The Lessons Not Learned.

[LittleImp]

People who don't raid should really stop trying to make statements about how raiding is or how the community behaves, it's legitimately fatiguing and the baseless things they authoritatively spout can be discouraging to newer players who don't realize the source is probably intentionally misrepresenting things.

Yes, she is. Nothing you have said has any direct parallel to our argument. Jojoya is positing that players will lock people out after going through their gear and seeing they have a DET/TEN ring instead of the hypothetical CRIT/DET ring from Criterion. The notion it absolutely ludicrous. It simply doesn't happen at any level of play. Not even at the high end parsing level would anyone remotely care. I, for example, could still parse 100 despite the healer having some non-bis i630 PIE pieces. So long as they're putting Misery under buffs and pressing Glare, we're golden. So your comparison here is entirely a strawman.

To bolster Forte's point,

I have a meme alt that I pentamelded in Tenacity materia because it was cheap and available. I have been savage raiding on it in pugs periodically for like 2 months, and haven't received so much as a comment concerning my gear. If you are competent and consistent, no one is seriously going to care about your substats.

[Alleo]

What an apt description for Endwalker's 6.0 MSQ. An expansion that betrayed everything that came before it in order to let a handful of ocs shine. This is not what brought me to FFXIV back in the Heavensward/ARR days. Even if we were to return to that style of writing wherein you'd see that I have very little to critique, you'd still love the game with as much enthusiasm as you do now.

However, when it comes to content, the game is failing in spectacular fashion.

Yeah in your opinion. I found the writing style in Endwalker not much worse than other expansions. No I was even surprised how they were able to finish this long long story with a (IMO) great ending. Reading about your different views on the story including the newly introduced Zero I doubt that something that you would have liked would be something I enjoy. I hate grim dark stories. I stay away from books/movies like Game of Thrones because I find them utterly depressing. Endwalker and Shadowbringer (another great expansion you did not mention in your text I quote) are emotional for me but not too depressing. We do lose people but its not a mass slaughter of favorite characters. The themes can be quite dark (that szene with the family in the dschungle dungeon) and mature (Uriangers grief), yet we also have nice scenes to bring our spirits back up.

Honestly I really dont see how ARR or even Heavensward were better in that regard. In ARR none of the scions die, even Minifila still exists in a way. Its mostly the bad guys that perish. Yes we have the attack on the scions headquarter but again no major character dies there. And scenes like the headquarter exist in Endwalker too. After all we see quite a few people die on screen when the Final Days start. In Heavensward we lose some characters but overall the themes are not that deeper than in other expansions. We are able to stop a war that is going on for thousand of years and make peace between dragon and man.

So I am really not sure how these are so much better than Endwalker. We still solve the problems of these long going on conflicts with the power of friendship (and some good trashing).

About the new content:
Variant itself was a reward to me. It did not need many rewards for me to run them quite a few times. Honestly even just the notes and the puzzles would have been enough for me. I barely even looked at the rewards until I was finished. This was something great, something new. Something that they can build upon and that could be a nice little side content. Side content which brings us more lore without being mindnumbing grindy. I am sure that the long living content will come with the new deep dungeon (including gear and/or weapons) and the next relic steps.

Also have you finally done Island Sancturay and have you run the Variant dungeons yourself?

[Atelier-Bagur]

Yeah in your opinion. I found the writing style in Endwalker not much worse than other expansions. No I was even surprised how they were able to finish this long long story with a (IMO) great ending. Reading about your different views on the story including the newly introduced Zero I doubt that something that you would have liked would be something I enjoy. I hate grim dark stories. I stay away from books/movies like Game of Thrones because I find them utterly depressing. Endwalker and Shadowbringer (another great expansion you did not mention in your text I quote) are emotinal for me but not too depressing. We do lose people but its not a mass slaughter of favorite characters. The themes can be quite dark (that szene with the family in the dschungle dungeon) and mature (Uriangers grief), yet we also have nice scenes to bring our spirits back up.

Honestly I really dont see how ARR or even Heavensward were better in that regard. In ARR none of the scions die, even Minifila still exists in a way. Its mostly the bad guys that perish. Yes we have the attack the scions headquarter but again no major character dies there. And scenes like the headquarter exist in Endwalker too. After all we see quite a few people die on screen when the Final Days start. In Heavensward we lose a bit more character but overall the themes are also not that deeper than in other expansion. We are able to stop a war that is going on for thousand of years and make peace between dragon and man.

So I am really not sure how these are so much better than Endwalker. We still solve the problems of these long going on conflicts with the power of friendship (and some got trashing).

Variant itself was a reward to me. It did not need many rewards for me to run them quite a few times. Honestly even just the notes and the puzzles would have been enough for me. I barely even looked at the rewards until I was finished. This was something great, something new. Something that they can build upon and that could be a nice little side content. Side content which brings us more lore without being mindnumbing grindy. I am sure that the long living content will come with the new deep dungeon (including gear and/or weapons) and the next relic steps.

Also have you finally done Island Sancturay and have you run the Variant dungeons yourself?

It's baffling to me how much people over shill Heavensward and Shadowbringers stories for being these "masterpieces" and highlights of the entire game. Baffling because singling them out kills a lot of the substance owed by everything that came before it. They're all very shallow stories on their own. Ishgard is just a lite version of FF Tactics's plot, Shadowbringers is just a very lite version of FFX and Tales of Symphonia that deal with it's themes and conflict much better.

[SannaR]

It wasn't simply "huhuhu NA meta brain" but simple pragmatism to lock out specific jobs. You had a better chance of clearing, especially with the inconsistencies of party finder, if you insisted on near meta comp even if people playing those meta jobs were only average at best. In fact, I'll use myself for the example here. I logged a 47% on Dark Knight when I switched for door boss. This was less than 150 DPS off the top tanked Warrior and Paladin at the time of our respective clears. In other words, a barely average Dark Knight had near the same damage output as the best Warrior and Paladin. And you wonder why PF was locking out jobs? Tank balance was (and still is) awful.

So no, locking out non-meta jobs and insisting on mechanic skips are nothing alike to using a non-optimal but same ilvl equipment piece.

Sure, that's week one clear type of stuff, but what about when a raid tier is old and people are still using the same excuses and reasons to do fights a certain way or to exclude certain jobs? You know when most people have the gear? How many times does the community still insist on using week one comps or strategies even during the last week it's going to be current or the week after a new tier comes out? I know skill can make up far more than gear, but are you seriously going to tell me that people shouldn't adjust?

You are right in that most people won't look at how gear is melded as most raiders won't look at a person's gear. Heck even non raiders won't look at people's gear. It's how and why people used to and occasionally still do albeit normally at lower levels do stuff with wrong gear or would do roulettes wearing crafting and gathering gear in order to spirit bond. I look at people's gear more often then not as I want to see what I'm dealing with. Especially since I tend to get the kind of people who haven't updated their crap in ages or are at a low enough level where a dps can be wearing tank stuff and vice-versa. I know that at least in the past people did lock out those or kick those that had stuff melded wrong. Even then it was a minority of players who would actually take the time to look and see if someone had appropriate melds. That's because most people tend to not care about that as the need to be properly melded just so you can squeeze in a fraction of a % more has over the years not mattered as much as it has in the past. Cause when it did matter a lot more people looked at that more.

[Zanarkand-Ronso]

It's baffling to me how much people over shill Heavensward and Shadowbringers stories for being these "masterpieces" and highlights of the entire game. Baffling because singling them out kills a lot of the substance owed by everything that came before it. They're all very shallow stories on their own. Ishgard is just a lite version of FF Tactics's plot, Shadowbringers is just a very lite version of FFX and Tales of Symphonia that deal with it's themes and conflict much better.

Ill shill the Heck out of Shadowbringers, But not because I think its some Masterpiece or because it did anything better, took risks and all this crap people throw around.
I just think it was an interesting story, and just about everything we knew and learned in previous expansions came to a-head (If Im using that word correctly) I loved the Reveal of Hydaelyn and learning more about the Ascians and learning about their Motivations, I liked that things became a little grey and how I began to question things. I just enjoyed that.

Heavensward is a great story to with a Great Villain...but I do think HW personally is abit over-rated. Its good, really good, but I dont feel it to be the height of the Game or the best of the Game.
Also..heck yeah, Tales of Symphonia.

[Midareyukki]

It's baffling to me how much people over shill Heavensward and Shadowbringers stories for being these "masterpieces" and highlights of the entire game. Baffling because singling them out kills a lot of the substance owed by everything that came before it. They're all very shallow stories on their own. Ishgard is just a lite version of FF Tactics's plot, Shadowbringers is just a very lite version of FFX and Tales of Symphonia that deal with it's themes and conflict much better.

I just think the way they took a theme (Plato's Loves, Aristotle's concept of a perfect society -> More's Utopia), broke it down into ways that theme can be manifested and explored each in specific sections and people. Then they brought them all back up at the end so that it'd all connect. I like how it draws on philosophy. ARR was mostly worldbuilding, HW was exploring faith and how far a lie can go, SB explored how war is a constant back and forth/the values of freedom/how all it takes is one person to be mistreated to make them agree with opressive regimes... But SHB was mostly just blatant philosophy on the structure of society and the virtues of man. I liked that. And I liked that it wasn't especially preachy with it unlike Endwalker's vague aesop of "Suffering is what makes you appreciate life". Endwalker rubbed me the wrong way. SHB let you explore the concept, see how they do it and draw your own conclusions. And each character grows a little based on those aspects.

But that's just bc I'm a massive nerd and my favourite FF is 12, so I have really bad tastes as far as the FF community sees it.

idk



of course, it does still have flaws, particularly the way they use some characters (Ran'jit) and the weird insistance on some elements. But it was still my cup of tea, and that's why I generally defend it as a good story. If it's not your cup of tea tho, it's fine, it doesn't have to be. Hopefully something else about this game is.

[Renalt]

But that's just bc I'm a massive nerd and my favourite FF is 12, so I have really bad tastes as far as the FF community sees it.

Depends. Did you like 13 or X-2? I might judge a little bit then even though you're a real chill dude.

[ForteNightshade]

Sure, that's week one clear type of stuff, but what about when a raid tier is old and people are still using the same excuses and reasons to do fights a certain way or to exclude certain jobs? You know when most people have the gear? How many times does the community still insist on using week one comps or strategies even during the last week it's going to be current or the week after a new tier comes out? I know skill can make up far more than gear, but are you seriously going to tell me that people shouldn't adjust?

Jobs aren't being locked out nowadays except in optimization parties. With that said, it still remains advantageous to lock out jobs which are dramatically underperforming even several weeks into the tier. Why? PF inconsistencies. Did the Dragoon pick up their third damage down in P8S? It doesn't matter because you brought Dark Knight and Gunbreaker who can muscle through the DPS check with their extra 1000 DPS (less now with the buffs to Warrior and Paladin). Perhaps the biggest irony people ignore is it isn't the high end raid community who needs meta but PF who benefits from it. Party Finder has inconsistent players who collect damage downs, die to messing up mechanics or aren't rolling their GCD. You'll have healers spamming GCDs either due to playing overly safe or compensating for other players who aren't using their mitigation. All this results in significantly lower damage output.

To really emphasise my point. Party Finder is still tank LBing a mechanic (Cachexia 2) my group skipped entirely on the first week. We didn't skip it for several weeks after because we were bad, however the point still stands.

Cachexia 2 and War's Harvest are major choke points for PF. Having any DPS advantage that may allow you to skip them or compensate for the resulting deaths may be the different between clearing and hitting enrage. At least in the first month of any given tier.

Regardless, this isn't really an issue any longer now and the only restrictions people put up are ilvl.

I know that at least in the past people did lock out those or kick those that had stuff melded wrong. Even then it was a minority of players who would actually take the time to look and see if someone had appropriate melds. That's because most people tend to not care about that as the need to be properly melded just so you can squeeze in a fraction of a % more has over the years not mattered as much as it has in the past. Cause when it did matter a lot more people looked at that more.

How do you know this? You've never completed a single Savage tier on content. At best, this is entirely hearsay—which isn't saying much because we have no idea on the qualifications of those players. Speaking from actual experience, this never happened. The only time people made any sort of stink about your melds is during Stormblood Ultimates when the occasional DPS and Healer refused to meld Vitality, which made them squishier. Nobody was looking through your gear to check whether your i400 Omega Earrings were proper bis. They weren't doing it in Midas either when Savage was more on par with Ultimate level difficulty. Substats have never been more than a very small fraction.

Even if I took you at face value, you openly claim it was only ever a minority of players who bothered. So... who cares? It wouldn't be applicable to the argument I had with Jojoya earlier and what sparked this whole conversation to begin with: Adding raid equivalent gear to Criterion wouldn't make it mandatory.

[Atelier-Bagur]

Ill shill the Heck out of Shadowbringers, But not because I think its some Masterpiece or because it did anything better, took risks and all this crap people throw around.
I just think it was an interesting story, and just about everything we knew and learned in previous expansions came to a-head (If Im using that word correctly) I loved the Reveal of Hydaelyn and learning more about the Ascians and learning about their Motivations, I liked that things became a little grey and how I began to question things. I just enjoyed that.

Heavensward is a great story to with a Great Villain...but I do think HW personally is abit over-rated. Its good, really good, but I dont feel it to be the height of the Game or the best of the Game.
Also..heck yeah, Tales of Symphonia.

I love HW and ShB stories for what it brought to the overall FFXIV narrative as a whole, but I also hold the same standard and regard for ARR, SB and EW too. I dont think each one does anything better than the other as it delves into completely different things that'll be a hit or miss with people. Some people enjoy dragons a lot so they give HW such an easy time despite its flaws, others like me enjoy the more grounded strife and war tales with SB even though its overambition was its own fault, some like isekai-shin megami tensei apocalypse themes so ShB was their cup of tea etc.

Also I hope we're talking about Nidhogg rather than Thordan and the Heavensward when it comes to HW's main villian because that old man and his entourage were the biggest let down in terms of character and depth Ive been wanting for my villains. They werent even entertaining on-screen imo.

Also heck yes Tales of Symphonia is super great. Ive played a ton of jrpgs, and I mean A TON! so I feel like I have a general scope when it comes to a standard good quality jrpg story. FFXIV's narrative is pretty top tier due to its expansion structure, but when we single out each one on it's own in compared to single player stories, those narratives lack a lot of oomph and depth needed to stand on its own. Which is why I always say that cherry picking expansion narratives is a bit pointless when it relies on the game's foundation to give meaning despite its terrible pacing.

[Zanarkand-Ronso]

I love HW and ShB stories for what it brought to the overall FFXIV narrative as a whole, but I also hold the same standard and regard for ARR, SB and EW too. I dont think each one does anything better than the other as it delves into completely different things that'll be a hit or miss with people. Some people enjoy dragons a lot so they give HW such an easy time despite its flaws, others like me enjoy the more grounded strife and war tales with SB even though its overambition was its own fault, some like isekai-shin megami tensei apocalypse themes so ShB was their cup of tea etc.

Also I hope we're talking about Nidhogg rather than Thordan and the Heavensward when it comes to HW's main villian because that old man and his entourage were the biggest let down in terms of character and depth Ive been wanting for my villains. They werent even entertaining on-screen imo.

Also heck yes Tales of Symphonia is super great. Ive played a ton of jrpgs, and I mean A TON! so I feel like I have a general scope when it comes to a standard good quality jrpg story. FFXIV's narrative is pretty top tier due to its expansion structure, but when we single out each one on it's own in compared to single player stories, those narratives lack a lot of oomph and depth needed to stand on its own. Which is why I always say that cherry picking expansion narratives is a bit pointless when it relies on the game's foundation to give meaning despite its terrible pacing.

Oh yes, Definitely Nidhogg. The Heavensward wasnt that interesting to me, even though they are the source of Nidhoggs Rage. Which I could relate to abit, because they made me mad with the crap they pulled. A time you can understand the Villain.
And yes, I kind of poke fun at one of my friends that: You only love Heavensward because of Knights and Dragons.
He is in fact into that stuff, so obviously HW tickled that passion for him.

I agree with you, honestly I think its just weird overall to compare any single expansion to a Full Single Player experience.
They are just different animals entirely. Some things work better then others, but its really just a subjective opinion, one that will be different for everybody, like how I like and Im engaged with where EW's post is going, while others dont feel the same.

Dumb unrelated question....you think Tales of. Could make a decent MMO?
I know Tales of Radiance was a mixed bag, but hey they made 3 games. Now just imagine that on an even bigger scale.