[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Kazgrel]

Sorry, this is actually hard to believe. So it is fine to have 50+ high detailed players with several partical effects in Quarrymill spamming emotes and showing off their flashy mounts, but the game cannot use more than 15 bland characters in a scripted cutscene. I am not asking for 100+, but lousy 5-15 is just plain lazy. I highly doubt that 30 would cause any stress as in every raid there is more to see. Heck, you could even fake some population with flat textures in the distance just for the cutscene. Sure, why should SE do more work when everyone is already fine with the status quo.

The game engine starts culling out players if they get piled into one small area in too large of numbers. Run around in/near a crowd for a S rank hunt or in Quarrymill and you'll see that happening. GW2 had similar culling in place in WvW for years before they either eased off or removed it outright; emember getting mauled by an invisible zerg of enemy players that only appear as they all trample your corpse like a horde of people storming Wal-Mart on Black Friday? I 'member.

I'm not disagreeing with your notion; I, too, would've liked to seen some more resistance/imperial foot soldiers involved in the battles toward the end of the SB MSQ, even if they only amounted to being the game's equivalent to Star Trek red shirt ensigns.

[Graeham]

Hopefully we get the 4.1 patch trailer soon...though I'm guessing we won't see it until near to the end of September.

[Granyala]

So it's been a while, was Stormblood worth it ?

Story is nice and as far as I can tell, gameplay is good.
Sorta missing the relic as the overarching "sth to do" though.

Regarding the "No of objects" discussion: Anyone remember the laggy battle of the floating nametags in AIONs abyss?
I agree though, we should see a few more people. No reason at all why a modern PC can't handle 50-100 scripted NPCs running around.

[Shanden]

So it's been a while, was Stormblood worth it ?

The SB dungeons are really nice and more interesting than HW, but the story is completely inferior to HW in every regard. It is quite repetitive and not really heroic or atmospherical most of the time. The Bad Guy of SB is cool, no doubts about that.
At all SB is way too japanese as weird as it sounds. The asian theme is absolutely ok but getting thrown countless of japanese words at you all the time is really obnoxious. The names, the places, even all of the samurai skills. Even with 20+ years of anime experience in japanese I gave up on remembering people/places. Next to nothing of the addon will stay in my head and that is not good, contrary I still remember many HW regions and characters. There is actually no need for them to be all japanese (peoples names are somewhat understandable, but make them easier and more distinguishable). Our characters are foreigners in this country. Mentioning the original name once and then having a translation would have been better in my humble opinion.
Every time I head the word Kami instead of God in a cutscene I can only sign. It feels like talking to a weaboo friend who uses way too much japanese for his own good when you are only interested in the core of things. I absolutely feel this addon was pure fanservice for the jp players and we have to live with it.

To sum it up, worth playing? Yes. Better than HW? If you exclude new classes/gameplay balances, no way.

[Kaelwryn]

The SB dungeons are really nice and more interesting than HW, but the story is completely inferior to HW in every regard. It is quite repetitive and not really heroic or atmospherical most of the time. The Bad Guy of SB is cool, no doubts about that.
At all SB is way too japanese as weird as it sounds. The asian theme is absolutely ok but getting thrown countless of japanese words at you all the time is really obnoxious. The names, the places, even all of the samurai skills. Even with 20+ years of anime experience in japanese I gave up on remembering people/places. Next to nothing of the addon will stay in my head and that is not good, contrary I still remember many HW regions and characters. There is actually no need for them to be all japanese (peoples names are somewhat understandable, but make them easier and more distinguishable). Our characters are foreigners in this country. Mentioning the original name once and then having a translation would have been better in my humble opinion.
Every time I head the word Kami instead of God in a cutscene I can only sign. It feels like talking to a weaboo friend who uses way too much japanese for his own good when you are only interested in the core of things. I absolutely feel this addon was pure fanservice for the jp players and we have to live with it.

To sum it up, worth playing? Yes. Better than HW? If you exclude new classes/gameplay balances, no way.

I don't get this mindset at all. "pure fan service" for JP....because there's no fantasy in asian cultures amirite? And saying its 'all japanese' is just hilariously gross exaggeration. Kugane/Ruby Sea is the JP zone, Yanxia/Doma is inspired mainly by china, and Azim Steppes is mainly mongolia. The samurai class is OMG A JAPANESE THING. Who would've thought that its going to have...JAPANESE WORDS. OH MY GOSH. The Doma portion of the MSQ was about half of it, so I guess we're just going to ignore the other half of the MSQ that is Ala Mhigo and that Gyr Abania is inspired by middle eastern countries.

But yeah, sure this is an entirely JP expansions that uses a shitton of japanese words in places it makes no sense. /s

Also fuck off with that non-sense that this is pure fan service to JP/asian players because the base game is basically a giant ass fan service to western fantasy people because before this expac, most of the references to mythology and shit was to western mythology/fantasy. Its not a fucking fan service when the game has pretty much established there are SEVERAL cultures pulled from real world places/mythology, etc and placed into the game. If we ever go to the New World (basically AMERICA), are you going to call that an pure fan service to America then?

Seriously, how dare square put in asian inspired zones and places, and names into their own game. /s


Touching on the "kami" example used, did you also 'cringe' when you heard them say Khagan, Khan, Tsagaan Sar, Naadam etc? Because those are actual mongonlian terms that they decided to use in the story while mixing in their own words that the Xaela tribes would use. Should they have used the words leader, new years' event, games etc instead?


Hopefully last edit: I want to also say that you can like Heavensward more than Stormblood. That's fine, we're all entitled to our opinions, and having different preferences is good. But to say that this expac is a fan service when they have basically established that this game's world is a varied as our own, and incorporates a bunch of different cultures into it, is goddamn disingenuous. They've shown us this variety of cultures, thru the art, the names, and zones. They use a variety of languages throughout the game to show this. You don't feel a connection to the zones and such in this expac, fine. Not everyone is going to feel that connection, in every expac. Such is life.

[lawow74]

It's true, there are numerous Asian cultures represented in SB (including India and Russia if I'm not mistaken), it's not purely 'Japanese fanservice', but Kugane is definitely them stroking their e-peen, which as a Japanese company they're entirely within their rights to do. I just had to smirk when all the NPC's were ooh'ing and aah'ing at the city, is all.

[Shanden]

I don't get this mindset at all. "pure fan service" for JP....because there's no fantasy in asian cultures amirite? And saying its 'all japanese' is just hilariously gross exaggeration. Kugane/Ruby Sea is the JP zone, Yanxia/Doma is inspired mainly by china, and Azim Steppes is mainly mongolia. The samurai class is OMG A JAPANESE THING. Who would've thought that its going to have...JAPANESE WORDS. OH MY GOSH. The Doma portion of the MSQ was about half of it, so I guess we're just going to ignore the other half of the MSQ that is Ala Mhigo and that Gyr Abania is inspired by middle eastern countries.

But yeah, sure this is an entirely JP expansions that uses a shitton of japanese words in places it makes no sense. /s

Also fuck off with that non-sense that this is pure fan service to JP/asian players because the base game is basically a giant ass fan service to western fantasy people because before this expac, most of the references to mythology and shit was to western mythology/fantasy. Its not a fucking fan service when the game has pretty much established there are SEVERAL cultures pulled from real world places/mythology, etc and placed into the game. If we ever go to the New World (basically AMERICA), are you going to call that an pure fan service to America then?

Seriously, how dare square put in asian inspired zones and places, and names into their own game. /s


Touching on the "kami" example used, did you also 'cringe' when you heard them say Khagan, Khan, Tsagaan Sar, Naadam etc? Because those are actual mongonlian terms that they decided to use in the story while mixing in their own words that the Xaela tribes would use. Should they have used the words leader, new years', festival etc instead?

Should I apologize to you as you are obviously deeply hurt because I dared to voice criticism? I know quite a bit about asian culture and I have no problem with an expansion dealing with it as I already stated, but as with everything there are limits how you can illustrate things before it gets in the way of the message. As a tiny example I do not actually need to use my own language to explain foreigners my culture as it would only confuse them. I have no hard feelings what so ever about this matter, it is neigher a good nor bad expansion.
To end this "discussion" with you: I am sorry I said something that hurt you. For your own well being I still recommend you to calm down more. A message board might be a dangerous place for someone getting personally offended by different viewpoints.

[Kaelwryn]

Should I apologize to you as you are obviously deeply hurt because I dared to voice criticism? I know quite a bit about asian culture and I have no problem with an expansion dealing with it as I already stated, but as with everything there are limits how you can illustrate things before it gets in the way of the message. As a tiny example I do not actually need to use my own language to explain foreigners my culture as it would only confuse them. I have no hard feelings what so ever about this matter, it is neigher a good nor bad expansion.
To end this "discussion" with you: I am sorry I said something that hurt you. For your own well being I still recommend you to calm down more. A message board might be a dangerous place for someone getting personally offended by different viewpoints.

Ahh the good ol' 'calm down, bro' because you've got nothing better to say. *claps* Nice. Guess you should go back and read the other edits I made. I'm perfectly fine with having different view points. Variety is the spice of life.

[Kazgrel]

I find the quibble over the "JP culture fan service" notion amusing, because I found a few things interesting about some of that stuff. One such thing was when I googled the name of Susano's sword, only to learn the whole series of events involving his summoning was a result of us reuniting artifacts based on the imperial regalia of Japan. Perhaps that's simply due to my lack of study of Japanese culture, but it all started from "what the fuck is a Ame-no-Murakumo?", figuring it was either the name of a class of sword (longsword, broadsword, greatsword, etc.) or the name of an artifact/mythical sword (Excalibur, Masamune, etc.). I find a lot of the "weeb" stuff online eyeroll-inducing, but found this particular example rather entertaining.

[Shanden]

Ahh the good ol' 'calm down, bro' because you've got nothing better to say. *claps* Nice. Guess you should go back and read the other edits I made. I'm perfectly fine with having different view points. Variety is the spice of life.

Calm down is the way to address someone directly taking a matter to the personal level which is completely uncalled for in a normal discussion. Without it I would have answered your points, but the split second you rage for some random reason you are already a lost cause. At least I can give you credit for the mongolion part as I dont know anything about that culture and I mostly skipped these story parts because they were too shallow in the grand scheme of the story for my personal liking. May this ease your pain.

[Kaelwryn]

Calm down is the way to address someone directly taking a matter to the personal level which is completely uncalled for in a normal discussion. Without it I would have answered your points, but the split second you rage for some random reason you are already a lost cause. At least I can give you credit for the mongolion part as I dont know anything about that culture and I mostly skipped these story parts because they were too shallow in the grand scheme of the story for my personal liking. May this ease your pain.

If you think I'm raging, then well.. *shrug* Again, lol, that you think this is some kind of hurt point for me. W/e dude. You don't like them adding flavour to the game via using jp words in certain places, then your loss.

[lawow74]

On a completely unrelated note, I just murdered Thextera three times in the course of doing Hunts and Dailies in the Forelands. Just kept popping up where they were taking me, so I kept butchering the Blueberry Bandersnatch.

[Kaelwryn]

On a completely unrelated note, I just murdered Thextera three times in the course of doing Hunts and Dailies in the Forelands. Just kept popping up where they were taking me, so I kept butchering the Blueberry Bandersnatch.

How cruel

[Kazgrel]

On a completely unrelated note, I just murdered Thextera three times in the course of doing Hunts and Dailies in the Forelands. Just kept popping up where they were taking me, so I kept butchering the Blueberry Bandersnatch.

For anyone bored enough out of their mind to farm the 1000 B rank kill achieve, Thextera is a good one if you don't care to bother with running around in ARR zones. The gorilla in Hinterlands is also another easy one to kill repeatedly.

[lawow74]

How cruel

I'm on DRK, so RAWWR ANGRIES ANNA BLUUDZ DIEDIEIDIEDIEDIIIIIIEEEEE!!! Or perhaps, this.

For anyone bored enough out of their mind to farm the 1000 B rank kill achieve, Thextera is a good one if you don't care to bother with running around in ARR zones. The gorilla in Hinterlands is also another easy one to kill repeatedly.

I just have a kill-on-sight policy when doing stuff like that. Kinda like old A-Ranks.

[Kaelwryn]

I'm on DRK, so RAWWR ANGRIES ANNA BLUUDZ DIEDIEIDIEDIEDIIIIIIEEEEE!!! Or perhaps, this.

What the fuck LOL, I've never heard that.

[lawow74]

What the fuck LOL, I've never heard that.

They had some great little quips for the units in that game. This was probably my favorite. Sure couldn't get away with THAT in games these days, or you'd get roasted alive on social media.

[Kaelwryn]

They had some great little quips for the units in that game. This was probably my favorite. Sure couldn't get away with THAT in games these days, or you'd get roasted alive on social media.

Holy shit. xD Yeah, definitely no longer a possibility these days.

[Faroth]

Have to chime in that I disagree with the assessment as well. Not atmospherical? What does that even mean?

Too Japanese? You're basically in the game's equivalent of Japan, so it would be particularly odd to meet someone named Matsushi and then just call them "Matt" for the rest of the game.

The names and places... uh... just, what?
Japanese naming places: Kugane, Yanxia (Doma is within that location).
Non-Japanese naming places: Ruby Sea, The Fringes, Rhalgr's Reach, The Peaks, Ala Mhigo, Gyr Abania.

Names? Yugiri we've known a while, she should be memorable. Gosetsu, Hien, and Yotsuyu are the new names. Sekiseigumi are referenced in Kugane, which might throw people (I keep thinking Shinsengumi from Kenshin, which draws the name from history). I don't see the logic in meeting them, then calling them George, Hank, and Sue so "Americans can remember them."

It's actually confirming the Japanese perception that Americans are too ignorant to handle complicated aspects of games, which is why we've gotten dumbed down and easy mode versions of games for years.

Samurai skills are difficult for me to remember by name, but I don't really look at the names much. I remember them more by bar placement and rotation rather than names. Essentially, I don't put effort into learning them (on any class), so I'm kind of out of the loop there already.

Every time I head the word Kami instead of God in a cutscene I can only sign. It feels like talking to a weaboo friend who uses way too much japanese for his own good when you are only interested in the core of things. I absolutely feel this addon was pure fanservice for the jp players and we have to live with it.

This in particular irritates the hell out of me. It just comes across ignorant and selfish to me, as if all creations should cater to one specific culture and only that culture.

In game, the entire planet of Hydaelyn are not a singular culture. Stormblood does a good job of demonstrating that Othard is not Eorzea.

Hydaelyn, Eorzea, Ul'dah, Limsa Lominsa, St. Coinach, Mhachi, Halatali, Toto-Rok, Dzemael, Hauchefaunt, Amdapor, Sohm Al, Hraesvalgar, Midgardsormr, Sohr Kai, Xelphatol are all clear as a bell, but 3 characters, 2 zones, 1 kingdom, and 2 dungeons having Japanese origins is just way too much "Japanese fan service"?

I can only think.... "C'mon, son."

[Kazgrel]

I just have a kill-on-sight policy when doing stuff like that. Kinda like old A-Ranks.

Same here; I think I'm almost at 800 B rank kills now. HW B ranks are incredibly squishy now going up against level 70 players.

Hilarious note: I have more S rank kills (still) than B ranks.