Final Fantasy XIV (Guide in first post)

Grizzlebeard · Mar 9, 2022

Is Flinch a Sylas sock?

New poster, only 5 posts, all in this thread, agrees with Sylas.

Secrets · Mar 9, 2022

Folanlron said:
I really don't see the point of tweaking stories that were written 10years ago, the ARR changes are gonna be nice and maybe even the new DF stuff that comes out of it will be better, ... no more Castrum just gotta do Ultimate Weapon..(If the person decides too do it that way, otherwise it's trust..)

I have been seeing alot of players doing Hydaelyn thru DF lately though... and 1 thing I've noticed they've all said they skipped....

Maybe the Lahabrea / Ultimate Weapon fight not being a joke would be a good start.

xmod2 · Mar 9, 2022

Sylas said:
Yeah I understand that the older content is worse. By no means would I call the older content "standard shitty MMO". It was it's own thing, really leaned in to this MSQ thing, questing is the entirety of the experience. Even dungeons only exist because of quests. Sure it has a few "optional" dungeons and even some optional quests that aren't part of the MSQ but for the most part this game is designed around following the MSQ. There is nothing standard about this design, it's always been about being a Final Fantasy title and always has not been about being an MMO.

Sylas said:
The fuck is this? You mean compared to WoW it was better, as far as having a story goes? Because every other Story based MMO that existed at the time was and still is miles better than this one.

This is bog standard 'story driven mmo' bs. You're on a forum where every single person you're talking to has played every single mmo that has come along chasing the dragon of original EQ. The MSQ, when FF14 released, was just 1/3 of the annoying shit you had to do. It was basically just a long story that dragged you along, but you would be constantly underleveled and couldn't pick up the next quest, so you would have to do side quests, grind FATEs, dungeons, etc to catch up and continue. It wasn't the BIG EPIC FOCUS until later when they refactored the older MSQ expansions to give enough XP to level solely off the MSQ. In this way, it's a lot like SWTOR which ended up going back and doing the same thing. The only other 'story' mmo with a story that stands out would be The Secret World, but that really leaned into the world as a whole vs having some specifically 'epic' MSQ.

ARR MSQ was meant to be done in small doses alongside other boring MMO grindy horseshit and not to be taken in open throat for 40 hours non-stop. Once you get to ShB, the quest design and dungeon design paradigm formalizes to be built around, as you said, the MSQ as the totality of gameplay. They even give you the option to run all the dungeons with NPCs so you can just single player the entire MSQ. They've gone back to try and streamline the older expansions to match this style of play, but the reason it's so rough is they haven't gone nearly far enough.

Khalan · Mar 9, 2022

... said:
they would do well to re-do a lot of ARR. though i'm sure they would prefer to just begin crafting the next storyline from the ground up with their well oiled machine.

instead of sinking money into 10 year old content.

But still. if each update they re-did some early scenes and worked their way back fixing some early story lines, it would help a lot with people who are just trying the story.*

Agreed, I think ARR could be shortened by half and it looks like they are already making it less reliant on groups and getting rid of the MSQ Raids thankfull (RIP PRAE). A LOT of the quests are filler and don't really push the main story line much besides being fetch quests, and could be removed entirely with little overall impact on the story or at least combined

Sylas · Mar 9, 2022

xmod2 said:
This is bog standard 'story driven mmo' bs. You're on a forum where every single person you're talking to has played every single mmo that has come along chasing the dragon of original EQ. The MSQ, when FF14 released, was just 1/3 of the annoying shit you had to do. It was basically just a long story that dragged you along, but you would be constantly underleveled and couldn't pick up the next quest, so you would have to do side quests, grind FATEs, dungeons, etc to catch up and continue. It wasn't the BIG EPIC FOCUS until later when they refactored the older MSQ expansions to give enough XP to level solely off the MSQ. In this way, it's a lot like SWTOR which ended up going back and doing the same thing. The only other 'story' mmo with a story that stands out would be The Secret World, but that really leaned into the world as a whole vs having some specifically 'epic' MSQ.

ARR MSQ was meant to be done in small doses alongside other boring MMO grindy horseshit and not to be taken in open throat for 40 hours non-stop. Once you get to ShB, the quest design and dungeon design paradigm formalizes to be built around, as you said, the MSQ as the totality of gameplay. They even give you the option to run all the dungeons with NPCs so you can just single player the entire MSQ. They've gone back to try and streamline the older expansions to match this style of play, but the reason it's so rough is they haven't gone nearly far enough.

That sounds fucking amazing, they never should of changed that. The only annoying shit you have to do in this game is MSQ. So you used to be able to actually experience the game and only had to suffer the MSQ for 1/3 of the time you are playing? SWTOR went back and streamlined exp iirc 2 years after it launched? So like, before ARR was even a thing? FF14 (devs and fans) keeps comparing itself to WoW, it was clearly following the wrong game.

And practically every MMO post WoW were "Story" games in the sense that they featured a main "questline" that you follow to level up and most of the quests focus towards an overarching storyline/plot, and pretty much every single one of them had better stories than this one. Half of them are not memorable, but neither is this garbage. The only unique thing about FF14 is that it's central storyline, the MSQ, is so unbelievably, annoyingly, terribly long.

It ranks dead last in every other category: writing, dialogue, pacing, stakes, character development, plot, you know, all the things that lead to emotional investment by the player? But it's definitely #1 in how god awful long it is.

Khalan said:
Agreed, I think ARR could be shortened by half and it looks like they are already making it less reliant on groups and getting rid of the MSQ Raids thankfull (RIP PRAE). A LOT of the quests are filler and don't really push the main story line much besides being fetch quests, and could be removed entirely with little overall impact on the story or at least combined

Half? more like ARR should be shortened by 90%. There is like 10 actually story cutscenes in the 250+ fucking quests you have to do. If they are going to change anything it should be removal of almost the entire MSQ, front load all of your 1-50 skills to 1-10, and let you actually play the fucking game. Have 1 MSQ every 5 levels just like class quests. It would have 0 impact on the story and the game would actually start to be fun 2 hours in instead of 50 hours in.

Cybsled · Mar 9, 2022

You’re misreading or misunderstanding. Post-ARR pacing feels bad because your essentially chain running content that was released in pieces over years. That is why post-ARR has a bad habit of recaps literally moments after you did a quest that just explained that, or a bunch of random fights. I think they were aware of that issue, because it sort of vanishes in later xpacs

TBH they could condense post ARR even more by getting rid of recaps, but they wove in some character plot points into some of those and short of re-recording the voices, that might be problematic to fix

Ehrgeix · Mar 9, 2022

Maybe this is crazy but I think they will make the MSQ optional, or have like… MSQ-2 (post hyd and zodiark adventures) and MSQ-1 will be optional. When I started and had to do ARR + HW it was bad, but ARR HW SB SHB EW is so much stuff if you just want to raid. I think this probably wouldn’t happen until 7.0 through. And maybe I’m kidding myself and their solution is the already-existing store boosts.

Sylas · Mar 9, 2022

Cybsled said:
You’re misreading or misunderstanding. Post-ARR pacing feels bad because your essentially chain running content that was released in pieces over years. That is why post-ARR has a bad habit of recaps literally moments after you did a quest that just explained that, or a bunch of random fights. I think they were aware of that issue, because it sort of vanishes in later xpacs

TBH they could condense post ARR even more by getting rid of recaps, but they wove in some character plot points into some of those and short of re-recording the voices, that might be problematic to fix

post-ARR? no, all pacing in this game feels bad, it's way too long for such little story nuggets. I'm talking about trimming 90% of all ARR-Post ARR MSQ down to like 15-20 quests.

The first 30 levels of MSQ is basically just getting you to unlock all the various aetherytes and airships so you can travel around the world, unlock things like mounts and great company, and other gameplay tidbits, there's no reason it should be filled with 80 fetch quests.

The story for those 30 levels worth of MSQ boils down to a recap of the 90 second intro cinematic (which no longer plays by default when you start the game, it should, it saves you 140 MSQs worth of "story")
After that the rest of the MSQ is:
"Here's your team, they are useless idiots, you are going to do everything, they have no personality and serve no purpose, run errands for them"
"city-states try to rebuild and get stronger, this scares monsters, monsters summon gods, gods destroy city states, repeat"
"Empire figured out a way to stop this vicious cycle, they are like 6 era's more advance than you, literally if this was a Civ game you are playing for the team that's stuck in the stone age while they have space ships and shit, but yeah they are the 'bad guys' "
"asians with a C are the ones who are teaching these beast tribes how to do this cus they want to make another cataclysm, they are the real bad guys, lets ignore them and just continue doing exactly what they want us to do, also empire bad somehow for trying to save the world, lets fight the empire"

Ehrgeix said:
Maybe this is crazy but I think they will make the MSQ optional, or have like… MSQ-2 (post hyd and zodiark adventures) and MSQ-1 will be optional. When I started and had to do ARR + HW it was bad, but ARR HW SB SHB EW is so much stuff if you just want to raid. I think this probably wouldn’t happen until 7.0 through. And maybe I’m kidding myself and their solution is the already-existing store boosts.

Story skip for ARR should be turned on by default tbh, just start the game at HW. You aren't missing anything storywise that isn't covered by the opening cinematic. Also the story skips should all be cheaper. 5 bucks instead of $20-25.

edit: also unrelated but people hating on stormblood but it's clear that they listen to their fans and that i'm not the only one complaining about their shit transition/plot devices they've been using for the last 120 hours. The story itself so far is just as laughably bad as all previous stories but they finally introduced a bad guy that actually beats you, instead of you winning easily then having you lose or them runaway in a cutscene. Of course the plot is pants on head retarded. "lets declare open war on a vastly superior force and recruit terrorists to join our resistance movement inside their territory. These people are so weak and disorganized they can only field a grand total of 6 people to join your army, that will certainly turn the tide lets commit all of our major forces to this war. surely it's a great idea to base our operations inside enemy territory. Oh half their forces are locals who converted to the empire? they know exactly where we are building our base at? What could possibly go wrong?"

Obviously your (the scions) stupid idea fails and your forces are obliterated, you get your ass kicked so badly you have to run off to the other side of the world to hide your shame. First real piece of non-shit plot advancement so far in this game. Now if the rest of you could stop using words like "genius" or "child-prodigy" when trying to describe the the scions for the RLM challenge we'd be getting somewhere.

Khalan · Mar 9, 2022

Sylas said:
Half? more like ARR should be shortened by 90%. There is like 10 actually story cutscenes in the 250+ fucking quests you have to do. If they are going to change anything it should be removal of almost the entire MSQ, front load all of your 1-50 skills to 1-10, and let you actually play the fucking game. Have 1 MSQ every 5 levels just like class quests. It would have 0 impact on the story and the game would actually start to be fun 2 hours in instead of 50 hours in.

I was being conservative but yeah def like 90%.

Merrith · Mar 9, 2022

Cybsled said:
You get payoffs for all that ground work, and it even retroactively makes the prior stuff seem better.

This doesn't get stated enough...it's actually crazy how many times watching a streamer play through old MSQ that I see a cutscene or two that I had almost completely forgotten about, and it's just crazy the stuff you know later on in context with what is said/discussed. The payoffs later on really make you appreciate all the work that went in.

Koushirou · Mar 9, 2022

Merrith said:
This doesn't get stated enough...it's actually crazy how many times watching a streamer play through old MSQ that I see a cutscene or two that I had almost completely forgotten about, and it's just crazy the stuff you know later on in context with what is said/discussed. The payoffs later on really make you appreciate all the work that went in.

Yeah, I’ve enjoyed watching playthroughs because of this and basically been doing the Leo pointing meme at a bunch of the old stuff is forgotten about that was foreshadowing recent story.

Cybsled · Mar 9, 2022

Like when Jesse Cox was playing through it, he was theory crafting about Crystal Tower. Then he got all psyched when the payoff to that theory crafting came multiple expansions later

Folanlron · Mar 10, 2022

Secrets said:
Maybe the Lahabrea / Ultimate Weapon fight not being a joke would be a good start.

This is what they explained how the changes too Prae are gonna play out...

1. Prae will be a 4(or 8? I don't remember what they said it was off the top of my head right now.) up till Gaius fight. Trusts possible.
2. Ultimate Weapon will be a seperate Trial, Trust possible.
3. Lahabread will be a solo-duty fight..

Also, Ultimate Weapon is gonna be the next Unreal Trial, which should be fun I wonder if there gonna include Annihilation systems into it.

Cybsled · Mar 10, 2022

The Live Letter explained that Castrum and Praetorium will both be runnable with NPCs. Castrum they insinuated some major changes for (they talked about not needing to wait for Cid, for instance), so I wouldnt be surprised if they streamline that dungeon and cut out a lot of the dumb fucking cutscnes (why do we have to watch the spotlights every damn time??)

Praetorium up until Gaius on the elevator will be a 4 man dungeon. Can run with NPCs. Ultima Weapon will be a trial and they suggested it would be NPC as an option as well. Lahabrea will be a 1v1 duty fight.

As for what NPCs, they just showed some generic NPC people running it with you (with names like Eager Healer or whatever). They aren't going to call it Trusts, they're using a different name but it is essentially the same thing outside the leveling the trust stuff.

Chris · Mar 10, 2022

Sylas said:
post-ARR? no, all pacing in this game feels bad, it's way too long for such little story nuggets. I'm talking about trimming 90% of all ARR-Post ARR MSQ down to like 15-20 quests.

The first 30 levels of MSQ is basically just getting you to unlock all the various aetherytes and airships so you can travel around the world, unlock things like mounts and great company, and other gameplay tidbits, there's no reason it should be filled with 80 fetch quests.

The story for those 30 levels worth of MSQ boils down to a recap of the 90 second intro cinematic (which no longer plays by default when you start the game, it should, it saves you 140 MSQs worth of "story")
After that the rest of the MSQ is:
"Here's your team, they are useless idiots, you are going to do everything, they have no personality and serve no purpose, run errands for them"
"city-states try to rebuild and get stronger, this scares monsters, monsters summon gods, gods destroy city states, repeat"
"Empire figured out a way to stop this vicious cycle, they are like 6 era's more advance than you, literally if this was a Civ game you are playing for the team that's stuck in the stone age while they have space ships and shit, but yeah they are the 'bad guys' "
"asians with a C are the ones who are teaching these beast tribes how to do this cus they want to make another cataclysm, they are the real bad guys, lets ignore them and just continue doing exactly what they want us to do, also empire bad somehow for trying to save the world, lets fight the empire"

Story skip for ARR should be turned on by default tbh, just start the game at HW. You aren't missing anything storywise that isn't covered by the opening cinematic. Also the story skips should all be cheaper. 5 bucks instead of $20-25.

edit: also unrelated but people hating on stormblood but it's clear that they listen to their fans and that i'm not the only one complaining about their shit transition/plot devices they've been using for the last 120 hours. The story itself so far is just as laughably bad as all previous stories but they finally introduced a bad guy that actually beats you, instead of you winning easily then having you lose or them runaway in a cutscene. Of course the plot is pants on head retarded. "lets declare open war on a vastly superior force and recruit terrorists to join our resistance movement inside their territory. These people are so weak and disorganized they can only field a grand total of 6 people to join your army, that will certainly turn the tide lets commit all of our major forces to this war. surely it's a great idea to base our operations inside enemy territory. Oh half their forces are locals who converted to the empire? they know exactly where we are building our base at? What could possibly go wrong?"

Obviously your (the scions) stupid idea fails and your forces are obliterated, you get your ass kicked so badly you have to run off to the other side of the world to hide your shame. First real piece of non-shit plot advancement so far in this game. Now if the rest of you could stop using words like "genius" or "child-prodigy" when trying to describe the the scions for the RLM challenge we'd be getting somewhere.

So are you saying that ARR sucks?

I wish that someone had warned you and told you that you haven't played the good part of the story yet.

Sylas · Mar 10, 2022

Chris said:
So are you saying that ARR sucks?

I wish that someone had warned you and told you that you haven't played the good part of the story yet.

If you weren't one of the ones that was adamant that this shit was essential world building/back story I might even be able to forgive you, but you were, so I can't.

The mythical "Good part" that starts when, again? Oh right you said final steps of faith back in HW, so lies or goal post moving?

I'm about 1/4 to 1/3 of the way through Stormblood. Weren't you the one who said the writer changed? whoever wrote the dark knight class story takes over for the eastern part of Stormblood and then the writing gets good?

I'm doing quests for fucking ninja turtles who have me traveling to Naboo to fight gungans, so when does that good writing start again? It wouldn't be so bad if they just leaned into the absurdity of it all and added some comedy, you know just make fun of themselves and weaboo fucks who love anything japanese despite how ridiculous this is, but no, they try and tell this story with a straight face like it's some serious, epic fantasy.

Neranja · Mar 10, 2022

Sylas said:
I'm doing quests for fucking ninja turtles

Which, incidentally, is well-known Japanese folklore. Who'd thunk that an east asian setting based on feudal Japan would include their folklore:

Kappa (folklore) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Frankly, we don't care if try this for "I suffered through all the content like you said I should, so now I can say the game is bad" street cred.

You need to fucking pay attention. If your reading comprehension on any of the postings here is any indication, you skimmed through the content without actually reading and understanding most of it. You even complained that "the twin of Alphinaud" suddenly showed up out of nowhere, when you were introduced to Alisae in the opening, and the level 15 MSQ where you visit all the nation states. You would even get the reason why she is off for a while if you would have done the Binding Coil of Bahamut raids.

Clearly you are overwhelmed with the story. Say, have you ever read a fiction book in your life that wasn't assigned to you? What are your top 10 favorite novels?

Sylas · Mar 10, 2022

fucking lol if you think i'm supposed to commit this garbage to memory. I've read every MSQ though I wish to fucking god I didn't. I can sum it all up right now "Is aught amiss? /headnod"
The funniest thing is you think this shit is not only good but somehow deep and requires understanding? There's fucking nothing to understand, there's nothing deep here at all. its a garbage story that is completely forgettable. Oh no I didn't remember seeing random 1 dimensional character alisa once even though you only speak to her for 2 seconds 100 hours earlier in the story, big fucking deal. The game itself realizes this and she introduces herself way later in the game because they never introduced her before.

Can't do the coil raids nobody queues for it.

Clearly you have an extra chromosome which makes this story hard for you to follow and you confuse that with it having depth.

Rali · Mar 10, 2022

As opposed to the extra chromosome you obviously carry around as you play a game you repeatedly state you do not like...

Chris · Mar 10, 2022

Sylas said:
If you weren't one of the ones that was adamant that this shit was essential world building/back story I might even be able to forgive you, but you were, so I can't.

The mythical "Good part" that starts when, again? Oh right you said final steps of faith back in HW, so lies or goal post moving?

I'm about 1/4 to 1/3 of the way through Stormblood. Weren't you the one who said the writer changed? whoever wrote the dark knight class story takes over for the eastern part of Stormblood and then the writing gets good?

I'm doing quests for fucking ninja turtles who have me traveling to Naboo to fight gungans, so when does that good writing start again? It wouldn't be so bad if they just leaned into the absurdity of it all and added some comedy, you know just make fun of themselves and weaboo fucks who love anything japanese despite how ridiculous this is, but no, they try and tell this story with a straight face like it's some serious, epic fantasy.

2nd zone in the east, Azim Steppe, is excellent. Also note that the eastern ending is the Tsukyomi trial in the endgame content (similar to Final Steps of Faith) which is also excellent.

But anyone who didn't like Final Steps of Faith is a lost cause.

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Final Fantasy XIV (Guide in first post)

Grizzlebeard

Ahn'Qiraj Raider

Secrets

ResetEra Staff Member

xmod2

Khalan

Trakanon Raider

Sylas

Cybsled

Avatar of War Slayer

Ehrgeix

Trakanon Raider

Sylas

Khalan

Trakanon Raider

Merrith

Golden Baronet of the Realm

Koushirou

Log Wizard

Cybsled

Avatar of War Slayer

Folanlron

Trakanon Raider

Cybsled

Avatar of War Slayer

Chris

Potato del Grande

Sylas

Neranja

Kappa (folklore) - Wikipedia

Sylas

Rali

Trakanon Raider

Chris

Potato del Grande