[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Graeham]

I stopped caring about WoW's zone design when it began actively destroying large swathes of interesting territory and replacing it with sub-par content. The original Redridge was very charming...but ended up being replaced by obnoxious movie references. Uldum was hyped for years as a great mystery...and then ended up being another tacky movie reference that overshadowed the more unique, interesting stuff. Memorable zones such as Ashenvale and Theramore were also desecrated for the sake of pushing an increasingly contrived faction conflict that is fated to always be a stalemate.

FFXIV, for me, wins in terms of gear design, environment design, story and music. I even prefer FFXIV's combat since it just feels so much smoother and visually satisfying. I do vastly prefer some of WoW's playable races, though. I was always a fan of the blood elves and their struggle for survival. FFXIV's playable races feel too 'human'. Even those with unique cultures end up being changed to fit the 'every1 must be fwends or die' agenda that is common in JRPG's.

I want the Xaela to be seen as wild and scary. I want to see less 'City Miqo'te' and more Tribal Miqo'te. I want the Raen to...have an actual presence beyond a couple of minor NPC's and a secluded settlement hidden beneath the ocean. WoW isn't perfect in regards to racial lore but throughout the expansions I knew I could consistently count on getting new blood elf settlements and lore.

In FFXIV, that's something that is sorely missing. Duskwight Elezen and Raen Au Ra are arguably the ones that drew the short straw.

[Rogalicus]

I don't get what do you like so much about FFXIV's music, it's mostly bland and sounds like it was written for NES. Zones also suffer from long periods of silence, since BGM is played in short repetitive tracks once in a while. While there are couple of good tracks in Primal fights, most of the time music (or lack of it) is really uninspired. MoP and WoD OSTs are clearly better in every possible way.

[Graeham]

I'm guessing you haven't been to a Distant Worlds concert?

Every single Final Fantasy game is highly praised for its soundtrack - and rightly so. In FFXIV's case, calling the soundtrack bland reeks of bias as it boasts immense variety. It sounds like you haven't really gotten very far into the game itself, either, since the 'long periods of silence' issue is only applicable in the ARR zones due to the lack of any night tracks. It's definitely something that should be addressed, though.

There's also the nostalgia factor - certain tracks are throwbacks to key pieces of music from previous titles. Hien's theme is a solid example of that.

WoW's music isn't bad - there's a lot of memorable tracks - but it doesn't have the same amount of weight on the world stage when compared to what the Final Fantasy series brings to the table.

[StrawberryZebra]

While few games are DBZ level, I think FF qualifies as an immensely popular IP worldwide. I mean hell, I'd bet it's the main reason the game still is running and didn't go F2P/die.

Pretty sure FF came close with their initial release. I never played it, but it was bad enough to force a reboot of the game from the ground up.

SWTOR is also in the same position, if it wasn't for the IP it wouldn't have been a success. Off the top of my head, the only themepark MMO I can think of that was a success with a new IP was Rift, and that's sunk a long way since it's glory days too.

One thing that BB did to me was broke my heart. It reminded me that I'm not as good at the FGC as I used to be. There were characters I wanted to play, but I genuinely couldn't handle their execution (Rachel, Izayoi, etc.), so I was stuck playing Jin (who I did really enjoy) and Noel because they were simple enough, but had good depth and were strong.

If you can play Jin, you can play most of the cast. When it comes to execution, Ragna, Es, Tsubaki, Makoto, Azreal, Hibiki, Celica and Terumi are all about the same level as Jin. Mai is so easy to get great damage out of that practically anyone can confirm into a 2k+ combo with her with no practice required. 3k in the corner. I'd even go as far as to say Nu and Lambda are easy to get a handle on too, even if they have massively polarizing matchups against most of the cast. I've had no problems at all with Kagura, though I have played Chun Li since SF2, so I've had lots of practice with charge characters, and Kagura's stance swap was easy enough to understand after a quick play around with it.

I'd even consider Rachels execution to be, on the whole, fairly lenient in terms of pulling off her specials. Her setups and overall game plan on the other hand feels like it requires a PhD's in microdashing, Particle Physics and a time machine to pull off. You live and die by how well you can use her Wind. She's definately one of the hardest characters in the series, though I do think the #1 hardest has to be Carl without question.

DBFZ is something of a special case. It's auto combo scheme lets anyone who wants to jump in and play their favourite characters from the show competantly, use all of their signature attacks and Ki blasts and such. But thats the trick really. Just because a character has easy execution doesn't mean they're easy to play. That is the real genius of Arc's designs, they're easy to learn but hard to master. Even in "hard" games like Guilty Gear, they've still got characters who are easy to learn, Ky, Sin, Sol etc, but who also have a surprising amount of depth to them.

There's always a character you'll feel comfortable with and always more to learn with them. That should be a design mantra for MMO's too, especially when they're aiming to get you invested enough to stick around long term. Unfortunately most, FF14 included, usually keep the fun an interesting parts of their character design hidden away until later on. They should probably just be upfront about what makes this particular class awesome and let you build on that foundation as you improve as a player.

I loved the Persona fighting games, but I keep eyeing up this Weiss chick, because she looks like my FF14 character and that intrigues me.

Weiss does look interesting, sort of a mix between Orie and Jin, though those comparisons are mostly based on her fast Rapier attacks and her Ice specials. I admit, I've never watched RWBY, so I can't tell you much about her. From her gameplay, she looks more like a mid-screen poke character, though that can be misleading, trailers do show off only the most flashy looking attacks.

I do plan on trying out all of the P4 and RWBY characters, though if none are to my liking I'm just going to roll with Hakumen and Azreal, or possiably Gordeau, for maximum screen splatting fun times.

The shielding was an out of left field moment, I'll agree, though the way it's presented in that scene there's no way you could fight and do that at the same time. I also felt like Laksmhi felt a little shoehorned into the MSQ and could have been an unrelated side story instead.

I felt quite a lot of content was shoehorned into the story too. Like Toto-rak, it felt like "oh, we have this dungeon... Better shove it into the story somewhere". Same with Hakkue Manor and a lot of the other ARR dungeons. I realise a lot of that was a means to reuse the content from 1.0, but it doesn't fit neatly into the story they're trying to tell or the world they're trying to build.

There are lots of other moments that come from left field too. Like half way through the ARR story when the Scions are all captured and Alphinaud swans in with no warning to take control. You don't have any hints that he's even affiliated with the Scions at this point. He, conveniently, runs into you in a church which also happens to be home to an amnesiac Cid, who Alphinaud also happens to recognise as being Cid although we're led to believe that they've never met before.

I don't like having plot based super powers. If it were up to me, echo wouldn't be a thing and I would just be a prominent member of the Scions after proving myself over the course of the MSQ and everyone else would be explained away that they are either lesser members of the Scions or just part of a different squad of folks who work in tandem with the main plot.

I'm fine with having plot based super powers, provided they're well defined. It's when you get powers like the Echo, which basically does whatever the writers need it to do in order to advance the plot. At times it fills you in on backstory, others it's literal plot armour from being enthralled or outright killed and at others it allows you to draw upon the powers of a goddess to smite your enemies.

The problem for an MMO is that you've also got a bunch of friends, who also have the same super powers as you do. When the bulk of the worlds population are traveling adventurers with do-whatever super powers it doesn't mesh well at all when trying to tell a plot for a singular individual.

[Granyala]

While some of the FF series definitely have nice soundtracks, I too can't stand FF XIVs OST for more than a few minutes.
Don't know why.

That being said: WoWs OSt is also good but gets on my nerves as well. I guess in an MMO one simply dwells far too long. Even the nicest music gets annoying if you repeat a 3 minute track for an hour.

[Remilia]

While some of the FF series definitely have nice soundtracks, I too can't stand FF XIVs OST for more than a few minutes.
Don't know why.

That being said: WoWs OSt is also good but gets on my nerves as well. I guess in an MMO one simply dwells far too long. Even the nicest music gets annoying if you repeat a 3 minute track for an hour.

That's how it goes for me in MMOs. It may just be the repetitive nature of it cause it'll play aaaaaaaallllllll the time. Too much of a good thing and all.

By the way, this is what's being played in PSO2 lobby atm, it kind of gets annoying after the first time over.

[Rogalicus]

There's also the nostalgia factor - certain tracks are throwbacks to key pieces of music from previous titles. Hien's theme is a solid example of that.

Well, I haven't played any FF game before FFXIV, so nostalgia factor certainly doesn't apply to me. And I guess it affects not only throwbacks, but the whole soundtrack, since (I assume) music style is the same I'd hear in any other FF game.

[zito]

do people not use fates to level up anymore? Every zone is like dead lol. Waiting for que times and nobody seems to be around

[Kaelwryn]

do people not use fates to level up anymore? Every zone is like dead lol. Waiting for que times and nobody seems to be around

Nope, only time people really use FATES to level is when they can't do dungeons or potd, aka heavensward/stormblood launch. Shame, cos SB fates give pretty decent xp more so if you do bonus fate/have twist of fate buff.

[Granyala]

By the way, this is what's being played in PSO2 lobby atm, it kind of gets annoying after the first time over.

I lasted until the 10 second mark. :X

[Wrecktangle]

Thanks you for asking me this, does not change anything what i wrote btw. and which are facts.

Back to your question, yes i know it, at least for some, because they were attunments in legion for 3 dungeons. Has literarly nothing to with "handed" to me in cutscenes tho, i can simply walk into the dungeons and raids and see it as a loot piniata or a diablo 3 rift. Reason should not be optional and ignorable in a rpg, at least i prefer it that way

Looking back - I actually mis-read your OP. You were referring to TBC - which I can't comment on in-depth as that's the one expansion I missed a lot of.

Speaking with regards to Legion (since it's fresh in my mind), for nearly all of the dungeons I knew the reason why a dungeon existed, why we were going there and what our goal was. The game did an excellent job giving us that context, even if it wasn't splattered right in front of our face (i.e. via a cutscene).

Mind you I love cutscenes so don't think I'm hating.

What I hate most are silent mechanics like the blue mark in O7s (thank God mine always comes directly after the laser, so I can use its sound to guide me) and mechanics where I have to see whether the mob scratches his behind or pokes his nose. Ugh.

WoW damaged me in the regard that I am used to play via UI and much less via game world / mob animations.

I actually quite like fighting based on animations/tells. I wish they actually used more of it. I just hate that everything is a cast bar. It feels so unnatural to me.

I even prefer FFXIV's combat since it just feels so much smoother and visually satisfying.

While I definitely agree on the visuals, can you go into more detail of what you mean by smoother? I've played dozens of MMOs and FF14 is one of the least smooth systems I've ever experienced.

Pretty sure FF came close with their initial release. I never played it, but it was bad enough to force a reboot of the game from the ground up.

To be fair - it was also universally accepted as the worst MMO ever made by nearly everyone. The fact that even brand power couldn't save it says something.

If you can play Jin, you can play most of the cast. When it comes to execution, Ragna, Es, Tsubaki, Makoto, Azreal, Hibiki, Celica and Terumi are all about the same level as Jin. Mai is so easy to get great damage out of that practically anyone can confirm into a 2k+ combo with her with no practice required. 3k in the corner. I'd even go as far as to say Nu and Lambda are easy to get a handle on too, even if they have massively polarizing matchups against most of the cast.

I haven't played the most recent version (so hibiki/celica/es are out). I could play Tsubaki fine and Ragna, but dollar for dollar, Jin & Noel put out considerably more output for the same execution level and I liked their aesthetics (although I did actually end up "maining" Tsubaki even though win rate suffered because of it).

I'd even consider Rachels execution to be, on the whole, fairly lenient in terms of pulling off her specials. Her setups and overall game plan on the other hand feels like it requires a PhD's in microdashing, Particle Physics and a time machine to pull off. You live and die by how well you can use her Wind. She's definately one of the hardest characters in the series, though I do think the #1 hardest has to be Carl without question.

Yeah I mean her moves aren't hard to do at all, but the execution of combining them into a plan is where it comes. As you said - that's the hard part lol.

[Faroth]

They don't do a good job of explaining the role of the other player characters you encounter. Outside of you regrouping with "friends" (or randoms) does anyone else have echo? Does everyone else exist in the scheme of the plot or are they just essentially background characters of your main story?

In the opening sequence of creating a character they show multiple people (assumed to be other people's characters) speaking to Hydaelyn, implying echo powers, but then you are THE singular Warrior of Light.

In A Realm Reborn, they did a slightly better job of referring to you "as a warrior of light" or "like a warrior of light" or you reminding them of the warriors of light from 1.0/Answers cinematic. You were more a reminder of the group who were collectively referred to as such. And since 1.0 is still canon lore, I prefer to believe that there are others with the echo (I mean, Minfillia had it, you have it, we've met a couple others in MSQ with it) who make up the others you gather for certain fights. The echo also manifests differently in different people, so there's that.

expanses of tiled grass

Tiled grass or do the goblins mow regularly, resulting in rows in the grass?

I don't get what do you like so much about FFXIV's music, it's mostly bland and sounds like it was written for NES. Zones also suffer from long periods of silence, since BGM is played in short repetitive tracks once in a while. While there are couple of good tracks in Primal fights, most of the time music (or lack of it) is really uninspired. MoP and WoD OSTs are clearly better in every possible way.

Having owned all the WoW OSTs and missing only the most previous FFXIV OST, I can't agree at all. WoW's has one, maybe two, notable pieces per soundtrack and those soundtracks constitute 45 minutes to an hour of music. 30 tracks per expansion OST with anywhere from 58 seconds to 2.5 minutes per song.

FFXIV soundtracks have over 100 tracks per release with multiple pieces of note on each one for me, ranging from about a minute to 14 minutes long with the average being around 3-5 minutes per song.

Twilight Over Thanalan, Nail of the Heavens, To The Sun (Thanalan's field theme), Where the Heart Is & Where the Hearth Is, Hubris & Tumbling Down from Labyrinth of the Ancients, Silver Tears, Against the Wind, Nobility Obliges & Nobility Sleeps, Night in the Brume is beautiful, the remix of Matoya's Cave is an absolutely beautiful rendition of a chipper song turned somber and almost melancholy. That's just a handful from Realm Reborn and Heavensward. Stormblood has some fantastic pieces as well and I'm not even touching on Answers, Primal themes, or Dragonsong (which still gives me a tingle on the scalp when Susan hits the climax of that song - "Children of the land, answer this: Why must you turn to empty bliss? Tell me; why break trust, why turn the past to dust, seeking solace in the abyss? Tell me; why create a circle none can break? Why must you let go the life you were bestowed, this I fear I'll never know...").

Also, seeing Sokken play piano (and mini-piano) live is fairly amusing. Seeing Koji Fox perform Good King Moogle Mog live was also quite amusing (not bad for a non-music guy. He also did the Alexander theme live, which was fun).

WoW's stand outs for me are the original opening cinematic, Grizzly Hills, and Nightsong, though that first time entering Stormwind is pretty majestic.

On the subject, honorable callout to Guild Wars 2's Fear Not This Night, though.
I've also come to really dig FFVII Crisis Core's The Price of Freedom, which is a lesser known track since even a lot of us FF fans missed the PSP entry.

Pretty sure FF came close with their initial release. I never played it, but it was bad enough to force a reboot of the game from the ground up.

I did. Ooof. -_-

In hindsight, I wish I had listened to my friend and subscribed for 3 months in the summer. The discounted sub is a really really nice thank you to those players.

The problem for an MMO is that you've also got a bunch of friends, who also have the same super powers as you do. When the bulk of the worlds population are traveling adventurers with do-whatever super powers it doesn't mesh well at all when trying to tell a plot for a singular individual.

I've head canon'd what SE should have done and just view the story as my FC mates and I have the echo and work with the Scions since all the way back to FF1 and even in FFXIV's canon, it's been the Warriors of Light. Plural.

Storywise, it's your story, not every player's. Bend the rules a bit to factor in your friends/FC, but storywise not every Free Company are completing the MSQ. Just you and your party are doing that. All the other FCs in the world of your story are doing other things throughout the world.

I mean, there's WoW's approach where everything you do wasn't done by you whatsoever, so I prefer having to bend the narrative in my mind to apply more than everything your character does was actually done by someone not you or someone possibly coulda been you but may have not been.

While some of the FF series definitely have nice soundtracks, I too can't stand FF XIVs OST for more than a few minutes.
Don't know why.

That being said: WoWs OSt is also good but gets on my nerves as well. I guess in an MMO one simply dwells far too long. Even the nicest music gets annoying if you repeat a 3 minute track for an hour.

I used to play the Lord of the Rings full soundtracks, EverQuest music, and numerous Final Fantasy & other JRPGs musics in a big playlist while playing WoW. I had WoW's music in that play list as well. I'd usually play WoW with the music on for about a month or so into an expansion. Once I was max level, it was usually playlist time with some days being game music on again.

In FF once I'm max level, I never seem to be in one place long enough for the music to wear on me. I can't recall turning it off for a playlist but a handful of times. I think for me, many tracks being 5-6 minutes helps for me.

On gathering/crafting binges, music's off and something is streaming on the 2nd monitor, of course.

Well, I haven't played any FF game before FFXIV, so nostalgia factor certainly doesn't apply to me. And I guess it affects not only throwbacks, but the whole soundtrack, since (I assume) music style is the same I'd hear in any other FF game.

Not really. Sokken touches on numerous different styles through Final Fantasy XIV's now hours upon hours of music. I wouldn't say there are that many throw backs for nostalgia, either. Hien's theme, Matoya's cave (though it's so altered to fit XIV's setting, knowing the song is entirely unecessary), the battle with Gilgamesh, and the music in World of Darkness & Sigmascape are the only ones I can think of. Less than a dozen out of more than 300 tracks isn't bad!

FFXIV actually holds a Guiness World Record for music for Most Original Pieces of Music in a Video Game (as well as Longest End Credits in a video game due to all the Meteor Survivors being listed).

As for past soundtracks having the same style, also not at all. Nobuo Uematsu, who is Sokken's mentor, is an absolute brilliant composer and uses all sorts of different styles. Just the variations on the chocobo theme are a wide variety. He employs heavy meatal to classical to acoustic classic guitar to samba to industrial influences. All with absolutely 0 musical background education. I'd argue he has more variety through his career than some of the big time movie composers.

[Granyala]

I actually quite like fighting based on animations/tells. I wish they actually used more of it. I just hate that everything is a cast bar. It feels so unnatural to me.

Maybe I am simply getting old, but it is simply too much to "see" it all.
Esp when my eyes are glued to the raidframe because I need to rescue people.

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I used to play the Lord of the Rings full soundtracks, EverQuest music, and numerous Final Fantasy & other JRPGs musics in a big playlist while playing WoW. I had WoW's music in that play list as well. I'd usually play WoW with the music on for about a month or so into an expansion. Once I was max level, it was usually playlist time with some days being game music on again.

Sounds about right, I did the same once cata dropped and they started with the shorter, more notable cues instead of quiet, long background tracks.

[leviathonlx]

FFXIV actually holds a Guiness World Record for music for Most Original Pieces of Music in a Video Game (as well as Longest End Credits in a video game due to all the Meteor Survivors being listed).

As for past soundtracks having the same style, also not at all. Nobuo Uematsu, who is Sokken's mentor, is an absolute brilliant composer and uses all sorts of different styles. Just the variations on the chocobo theme are a wide variety. He employs heavy meatal to classical to acoustic classic guitar to samba to industrial influences. All with absolutely 0 musical background education. I'd argue he has more variety through his career than some of the big time movie composers.

I always questioned that 'world record' as world records tend to be whoever decides to contact Guiness (for things like marketing similar to when companies go 'we've had 10 million subs over the years!') and what is counted as a 'original piece of music'? Since technically WoW has more music than FF14 in-game unless they only counted tracks with actual lyrics (which honestly I got so damn tired of hearing the SB theme over and over and over and over during questing in SB). Though I'm not a big fan of music pieces that sound too 'grand' when they're something that's going to be repeated over and over which was a huge issue with WoD's soundtrack.

I'll still agree with that many pieces do sound good but any good piece of music gets tiring after hearing it repeat forever for 70 minutes which then turns into hours and hours when playing an MMO. It's partly why I like WoW's more shorter bits of music but more actual music as it mixes things up greatly and they tend to put more than 1 piece in a zone. For example Suramar city doesn't use the same music as the areas outside it. Of course in the end it's all opinions as peoples music tastes will always vary greatly as, for example, I absolutely despise the music in all the Othard zones but I'm sure plenty of people really loves those tracks.

[zito]

Nope, only time people really use FATES to level is when they can't do dungeons or potd, aka heavensward/stormblood launch. Shame, cos SB fates give pretty decent xp more so if you do bonus fate/have twist of fate buff.

Then what do people do while waiting for ques? I know tank is instant but as a dps it takes like 20 minutes. After dailies do people just sit and do nothing? Dumb

[Faroth]

I always questioned that 'world record' as world records tend to be whoever decides to contact Guiness (for things like marketing similar to when companies go 'we've had 10 million subs over the years!') and what is counted as a 'original piece of music'? Since technically WoW has more music than FF14 in-game unless they only counted tracks with actual lyrics (which honestly I got so damn tired of hearing the SB theme over and over and over and over during questing in SB). Though I'm not a big fan of music pieces that sound too 'grand' when they're something that's going to be repeated over and over which was a huge issue with WoD's soundtrack.

I'll agree they did more renditions and uses of the Stormblood theme than I liked.

I don't think WoW comes close to having as many different tracks in game, though, but someone's free to go meticulous and research it. FFXIV got the nod at 384 unique pieces prior to Stormblood. Definitely not lyrics only.

It might be how they're composed if WoW has all of Zul'Gurub as a single composition rather than 1 zone song and a different one per boss. There are two distinct parts in Grizzly Hills, but it's all one piece. That might have a lot to do with it.

Or maybe you're right and it's a matter of Blizzard not thinking to submit it. After 10 years and 7 installments, after all....

That said, Blizzard should really get with the program and do some "Complete Soundtrack" releases with ALL the music from every expansion on each release rather than a portion with some added tracks for this expansion on the next expansion CE's soundtrack, etc.

I absolutely despise the music in all the Othard zones but I'm sure plenty of people really loves those tracks.

I like Othard towns' second theme and the Yanxia night theme with the piano.

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Then what do people do while waiting for ques? I know tank is instant but as a dps it takes like 20 minutes. After dailies do people just sit and do nothing? Dumb

On Gilgamesh I usually get through one tribe of dailies before the queue pops for EXDR. I've not been running other roulettes much, though.

[leviathonlx]

Then what do people do while waiting for ques? I know tank is instant but as a dps it takes like 20 minutes. After dailies do people just sit and do nothing? Dumb

I tend to just tab into another game. Not exactly what I'd call a good thing to have do to make a 30 min queue go by but there is unfortunately not much outdoor content in the game. It would be nice if Square could work on adding in some non instanced content or could add a nice QoL feature like multi queuing.

[Graeham]

It's common in music for a particular theme to be used multiple times. There's a term for it - a leitmotif.

[Faroth]

Common, yes, (just look at Star Wars' original trilogy score) - I just felt like Stormblood did it a little too often.

[Katchii]

Then what do people do while waiting for ques? I know tank is instant but as a dps it takes like 20 minutes. After dailies do people just sit and do nothing? Dumb

I do the beast tribe dailies and Hunt Bills. DPS queues for most of the ones I do (50/60, Leveling, Trial, Alliance Raid) are ~10-15 minutes, with Alliance Raid being ~5 minutes most of the time. I'd do Main Scenario roulette if the wait time wasn't "More than 30 minutes" because it's ludicrous how much xp that gives (Only done it twice, but the xp was as much as all of the other roulettes combined) but I'm not willing to wait more than 30 minutes for it to pop followed by 60+ minutes of a dungeon I've seen a bazillion times already.

The amount of time it takes for me to do the dailies and hunts usually means I don't have much down time while waiting for queues, but if I do it's only for a few minutes which can usually be taken up by managing my retainers and market board stuff. Otherwise I just watch a YouTube video on my phone while I wait or something.