Final Fantasy XIV Hot Takes

[GrizzlyTank]

The last stretch of EW was weak because all emotional pull is rendered null because of the established macguffin.

But then, they had to have that trope added somewhere /shrug.

[LisSquid]

But then, they had to have that trope added somewhere /shrug.

At least it wasn't Urianger popping up out of nowhere to hand us a magic stick to deal with the very specific thing we need to do, with two lines of exposition, and then poofing for the rest of that arc.

[Raoabolic]

The last stretch of EW was weak because all emotional pull is rendered null because of the established macguffin.

+1
EW's ending was VERY weak compared to the end of ShB. I hope by 6.5 I do a 180 on my take but I really don't expect it, that said I would rather be pleasantly surprised than right.

[Conundrum]

+1
EW's ending was VERY weak compared to the end of ShB. I hope by 6.5 I do a 180 on my take but I really don't expect it, that said I would rather be pleasantly surprised than right.

EW just felt like endless fanservice, if you stripped it out the expansion is empty...that doesn't even count the retcons and pulling bird girl out of their @$$. It also reiterated how they're afraid to kill any characters that matter. I'm taking an alt through the MSQ, and it's just driving home how many times major characters should have died but somehow completely recovered.

[Raoabolic]

EW just felt like endless fanservice, if you stripped it out the expansion is empty...that doesn't even count the retcons and pulling bird girl out of their @$$. It also reiterated how they're afraid to kill any characters that matter. I'm taking an alt through the MSQ, and it's just driving home how many times major characters should have died but somehow completely recovered.

My biggest issue is the writing.

EW SPOILERS





The entire first two acts felt like they were trying to tell a story emphasizing the fact that everything is finite and to enjoy/make the most of your life only for the finale to throw all that out the window and go full shonen jump. I like a good shonen/hero story but don't set it up as something serious only to go full anime tropes like that. It seriously felt like the writers wrote themselves into a corner at the end. The bird girl could have even worked but it felt like a missed opportunity in general. At least we got Flow and P4's theme. Those sounded pretty sweet.

[Berteaux_Braumegain]

The last stretch of EW was weak because all emotional pull is rendered null because of the established macguffin.

Honestly, I was taken out of the plot of the final zone when you get there and Thancred is dead and literally no one cares except for a few lines from Urianger. Like, goddamn.

The fact that literally all of the Scions die in this moment just only served to hammer in how temporary it was going to be, especially when Y'shtola, notorious plot armor wearer that she is, outright says "By the way, your plot device can probably bring us back. But don't do it at the end of this zone. ", which is later followed by Alphinaud making a similar remark!

Also, it's really weird to me that G'raha has this really great speech to the Omicron guy about helping him see through his malaise and feelings of being unable to move on, while Y'shtola and Estinien are kinda just like "Ehh, who cares?" to the people they talk to, which somehow still fixes things.

[Droxybrobotnik]

The last stretch of EW was weak because all emotional pull is rendered null because of the established macguffin.

I feel this is a cold take

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Hot take: people's opinions aren't as important as they tend to think they are (yes that includes me).

[Shougun]

Casual players are the blood and organs of the game, more hardcore players the bones.

I think hardcore players oversell their importance to the game, but casual players who believe there is no value in content directed, even if temporarily, at the hardcore players would cause FFXIV lose a lot of 'structure'.

More hot take:

I don't think it's important, ultimately, that things are hyper restrictive just delayed in some fashion. Meaning I don't believe content needs to be just for X. People who go on and on about how content needs a challenge FOR EVERYONE, FOREVER- I think they overstate the matter. An aside particularly in that thought might be difficultly should be more fun, not because... of the 'fun' of pain. Like grinding Atma may have been fun to some in ARR but overall that was just something that shouldn't be repeated. There exists a long precedence that difficultly is simply to enhance your fun, easy and hard both enjoying the same content (in sRPGs).

Of course this is multiplayer and so if you allowed both to exist at the same time, with the same reward, that would lead people to choose a difficulty they don't want simply to optimize. Famous quote players will optimize the fun out of the game. So delays, and also changes in reward rates, such that the multiplayer function is roughly similar in time cost is absolutely acceptable. Beyond that, which the game roughly already follows (and am in agreement), you don't need to keep old content of similar time cost because it would become prohibitive for all except a narrowband of players but rather if one could make the content still 'fun' while open to a larger band that'd be better (hence I am, from the beginning, always been rooting for Blue Mage to organically fit into the solo job as the primary function on all accounts (meaning progression is designed for the solo player in mind, and not anything else), but may have some party stuff on the side as an 'aside' because that may be fun as well). I mention Blue Mage simply because then the content doesn't have to self nerf itself as much, rather blue mage just comes in with massive orbital cannons to balance out that matter (this doesn't mean 1 shot bosses, again 'fun' is more important, but it does mean you could do stuff that seems impossible without being 'god tier player' - which is the case in a lot of situations now when you have a full blue mage kit, so that's nice, I do wish they smoothed out blue mage progression though as it still has some wrinkles imo).

Which comes together as I generally disagree that we need to have old content remain as time consuming as it was when new, I don't believe 'good' content rewards need to be locked behind exclusively challenging content, and I think players should simply be given avenues to play the game in the way they find most 'fun' rather than most optimized path of rewards excluded to how 'they' want to play. Not to say there can be no improvements, but that I think part of the charm for FFXIV is that you can do pretty much 'it all' and with some challenges in the way you want to do it (like there is no echo min sync, of course there are logistic issues sometimes.. and those could be discussed but simply not allowing power creep as a solution has implications on other players so that isn't simply a simple solution then).

Or maybe in other words, it's okay stuff is easy. The problem is not if something is easy or hard, those are relevant only in so much of their fun and nothing else. Difficulty is only a function to serve fun, and not exclusively for anything else. Difficulty isn't the goal, it's just a tool for another goal (fun) and beyond that isn't relevant. (Yes restated three times, lol- just to be clear ). Therefore the only issue is if something is fun, and then maybe how reasonable a solution can be for everyone to prop up the values each player comes with (because of course everyone does come at the game from a different angle- it's not to say there is one solution to everything, just that sometimes it feels we see the tree but miss the forest at least when I read the forums).

Hot take: people's opinions aren't as important as they tend to think they are (yes that includes me).

Akthusualylly- My opin----

Even if I disagree I tend to go out of my way to read yours (and a few others), plus we've had some good meme.jpgs... :3

[Minarisweet]

Hot take: people's opinions aren't as important as they tend to think they are (yes that includes me).

Hot take: Being apathetic doesn't make you more mature.