terminals in the Thousand Maws of Toto-Rak? Aren't they plants who need sunlight?

Considering that they're carnivorous plants, they probably dont need a lot of sunlight, because they can get their energy from the little animals they eat. Also: If they do need light, wouldnt it make a lot of sense for them to hang around the terminals that emit a certain amount of light, even though they can survive without it (as Rafflesia, the T6-boss, proves - kinda the same species, but according to the lorebook it was burried under soil for quite a while before the Calamity)?

Why is there a Great Yellow Pelican, Deep Jungle Coeurl in Brayflox's Longstop? Are they guarding the Dragon? If so, why does the Dragon just eat the Hellbender in the middle of the fight?

...why wouldnt there be jungle creatures in the jungle?
The dragon is actually in Brayflox to heal its wounds, but I doubt that its in need of employing Coeurls and Pelikans as bodyguards, they're just wildlife that live in that area (look at all the pelicans living in eastern LN).
On eating the Hellbender: The dragon got hungry? Or maybe just annoyed by all the noise those people fighting that thing were making, so he got rid off part of the noise?

In Dzemael Darkhold, an army of Voidsent have been sent into the realm, conveniently with 3 random bosses that just sit around far apart from each other waiting for adventures to attack them.

Well, voidsent arent really the most friendly creatures - so I dont see anything weird about each of them setting up shop in a specific area of the Darkhold, out of the way of the others. After all, they're trying to make a living there as far as I recall - and thats most likely easier when each of them takes a certain part of the dungeon instead of fighting all the time...

In The Wanderer's Palace, there's a Goobbue and a Flan guarding it as bosses, despite it being a Nymian Palace taking over by Tonberry. Are Tonberry allied with the flan or something?

Actually, the Tonberries are citizin of Nym, who have fallen ill - or rather have been cursed. The large amount of Tonberries are sleeping within the Palace, while some research (for example in the Scholar-questlines in HW and SB) are trying to find a cure. They didnt take over the Palace at all - those Tonberries that we fight havent only lost their apperance (Nymians were lalafell), but also their minds. So, with the Citizin of Nym sleeping, wildlife, including Gobbues, who are, again indigenous to this part of Eorzea (we're seeing them only a stone throw away in eastern LN), have taking over the palace. The Flan is a low ranking voidsent, not 100% sure about his buisness there though...

Snowcloak is Ysayle's hideout, yet it's guarded by an Elemental, an Abominable Snowman and Fenrir. Like why? Did the heretics form an alliance with the Yeti or something? Do the wildlife of Coerthas support the heretic cause?
That's just up to level 50, and I could go on.

Well, if I were to hide somewhere, hiding behind a bunch of strong beasts seems like a good idea to me!
The wildlife doesnt need to actively support the heretics cause, they dont need an alliance - all they's need would be a secret passage (or their teleport) to get past the beasts that we have to slaughter. The wildlife can just go about its life without even knowing that the herectis are using it as a shield against any possible intruders.
Fenrir might have been tamed - seeing how we have one as mount and how Fenrir (or rather: hoarhounds, seeing how Fenrir is the name of one of them) pups are being trained/used in the Wolves Den, according to the minion description.


...I'm not saying that there arent weird choices of bosses throughout the game - but the bosses that resemble the actual wildlife of that area actual make a lot of sense to me. But I dont think of them as "guarding" anything, I just think of them living there, minding their own buisness, until we stumble into their living room and start throwing fireballs at them...

[Iscah]

Which is a neat throw-back if you've played those games, but comes off as confusing and lackluster if you haven't.

Apply that to the Ivalice raids as well. People who've played those game think it's wonderful. I haven't, and I just feel lost - there's a massive infodump of names and events and you never see any of it actually play out, so none of it sticks in my head. It's just assumed that you know what's going on and you care about the story, and I don't because I can't. I haven't experienced anything to give me feelings about it (except possibly "modern Ramza is a horrible person").


Also PotD's dreadfully underexplained crossover with a game I hadn't even heard of, let alone understand who the character was. It seemed like the beginning of a story arc, not a one-shot appearance referencing another game - without actually telling the player it was a reference.

[SannaR]

I'm not sure if its so much the voice acting or more the lines that are being acted, but it sounds way to whiney to me - my boyfriend made the good point of "Its good voice acting, those lines would always sound whiney", so I'm not 100% sure anymore if its really how its being its being said or what is being said...

Stories like Suzakus are always kind of a pet peeve for me - dont get me wrong, I've got nothing against a lovestory in general, but if it becomes the only thing about the (often female) character in question it rubs me the wrong way. He died 1.000 years ago and shes still lovesick? C'mon girl, you gotta move on already, if you want people (or me) to take you serious.

The voice actress is doing a good job with acting all whiney, its not her fault that I didnt like the premisse of her performance, which is based on something I consider a very cheap and bad story... I'd like to believe that the writers can actually do better than this.

Love sick and mad at herself for not being able to save him. It's just like Tiamat who even though her father is like girl stop feeling bad she'd rather sit there for 5,000+ years feeling like a complete idiot just because her brother/lover got dead. Poor Suzaku is like the girl who's a princess or rich and being treated a certain way who ends up falling for the 1st person who didn't expect/want something out of/from them.

[SleepyNeko]

Stories like Suzakus are always kind of a pet peeve for me - dont get me wrong, I've got nothing against a lovestory in general, but if it becomes the only thing about the (often female) character in question it rubs me the wrong way. He died 1.000 years ago and shes still lovesick? C'mon girl, you gotta move on already, if you want people (or me) to take you serious.

I play in Japanese so the voice acting itself was fine, the dialogue itself I think was there to highlight the whole Auspice's fixation that causes them to become angry and corrupted. Right before the fight the story have her release her restraints therefore the whole fight is with that emotion amplified. Which is why she sees you as Tenzen and talks the way she does I believe.

[SenorPatty]

Stories like Suzakus are always kind of a pet peeve for me - dont get me wrong, I've got nothing against a lovestory in general, but if it becomes the only thing about the (often female) character in question it rubs me the wrong way. He died 1.000 years ago and shes still lovesick? C'mon girl, you gotta move on already, if you want people (or me) to take you serious.

They're a pet peeve of mine as well but I understand where it comes from:
-How literature involving ageless/immortals depicts them
-Ancient japanese romanticism about love

For the first part, immortals are typically depicted as creatures who "remember things like yesterday". Literally. Something happened 800 years ago? Might as well have happened today, fresh off the block. Immortals' way of thinking are typically contrasted with the mortals as a way of showing how vastly differing their way of thinking is. Sometimes, it's done well...and sometimes it feels like cheap writing.

The second point alludes "the red string of fate" where two people who love each other, no matter the age or time, no matter how many times they're reincarnated, they will always love another. It's not uncommon to read japanese stories where the lover never moves on and always pine for his/her's dead lover (and now that I've written this, I immediately remembered Inuyasha and Kikyo and I have this urge to squash a melon).


As we've seen from SE, they've taken these aspects to a looooong mile.

[Edax]

Considering that they're carnivorous plants, they probably dont need a lot of sunlight, because they can get their energy from the little animals they eat. Also: If they do need light, wouldnt it make a lot of sense for them to hang around the terminals that emit a certain amount of light, even though they can survive without it (as Rafflesia, the T6-boss, proves - kinda the same species, but according to the lorebook it was burried under soil for quite a while before the Calamity)?

...why wouldnt there be jungle creatures in the jungle?
The dragon is actually in Brayflox to heal its wounds, but I doubt that its in need of employing Coeurls and Pelikans as bodyguards, they're just wildlife that live in that area (look at all the pelicans living in eastern LN).
On eating the Hellbender: The dragon got hungry? Or maybe just annoyed by all the noise those people fighting that thing were making, so he got rid off part of the noise?


Well, if I were to hide somewhere, hiding behind a bunch of strong beasts seems like a good idea to me!
The wildlife doesnt need to actively support the heretics cause, they dont need an alliance - all they's need would be a secret passage (or their teleport) to get past the beasts that we have to slaughter. The wildlife can just go about its life without even knowing that the herectis are using it as a shield against any possible intruders.
Fenrir might have been tamed - seeing how we have one as mount and how Fenrir (or rather: hoarhounds, seeing how Fenrir is the name of one of them) pups are being trained/used in the Wolves Den, according to the minion description.


...I'm not saying that there arent weird choices of bosses throughout the game - but the bosses that resemble the actual wildlife of that area actual make a lot of sense to me. But I dont think of them as "guarding" anything, I just think of them living there, minding their own buisness, until we stumble into their living room and start throwing fireballs at them...

Yeah, this is the problem I had with XIII. Sazh and Vanille are on the run from the authorities in a forest. Conveniently, there are some very powerful wildlife bosses at the very end of the zone. They have nothing to do with the characters or the story.


Or Lightning and Hope are on the run from the authorities in a junkyard. Conveniently they are attacked by a very powerful piece of garbage at the very end of the zone. It has nothing to do with the characters or the story.

This is why I think some of the boss fights feel so lifeless. Many times in a dungeon in FFXIV, I'm constantly asking "why am I fighting this thing?" from a story perspective.
Also fun fact: carnivorous plants don't gain energy from eating things, only nutrient.

[Vidu]

They're a pet peeve of mine as well but I understand where it comes from:
-How literature involving ageless/immortals depicts them
-Ancient japanese romanticism about love

For the first part, immortals are typically depicted as creatures who "remember things like yesterday". Literally. Something happened 800 years ago? Might as well have happened today, fresh off the block. Immortals' way of thinking are typically contrasted with the mortals as a way of showing how vastly differing their way of thinking is. Sometimes, it's done well...and sometimes it feels like cheap writing.

The second point alludes "the red string of fate" where two people who love each other, no matter the age or timr, no matter how many times they're reincarnated, they will always love another. It's not uncommon to read japanese stories where the lover never moves on and always pine for his/her's dead lover (and now that I've written this, I immediately remembered Inuyasha and Kagome and I have this urge to squash a melon).


As we've seen from SE, they've taken these aspects to a looooonh mile.

Its not that I dont know where those kind of stories are coming from, I just still dont like or enjoy them very much.
The most I cared for Tiamat was because "Oh god, there are two dragon-eyes just lying around, ready to be picked!" basically.

I get the idea behind the story - and I could imagine that it speaks to some people, but just not me. Maybe because I'm to practical for "romance" and lovestories like that.

It always irks me when that lovestory is all that is there about a character, which is why Suzaku was kind of a disappointed me to. I get why they've told the story like that, its just the kind of story I normally tend to avoid. I'm just happy that most of their stories dont follow such a simple pattern - and you're probably right about this being in line with ancient (japanese) storytelling traditions, so I can give them a pass.

In regards to her voice acting: My static actually had a lot of fun with switching voices mid-fight! I dont understand a word of french, but that sounded more bearable to me, while the german one must have been mixed weirdly, because it was way more quite than the english one, so much actually that I wouldnt have understood a word again without my german subtitles.