[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Aruhen]

I'm loving all the nods in the Red Mage story if you've already finished the MSQ. I wish more games did stuff like this were NPC dialogue would change based at how far you are into the story.

[Anzaman]

And earlier post in English: http://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...9ac014b237497f.

Spoiler: 

Thanks to the cooperation of all our players, the simultaneous logout measures currently being instituted have shown great effect, cutting login wait times during peak hours from what was previously several hours down to several tens of minutes. We sincerely thank you for your cooperation.

Because of this situation, we will be ending the simultaneous logout measures on Worlds where logins have stabilized. Once again, we would like to express our greatest appreciation for all your cooperation.

Temporary simultaneous logout measures will continue for the following Congested Worlds and Worlds that still require long waits for certain logins. We will continue to monitor the login situation, and keep you informed of any changes to, or ending of, these measures as they occur.

■Simultaneous Logout Measure Worlds
▼JP Data Center
Bahamut
Carbuncle
Chocobo
Mandragora
Shinryu
Tonberry

▼NA Data Center
Balmung
Gilgamesh

▼EU Data Center
Cerberus
Moogle
Odin
Omega
Phoenix
Ragnarok
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As a reminder, we’re offering special incentives to those who transfer from a Congested World to New/Preferred Worlds. These incentives include the waiving of transfer fees, and 10 gold chocobo feathers which can be exchanged for in-game items. We appreciate your consideration of these offers.

Learn more about New World and World population balancing incentives: http://sqex.to/iw6

We apologize for the inconvenience the congestion has been causing our players, and thank you for your understanding and continued support.

[Wrecktangle]

So finally hit max gear. I can knock out a few more books towards my Excalibur now before the raid drops or I can try leveling a new job hmm...

I'm here to vent about Lakalakashimsahm bullshit primal fight. FUCK that encounter. Worst boss I've seen since that dumpster fire that was Zurvan, or the wannabe Escaflowne boss. I hate mechanics that have people running around like chickens with their heads cut off because the UI doesn't give you ANY info. It's like throwing you in a pit with smooth walls, no tools and telling you to escape in "X" minutes or you're dead. WTB echo buff now, at least. I can't tell you how frustrated this whole thing is.

Can you clarify why the fight is bullshit? Was it hard? Did you wipe? Or was it just a bunch of pretty markers that you felt were boring and unintuitive? What was actually frustrating about it and what role did you play?

I'll tell you my experience, I queued up for it as a tank, we killed it and I don't think I remembered a single mechanic of it by time I got to EX. I killed EX in a learning party in 5 pulls, ridiculously simple fight. Would have been 3 pulls if I wasn't an idiot and remembered to use my action button.

On another note, who the fuck is Zenos? I mean, seriously? How is it that people are singing his praises as an antagonist? He has to be the most hollow, bland antagonist I've ever seen. I hate when story tellers establish the strength of a character, and then proceed to flub it by constantly introducing random overpowered adversaries to test his mettle. Where the hell did this guy come from? Have we even seen him before? Have they set a precedent for Garleans to have that kind of martial prowess, because if so I've missed it completely. I would have been fine if they'd seeded this kind of thing before. If perhaps, Garleans had been set up properly as serious physical threats to the player. It REEKS of the terrible plot behind Alexander. "Alexander is so powerful it's draining aether from the surrounding environment". WHERE?! Show me the effects of this, don't just TELL me. That is awful storytelling to me, and somebody needs to say something about it or else we'll continue to get more of the same. They can do better.

I actually quite like Zenos. The story explains him very well as you go on. I will however concede that I can see how others wouldn't like him.

So I know I'm normally part of the crowd that makes fun of people for being bad by sarcastically saying, "you don't pay my sub!" Well this time I dealt with a bad who thought to try to be a part of that crowd lol.

So I'm doing Shisui and this MNK starts randomly telling me about which cross role abilities I should have as RDM. Cool, okay whatever, he has RDM at like level 62 (I'm 64 but I have 2 jobs at 70 already) but it's w/e. Then on the 2nd boss I'm kiting the explosion mechanic away from people and clip one of the boxes. He launches into a full-on explanation of the mechanics of the fight. I tell him thank you, this is my 3rd job to 70, I accidentally clipped it. Then I'm kiting the explosion around again, boss begins casting Seduce and I immediately grab a box. He launches into another explanation about how I need to make sure I grab the same box every time. I lose my patience here and say, "thank you so much senpai." Picking up on my sarcasm, he starts to rage, throwing around, "i know i don't pay your sub" comments and telling me I'm having a bad day, I should seek counseling, etc.. And the whole time my responses are, "okay senpai ^^;;; thank you so much senpai ... did I disappoint you senpai?? ; ;" Must have triggered this dude bad lol.

Oh and the whole time this is going on, I'm pulling quadruple his DPS on both trash and bosses. Literally the entire run. I mean, I know MNKs aren't in the best spot for dungeon DPS, especially compared to RDM. But I would imagine some dude who felt it necessary to pull the whole high-and-mighty tryhard attitude in a level 63 dungeon would at least somewhat pull his weight in DPS.

Whole thing just gave me a good laugh, it's adorable to see someone who thinks they're good try and stand tall and pretend they're part of the elite or something.

Jesus that's rough.

Heheh, someone earlier just got done saying how much they love SMN and Bahamut change. Opinions, etc, etc.

To be fair I've gathered that SMN mains are really annoyed that all they do is spam ruin. If that's the case (I dont have arcanist even unlocked so I wouldn't know) they have merit to that. However, the Bahamut thing is pretty cool which might be enough for some to enjoy.

[Kazgrel]

There's update about situation on daily logouts.

(JP) http://jp.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...949ada12af8c19

Spoiler: 

Regarding the periodic simultaneous logout that we are currently conducting, thanks to our customers' cooperation, there was a tremendous effect, such as waiting for login for several hours at peak time to reach tens of minutes. Thank you for your cooperation in periodic simultaneous logout and congestion mitigation.

From this situation, the periodic simultaneous logout correspondence of the world where the login is stable will be terminated. Thank you once again for your cooperation.

Regarding the following congested world and the world which requires a long time for some login, we will continue to perform periodic simultaneous logout correspondence. We will announce you again when confirming the future login situation, etc., when changing correspondence contents and ending.

■ Periodic simultaneous logout Implementation World
▼ Japan Data Center
Bahamut
Carbuncle
Chocobo
Mandragora
Shinryu
Tonberry

▼ North America Data Center
Balmung
Gilgamesh

▼ European Data Center
Cerberus
Moogle
Odin
Omega
Phoenix
Ragnarok
Shiva

*Lazy translation with Google.

Cool, so no more logouts for servers not afflicted with these log in queues.

That being said...holy hell, that's almost every EU server they more or less have categorized as congested. Looks like they'll need to spin up another box soon if Louisoix ends up getting piles of transfers and new players like Omega did. It's a bad thing in a way, but also a really good way if every EU server is stuffed (game is growing and/or getting a lot of return players).

[Advent]

Heheh, someone earlier just got done saying how much they love SMN and Bahamut change. Opinions, etc, etc.



Uhhh...Hollow and bland? What?

If they established the character a long time ago and told you everything about him, there would be zero surprise when you suddenly face an opponent unexpectedly powerful. That wouldn't be interesting whatsoever. Nael came out of nowhere. Gaius came out of nowhere. They didn't give us a run down and full exploration of every notable Garlean officer prior to 1.0 so we knew what everyone was capable of.

Where did Zenos come from? Explained in the MSQ.
Have we seen him before? No, why would we have needed to? (we never saw Nidhogg prior to Heavensward, nor the Holy See)
Have they set a precedent for Garleans to have that kind of martial prowess? No, but why would we know everything about every project, experiment, research, and results in the Empire shrouded by the fog of war on the map outside of anything we've seen currently unrelated to the story? After you finish Stormblood, do you think you should know everything about the goings on within the Empire's capital so you're well aware of the antagonists and their capabilities in 5.0 and/or 6.0?

I don't know what kind of storytelling you're looking for where everything is laid out before introducing a character. I could apply every one of your complaints to Kefka's introduction and portrayal through FFVI. Everything about Zenos is explained and uncovered through the course of the story. That's how stories tend to work.

With SAM excitement, I've been watching Rurouni Kenshin... they don't spend half a season detailing why an opponent is powerful. The shock is when they show up and actually defeat the strong protagonist or put him off balance. Or you're told they're powerful (as in the protagonist is tasked with going after them) and see the results of what they've done on the path towards them.

The only parts I thought were particularly hamfisted and convenient come during the final push towards the capital. One with Urianger and the other with Estenien.

Honestly, I think I could apply these complaints to every villain in every Final Fantasy game that's ever been produced and likely a good number of highly praised series in both book and television.

You could point out all those villains throughout the entirety of the Final Fantasy series and it wouldn't mean anything to me because I haven't played them. You could also point them out anywhere else, and it wouldn't be a justification for the poor introduction of Zenos. Frankly, setting a precedent for poor antagonist introduction doesn't endear me to the storytelling. Ideally, an antagonist that is so feared, so unexpectedly powerful should be well known. It's sort of difficult to hide that level of strength, even stretching my own suspension of disbelief regarding this game. To me, it REEKS of that awful DragonBallZ-itis nonsense. Where you're the most powerful being ever seen on the planet, yet some random no-name antagonist HAS to come from god knows where to challenge you and put everything in jeopardy because the writers have zero idea how to challenge their own narrative and characters besides packing on the muscle of shallow adversity. It feels the same way here. Warrior of Light, the most skilled and powerful fighter who is capable of (Supposedly) taking down Eikons single-handedly, and yet here comes this random "Super-Villain #2" to attack/maim all your friends. Where is the build up to this? Because to me, it came out of left field, and it's incredibly aggravating. If he's such a boon to the Garlean empire so as to not only challenge the warrior of light, (Who, thus far has been a thorn in the empire's side for some time now), why not dispatch him sooner to deal with us? Why was he not one of the impetus for us to grow stronger before now? I dislike the fact that they introduced a character out of nowhere that is suddenly on our level. It's jarring in the poorest way, to me.

Can you clarify why the fight is bullshit? Was it hard? Did you wipe? Or was it just a bunch of pretty markers that you felt were boring and unintuitive? What was actually frustrating about it and what role did you play?

I'll tell you my experience, I queued up for it as a tank, we killed it and I don't think I remembered a single mechanic of it by time I got to EX. I killed EX in a learning party in 5 pulls, ridiculously simple fight. Would have been 3 pulls if I wasn't an idiot and remembered to use my action button.

I went in as a dps player with zero prior knowledge of the encounter. I suppose it's the fact that the fight is punishing that gets on my nerves. Primarily because I dislike staring at cast bars, but mostly due to the fact that it's too easy to wipe and be unable to recover because we're playing with random people. I think I've begun to dislike having significant challenge in multi-player games--particularly when I'm grouped with people I don't know. Pass/fail mechanics hit at this part of me that triggers an enraged response. I didn't know what to look for, and was killed dozens of times (Alongside others) because none of the mechanics led me to believe I was supposed to "soak up" an orb to use the special action button. I kept wondering "Why the hell does this thing not work?" I find mechanics with a lack of granularity to be both off-putting and irritating. But I wouldn't have minded if it were relegated to side quests, rather than a road-block for the main story. For a while, I just felt stuck, and that's not a fun place to be.

[Faroth]

You could point out all those villains throughout the entirety of the Final Fantasy series and it wouldn't mean anything to me because I haven't played them. You could also point them out anywhere else, and it wouldn't be a justification for the poor introduction of Zenos. Frankly, setting a precedent for poor antagonist introduction doesn't endear me to the storytelling. Ideally, an antagonist that is so feared, so unexpectedly powerful should be well known. It's sort of difficult to hide that level of strength, even stretching my own suspension of disbelief regarding this game. To me, it REEKS of that awful DragonBallZ-itis nonsense. Where you're the most powerful being ever seen on the planet, yet some random no-name antagonist HAS to come from god knows where to challenge you and put everything in jeopardy because the writers have zero idea how to challenge their own narrative and characters besides packing on the muscle of shallow adversity. It feels the same way here. Warrior of Light, the most skilled and powerful fighter who is capable of (Supposedly) taking down Eikons single-handedly, and yet here comes this random "Super-Villain #2" to attack/maim all your friends. Where is the build up to this? Because to me, it came out of left field, and it's incredibly aggravating. If he's such a boon to the Garlean empire so as to not only challenge the warrior of light, (Who, thus far has been a thorn in the empire's side for some time now), why not dispatch him sooner to deal with us? Why was he not one of the impetus for us to grow stronger before now? I dislike the fact that they introduced a character out of nowhere that is suddenly on our level. It's jarring in the poorest way, to me.

I can't even understand how you would accomplish what you want...

Introduce a villain before he's introduced, explain everything about him before he appears for the first time, explain everything about all of his capabilities before the plot deals with them?

This isn't bad storytelling, you're asking everything laid out up front and presented for you with no requirement to go through the story of discovering why this guy is capable of doing what he's doing.

But I don't share the perception that the player is a living god. I think that's a misconception (partially Square's fault) of the character. Square plays a bit fast and loose on the Primal fights being single handed (only the echo protects you) yet half the time specifically says to gather reliable allies for the fight. I still feel they should have kept the 1.0 "there are people with the echo" and refer to you a "a" Warrior of Light, thus your party being the "Warriors of Light" just as they were in 1.0's story. I put that as a fault in how they present the protagonist, not the antagonists. Though I'd say it's still worth remembering the echo is brought up twice in Stormblood. Hydaelyn is weaker, especially with her conduit being on another world with the Warriors of Darkness. I'm kind of surprised that wasn't a bigger plot point in Stormblood in regards to our capabilities, but I suppose they didn't want a retread of Midgardsormr sealing our echo.

But still... expecting a build up to characters that are in other countries, one halfway around the world, prior to entering those countries... I don't even know how you go about that. I'd say more, but I don't want to spoil some plot points.

[The Casualty]

I went in as a dps player with zero prior knowledge of the encounter. I suppose it's the fact that the fight is punishing that gets on my nerves. Primarily because I dislike staring at cast bars, but mostly due to the fact that it's too easy to wipe and be unable to recover because we're playing with random people. I think I've begun to dislike having significant challenge in multi-player games--particularly when I'm grouped with people I don't know. Pass/fail mechanics hit at this part of me that triggers an enraged response. I didn't know what to look for, and was killed dozens of times (Alongside others) because none of the mechanics led me to believe I was supposed to "soak up" an orb to use the special action button. I kept wondering "Why the hell does this thing not work?" I find mechanics with a lack of granularity to be both off-putting and irritating. But I wouldn't have minded if it were relegated to side quests, rather than a road-block for the main story. For a while, I just felt stuck, and that's not a fun place to be.

Once you realize that Chanchalla superpowers her (I mean she does glow with a super obvious black flame during it's duration), you just have to know to hit Vrill to eat mechanics.

In actuality, though it's way easier than that - you don't even need to know what mechanics take it away. Vrill lasts 60 seconds. When you see Chanchalla casting and Lakshmi glow black - hit Vril and then just make sure that every time your Vrill goes down, you use it again until that phase ends. You don't need to concern yourself what eats it, as long as you know when she is in black phase Vrill is up.

And outside the add phase with the auto refresh, you probably need to refresh stacks once more (maybe twice if your party is really slow at killing her).


If you follow that, you can get away with so much unoptimized gameplay it's not even funny. We survived both tanks going down - we were carrying on in Discord and got distracted during the farm, and had a separate fight where the SCH 90ked 3 times during the fight and still managed to win.

Edit:
I just realized we may be talking about normal mode here - in which case, they toss refreshes (iirc) at you ALL the time. You can essentially spam the duty button when your bubble goes down. And again, it should last 60 seconds, with as many refreshes as they offer in normal mode, you could probably have Vrill up a significant portion of the fight and not have to worry.

[Resiak]

You could point out all those villains throughout the entirety of the Final Fantasy series and it wouldn't mean anything to me because I haven't played them. You could also point them out anywhere else, and it wouldn't be a justification for the poor introduction of Zenos. Frankly, setting a precedent for poor antagonist introduction doesn't endear me to the storytelling. Ideally, an antagonist that is so feared, so unexpectedly powerful should be well known. It's sort of difficult to hide that level of strength, even stretching my own suspension of disbelief regarding this game. To me, it REEKS of that awful DragonBallZ-itis nonsense. Where you're the most powerful being ever seen on the planet, yet some random no-name antagonist HAS to come from god knows where to challenge you and put everything in jeopardy because the writers have zero idea how to challenge their own narrative and characters besides packing on the muscle of shallow adversity. It feels the same way here. Warrior of Light, the most skilled and powerful fighter who is capable of (Supposedly) taking down Eikons single-handedly, and yet here comes this random "Super-Villain #2" to attack/maim all your friends. Where is the build up to this? Because to me, it came out of left field, and it's incredibly aggravating. If he's such a boon to the Garlean empire so as to not only challenge the warrior of light, (Who, thus far has been a thorn in the empire's side for some time now), why not dispatch him sooner to deal with us? Why was he not one of the impetus for us to grow stronger before now? I dislike the fact that they introduced a character out of nowhere that is suddenly on our level. It's jarring in the poorest way, to me.

He's a new villain. He's been taking control of Doma and Gyr Abania. We're meeting him now because we're finally moving into these lands to free them. It makes no sense to introduce him in HW, when he has nothing to do with that story line.

We're not the most powerful being on the planet. We have a power that helps us when fighting primals. But we're constantly told to get our friends together to go fight all of these threats. We have a knack for fighting. But i'v never seen the game make us out to be gods. Just really good at what we do.

And finally, Zenos's strength is explained in the story. He isn't a god. He hasn't had this power this whole time. It all gets explained. We can't say more.

[Aurimas]

I too have heard people just raving about SMN. So I agree with the opinions aspect. Despite being SCH I never played SMN, so I'll stay out of it, but it seems like you either love it or hate it.

SCH is kind of lacking right now. I'm considering leveling whm. Our throughput is low combined with the high damage right now. It might be the same as the other healers, but with our "cure 2" being half heal and half shield, it just doesn't remove the immenant danger. When the tank gets chunked for 2/3 of his health: you still have a tank sitting at 1/3 health, he just happens to have a shield on him. A second round of bad rng will still chew through that shield and what's left of his health.

Even if the numbers do work out to be the same it doesn't remove the mad scramble to get the tank back up. It doesn't remove the pressure and it doesn't remove the fact that one mistake by ANYONE and we're dead. If i even need to heal someone else it could spell trouble.

Of course there's lustrate. I burn through about 4 lustrates per pull on average. With lustrate being behind aetherflow which gives 3 at a time... eventually it lines up into an almost guaranteed wipe where it is on CD when needed. If I have a well geared good tank (usually pld) that uses all his buttons so my lustrate is <4 per pull, then it's stressful, but survivable. With a low geared tank or one who doesn't push buttons, or one who still thinks he can go dps stance... such that I need 6 or 7 lustrates per pull... it's a wipe.

Of course this is all based on the need to pull from entrance to the next barrier all the time. Bosses or single pulls are easy. I've taken to warning people during the cutscene. I'm also just starting to get 310 gear. I should have some socketable pieces today after work. Once I start getting 310 and shoving materia in them, that might help.... but the expeience I mention was during leveling where the playing field should be more or less level.

Most tanks in my guild seem to agree. One said "yea, you know there's a problem when AST and WHM are healing me for 14k, but sch are healing me for 7". I don't know how true it is (those might be crits or big spells), that's why I might level a WHM to see for mysef. I don't complain much, this was an unbidden response to my warning against big pulls.

It's alright. I'm still having fun and still loving SB. I just hope they take a look at the numbers. Who knows, maybe I'm just bad and need to "git gud". I do hit every button I can think of, and have even sacrificed role skills I wanted for pure throughput or damage reduction. Maybe gear will help. We all know the massive scaling that even 6 ilvl provided in the leveling gear.

My one suggestion would be to get sacred soil off the aetherflow and put it on a CD. Right now I can't decide if it's worth losing a lustrate for. Maybe I'll try it one pull, but in HW it was a "no-no".

[Kazgrel]

Only "complaint" I had with Lakshmi, and it was more of a joke than a complaint, is that the fight's visuals seem to have been designed by someone on an acid trip or something to that effect, heh. It didn't help I got the cross pattern thing on me nearly every time it went out, to which I would simply go to opposite end of the arena from the other person who had it and form a pound sign across the entire arena, more or less.

I've only done the fight once on normal mode and one shot it. Hell, I even found out the hard (fail) way that you can fall off the platform during the fight (because my stupid ass walked right off after I had positioned myself with the cross pattern aoe thing). Even had one person fail to hit the Vril button at the right time, died, was able to get them back up and still finished, so it wasn't like I went in with a premade or a group full of people who had cleared the fight numerous times (I believe 1, maybe 2 people had done it before).

[Aruhen]

To be fair I've gathered that SMN mains are really annoyed that all they do is spam ruin. If that's the case (I dont have arcanist even unlocked so I wouldn't know) they have merit to that. However, the Bahamut thing is pretty cool which might be enough for some to enjoy.

While I haven't tried out the new SMN, isn't that how it's always been? I didn't play a lot of HW SMN but from what I remember it was mostly keep up your dots and then spam Ruin with the occasional OGCD abilitiy to build up your stacks.

I'm genuinely curious because I just don't see the removal of one dot being a huge difference. Is it the Tri-Disaster change were it resets CD? So less dot management or just slower stack acquisition so you spend less time in Dreadwyrm Trance? If it's the latter then I don't understand because Trance has always been just... you get a stronger Ruin and then finish it off with a big attack?

By the way not asking you specifically Wreck as I just wanted to quote you because of the Ruin spam comment.

Most tanks in my guild seem to agree. One said "yea, you know there's a problem when AST and WHM are healing me for 14k, but sch are healing me for 7". I don't know how true it is (those might be crits or big spells), that's why I might level a WHM to see for mysef. I don't complain much, this was an unbidden response to my warning against big pulls.

Its very much true. Heck my PLDs Clemency heals for 12k at 67.

[xerus]

Got some good suggestions for worlds, How's Famfrit anyone know?

Also is it possible yet to add people from other worlds to your friend list?

I have no complaints about Famfrit. Queue is very small and quick.

And no.

- - - Updated - - -

Heheh, someone earlier just got done saying how much they love SMN and Bahamut change. Opinions, etc, etc.

Bahamut its really just another dot, its too big, and you pretty much can't move with it out because it auto follows and doesn't do anything if its moving.

[Graeham]

I love the aesthetics of Lakshmi's fight. That her attacks have unique AoE markers is very promising for future battles. As far as the difficulty of EX mode goes, it's by no means as tricky as something like Thordan EX or Sephirot EX but it still requires teamwork and focus. Just not as much.

I think it's the perfect introduction to 4.0's raiding scene.

[Ragnarocket]

I love the aesthetics of Lakshmi's fight. That her attacks have unique AoE markers is very promising for future battles. As far as the difficulty of EX mode goes, it's by no means as tricky as something like Thordan EX or Sephirot EX but it still requires teamwork and focus. Just not as much.

I think it's the perfect introduction to 4.0's raiding scene.

That was my thought on the matter. Lakshimi and Susano are not supposed to be the pinnacle of raiding difficulty. I keep hearing everyone complain about how easy they are but...they are the first Primals of Stormblood and are essentially the "entry" to raiding. Why exactly should they have a lot of complex mechanics? I appreciate the fact that they are visually amazing to fight (the Susano QTE as a tank makes me feel AMAZING) and give a good basic challenge.

[Aruhen]

I don't think its wrong of people to be apprehensive. When you take into context that the last two primals of HW were a joke and then people see more of that then yeah.

[Ragnarocket]

While I haven't tried out the new SMN, isn't that how it's always been? I didn't play a lot of HW SMN but from what I remember it was mostly keep up your dots and then spam Ruin with the occasional OGCD abilitiy to build up your stacks.

I'm genuinely curious because I just don't see the removal of one dot being a huge difference. Is it the Tri-Disaster change were it resets CD? So less dot management or just slower stack acquisition so you spend less time in Dreadwyrm Trance? If it's the latter then I don't understand because Trance has always been just... you get a stronger Ruin and then finish it off with a big attack?

By the way not asking you specifically Wreck as I just wanted to quote you because of the Ruin spam comment.



Its very much true. Heck my PLDs Clemency heals for 12k at 67.

Maybe it's just me but I rather like the new direction the SMN is going towards...admittedly I don't play the class. It always felt weird to me that a Summoner essentially felt like a Warlock from WoW. I would expect a class that builds up in small damage over time towards a big burst damage from their summons or just constantly summoning smaller things to attack the enemy with (pet classish). As I said though I don't play the class and I do suppose we need some form of DoT mage.

- - - Updated - - -

I don't think its wrong of people to be apprehensive. When you take into context that the last two primals of HW were a joke and then people see more of that then yeah.

I can understand the apprehension I suppose. But there are some people who are just flat out mad that I've run into about it.

[Faroth]

There's a subset of players who, much like WoW, think FFXIV needs to be built around Savage raiding as the primary focus. I don't expect they're every going to be happy with the game because I don't see that ever being the primary focus.

I imagine they're the same subset Yoshida was referring to about Savage Coil being too hard, Alex being too easy, Alex being too hard....

[StrawberryZebra]

Uhhh...Hollow and bland? What?
-snip-
Honestly, I think I could apply these complaints to every villain in every Final Fantasy game that's ever been produced and likely a good number of highly praised series in both book and television.

My favourite villain across all media is Deep Space Nine's Gul Dukat.

They don't need to tell you some of the evil things he's done, you can watch him doing them. Despite that however, you are always clear on what his motives are. Why he's doing the things he's doing. You might not agree with them, but it's hard not to understand his reasons all the same. I mean, I completely get why he allied with the Dominion against the Federation. I get why he was going to execute his own daughter. We always get to see the actions he takes and the consequences of them.

On the flip side, you also get to see him doing some extremely noble and heroic acts too. He clearly thinks of himself as one of the good guys and that really contrasts with just how contemptable some of his actions are. He's also shown to be extremely intelligent, charismatic and determined amongst many other positive traits. He was a character who could have redeemed himself and become the hero he wanted to be.

Compare that to Zenos, what did he ever do that made you think of him as being a complete evil bastard? He killed a couple of nameless officers, which mostly just established the fact that he was the villain of the story. He beat us, fair and square mind you, in a couple of fights. Which doesn't really qualify as "evil", when you consider that we were explictly trying to kill him.

Gaius was the one who annexed Ala Mhigo, not Zenos so we can't pin the blame for him on this one either. He did put down the uprisings in Doma and was fighting with the Resistance in Ala Migho, but given that he's a military leader that's kinda his job. He was good at his job, but that alone doesn't really make him bad guy. If it was good ol' Righty that was doing such a stellar job we'd all be applauding him.

Most of the "Evil" Zenos is, supposedly, responsible for happens off screen. He hand picked someone who was a vicious sociopath as a viceroy for Doma, that was pretty nasty, I guess. He never really gets his hands dirty with doing the important work required to run an evil empire. Other than show up for a couple of duels, the only time he tends to appear on screen is when he's lounging on his throne. Okay, the Garlean Empire is oppressive and totalitarian, but it's not as if Zenos is ever shown taking an active part in that, it's just how the Empire does things.

We also never get to see any of his redeming qualities on display either. We get a throwaway line from Lyse about it at the end, but that's it really. We're never really even shown how Zenos ended up as a "monster", which is completely inexcusable when you consider that the Echo provides a perfect way for Squenix to fill the audience in on backstory and exposition like that.

At the end of the day, all the guy wants is someone as strong as himself to fight. He's a tube of hair gel away from becoming Goku, or a head shave away from being One Punch Man. He's basically only a villain because he's a Garlean.

Comparing Zenos to someone well written and fleshed out like Dukat really shows just how lackluster Squenix's writing is in general.

While I haven't tried out the new SMN, isn't that how it's always been? I didn't play a lot of HW SMN but from what I remember it was mostly keep up your dots and then spam Ruin with the occasional OGCD abilitiy to build up your stacks.

I'm genuinely curious because I just don't see the removal of one dot being a huge difference. Is it the Tri-Disaster change were it resets CD? So less dot management or just slower stack acquisition so you spend less time in Dreadwyrm Trance? If it's the latter then I don't understand because Trance has always been just... you get a stronger Ruin and then finish it off with a big attack?

Having three DoT's with different durations means you need to pay closer attention to them, it's easy to drop one if you're not careful. Having two with the same duration means you're always refresing them both together, and with Dreadwyrm Trance resetting the cooldown on Tri-disaster you spend less time than ever before recasting them.

In terms of play style, since you're no longer really able to take advantage of using cooldowns to snapshot the damage of your DoT's, it's just a case of refreshing them whenever they fall off rather than putting the work in to get the most damage out of them.

Take into account that Shadowflare is now on a minute cooldown too and that you can burn through your Aetherflow stacks in just 10 seconds leaving you with less options most of the time. You can also no longer use Aetherflow skills during Trance either, which is really noticable when you're looking to put out some burst damage.

The old SMN had a wonderful rhythm to it which built up into a crescendo with Deathflare before returning to normal volume and starting over again. The new SMN with all the changes combined, has some huge gameplay moments where you've got Bahamut out and you're absolutely obliterating everything in sight. Unfortunately those are also coupled with lots of downtime where you're casting nothing but Ruin for the next 30 seconds.

As I said though I don't play the class and I do suppose we need some form of DoT mage.

My hope is that the changes to SMN have opened the way for a DoT orentated class to be added at some point in the future. I guess Green Mage would be the go-to one for it, but there are also plenty of examples of melee DoT classes working too.

[Anzaman]

So, got BSM from 60 to 68 today and went to do quests for it.

Saw this during one of those quests and laughed so badly...

Spoiler: 

...seeing how I have done nothing but mindlessly spam same ingots and nuggets for levequests.

[Faroth]

My favourite villain across all media is Deep Space Nine's Gul Dukat.

They don't need to tell you some of the evil things he's done, you can watch him doing them.

You didn't get any sense of the utter garbage life the oppressed people of Doma and Ala Mhigo live under Garlean rule? Maybe I took in more from talking to all the non-quest NPCs and reading chat bubbles (I mean, Raubahn wasn't letting me go anywhere, so I got in the habit early), but the suffering of the two nations that are essentially under his rule were pretty clear. Far better than a lot of other stories where "we're suffering, just trust us, we said we are" is the total sum of all you get.

Compare that to Zenos, what did he ever do that made you think of him as being a complete evil bastard? He killed a couple of nameless officers, which mostly just established the fact that he was the villain of the story. He beat us, fair and square mind you, in a couple of fights. Which doesn't really qualify as "evil", when you consider that we were explictly trying to kill him.

Other than the whole desire to endlessly stoke the flames of rebellion for the sole purpose of spurring people to fight so he had reason to kill more people in hopes of finding a challenge. Totally a gentleman...

Gaius was the one who annexed Ala Mhigo, not Zenos so we can't pin the blame for him on this one either. He did put down the uprisings in Doma and was fighting with the Resistance in Ala Migho, but given that he's a military leader that's kinda his job. He was good at his job, but that alone doesn't really make him bad guy. If it was good ol' Righty that was doing such a stellar job we'd all be applauding him.

Again, you didn't notice any of the total crapfest that was the people's lives under his rule?

Honestly with the lyrics to the Stormblood theme, I was expecting us to find ourselves attempting to liberate countries from a surprisingly ambivalent population being ruled over by a surprisingly benevolent Garlean. I honestly thought it was going to be more of a conflicted situation once we got in. Instead, he has a structure where the "savages" are treated like crap, the savages who bend knee to Garlemald just a bit less so.

Most of the "Evil" Zenos is, supposedly, responsible for happens off screen. He hand picked someone who was a vicious sociopath as a viceroy for Doma, that was pretty nasty, I guess. He never really gets his hands dirty with doing the important work required to run an evil empire. Other than show up for a couple of duels, the only time he tends to appear on screen is when he's lounging on his throne. Okay, the Garlean Empire is oppressive and totalitarian, but it's not as if Zenos is ever shown taking an active part in that, it's just how the Empire does things.

I'm guessing Darth Vader and the Emperor were pretty weak, barely nasty villains in the original trilogy? Vader does his job capturing Leia. He only kills Obi-Wan who assaulted his base. We see him stand around in a meeting and attack a subordinate. He fights the protagonist in a couple of duels, but he never gets his hands dirty with the important work to run the Empire on screen... you see where I'm going here? And Star Wars is a fair example where, even with the expanded material, you never really get a deep impression of just how much people suffer under the Empire. Stormblood offered more in that regard to me.

Zenos actually details that he wants the people to rebel. He wants them to fight. And since he says a general's place is on the field, not in some office, he wants to be out there killing the people rebelling. It was starkly clear to be he wants to kill people. All in pursuit of a thrill to feel something. It's fairly sociopathic.

We also never get to see any of his redeming qualities on display either. We get a throwaway line from Lyse about it at the end, but that's it really. We're never really even shown how Zenos ended up as a "monster", which is completely inexcusable when you consider that the Echo provides a perfect way for Squenix to fill the audience in on backstory and exposition like that.

If he is in fact a sociopath, there may not be a story of him becoming a monster so much as finding a path to feed his monstrous desires, which was the impression I got from what we were offered. His military career was basically for the pursuit of combat and based on things he says later, the pursuit feeling something in combat.

Comparing Zenos to someone well written and fleshed out like Dukat really shows just how lackluster Squenix's writing is in general.

Square has never been about intricate twists and turns. They aren't telling a Game of Thrones tale of political intrigue where the heroes are just as much assholes as the villains and the villains have good but misunderstood intentions (except maybe Tactics). They've always being more chivalric tales of good vs evil with the occasional character being shades of gray.