Final Fantasy XIV (Guide in first post)

StoiCynic

StoiCynic

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I'll echo what most have said about HW, but 90% of my enjoyment in that quest line was the "journey" which a few people have brought up already. It was just a cool plot concept that I hadn't experienced in an MMO before. But yeah, some of the dragon politics dragged for me and I distinctly remember that moogle zone having some of the worst side quests. I think they may have since fixed it after pretty much everyone complained but maybe I imagined that. Also Chocobo forest zone (Dravanian Forelands I think?) has my favorite song off the OST. I quit for awhile after 3.1, but I HATED that raid tier. I can't stand it when games try to mimic creature dialogue with broken english, and there was too much goblin talk so I skipped all the dialogue pretty much. Like who enjoys reading that?

As a whole, I think the FFXIV main story is pretty weak. Whenever Urianger or the twins try to explain ether, crystals and all the primal shit it sounds like gibberish so I tend to skip it. Sometimes I get the impression that they put themselves in a box trying to tie in all the 1.0 stuff. It's deffinitely getting better with ShB, but now the Garlean stuff is getting a bit repetitive. Next Xpac needs to be Meracydia or some other new continent with a whole new story line.

People praise FFXIV for it's story, but I MUCH prefer the EQ universe. Say what you will about EQ2, but that story through TSO expansion was amazing. Never played WoW but I get more excited watching their story trailers than FFXIV as well.
 
Pyros

Pyros

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Next expansion will still be more of the same, since it's the last expansion in the current storyline. It'll end the Empire and probably the main Ascian storylines. After that it'll be whatever they feel like, but it's not guaranteed Yoshida will be staying, so 7.0 could be a huge pile of shit until the new guy gets used to it, or it could be really nice, or Yoshida could stay for one more where he does what he wanted to do for a while but couldn't due to the ongoing story kind of thing, guess we'll see.

As for other games I guess it depends on people, I find the XIV story better than most other stuff including a bunch of single player games tbh. Yeah it has a lot of fillers but that's just mmo nature, when considering just the actual story I like it a lot.

WoW is weird for example. Playing it atm, and it's a massive mess with the story. People often criticize FFXIV MSQ being forced and linear and shit and I get that it's annoying for people who just want to get to the endgame asap, but it also forces you to experience the story the way it's meant to be. In wow, nothing makes any fucking sense unless you grind everything in order, and even then some shit is gone from temporary patches so it still doesn't feel like it makes much sense. You go through expansions at a rapid pace so you have to lock your xp if you want to see everything, but even within a given expansion it's a mess.

BFA is especially bad, since it has a fairly strong narrative, but as soon as you're 120 you unlock all the storylines at the same time, and you can do them in any order. One of first thing I did was the Nazjatar questline cause it unlocked some useful powerups I read and like 5mins into it, there's a NPC showing up and people are like "Traitor, I knew we shouldn't have trusted you". And I'm like, ok no idea who this is, probably character I missed. But then I was done unlocking my stuff there so I go back to the main storyline to unlock the Maghar race, and a few hours later, turns out I meet the character that will turn into a traitor for the first time. And it's just so disjointed as a result unless you follow a guide to know in which order to do the shit, but that severely gimps you gear wise since most of the new stuff is tied to these storylines.

Like WoW has a lot of story but it's really fucking hard to experience it in any sort of meaningful way currently unless you use addons, 3rd party websites and purposefully gimp your leveling speed for way more hours than even the post ARR MSQ, just to try to keep track. And even then it's quite a mess with area that have changed so you have to talk to a NPC to see the "normal" area at the time you're there and all the time travelling shit.
 
Daidraco

Daidraco

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Well, I mean.. thats why, in part, Blizzard is changing all the expansions up into a "Click An Adventure to Proceed!" kind of option set. If there are truly new people joining WoW this far into the game - I hope they change up the whole "have to experience BFA" first kind of thing. But anyways...

Ascians are a garbage concept in my personal opinion. I have never really liked them all that much. They seem like the writers are trying to make them into this invisible all seeing group, ala Big Pharma / Medical / Illuminati. Which, the biggest power that that concept has is the fact that you dont know who they are or how they do the shit that they do. But then, when we started fighting them, killing them and traveling through time with them - a lot of their story just has me at a ... "what the fk?" point of view. Shadowbringers has Solus zos Galvus doing things that are just incredibly strong, and civilization building. Totally breaking the .. theme? I guess? of the Ascians.

Im not saying that the story is terrible - but Ascians just feel so.. disjointed. So I have to agree with the posts pointing this out. Shadowbringers has this almost Phantasy Star kind of component, and I think that has a lot of the draw to it. But like all stories, there are some things that are just not that good. I consider Ascians to be one of the pitfalls of FFXIV, however small it truly is.
 
Pyros

Pyros

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Daidraco said:
Well, I mean.. thats why, in part, Blizzard is changing all the expansions up into a "Click An Adventure to Proceed!" kind of option set. If there are truly new people joining WoW this far into the game - I hope they change up the whole "have to experience BFA" first kind of thing. But anyways...

Ascians are a garbage concept in my personal opinion. I have never really liked them all that much. They seem like the writers are trying to make them into this invisible all seeing group, ala Big Pharma / Medical / Illuminati. Which, the biggest power that that concept has is the fact that you dont know who they are or how they do the shit that they do. But then, when we started fighting them, killing them and traveling through time with them - a lot of their story just has me at a ... "what the fk?" point of view. Shadowbringers has Solus zos Galvus doing things that are just incredibly strong, and civilization building. Totally breaking the .. theme? I guess? of the Ascians.

Im not saying that the story is terrible - but Ascians just feel so.. disjointed. So I have to agree with the posts pointing this out. Shadowbringers has this almost Phantasy Star kind of component, and I think that has a lot of the draw to it. But like all stories, there are some things that are just not that good. I consider Ascians to be one of the pitfalls of FFXIV, however small it truly is.
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ShB spoilers
I think the concept works fine, it's a theme that's been done before especially in anime. Yeah Solus/Emet-Selch did some good, but the goal was purely to serve their own ambitions, they don't even consider "humans"(in the world) to be entities worth respecting, he was basically raising cattle or I guess more accurately raising a pack of hunting dogs. The scale seems crazy but not really when you consider the lifespan of Ascians(well the true ones at least). And by raising the Empire he didn't really do just benevolent things, he raised in with the entire purpose of waging war, so even from that angle it's not really like he did just great things.

I think it's great they revealed a lot more about them because it explains why they act the way they act and why they've been behind every calamity and so on. It also makes them relatable to an extent. Villains are better imo when you can understand what drives them to be evil.

Zenos on the other hand... pretty trash and wish they didn't keep resurecting him.
 
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Merrith

Merrith

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StoiCynic said:
I'll echo what most have said about HW, but 90% of my enjoyment in that quest line was the "journey" which a few people have brought up already. It was just a cool plot concept that I hadn't experienced in an MMO before. But yeah, some of the dragon politics dragged for me and I distinctly remember that moogle zone having some of the worst side quests. I think they may have since fixed it after pretty much everyone complained but maybe I imagined that. Also Chocobo forest zone (Dravanian Forelands I think?) has my favorite song off the OST. I quit for awhile after 3.1, but I HATED that raid tier. I can't stand it when games try to mimic creature dialogue with broken english, and there was too much goblin talk so I skipped all the dialogue pretty much. Like who enjoys reading that?

As a whole, I think the FFXIV main story is pretty weak. Whenever Urianger or the twins try to explain ether, crystals and all the primal shit it sounds like gibberish so I tend to skip it. Sometimes I get the impression that they put themselves in a box trying to tie in all the 1.0 stuff. It's deffinitely getting better with ShB, but now the Garlean stuff is getting a bit repetitive. Next Xpac needs to be Meracydia or some other new continent with a whole new story line.

People praise FFXIV for it's story, but I MUCH prefer the EQ universe. Say what you will about EQ2, but that story through TSO expansion was amazing. Never played WoW but I get more excited watching their story trailers than FFXIV as well.
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WoW story trailers always look great. Their cinematics and art department in general is top notch. The actual story is trash compared to XIV, though. Too many half finished, undeveloped shit that they kind of throw in all the time, characters that appear and disappear with their importance seemingly at random. I was never a fan of the EQ2 story, at least what I read of it. Different tastes, though.

I do agree they need to wrap up the Garlean stuff, not totally sold on Zenos being the real big bad, and frankly after ShB I'm not sure how they're going to raise up another villain as high as they did already in this expansion.
 
Daidraco

Daidraco

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My thoughts on Zenos. He was a bad ass at one point, but now...

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nu_11

nu_11

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Merrith said:
Interesting that HW is having you feel this way, most people loved it and considered it the best "expansion" between ARR/HW/SB until this current ShB one.
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I didn’t love HW.

Shadowbringers has been the only story content in FFXIV worth playing. But it unfortunately is built upon a lot of crap that’s needed to understand what’s happening and why it’s important... so I can’t even recommend that anyone play Shadowbringers.

I played ARR at release, quit, came back got stuck on post ARR quest chain, quit, finished HW, quit, FINISHED FFXI STORYLINE, took a long break, then finally made it through to the end of Shadowbringers.

(FFXI has better dialogue. The dialogue in Heavensward is atrocious but it’s much improved in Shadowbringers.)

Ending note: Alphinaud needs to fuck off.
 
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Fucker

Fucker

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Pyros said:
WoW is weird for example. Playing it atm, and it's a massive mess with the story.
Click to expand...

I noped out of Wow's story a long time ago. I thought I'd give it another chance in Legion and the very first thing I heard was what's-his-name being the chosen one. Fool me once...
 
Daidraco

Daidraco

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nu_11 said:
Ending note: Alphinaud needs to fuck off.
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I am beyond thankful that Alphinaud was given a much smaller role in Shadowbringers. In classic, his voice was .. bearable? Believable? Then when HW came out with Alphinaud's new voice actor? Holy f'k that voice was nails on a chalk board to me. When I'm trying to enjoy the story in a game, whether its an MMO or not, I'll have the sound on. With that said, there was times that I had just about had it and strongly thought about turning the sound off. That voice is just atrocious and it's incredible how much it got up under my skin. Outside of the voice, the character itself is just a pompous fk up. He's the guy that you LOVE to hate on at the office. There is no way that I would have followed that little fker into any military and I was not at all surprised that they overthrew his ass. His sister isnt much better than him, but I can at least deal with her character and voice acting.

I wish content flowed a bit faster from Squenix - all this talk makes me want to go back and finish the piddly shit I didnt finish. Like Hildibrand for example. That tongue in cheek is kind of annoying, but I have no idea why I still like that investigator BS.
 
Cybsled

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Alphinaud kind of grows on you. He starts as a insufferable know it all, eats some massive humble pie, makes other mistakes, then he matures a bit. He also pairs well with Alisae when they do their sibling rivalry stuff.
 
Merrith

Merrith

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nu_11 said:
I didn’t love HW.

Shadowbringers has been the only story content in FFXIV worth playing. But it unfortunately is built upon a lot of crap that’s needed to understand what’s happening and why it’s important... so I can’t even recommend that anyone play Shadowbringers.

I played ARR at release, quit, came back got stuck on post ARR quest chain, quit, finished HW, quit, FINISHED FFXI STORYLINE, took a long break, then finally made it through to the end of Shadowbringers.

(FFXI has better dialogue. The dialogue in Heavensward is atrocious but it’s much improved in Shadowbringers.)

Ending note: Alphinaud needs to fuck off.
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Agreed on Alphinaud for the most part. I'll disagree ShB is the only story worth playing, I think all of the rest is pretty good, although ARR drags until the end in many points. But ShB is definitely head and shoulders above the rest.
 
moonarchia

moonarchia

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I'll be glad to see the end of Hydaelyn and Zodiark unless they plan on making Zenos be the Big Bad.
 
Merrith

Merrith

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moonarchia said:
I'll be glad to see the end of Hydaelyn and Zodiark unless they plan on making Zenos be the Big Bad.
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Game pretty much should end at that point, what would be left to become the new big bad (assuming Zenos is taken care of as a part of all that)?
 
moonarchia

moonarchia

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Merrith said:
Game pretty much should end at that point, what would be left to become the new big bad (assuming Zenos is taken care of as a part of all that)?
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And yet there is at least a 6.0 coming out with Yoshi P at the helm according to Pyros. Not that that's bad or anything. If they can find a coherent way to introduce another Big Bad I am all for it.
 
Merrith

Merrith

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moonarchia said:
And yet there is at least a 6.0 coming out with Yoshi P at the helm according to Pyros. Not that that's bad or anything. If they can find a coherent way to introduce another Big Bad I am all for it.
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Yes weren't we just discussing how the next expansion (6.0) is supposed to finish the Ascian story? No way they're wrapping that all up this expansion.
 
Pyros

Pyros

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Yeah it was planned a long time ago, during the Stormblood fanfest they already said they had 2 expansions to go and in the ShB one they confirmed there was one more that'll finish the main story.

After that we don't know, but I feel they'll release a few more. WoW and EQ still release expansions constantly, and the game is popular enough to make money out of that+all the cash shop sales.

Hell I'd be interested to see how much money they make out of fantasias. I've been in a few different FCs over the years and there's at least always 2-3 people who fantasia WEEKLY, with some literally using several a week. They also own almost every cash shop mount and glamour because obviously that's the type of player, and they generally stay subbed all year to keep their house too.

But anyway I don't see them ending it that soon unless they plan on releasing another FF mmo, but I think assuming they went action combat like modern FFs, they could probably have both run in parallel especially if they give the new one a more futuristic feel. There's definitely money to be made releasing random expansions after the end of the main arc.
 
Cybsled

Cybsled

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They previously stated that the conclusion of ShB will wrap up the majority of the Zodiark/Hydalaen and Ascian stuff. I can understand not a 100% wrap up, since you want to leave that open for the "end of the game".
 
nu_11

nu_11

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Cybsled said:
Alphinaud kind of grows on you. He starts as a insufferable know it all, eats some massive humble pie, makes other mistakes, then he matures a bit. He also pairs well with Alisae when they do their sibling rivalry stuff.
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At the beginning of Shadowbringers he pretends to have grown up because after a time jump and he states that he shouldn’t have agreed to buy the katana without first negotiating a price. So I thought that maybe Alphinaud will be a decent character in Shadowbringers.

But by the end of Shadowbringers he’s back to being a little cunt. As a character Alphinaud matured during the time jump but then you watch him regress as you progress through Shadowbringers. 🤔
 
Merrith

Merrith

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Cybsled said:
They previously stated that the conclusion of ShB will wrap up the majority of the Zodiark/Hydalaen and Ascian stuff. I can understand not a 100% wrap up, since you want to leave that open for the "end of the game".
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I thought they said ShB would reveal 80% of the backstory for all that, but not actually wrap it all up. Wonder if there were some translation issues with all the different versions. Frankly I can't see them actually wrapping that whole story up in just the rest of this expansion.
 
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