[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Remilia]

I noticed that translations are very weird in this game.
I have EN audio and DE text and oftentimes the context doesn't match at all.

Usually I just ignore the text and listen to the audio only.

Don't worry, Japanese and English happen the same according to my friend. I'm playing Japanese client/voice so I have no idea.

[Berethos08]

Perhaps. But it'd likely not be any sillier than Louisoix going all DBZ and revealing his final form to just one-shot him.

Not silly at all, unless you consider the idea of a mortal becoming a primal a silly idea (since that's exactly what happened, and a story development that they spent time working toward, considering how we learn over time how primals work). He also had an incredibly immense amount of aether available to him at the time to aid in that transformation to deliver what turned out to not be a fatal blow.

So yes, it would be a hell of a lot sillier than what happened, because it would be a contrived "super pissed extremely strong primal dragon just up and leaves" type situation. Nidhogg (who, it's worth noting, is still one of the seven - the Bahamut of that caliber is long gone, and the Bahamut we see is naught but an imitation filled with rage...and extremely powerful being, but an imitation nonetheless), who while vengeful is also portrayed as vicious and seriously vindictive? That kind of behavior would make sense for him (and he's actually done it already twice). Not so for Bahamut, without having a silly and contrived reason for why he'd suddenly shift from his destructive rage.

[SodiumChloride]

Honestly? After the stunt they pulled with Ul'dah at the end of the previous expansion I suspect that the status quo won't change this time around either and they'll come up with some way to justify Nidhogg escaping or being replaced so that his minions will continue to be a thorn in the side of the Ishgardians. Or perhaps peace cannot be achieved for whatever reason and the status quo doesn't change because of that simple fact?

I do hope that we redeem Estinien...though if we don't then I hope he kills multiple major characters before his fall!

To some extend, MMO scenarios are like sitcoms, the plot doesn't deepen ... parts of it visible to the player day in and day out can't anyway.

All changes will have to "fit the graphics" such that existing visuals won't contradict the new reality - e.g. A shop keeper in trouble; before and after the quest he will still be there hawking his wares, his troubles (and their resolution) aren't visually displayed - unless they play to do "wipe it all and start with a clean slate" like in ARR.

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Sadly I didn't play the 1.x version. Only discovered this game a while after ARR launched due to a friend.
Have to say that I really dig the ARR intro cinematic.

I had no clue who the old elf was, but it was clear that he sacrificed himself for the ones he loved, using his last strength to teleport them out.
Found it really heart breaking.

Says a lot for a cinematic if they can make you care about characters you know nothing about.

Also saw the "end of the world" on YT some time after that. Definitely creepy.

This is the difference between SE and Blizzard, SE can actually write and direct worth a damn. SE can build a world.

Deathwing was just a cheap plot device to make massive changes to the open world in WoW. His actions are pretty much forgotten the expansions after. Everything that happens to WoW is an "excuse" for something Blizzard wishes to do and they aren't even good excuses given that they frequently contradict past and future events.

With Bahamut, his actions are felt even now either directly in the damage he caused or indirect in the consequences of his actions lead to. It's all interwoven.

[SodiumChloride]

That sounds a bit too much like, "I just like one game over the other".

Err ... I do. One has a decent story the other's story I ignore - after 8 years I have given up; Blizzard doesn't even care enough to keep their story straight, don't see why I should care either.

[SodiumChloride]

Well, it's just that the complaint doesn't seem too consistent.

You talk about Deathwing existing as an "excuse", but Bahamut existed solely as an instrument to let them remake the game. After that, he pretty much instantly disappeared, never to be seen again other than his "spirit" or whatever. Meanwhile Cataclysm really did change much of the world, introduce several new storylines and characters (via the old world changes), and it was another chapter in the overarching story that started in TBC.

I like FFXIV's greater focus on the story, but I'm not going to pretend that either game is possessed of a particularly amazing story or that either is unreasonably terrible.

True, Bahamut is an instrument for redoing the world but the changes he made persistent in the sense that it affects the characters even now and is a starting point for a great many story lines.

DW? After cata he is all but forgotten as we move to pandaland (that is strangely unaffected) and dreanor.

Edit: I'm not saying that FFXIV's storyline is some kind of masterpiece. But there is a clear difference in how much effort SE and Blizzard puts in their stories - how fucked up do you have to be to forget the eldaer corrupted sagaras (the main bad guy in your universe) and not the other way around; end up building an entire expansion around the mistake and having to retcon it after the fact.

I mean I can understand deliberate retcons - even though they should be avoided as much as possible. But to be so shit at your job that it ends up being forced on you ... It really show how much of a handle they have in their own lore.

[Aruhen]

Yeah I hate that about WoW. They even said it themselves that gameplay > story and that'll they do anything that they think is cool (artifact weapons) even if it messes up the lore a bit.

[Granyala]

Deathwing was just a cheap plot device to make massive changes to the open world in WoW.

I would argue, that most changes in Cata aren't even related to Deathwing.

What did DW do?
Open Deepholm, Destroy some stuff in his flyby cinematic (Auberdine, SW park, Dwarven dam).
Then we had a little elemental unrest in some of the zones which is indirectly related to DW and more the Twilight cults fault (N'Zoth).

Deathwing did literally NOTHING for 2 years after his initial flyby except show up and roast a few adventurers.

If Lichking Arthas was too prominent and always got his butt kicked that made him look non threatening, DW was eerily absent, to the point that you actually forgot about him the whole expansion.

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Yeah I hate that about WoW. They even said it themselves that gameplay > story and that'll they do anything that they think is cool (artifact weapons) even if it messes up the lore a bit.

Basically DESTROYING the hordes military assets and conquering Orgimmar... just to have -0- visible repercussions for the Horde at all killed any interest I had in WoWs storyline.

[Berethos08]

Edit: I'm not saying that FFXIV's storyline is some kind of masterpiece. But there is a clear difference in how much effort SE and Blizzard puts in their stories - how fucked up do you have to be to forget the eldaer corrupted sagaras (the main bad guy in your universe) and not the other way around; end up building an entire expansion around the mistake and having to retcon it after the fact.

I think one of the big differences is the planning that goes into it, perhaps with a bit added by the difference in management style. I'm sure Blizzard also plans ahead, but with Yoshi-P and Foxclon and Oda-san and Koji-Fox (and other members of the apparently not very big team) you get the sense that they not only plan out what is going to happen way in advance (with some room for adjustments) but - and perhaps more importantly, as far as the story goes - they stick to it. That lets them continue to build a more cohesive and coherent story.

Compare that to what apparently happened with WoD, based on interviews after its release (I don't have them in front of me at the moment, though I can probably track down the relevant quotes later)...a few times they mention deciding to go in a different direction with the story after originally picking Grommash as the big bad. You can see the seams that created, where the story was building toward that and where it took a sudden turn.

Of course, the consistency with the lore is another big reason, and there's really no big mistakes like the one you mention regarding Sargeras in WoW.

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You talk about Deathwing existing as an "excuse", but Bahamut existed solely as an instrument to let them remake the game. After that, he pretty much instantly disappeared, never to be seen again other than his "spirit" or whatever.

Oh, you see him again for sure (what the Dalamud remnants have managed to put back together at least, since it is a being made of aether and can be reconstructed like that), with one fight even taking place on his hand...you just don't directly fight him, and that's the part with the "spirit" or "essence" or whatever it is, the Bahamut Prime thing. I'm not sure there'd be a way for us to actually fight the primal in its physical form, what with its immense size (it makes Deathwing, even in its biggest incarnation, look small).

He was definitely introduced as an instrument to let them remake the game though, and the story goes that Yoshi-P was walking around the game world in 1.0 and trying to figure out a way to do such a story that let them remake the world for the new version, looked up and saw that the game had 2 moons (the current one and the smaller red moon) and decided "We don't need two moons" and the rest is history.

The decision to continue his story and not leave it hanging and tie in Louisoix and Alisaise and a bit of Alphinaud to it and turn it into a bit of a mystery to be solved probably came later

[Remilia]

Yeah, that part had me a little confused. I thought primals dissolved into aether after being defeated and needed to be resummoned with crystals/prayer/etc, yet Bahamut seems to have left a mess of himself all over the place. (There's probably a reason but I just don't know what it is!)

As far as I can tell, hes not really dead, more just extremely fucked up since he clearly can still do stuff in that prison thingy.

[Deleted]

In case anyone never saw it, here's the 1.0 opening cinematic. The Warrior of Light representative (some call Derplander) reaches all the way back to the original intro.




Miqo'te: No job is too daunting so long as the coin is good.
Elezen: Bah, you'd sell your own mother if the coin was good.
Miqo'te: My father too! Now quiet down and help me decide.

Heheheh

That's such a strange video; thank you for posting it.

The discussion on storytelling itt is wonderful. I completely fell in love with the story of FFXIV and how it was told, it blew me away first time playing through. I've never cared anywhere near as much about what happens in a video game before this game. FFXIV was my first FF game, and the storytelling made me look into the others: I've been playing FFVII and I'm beyond enchanted by it, and consumed with excitement about FFXV as from everything I've seen it just looks bewitching, the hints of the story they've given out are so intriguing.

I played FFXIV for a few months last year and stopped because of real life stuff, and just picked it up again a couple of days ago, and I'm loving it all over again. Starting from scratch again as I accidentally deleted my main character (who I'd apparently logged out as a random level 8 rogue) when I was clearing out alts, and it's so much fun.

[Granyala]

Is it just me or is the loot system in Alex rather horrible?

Sure for guild groups it works good, but if you queue solo you always roll against 7 others.
Pretty crappy odds.

[Graeham]

It's very luck based. Some weeks I'll get a shaft from the final boss in one run...other weeks I won't see one at all. I usually just tackle it 1-3 times per week and if I don't get what I want I just skip it until the next week and repeat.

I'm after one more shaft for the MCH coat for glamour so I'll be getting that on Tuesday...hopefully.

[Granyala]

Yeah I think that's a reasonable approach.

I just want some gear for my DRK to make tanking 4mans less stressful.
have to say, fights are pretty cool though. Fun to heal.

[Cthulhu 2020]

So by basically doing nothing but my normal daily routine, I now have two anima weapons. This is mostly just doing 6-12 beast tribes per day, and doing every S rank hunt I can, and doing the occasional A rank, while crafting and making money, with a few dungeons/raids thrown in there.

[Granyala]

I'm at 51/80 by doing beast tribes / dungeons.
Progress is agonizingly slow. ._.

[Kaelwryn]

67/80. Been doing all roulettes on my 60s, and beast tribes erryday. feels so slow :\

[Granyala]

At this rate I'll probably be finished mid/end of may. Then they will deploy the next patch and knowing my luck they'll nerf the crap out of the relic step. >.<

[Cthulhu 2020]

I basically got all of my shells and bones from poetics. Everything gives so many poetics unless you do zero hunts, zero dungeons, zero old raids, etc. My beast tribe efforts have been HW ones since you can pick any unidentified item you want, and kobolds/sylphs, since they give seeds and ore, which is the slightly harder to farm unidentified items from esos. I've really done zero intentional grinding aside from heavensward beast tribes, since the other beast tribes give materia IV for money. And even then, I don't do beast tribes every day unless I want to, which I do most days.

[Granyala]

I do beasties, expert dungeon and random lv50 with some job that is below 60 and gets xp.
Hit max rank with all ARR beasties a few days ago. Cool end quest and a few funky mounts.

I always try to combine multiple benefits, so I don't have to "grind" just for the relic.

[Berethos08]

So I did some reading and I guess the Allagan stuff was built to trap his essence and prevent him from "dying" the way other primals would have after being torn apart that way, because they used him as a "battery" of some sort or something?

That would make sense, at least. You can't just physically imprison something that could escape by killing itself and reforming somewhere else down the road.

Pretty much

Enough of his prison, Dalamud, remained and it basically went back to doing what it was designed to do - keep Bahamut around. I believe it was due to a sort of "crystal heart" that was the concentration of his essence surviving that he could be kept around, but that's the gist of it.

That being said, he wouldn't be able to simply reform on his own after being killed - if the physical form is forced to dissipate, it needs to be re-summoned...and ultimately if it's a different group doing the re-summoning who have a different idea of what Bahamut is, the primal would end up being different (so he'd need either those who originally summoned/kept him summoned like the Meracydians kept in a form of stasis in Dalamud, or those tempered by him, and in either case with a sufficient amount of belief/worship and crystals).

Relevant stuff from Koji Fox:

(Interviewer question) - You mentioned on the forums that the summoning of Bahamut reassembled a specific entity that was amongst the Lifestream. Since something specific is answering the beacon of prayer, is that why, once captured (a la the Ultima Weapon, for example), another copy cannot be summoned?

Koji Fox: Yes. <thinks> … Yes! But as I mentioned with the Phoenix, depending on the culture, there’s a different perception of what it was. Was it a god? Was it a savior? Was it evil? Let’s use Ifrit as an example, though I’m not saying this is really the case with him. The Amalj’aa look at him as an angry god that wants to purify the land with his flames. When they summon him, they pray to that type of Ifrit, and it forms. Say, in the New World, thousands of miles away, there is also the legend of Ifrit, but in the thousands of years since that original seed of myth, he’s grown into a very benevolent god that… <laughs> gives flowers to children and is the fire that roasts your marshmallows… that’s a different essence, even though it’s the same Ifrit. Those two could exist simultaneously. But if Amalj’aa summon one Ifrit and some other Amalj’aa who worship the same Ifrit try to do the same thing, they could not.

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I do beasties, expert dungeon and random lv50 with some job that is below 60 and gets xp.
Hit max rank with all ARR beasties a few days ago. Cool end quest and a few funky mounts.

I always try to combine multiple benefits, so I don't have to "grind" just for the relic.

I'd almost certainly be done by now if I hadn't been playing DS3 instead.

Until yesterday, I'd just log on to do beast tribe dailies then log off. Though first day back in the groove I did 6 or 7 treasure maps and got 2 unidentified shells plus all the items to sell, so that was nice.