Hildibrand for relic? Really?

[Lustre]

I think people's concern is that we just went from literally saving the universe with the PoWEr oF FrIeNdShIp, and now the relic weapon quests, normally used to give mid/end game players something to grind out in content downtime and also add to the game's lore and worldbuilding, is being relegated to Silly Man Doing Silly Things and potentially losing a Field Operations zone. There's a very particular tone shift in my opinion. I watched somebody playing ARR the other day, and it shocked me how different in tone it was. It felt like a final fantasy game. It was grittier, the stakes weren't higher but they felt real. it had its own identity, one that wouldn't be too far from ff1-10. What do we see now? Half of Eorzea looks like they should be in a korean boy band, not a final fantasy game. Much of the stuff we see now is very surface level, and erring into shonen/slice of life anime territory. Which is fine, but it's not exactly what a lot of people were playing for. I do not see people engage with this argument much, they tend to respond to imaginary strawman arguments.

And also just to add, I was able to figure out what annoys me about the Hildi quests so much. The animation, cutscenes and special effects etc are of a much higher quality than anything you'd see in an MSQ cutscene. There's more well done scenes in SB hildy than there was in the entirety of the last expansion, you know, the big finale to end a saga. It's weird. Why spend this much time on a naked man with a hammer in a side-quest 50% of people wont do and 25% will skip when there's REALLY important scenes in the MSQ where it either gets left to the imagination or my character stands there like a mannequin nodding like a car dashboard figurine...

[Zaredth]

I think people's concern is that we just went from literally saving the universe with the PoWEr oF FrIeNdShIp, and now the relic weapon quests, normally used to give mid/end game players something to grind out in content downtime and also add to the game's lore and worldbuilding, is being relegated to Silly Man Doing Silly Things and potentially losing a Field Operations zone. There's a very particular tone shift in my opinion. I watched somebody playing ARR the other day, and it shocked me how different in tone it was. It felt like a final fantasy game. It was grittier, the stakes weren't higher but they felt real. it had its own identity, one that wouldn't be too far from ff1-10. What do we see now? Half of Eorzea looks like they should be in a korean boy band, not a final fantasy game. Much of the stuff we see now is very surface level, and erring into shonen/slice of life anime territory. Which is fine, but it's not exactly what a lot of people were playing for. I do not see people engage with this argument much, they tend to respond to imaginary strawman arguments.

And also just to add, I was able to figure out what annoys me about the Hildi quests so much. The animation, cutscenes and special effects etc are of a much higher quality than anything you'd see in an MSQ cutscene. There's more well done scenes in SB hildy than there was in the entirety of the last expansion, you know, the big finale to end a saga. It's weird. Why spend this much time on a naked man with a hammer in a side-quest 50% of people wont do and 25% will skip when there's REALLY important scenes in the MSQ where it either gets left to the imagination or my character stands there like a mannequin nodding like a car dashboard figurine...

Once again, it sounds like you don't like the game anymore and you want a different game. FF16 is coming soon, perhaps thats something to look forward to. Sounds like it is right up your alley mate.

[IkaraGreydancer]

What scion has gotten scratches? Let’s see….

Thancred lost his ability to manipulate Aether.
Yshtola lost her sight and at least before it was retconned was proclaimed to be slowly sapping away her life energies

Papalymo sacrifices himself

Most of the scions in the waking sands were massacred or given life threatening injuries

I didn’t even mention anything about despair affecting them. Sure we can handwave that, but they’ve been injured and or died to far weaker foes than the likes of Endsinger, or unsundered ancients. Yet it’s against these foes that they lost nothing. Instead we get constant slice of life scenes and the budget goes towards said scenes, with Yoshi P himself stating the most expensive thing to animate this expansion was Estinien’s foot on a balcony. Imagine if instead of all these slice of life scenes, we could have gotten a cinematic of Hydaelyn vs Zodiark, something actually rich in lore and the foundation of the games life rather than burger eating, date scenes, or yshtola acting like a 5 yr old magical girl.

Last I checked Ysh's eyesight was never retconned. It's was said her life was draining that doesn't mean she'd die soon. And Thancred can't manipulate aether which happened in ARR, and hasn't had anything happened to him since until ShB with his near death fight with Ranjit (folks call that a cop out ofc) and then nothing til EW. Papy is indeed gone, the only main one outside of maybe Meon to do so, and even that wasn't until SB for him.

Yes the scions have been injured by weaker foes than the endsinger but they have gotten stronger same as us. And unless you missed it we got them out of there to avoid them getting hurt further. They weren't around for Zodis fight so we have no guage there. Also again with these "we get constant slice of life scenes". How often do we REALLY get those in the story? I've asked you to find this out like 3 times now. As for your lore right cutscene? We already got that in the Venat sundering. That's one of if not the best cutscene in the entire game and I'm FAR from the only person who thinks this. Same for the other scenes in the game. Battling n new animations all over the place in EW unlike anything we've seen so far from the game, yet folks are upset about burgers...oh and Ysh's magic girl bit is indeed character development something your crowd has complained about Scions not having but I guess thats bad now too?

And frankly wtf does any of this have to do with Hildy weps? Take the EW distain to that 6k post thread

[Treesus]

Ive run through the entire hildabrand questline upto the newest content in less then 2 days on an alt quite recently. If this is considered "a grind" or "too much" for you, then relic weapons were probably not going to be for you in the first place.

[Lauront]

Once again, it sounds like you don't like the game anymore and you want a different game. FF16 is coming soon, perhaps thats something to look forward to. Sounds like it is right up your alley mate.

It's coming in a year. It's also not an MMO. We also have no idea whether it will live up to the hype. You are just bleating "go play something else" to someone explaining their concerns and offering their feedback about the game in the (perhaps vain) hope that the devs listen (...on a site they put out there for this express purpose, no less) and thus that it remains or shifts back to something they want to play, whilst trying to pretend that side-content that is at best parenthetic to the game's identity is somehow core to it. Give it a rest.

[Lustre]

Once again, it sounds like you don't like the game anymore and you want a different game. FF16 is coming soon, perhaps thats something to look forward to. Sounds like it is right up your alley mate.

Not really, I appreciate they're leaning into fantasy aspects more than the hi-tech stuff we've seen recently (13, 15), I am concerned that it's going to essentially be a reskinned FF15 and the lack of turn based party combat is a deal breaker for me. I hope it does well though so staff can work on 14 more. There's still more in FF14 that I like rather than dislike. It's just that i've been in similar MMO communities in the past, and I always regretted not speaking my opinion when things happened I and others didn't like. And then before I knew it, the game was totally different from what I'd have wanted it to be. So I feel like i've a vested interest in just "saying it as it is" when it comes to issues in this game. My complaints come from a place of passion, not malice. I want to see this game succeed well into the future, I just don't think the light-hearted tone will do much for people in the long run. It's like sweets, they're nice in small amounts, but if you eat too much you'll get sick. That's how I feel about all the derpy slice of life stuff haha.

Maybe one day I will decide that my time spent has been enough, and maybe the game will "move away" from me so to speak, but until I feel that day's here, I'll call out anything I feel I need to

[TaleraRistain]

Is there any meaning to derailing this discussion so hard with pointless harassment? We can all state our opinions without derailing the discussion.

I personally won't be doing this relic as a relic grinder as the tone of the prerequisite story is not my flavor of story and it makes me believe the relic story will be more in line with the quest chain I already disliked. I would love to be proven wrong on that but until it is released that is the only opinion I can give for now. My worry is more content is becoming something I do not feel like interacting with due to the overuse of humor that doesn't land for me and "slice of life" moments.

If you have done Hildy, you should consider doing the Scholasticate quests. They provide an example of a character from the Hildy storyline where it isn't a slapstick comedy story. Considering we've only see Godbert for this, it's very possible this will go the same way. He clowns when he's with his son, but he's a highly respected member of the Syndicate, a successful businessman who owns the Gold Saucer, moonlights at the winter holidays as the Saint of Nymeia, and is renowned as a master goldsmith. It's that last bit that makes it very possible these will be some amazing weapons, as you have the blacksmith who can imbue souls into weapons with arguably the finest craftsman around.

[ZavosEsperian]

The thing is, it's been like this since the beginning. The original ARR relic unlocked the HM primals, Chimera, and the Hydra, and you had to do ALL of them to get the relics, as well as run a bunch of other optional side content like HM dungeons. The relic quest and initial unlocks have been like this since the beginning, and hasn't changed in that aspect. You either accept this and do it anyway, or you do not and you never touch the relic. Those are the options here.

I think you misunderstand, Hydra and Chimera were unlocked as a consequence of doing the relic itself. There were no prerequisites to the ARR relic other than beating 2.0. Hard modes you could unlock prior to doing the relic, and while they are required, they were not needed before the actual relic started unless you wanted them or had ilvl issues trying to complete the other hard modes. The issue deals with prerequisites, not doing other pieces of content for the relic after the relic has been opened up.

[Xeronia]

If you have done Hildy, you should consider doing the Scholasticate quests. They provide an example of a character from the Hildy storyline where it isn't a slapstick comedy story. Considering we've only see Godbert for this, it's very possible this will go the same way. He clowns when he's with his son, but he's a highly respected member of the Syndicate, a successful businessman who owns the Gold Saucer, moonlights at the winter holidays as the Saint of Nymeia, and is renowned as a master goldsmith. It's that last bit that makes it very possible these will be some amazing weapons, as you have the blacksmith who can imbue souls into weapons with arguably the finest craftsman around.

Oh I love the Scholasticate , it is the reason I did ARR Hildibrand initially. My issue is if it is just Godbert why is the entire quest required and not simply ARR Hildibrand only? Godbert has also appeared in the MSQ during Stormblood as the owner of Gold Saucer. The fact every part is required really just doesn't fill me with with a ton of hope this won't be more of that.

[RyuDragnier]

I think you misunderstand, Hydra and Chimera were unlocked as a consequence of doing the relic itself. There were no prerequisites to the ARR relic other than beating 2.0. Hard modes you could unlock prior to doing the relic, and while they are required, they were not needed before the actual relic started unless you wanted them or had ilvl issues trying to complete the other hard modes. The issue deals with prerequisites, not doing other pieces of content for the relic after the relic has been opened up.

Actually, back in ARR (meaning when it was current content) you could only unlock those Hard Modes for the primals if you started the grind for the relic. They were not optional, they could only be unlocked by the relic questline.