What’s your FFXIV Hot Take?

[DRKoftheAzure]

I have SEVERAL hot takes, but I think I will do them one post at a time... Tanking was not made easier in Shadowbringers with the massive tank changes that nerfed off tanking enmity generation to 2.0 Warrior levels of enmity generation, add all they they did was make better idiots in the tank role... and I say that as someone is too casual for Extreme and beyond content, but too hardcore casual content...

[synthwev]

1. None of the Scions is remotely interesting to interact with or have around. I'm just finishing Stormblood but I'm already sick of them. They all talk way too much and feel like they have the same personality.

2. ARR has some sort of important NPCs for certain quests, but the gear they wear are the ugliest pieces or rags the game has in store. For real 0 respect to their closet. They could use an update.

3. Dark skin looks absolutely terrible at night, especially in cutscenes. In a lot of them I've only seen my eyes. Speaking of this, it is clear a lot of cutscenes weren't made with night-time in mind.

4. What's with all the nodding? I should get at least more dialogue options to feel like I'm at least saying something, not agree to every single "do this 3-times chore" like I love to do it.

[Carin-Eri]

SE needs to implement their own version of a DPS Meter.
When casual players realize how low their numbers are compared to other players, they will realize that they are actually not good at the game and hopefully spent more time learning their job.

Most wouldn't though. They'd just quit.

[Gwenkatsu]

• Tank busters to... bust you ie. require mit.
• Raid-wides to... wipe you if you don't mit.
• Auto-attacks to... hurt, otherwise what's the point?
• Healers to... need to heal.
• Enemy AoEs to kill you if you get hit by them like in Pilgrim's Traverse.
• Mechanics to not hold back to an extent that would even insult a boomer gamer ie. left-right cleaves being nerfed to just "right cleaves", despite them making random exceptions in some story trials.
• Not fearing giving players the reponsibility of placing objects, as used to be done in Heavensward and allowed for the fun of things like Weeping City.

Much to my surprise, I wholeheartedly agree with this list. As long as they add one other point:

• Make mechanics understandable. When I fail, make it clear, why I failed, and how I can improve to not fail in the future. When the only thing that explains a mechanic is an outside resource, that mechanic is bad and should not be in the game. If people want bizarre and absurd mechanics, add them to the harder content - but make MSQ content understandable at least.

Which is the most important part of all. As of today, Trials and Raids totally fail to deliver on that front. When I do them, I die a lot - and I basically never know to what I died. Do I learn? No. Do I improve? No. Do I care any longer? No.

Though this might sound like I'm derailing the thread, I'm pretty sure that asking for understandable mechanics in this place IS a pretty hot take indeed

[Batbrat]

FFXIV needs open world PvP. I should be able to fight you for no reason the moment I see you, and a respawn window should pop up that directly tells you that I did it.

Submarines need to be unlinked from houses.

DC travel should be removed.

You should be able to marry someone + have guests at your wedding from a different server. Not DC though, stay in your own DCs.

[Yuella]

My expansion rank:
1. Endwalker. 10/10. Possibly the best video game story of all time
2. Heavensward. 9/10. Great story and characters. Adorable theme song.
3. Stormblood. 8/10. Story is simple and more grounded but other than the Ruby Sea section, it's actually not boring. Fordola and Yotsuyu starred in this expansion, showing how circumstances can turn people evil.
4. Shadowbringers. 8/10, but I put it below Stormblood. Story didn't pick up until after the second trial. Everything after that to 5.3 was great but 70-79 was kinda dull. I absolutely do not sympathize with Emet-Selch. You can't commit your own genocide to undo a genocide.
5. Dawntrail. 7/10. Obviously they had to take it down a bit after Endwalker but it's not bad at all. The overarching theme is interesting (how different cultures view death and memory). Wuk Lamat is not a bad character. If people like Zenos for being "bad for no reason other than being bad", why are they against Wuk Lamat being "good for no reason other than being good"?

A Realm Reborn itself is 7/10. It's only boring because the gameplay at lower level is extremely dull but the ARR story itself is not bad.

[TheGrimace]

Flying was a mistake. Flying makes maps too easy to traverse, lowering immersion. With flying, you're far less likely to run into other players while traveling. This makes the open world feel even more dead.

But flying is convenient, so it's never going away again.

[LeCorbeaux]

Flying was a mistake. Flying makes maps too easy to traverse, lowering immersion. With flying, you're far less likely to run into other players while traveling. This makes the open world feel even more dead.

But flying is convenient, so it's never going away again.

That's mostly because flying is implemented in the most lazy way imaginable in this game. Having flying should mean there are flying enemies, enemies with enough range to take you down even if you are flying, hazards specific to airborne players, and areas (in particular those meant for defense like every single Garlean castrum) specifically guarded against fliers via various means. All we got is … the sightseeing log.

[Carin-Eri]

G'raha Tia is overrated. Sorry, but he just isn't that interesting a character in my opinion. I feel he's shoehorned into MSQ content because of his popularity/how many players fawn over him... but I don't feel he really adds anything at this point (beyond being eye-candy for those who fawn over him) and you could replace him with pretty much any other Scion and get the same story point across.
Preferred him as the Crystal Exarch, personally.

Fist-clench in cutscenes has become grossly overused. Whilst seen throughout the entire MSQ I felt that it was particularly noticeable in Dawntrail, where it felt like we got a zoomed in closeup of someone (usually Wuk Lamat) dramatically clenching their fist every other cutscene. I release it's one of the writers primary tools for 'expressing emotion' in said cutscenes but they could do with scaling back on it.

And not really much of a "hot take" - but I'm absolutely sick of hearing the awful excuse of a music track 'Machinations' in cutscenes. I turn my PC's sound off when this overused ear-bleed rubbish starts playing. That relic from ARR that the devs insist on using to this day needs to burn in a fire.

[debleb]

Wuk Lamat is not that bad of a character. She was overpresent in the story but she’s a fun character and her story is nowhere near as bad as people say. In the next couple expansions when she’s been put into the same narrative prison Lyse got quarantined to we’ll see a whole lot of people who love her and complain that she was way better than “insert the new main MSQ focus NPC in patch 10.0”.