Final Fantasy XIV Hot Takes

[TheMightyMollusk]

Level skips should require a Hall of the Novice-style tutorial instance, to go over the basics of the job, before allowing the skipper to use Duty Finder. Put in at least some effort to learn what you're doing before you jump in the deep end.

[NishaSetsuya]

Anthropy was the real enemy in endwalker

[Kolsykol]

If you keep joining parties that are late into fights in pf without knowing what you're doing you deserve to get banned from pf and if you keep doing it permabanned.
It's seriously the most infuriating waste of peoples time.
You can spend an hour putting a group together then it immediately becomes apart that someone doesn't even know the first mechanic.

If you do this you're a plague to the game.
Join a practice party and stop being a moron, I hate you from the depths of my very being and you make the pf experience so much worse for everyone.

[Malphasie]

-Healer gameplay is really really boring, having just a few damaging skills + not even having a rotation feels like crap
As if they just want you to go: "all party is good and healed up? press 1 button until their HP falls down again"
-Having damage downs instead of Vuln stacks in savage is really boring. If you get hit once and get a vuln you basically have the start caring bout your safety more than with damage downs.
-Melee Positionals should be removed completely. who cares if I don't hit my positional? its just a annoyance that makes people turn away from melee dps and they don't add anything interesting to a rotation.

Edit: also another Semi-Hot take, SHB SMN was waaaaaay better than EW SMN.

[Puksi]

The writers need to stop telling and start showing more often. The amount of exposition as opposed to actual, engaging action keeps getting worse.

The Scions are written so dryly that to me, they are pretty much interchangeable and forgettable.

The selective outrage of the narrative is immersion-breaking. For example, Eulmore was set up (with juvenile tropes) to supposedly be the height of all things wrong with humanity in ShB. Despite Alphinaud loudly complaining the people of Gate Town left their communities and families willingly for a lotto ticket's chance at getting into a city that made them no promises, and how they refused all his alternatives, that was the fault of Eulmore because reasons? The writers established, and then completely ignored, that Eulmore was the main line of defense against Sin Eaters for 80 years, and all the loss broke them of any kind of hope. Instead, they pushed Eulmorans were simply decadent and wicked and ~bad~. The scenes showed food everywhere to somehow illustrate just how ~perverted~ the "paradise" of Eulmore was, completely neglecting dialogue elsewhere that food is bought from the neighboring villages, skipping over the bit where 1% foots the bill for everyone in the city, including workers who (according to Beehive dialogues) were paid so well, they were upset when the city went capitalist after 5.0. "Ascension" was guaranteed only to free citizens, but it was somehow totally "bones of the poor" that built Eulmore--then we didn't feed two guys that came from Wright because they couldn't afford the menu in Eulmore 2.0.

The thicc'qote rigs were apparently made exclusively for this message, and I don't think I've ever been more disappointed in the developers.

But I don't recall any point in Heavensward where the narrative pushed nearly that level of ~disgust~ towards the nobles of Ishgard--warm in their mansions with their Ishgardian muffins and dating sim dinner spreads, knocking up their maids--while the poor in the Brume shivered in the snow without any real aid. Ysayle's village being wiped out because the gates of Falcon's Nest were closed as they tried to reach safety was presented like an afterthought with no repercussions, iirc? In fact, we were fine with the "Lords" and "Commons" setup in the end, even though the entire point of uncovering the truth about Ishgard was that no blood difference existed between the two classes, despite that being the excuse given as to why the nobility were "better" than the smallfolk. Even with the Firmament, the poor have to pay rent they can't afford to get housing--or work it off for the nobles, Elon Musk style. Ishgard's our buddy, though, even though trial by combat sounds like it's still a thing.

[KizuyaKatogami]

The writers need to stop telling and start showing more often. The amount of exposition as opposed to actual, engaging action keeps getting worse.

The Scions are written so dryly that to me, they are pretty much interchangeable and forgettable.

The selective outrage of the narrative is immersion-breaking. For example, Eulmore was set up (with juvenile tropes) to supposedly be the height of all things wrong with humanity in ShB. Despite Alphinaud loudly complaining the people of Gate Town left their communities and families willingly for a lotto ticket's chance at getting into a city that made them no promises, and how they refused all his alternatives, that was the fault of Eulmore because reasons? The writers established, and then completely ignored, that Eulmore was the main line of defense against Sin Eaters for 80 years, and all the loss broke them of any kind of hope. Instead, they pushed Eulmorans were simply decadent and wicked and ~bad~. The scenes showed food everywhere to somehow illustrate just how ~perverted~ the "paradise" of Eulmore was, completely neglecting dialogue elsewhere that food is bought from the neighboring villages, skipping over the bit where 1% foots the bill for everyone in the city, including workers who (according to Beehive dialogues) were paid so well, they were upset when the city went capitalist after 5.0. "Ascension" was guaranteed only to free citizens, but it was somehow totally "bones of the poor" that built Eulmore--then we didn't feed two guys that came from Wright because they couldn't afford the menu in Eulmore 2.0.

The thicc'qote rigs were apparently made exclusively for this message, and I don't think I've ever been more disappointed in the developers.

But I don't recall any point in Heavensward where the narrative pushed nearly that level of ~disgust~ towards the nobles of Ishgard--warm in their mansions with their Ishgardian muffins and dating sim dinner spreads, knocking up their maids--while the poor in the Brume shivered in the snow without any real aid. Ysayle's village being wiped out because the gates of Falcon's Nest were closed as they tried to reach safety was presented like an afterthought with no repercussions, iirc? In fact, we were fine with the "Lords" and "Commons" setup in the end, even though the entire point of uncovering the truth about Ishgard was that no blood difference existed between the two classes, despite that being the excuse given as to why the nobility were "better" than the smallfolk. Even with the Firmament, the poor have to pay rent they can't afford to get housing--or work it off for the nobles, Elon Musk style. Ishgard's our buddy, though, even though trial by combat sounds like it's still a thing.

This is supposed to be for hot takes not actual facts

[Theodric]

The game would do well to avoid portraying neutrality in a conflict as a sin. It's perfectly valid for someone to decide as an individual - or a nation - to simply not get involved in foreign affairs. If they take such a stance then they should not necessarily expect someone to come running to their aid if and when it is needed but free will, consent and agency are seemingly embraced and discarded on a whim as is convenient to whatever sophistry fuelled rant Alphinaud is partaking of at any given time.

[thvojenkins]

A Realm Reborn was what the game needed to rebound from the disaster that was 1.0.
Heavensward was good.
Stormblood was an expansion that wasn't released so much as it escaped. But it was fine.

Shadowbringers has enough confused storytelling, half-truths, and outright falsities in the narrative that if it were a World of Warcraft expansion, Actiblizz would have been crucified, and Endwalker has proven to be more of the same.

But because SE relied on the power of "HEY, THIS IS SAD," Final Fantasy XIV became god's gift to gaming. We're not supposed to pay attention to the lore so much though, or we'll find out the man behind the curtain is just another rehash of Kingdom Hearts.

On a gameplay note, going through the MSQ once is an experience. Going through multiple times on alts was kind of a pain when there was only one or two expansions. The more expansions that get released, the more alt-unfriendly the game becomes.

[Firlont]

I never allowed any irritation with the need to return to Vesper Bay to blossom into a hatred of Minfilia Warde, and I never wanted her to leave, even after Shadowbringers made the desire for her return into a moral enormity.

[Nyxn607]

Pineapple, ham, and jalapeno pizza, mmmmmmmmm.

Second this right here.