[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Kaelwryn]

If it's Face of Lies and you get scatter, just stay put. In fact, the Face of Lies is the easiest one because you can simply just stay put facing the guy and you shouldn't get a stack. I want to say that you also would not be be casting/attacking when the debuff goes off, but I may have twitched my mouse or something that one time I got a stack even though I stood still. That or I forgot what Face it showed.

Yes, scatter for face of lies is completely stop what you're doing. Everytime i've stacked or just stood still but kept attacking, i got a debuff.

[Eleccybubb]

Yes, scatter for face of lies is completely stop what you're doing. Everytime i've stacked or just stood still but kept attacking, i got a debuff.

Then I'm an idiot.

Cheers Kaz and Kael.

[The Casualty]

30th Rabanastre run

That is a lot of patience.

[Graeham]

Oh, that reminds me...I need to do Rabanastre tomorrow.

I should also try my luck at Shinryu EX now that I'm decently geared on RDM. I've heard it's pretty brutal but that it's the first two parts of the fight that are tough rather than the final phase.

[Granyala]

Yes, scatter for face of lies is completely stop what you're doing. Everytime i've stacked or just stood still but kept attacking, i got a debuff.

So THAT's why that never works. Drove me nuts so far.

[Aruhen]

Yes, scatter for face of lies is completely stop what you're doing. Everytime i've stacked or just stood still but kept attacking, i got a debuff.

That can't be right too because I've had times were I've kept casting during black face and it didn't give me the debuff and other times it has. Its really weird and probably the tiniest little movement triggers it.

[Kaelwryn]

That can't be right too because I've had times were I've kept casting during black face and it didn't give me the debuff and other times it has. Its really weird and probably the tiniest little movement triggers it.

idk man, the only time ive not gotten a debuff is when i completely stop and do nothing when the timer runs out.

[lawow74]

aside from Illidan, who else fits that theme?

No one in WoW AFAIK, I was referring more to Sarah Kerrigan from SC 2. Though if they tried bringing Arthas back I'd laugh and laugh and laugh.

[Kazgrel]

Just one job left to level 60-70 and one job left without anima weapon...pole dancer, er Dragoon. Then no more leveling until 2019.

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No one in WoW AFAIK, I was referring more to Sarah Kerrigan from SC 2. Though if they tried bringing Arthas back I'd laugh and laugh and laugh.

Oops, had my brain locked in on WoW concerning that description. I played none of the SC2 xpacs, so I'd have to youtube it to see what they did with Kerrigan past the end of WoL.

Often the attempt to slot a villain into a grey area, morality wise, where players may give pause and think "you know, I see what they're trying to do even if my character and people around me think it's the wrong way about it" ends up lending itself to creating shrug-worthy characters. Thus it isn't always a terrible thing to have a bad guy/gal be an evil shit just for the sake of...well, being an asshole. Zenos would be one such example.

Having Arthas brought back into the fold in WoW, outside of some Caverns of Time shit, would be nothing short of dumb as fuck, imo.

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PSU interview with Yoshida. I'm not sure whether to be excited or terrified at the prospect of relic armor. I suppose I'll stay cautiously optimistic...for now.

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Yes, scatter for face of lies is completely stop what you're doing. Everytime i've stacked or just stood still but kept attacking, i got a debuff.

Thought I might've just fat fingered a WASD key during the cast because I've only had it happen once that I can recall. Even if I flub that one particular combo, it's generally not enough to get me turned into a chicken and sent running off into a zombie-status barrier.

Course, I say that now, only to end up running Rabanastre this evening and ending up chickened because people can't stand in the meteor markers as needed.

[Katchii]

30th Rabanastre run and either the caster pants haven't dropped in the majority of runs or I've rolled garbage on them......

Question about masks on last boss. Blue means ignore I know that. But it commanded us to scatter so naturally I ran up to the boss to be stacked and I still got a stack. Explanation or am I just an idiot?

I noticed that the boss has a buff that changes between the blue and sliver mask.

When he gives the command you see either a blue or silver mask flash across your screen.

Silver mask = truth, so you do exactly what it says. Blue mask = lies, so you do the opposite of what it says.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41USg_q7D0Y

Mr. Happy guide for the raid, guide for final boss starts at 11:38.

The scatter part just means run around like a chicken with your head cut off, so FFXIV logic apparently the opposite of that is to do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING so don't just stop moving, stop doing ANYTHING.

[Wrecktangle]

As an Alliance player I'm really excited that we finally get Kul'Tiras in BFA but I'm not sure if I trust Blizzard with creating a decent story. Systems wise it looks really great though. I love the islands system were if you have PVP enabled you fight other players instead and of course the new PVP toggle is great too as it should finally fix faction imbalance. Separate questing zones also excite me as I'll finally level up a Horde to 110 for this and with the new old zone scaling feature it's going to be really fun. Nightbourne Mage/Warlock here I come. ;p

Lack of class changes has me worried though. Just like Legion even if the content is decent I can't stand doing it when my Warlock is a snooze fest to play. We'll see though.

edit; oh yeah Buffs are finally coming back in BFA haha. why am I excited for that? makes no sense.

I've found Legion's story to be very good, significantly better than I expected. Cutscenes, characters and VA all abound. And top notch to boot.

That aside, I've found Suramar and Nighthold to be great and the plights of the people to be both believable and endearing in the split of the people (i.e. those who recognize it needs to change, and those who were afraid of losing their peace, no matter how fake). It reflected well in zone. I wasn't super thrilled with Broken shore (I unsubbed at that point), but Argus has been pretty good. Lots of characterization and decent quest design. Lots of real quests and not filler stuff. I.e. Setting up camps and recovering artifacts for Velen to empower the ship. Meeting old denizens who feel betrayed by Velen leaving them behind, and those who welcome salvation and a chance to fight back against their tormentors.

Night elves & Forsaken are losing their entire cities and it looks like all surrounding areas. That's taking away the places a group of players remember fondly because of the forced faction vs faction storyline they can't let go of.

Looking at it logically for a second so let's remove emotion then we can double back on it (because I completely understand where you are coming from as an impacted player).

1) Both of those capital cities exist in dangerous territory with respect to Faction vs. Faction (known as FvF going forward). It makes sense logically that those would be the most vulnerable targets and likely targets (a la Theramore being destroyed previously).

2) Both of these locations are ghost towns with respect to actual player population thus makes them a smart choice as well, especially coupled with the first point.

I agree that one doesn't have to like it, but it does make sense WHY they were chosen.

You're thinking exclusively as a 1:1 comparison.

Using WoW options for an example: guild vs guild, faction vs faction, race vs race, absolute free for all (why would a highwayman say "Oh man, you guys are from the same city as me, it's cool, I'll just go hungry for a few more days. Wouldn't wanna attack my own faction, after all"), etc.

And EQ has the Priest of Discord which marked you for PvP.....by everyone. But that was just PvP. The guild war option added the legitimate risk of losing things of real value. Not just losing time when you're corpse camped by an asshole 8 levels higher than you.

Your highwayman example is bad. Westfall has highwaymen and they care not that you're alliance/horde, human, elf, orc. They will murder you first chance they get.

To be clear, are you advocating for OTHER pvp types to be present in the game? I'd support that. I wouldn't mind flagging myself for ANYONE to attack me regardless of race/faction/class, etc. Item loss on death though is an archaic concept that frankly I'm glad is gone. It's never fun to get it taken, and it was hardly ever fair because it was profitable. Those are 2 HARD detractors from PVP that are better left in the 90's where my items and many people I killed item's are probably still sitting on the ground.

You probably don't relate if you don't care about the game world and lore.

I happen to care about the game world and the lore. For instance I HATE that WoW has books for lore. Fuck that shit and put it in the game. I was equally as annoyed when FF14 did it with that Lyse shit. For the same reason I stick to one class/job in MMO's because I AM that character. I care about my interactions in that world/environment much more than my systems discussion focus lets on.

That's the result of an arbitrary split playerbase. One side has to feel shitty for the other side to feel powerful, yet the powerful side eventually has to feel incompetent because they can't finish off the enemy they've face stomped for 4 years or they have to fracture and turn on their own people to hand a victory to the losers who can't win a damn thing on their own.

As an Alliance player I've never felt shitty when we lost something (even though you KNOW Blizz favors the Horde ). I welcome the adversity honestly (but you knew that about me already). My wallpaper with my Paladin on it has a quote: "The flames of judgment burn brightest in darkness". In that, concept is that the more you push me down and beat me up, the brighter my judgment will burn and eventually overcome whatever obstacle ails me. Even when I raided top US 20 and was on Horde, I never felt like I belonged. I felt like a traitor.

While it definitely gives some motivation for him to engage in the war, it utterly demotivates me as a player because I have absolutely zero faith that the night elves will ever regain one damn thing. Apparently they're getting a place added in Stormwind. That tells me they're never reclaiming jack squat. Blizzard has shat on the night elves for years. This is actually enough to demotivate me from even buying the expansion and being done with the game for good.

To be fair, look at the Gnomes. I mean they haven't even EVER had a capital city that wasn't a level ~30 dungeon...Meanwhile NE's got a capital city, a somewhat relevant race leader, tons of zones modeled after their architecture and lore. What did Gnomes get again? Not to mention NE's do fucking flips when they jump sometimes... That's almost equivalent to the Paladin's Ashbringer tax. While I hate to use the look at X to justify Y, it hopefully grounds a little bit of the "hate" on NE's philosophy you mentioned.

Defeating the Legion feels like it was the end of Warcraft. This is some parallel "What If" version from here on out I can ignore without missing out on anything. At least that's how it feels right off the bat with the expansion announcement.

I can agree with you here. It certainly felt like the last unresolved conflict I cared about. I can get on board with finishing off Azshara and NZoth, but after that I really don't feel any attachment to the Void Lords.

I didn't get that impression, but if that's the case it's not going to be permanent, or lead from one war front to another. It's going to be like Wintergrasp and affect that "war zone" only. They're not going to design the possibility that the one side conquers all of Azeroth and 50% of their playerbase is just SOL because they're outnumbered (even though they claim their server tech will balance populations) in PvP.

Yeah we'll need to see how it plays out.

You've never struck me as a story/lore guy. Most players who talk primarily about player power and raids rarely seem to be invested in the games for story, where that is the primary draw for me.

The fact that you're still focusing on your character's power and gameplay in a story element further convinces me the story can be scrapped entirely to add more raids and you wouldn't really be impacted much. If that's incorrect, it's the impression I get based on what you've said here and in the past.

I covered this a little bit above, but you'd be mistaken. In fact, just look up best RPG story and it's likely you'll find my favorite game of all time on a lot of those lists. (In case you don't remember it's Xenogears). I even own a copy of the Perfect Works book as well as books on a lot of other games I liked (FF9 to name one).

In fact, one of the main draws of FF14 over WoW is how much more centric my character is to the world. I like that. I've mentioned that before. The reason I mention that specific scenario was because you "watch" the event unfold, you never get to participate or feel present in it.

And from what we've glimpsed, the world soul/blood/maguffin doesn't even seem to factor. Why would Stormwind, in pursuit of something in Silithus, wage a large scale invasion of Lordaeron? Why is Sylvanas in the prelude book wanting to attack Stormwind? Nothing to do with a maguffin resource. Just looks more like our faction leaders are idiots because Blizzard thinks they can manage "muh faction war, muh war in Warcraft" when they've fumbled it twice already.

We'll need to see how it plays out in order to decide how believable the cause was. What we do know is that the current Alliance leader is young and inexperienced, saddled with grief and loss, and likely hatred. Again, looking at it logically, it makes sense that rash decisions are made, and I covered the how/why of the resource. Imagine if the Alliance possessed all the resources in Azeroth, they'd surely control the rules, laws, and land and the Horde way of life. It's natural and grounded in reality and fits why either side would be trying to prevent it.

I mean, even Xenogears touches on this at one point with Kislev and Aveh fighting. Why couldn't these neighboring countries just co-exist peacefully? If one side were to stop the arms race (excavating gears), then the other would have an advantage and could press it. That's merely too large a risk to let go unmitigated so they both continue their tense cease-fire, despite constant skirmishes breaking out on the battle front over excavation sites.

Oh, and how about those Class Order Halls? Guess those just collapsed the second the Legion was defeated. Those established the player as a part of something separate, putting them apart from faction politics and military service. It was the perfect set up to make them adventurers again, pursuing things in their way and addressing what they believed was most important. Y'know, like Classic WoW. But they've immediately thrown those in the garbage and made the players grunts in the military again (oh they'll be lauded as heroes and commanders and high ranking officers in text, but they'll do all the grunt work).

100% valid point. very curious how this unfolds, because if it's just oh looky this happens I'll be upset. I'd be happy to see them stick around, but maybe have some people leave, and have some stay to demonstrate that their ties are not to the race, but to their calling, etc.

Brace for a megaton of snark here......

Oh, I've never experienced PvP in WoW in my life. Thanks, Wreck, I guess it was a fever dream for 10 years. I'm sure lucky you're here to tell me what I experienced. Standard in world pvp, standard in BGs. Not one time did I never see that. Because "You are not facing the target. You are not facing the target. You are not facing the target. You are not facing the target." as I spun to face them constantly running around/through me was just a hallucination I imagined. As a hunter, rogues and I were arch nemesis for years and even when I was stunned (and stun breakers on CD), rogues STILL ran around in circles while stabbing you rather often. Part of it, when not stunned, was them trying to get behind for backstabs and such as well.

Respectfully, piss right off telling other people what they did and didn't experience.

*huffy snort*

Why were you in melee range as a hunter? You have half a dozen tools and 40yd range... Yes Rogues can stealth, and yes they're a pain in the ass, but you have the tools to stop them, just like they have the tools to stop you. It sounds like they just used them better lol. Don't sweat it, it's happened to me quite a bit in my career too.

That said, I wasn't telling you what you did/didn't experience. I was telling you that isn't how PVP played out. That was you using a handful of anecdotal experience and using it to generalize an entire category of content, regardless of class matchup, skill level, or type of fight (i.e. arena, wPVP, battleground, etc.). I then proceeded to generalize PVP based on the most basic form of success, which is timing, cooldown management, and matchup knowledge.

Sadly the elves in WoW have been given a very raw deal at every turn. If they wanted to destroy an in-game city so badly then why didn't they just do it to one of the lesser played races? Instead they're just taking something very special away from the game. I'll be honest - I never liked the Horde or the Alliance. I was only ever interested in specific playable races. Yet I could never truly invest in either faction to any great extent.

Elves may be widely played, but I'll echo my statement to Faroth I made earlier. I also mentioned how the Gnomes got it far worse than the Elves ever have.

1) Both of those capital cities exist in dangerous territory with respect to Faction vs. Faction (known as FvF going forward). It makes sense logically that those would be the most vulnerable targets and likely targets (a la Theramore being destroyed previously).

2) Both of these locations are ghost towns with respect to actual player population thus makes them a smart choice as well, especially coupled with the first point.

Yeah if we're honest: Blizzard backed themselves into a corner, where, no matter what they do, it will feel weird and lame.
Another world-ender: -> yawn. We're all totally tired and desensitized in that regard.
Little threats etc: -> Yaaawn, I did beat old Gods and infinite demon hordes just to ge against ... fu*** pirates?! These vermin should melt just by me looking at them.
Faction conflict: -> WTF? we almost worked together for a decade, both factions are exhausted. makes no sense!

To be fair, In FF14 we went from world ending dragon, to a stationary robot run by goblins that can end a world... to a world ending dragon/robot...

I mean where do we go from here? We go to the lands of the Garleans and we fight more robots or humans? Then eventually head to Asians? Then what? I'm not saying they can't make it work (I suspect they will), but let's be fair here.

As far as the "working together" bit goes, it's never been a good or stable truce. Always a really tense rocky truce that could fall apart at a moments notice.

There was a quest at some point in this game, and while the specifics of it elude me, it boiled down to a NPC making a request of us that was no more than a menial task or typical MMO quest text of "pick 5 of these plants and bring them to me", only for the guy to realize "oh shit you're the WoL; how dare I ask you to do such a menial thing". It happens more than once during the course of the SB story, I believe...but we did get a quest to scoop up shit, so there is that. I found it amusing that the devs are on to the plight of having such quests in these sort of games, so they at least work it in to poke fun at it all at the same time.

Part of those reactions to anything Blizz does with WoW at this point is simply the age of the game; such eyeroll type of reactions to anything they do were bound to happen. This game isn't immune to having tired story mechanisms, either...taking bets on who the next NPC is that will appear to have met their end on screen, only for them to pull the "you didn't see/find the body" card once again.

I just resubbed to WoW since gaming is slowing down in FF14 (I'm basically done until 4.2, not going to put a ton of time into Ultimate, because I simply don't have the time to commit to it) and the Argus questline felt good. No bs quests, just real gritty world building and base building stuff. It was the furthest thing from revolutionary, but felt more relevant than your average quests.

It's the "all out war, burning of Teldrassil, claiming whole continents" I do not understand.
1) The horde lacks the logistics, manpower and finesse to do sth like that. Esp since Nightelven forces would have air superiority and Teldrassil is quite easy to defend.
2) Both factions are pretty much bled dry by the conflict of first MoP, then WoD invasion, then legion invasions, broken shore fiasco continued fighting on the broken isles.

To be blunt: neither one has the forces necessary to make a "full scale war" believable in any sense of the word. Skirmishes, sure. But not transcontinental conquests. Oo
At this point, both factions would need at least 20 years of peace to recoup and repopulate.

I understand though, that we would not have a game to play if Blizzard depicted peaceful times.

Not sure transcontinental applies considering Teldrassil exists surrounded by Horde territory (likewise for Undercity/Lordaeron).

No matter how well something is defended a committed surprise attack can be devastating. I imagine no one saw it coming.

I am curious if full scale war is in scope. We'll need to see how it plays out.

Also, as someone already stated, with the Class Halls essentially disregarding faction lines and Alliance and Horde fighting side by side as brothers in arms throughout the entire Legion conflict it seems incredibly forced and stupid to all of a sudden have the commanding officers/ leaders of the classes / their respective factions now being pulled into all out war. Seriously? The [Insert Leader title for X Class Faction here] is now just another grunt in the Alliance/ Horde army when they STILL lead a group from BOTH factions? How the hell does that make sense...at all?

Agreed, curious to see how Order halls play out. I'll be disappointed if it's a mere "oh we're enemies now, close up shop".

FFXIV will always have a better story in that regard, IMO, since the world population is already united. Which leaves any conflict much more nuanced, (like the stuff that happened that pushed us into Ishgard) than the stuff Blizzard is trying to pull now which just feels SOOO hamfisted.

FF14 pop isn't united. Eorzea is, and even then, during the MSQ we learned it wasn't all rainbows between the GCs. And it truly wasn't united until we did it. Even then, Doma and Ala Mhigo wasn't, and Garlemald isn't. Ishgard definitely wasn't at first.

I just mean narratively the conflict just doesn't make sense anymore. I understand the faction pride and the tensions always being there, but all out war just seems ridiculous at this point in the narrative and story.

I'd also say that the PvP'ers/ players in general that are super hyped over this faction conflict don't give a shit about story at all anyway, so in discussion like this, about story and context, they can be largely ignored.

I'm hyped over it, but it's because I care about the story. Not everything is rainbows and butterflies. Sometimes people have differing ideologies that bring about conflict. It's ok to play on that. The trick in storytelling will be to make sure it's believable and nuanced and not just black and white. I'll be disappointed if it ends up being black and white.

Not to mention the long, long, long, LONG-running theme of corruption from good to evil Blizzard has had in their games. Oh look, a good person turned bad. Oh noes, the morality and pathos. Oh noes, all they stood for has gone to ruin, twisted and dark. Oh, the terror. Oh, the horror.

And when that gets played out, cue the redemption arc. 'Being evil was merely a setback! You are not prepared!'

You mean like:

• Thancred
• Regulus
• Nero
• Fordola
• Estinien
• Lolorito

Those are just the ones I know of off the top of my head. There are probably more.

The thing is, you can take a really bland plot device (say redemption or corruption) and make it interesting with the WHOs, HOWs, WHEREs, WHATs, etc.

For instance, I did not like the way Blizz did it to Kerrigan in SC2. I did however find the way they did it with Illidan to be nice in WoW.

I should also try my luck at Shinryu EX now that I'm decently geared on RDM. I've heard it's pretty brutal but that it's the first two parts of the fight that are tough rather than the final phase.

Shinryu is stupid easy as a DPS. Nothing to it. I wouldn't want to be a healer though. No DPS check except at the very end, mechanics are super easy and straightforward. Tail/Heart dies in like 2GCD's max.

Often the attempt to slot a villain into a grey area, morality wise, where players may give pause and think "you know, I see what they're trying to do even if my character and people around me think it's the wrong way about it" ends up lending itself to creating shrug-worthy characters. Thus it isn't always a terrible thing to have a bad guy/gal be an evil shit just for the sake of...well, being an asshole. Zenos would be one such example.

I quite liked Zenos. I saw his plight. I understood why he did the things he did and why he didn't care about Garlemald and why he cares about the WoL. Zenos was an asshole, but he wasn't one for the sake of it. He had reasons and they made sense and showed in his actions and interactions.

[Katchii]

Agreed, curious to see how Order halls play out. I'll be disappointed if it's a mere "oh we're enemies now, close up shop".

100% agree with this.

FF14 pop isn't united. Eorzea is, and even then, during the MSQ we learned it wasn't all rainbows between the GCs. And it truly wasn't united until we did it. Even then, Doma and Ala Mhigo wasn't, and Garlemald isn't. Ishgard definitely wasn't at first.

You're right. I for some reason just ignored everyone besides the main city states. That said, Everyone who is not Garlemald is pretty much aligned against them and EVERYONE agrees primals are bad and we even join forces with a Garlemald officer to take down the Warring Triad so we may not all be united, but we're not at each other's throats for petty squabbles.

I'm hyped over it, but it's because I care about the story. Not everything is rainbows and butterflies. Sometimes people have differing ideologies that bring about conflict. It's ok to play on that. The trick in storytelling will be to make sure it's believable and nuanced and not just black and white. I'll be disappointed if it ends up being black and white.

I just meant that there are some people who are hyped about the Horde Alliance conflict that give no care or thought to the story, a large portion of the folks in the BfA thread hyped about it are just commenting on how it's great it's back to what makes it WARrcraft without caring about the context of WHY we're having a war...they just want war.

I'm hyped about the expansion because IMO Blizzard has always done a good job (some times more good than others) with the story and direction and have faith that the reasons behind the conflict will make sense thematically. I still just feel like they're pushing it too hard. I mean, we literally JUST dealt with a world and even universe ending threat, were made aware of an even bigger threat and the fact that our world houses a living Titan soul that is now injured and possibly dying due to being stabbed, worked hand in hand with and became comrades and friends with members from opposing factions and across the universe to combat the threat and now we're going to WAR with them? As I said, I'm sure the context will be revealed and it will make sense, but no matter what it I think it will be forced because the leaders from each faction would have to be bat shit fucking crazy and completely inept as leaders to go into something like a war right now after all of that...especially given that their strongest forces which were at the Vanguard for the Legion threat came from the Class Halls and are possibly being led by someone from the opposing faction.

[lawow74]

The thing is, you can take a really bland plot device (say redemption or corruption) and make it interesting with the WHOs, HOWs, WHEREs, WHATs, etc.

For instance, I did not like the way Blizz did it to Kerrigan in SC2. I did however find the way they did it with Illidan to be nice in WoW.

I never said FF didn't do it. What I am saying is Blizzard has made it a focal point of their games ever since Diablo. That's over 20 years now. A bit like comparing a stick of dynamite to a MOAB.

And as a side point, anyone who thinks Lolorito isn't still a villain is a fool. The only reason he got dialed back is they painted themselves into a corner with the Ul'Dah story prior to HW and so just retconned it away as 'nope we were kidding lol' to put focus back on the main plot of HW. I swear, it was like a war broke out and everyone's obsessing over a soap opera.

SE: "Guys! War! Dragons! Ishgard!"
Players: "OMG Sultana, OMG Raubahn, OMG teh Scions!!!"
SE: "LOOK! BIG DRAGON! WANTS TO KILL ALL OF YOU!!!"
Players: "WHAT HAPPENS TO UL'DAH?!?!?"
SE: "...dammit..."

[Kazgrel]

I just resubbed to WoW since gaming is slowing down in FF14 (I'm basically done until 4.2, not going to put a ton of time into Ultimate, because I simply don't have the time to commit to it) and the Argus questline felt good. No bs quests, just real gritty world building and base building stuff. It was the furthest thing from revolutionary, but felt more relevant than your average quests.


I quite liked Zenos. I saw his plight. I understood why he did the things he did and why he didn't care about Garlemald and why he cares about the WoL. Zenos was an asshole, but he wasn't one for the sake of it. He had reasons and they made sense and showed in his actions and interactions.

Likewise; I just saw that D3 has a new season starting and there's been some improvements of sorts to Barbarian so I may reinstall that game and smack some demons around for old time's sake. Only things I really have left to do in FF14 for this patch are level DRG + complete it's anima weapon, then maybe get ShinEX done one weekend (I tend to do learning groups for current stuff on weekends, then join farm groups during the week).

Zenos, to me, was an asshole...and that's fine. But that's also based on the events of 4.0 and how he used the incident at Baelsar's Wall to orchestrate his "royal hunt" to find someone/something capable of standing toe to toe with him so he could get his rocks off or what not. There's still a lot left to learn of him, I think, which may be part of why Fordola is still around.

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I never said FF didn't do it. What I am saying is Blizzard has made it a focal point of their games ever since Diablo. That's over 20 years now. A bit like comparing a stick of dynamite to a MOAB.

And as a side point, anyone who thinks Lolorito isn't still a villain is a fool. The only reason he got dialed back is they painted themselves into a corner with the Ul'Dah story prior to HW and so just retconned it away as 'nope we were kidding lol' to put focus back on the main plot of HW. I swear, it was like a war broke out and everyone's obsessing over a soap opera.

SE: "Guys! War! Dragons! Ishgard!"
Players: "OMG Sultana, OMG Raubahn, OMG teh Scions!!!"
SE: "LOOK! BIG DRAGON! WANTS TO KILL ALL OF YOU!!!"
Players: "WHAT HAPPENS TO UL'DAH?!?!?"
SE: "...dammit..."

Lolorito is one whom you have to keep an eye on and at arm's length, but due to wealth/influence, you have to contend with him in some way/shape/form. His presence in the 4.1 MSQ fit in well, and it helped to highlight that Nanamo was starting to show a bit of edge.

[Eleccybubb]

Screw it I give up. Just gonna buy the 330 pants and upgrade em to 340. Sure I miss out on 170 or something crit from the 330s but eh I ain't Savage raiding so who cares?

[lawow74]

Pretty much all my gear is Tomestone gear, outside of BRD it's gonna be cap and shelf until next xpac for my battle classes. When we reach the last gear tier I might try and farm some sets beyond that in anticipation for the next go-round, otherwise I'll pick up the top-end Tomestone stuff for Poetics in 5.0 and move from there.

[Kazgrel]

Pretty much all my gear is Tomestone gear, outside of BRD it's gonna be cap and shelf until next xpac for my battle classes. When we reach the last gear tier I might try and farm some sets beyond that in anticipation for the next go-round, otherwise I'll pick up the top-end Tomestone stuff for Poetics in 5.0 and move from there.

That's essentially what I did prior to SB; I'll have crafted gear as a baseline, then come 5.0 I'll likely end up replacing it with whatever the max ilvl tomestone gear is for 70 via poetics at that point...although I did play enough during the end of HW to basically have everything in 270 tome gear prior to SB launch, but fuck doing that again (which involved capping scripture at 900 each week...bigger PITA than I thought it would be).

- - - Updated - - -

Screw it I give up. Just gonna buy the 330 pants and upgrade em to 340. Sure I miss out on 170 or something crit from the 330s but eh I ain't Savage raiding so who cares?

I've geared my main job(s) (Caster) via creation tomestones and I'm using Rabanastre to gear all my alt jobs. Easy for me to do that, though, since I have all but one job at 70 (DRG being that one exception). I run it as WHM each week and prioritize the healing gear, but if opportunity for a good dps piece presents itself, I'll greed roll the shit out of them (got the BRD/MCH chest that way).

[Aruhen]

I've found Legion's story to be very good, significantly better than I expected. Cutscenes, characters and VA all abound. And top notch to boot.

That aside, I've found Suramar and Nighthold to be great and the plights of the people to be both believable and endearing in the split of the people (i.e. those who recognize it needs to change, and those who were afraid of losing their peace, no matter how fake). It reflected well in zone. I wasn't super thrilled with Broken shore (I unsubbed at that point), but Argus has been pretty good. Lots of characterization and decent quest design. Lots of real quests and not filler stuff. I.e. Setting up camps and recovering artifacts for Velen to empower the ship. Meeting old denizens who feel betrayed by Velen leaving them behind, and those who welcome salvation and a chance to fight back against their tormentors.

I forgot about Suramar. That was genuinely a fun place and I even loved the gameplay aspect of that zone were it was filled with mobs that can kill you early on if you're overzealous. If 8.0 doesn't have something similar then I'll be disappointed. Argus was nice for the most part. Really loved how they didn't go with what people expected for example with Illidan not giving in to Xera or Velen actually stopping that guy from the usual "HAR HAR HAR CYA UNTIL NEXT TIME" with that one baddie. Class Order Halls iunno I can't really speak for them since I finished three of them but I'll say that Monk and Warlock one were incredibly cringey and bad. Paladin one was decent.

Maybe I was being a bit harsh because Blizzard can do good stories but it's not that common of a thing. My biggest issue really is their style of writing and their obsession with things being "cool"? The writing can be simplistic at times with not alot of depth. Suramar again an example of them writing a proper story with a lot of depth.

I do plan to resub though but I'll wait for 7.3.5. That scaling zone feature....and the possibility of some of the Allied races coming in 7.3.5 oh boy.

[Faroth]

Realized it after responding, so this will be my last post on the WoW story in here. I don't want to further or fully veer off course here. This is the FFXIV subforum, after all, and we're getting further into WoW discussion than that part of the conversation comparing storytelling techniques between WoW and FFXIV.

You guys are REALLY good about being flexible and shifting outside the specific discussion a bit while always bringing it back, though, so I like to be as lenient as you guys are, but don't want to go fully off course either.

I still love me some story discussion in WoW, but I realize this isn't the 100% right place for it and I'm contributing to that off course-ness. Anyone who wants to talk further on it is welcome (and encouraged) to PM me.

I've found Legion's story to be very good, significantly better than I expected. Cutscenes, characters and VA all abound. And top notch to boot.

I haven't played since the Gul'dan raid (one run through LFR for story), but I agree. Legion is, to me, their best expansion story in years.

1) Both of those capital cities exist in dangerous territory with respect to Faction vs. Faction (known as FvF going forward). It makes sense logically that those would be the most vulnerable targets and likely targets (a la Theramore being destroyed previously).

Do they?

Teldrassil, a giant tree island, well off the coast and home to countless druids who can summon storms... including Malfurion who, as a novice druid mind you, summoned a storm so powerful it threatened to wipe both the Legion and night elf armies off the battlefield entirely, but they can't stop the tree from burning.... who have the advantage extremely high ground as well as aerial capabilities, are in a vulnerable position?

And then there's Lordaeron. What's the real threat to the Undercity? Gilneas is in shambles with barely anyone left occupying it, let alone an invasion force. They have no harbor to receive troops and supplies. Coming up through the foothills from Arathi? Long march through Forsaken controlled territory with more plague than before. The Hinterlands don't have a reasonable place to land troops for the march either. Western Plaguelands? Only accessible from the Hinterlands, which means coming through Arathi and Hillsbrad Foothills. Which means funneling through the wall.

Lordaeron isn't in any perilous position in terms of Alliance threat. They've got a lot of distance and a lot of territory they control. Not to mention......why need reinforcements? Sylvanas had a new undead plague concocted. I doubt every bit of it was used at the Wrath Gate. Any army that marches on Undercity should logically just be bombarded with that. And even without that, she has the valkyr at her command so every Alliance soldier that falls can be raised to slaughter their own allies just like at Andorhol.

Neither seems to be standing from a position of tactical weakness.

2) Both of these locations are ghost towns with respect to actual player population thus makes them a smart choice as well, especially coupled with the first point.

From what I've seen people saying, Undercity was still the second most used city for Horde players. Darnassus is arguably a ghost town, but that's because Blizzard has been actively designing all cities other than Stormwind and Orgrimmar to be utterly useless. They add new things and put them exclusively in one city so that city becomes the sole city for the faction. By this argument, we can wipe out Thunder Bluff, Ironforge, Silvermoon, and..... well, arguably the draenei shouldn't have their city on the islands anymore. It's IN SPAAAAAAAAACE!

Your highwayman example is bad. Westfall has highwaymen and they care not that you're alliance/horde, human, elf, orc. They will murder you first chance they get.

To be clear, are you advocating for OTHER pvp types to be present in the game? I'd support that. I wouldn't mind flagging myself for ANYONE to attack me regardless of race/faction/class, etc. Item loss on death though is an archaic concept that frankly I'm glad is gone. It's never fun to get it taken, and it was hardly ever fair because it was profitable. Those are 2 HARD detractors from PVP that are better left in the 90's where my items and many people I killed item's are probably still sitting on the ground.

Yeah, I said guild vs guild, you said that's too restrictive. I said there are additional options. The highwayman example was essentially asking why can't a player BE the highwayman in pvp?

And so you're saying pvp is fun so long as there's no real consequences?

I think the item loot added an element of needing to be mindful of what you did in the game. If you're waltzing throug Sherwood Forest with your fancy clothes and a fat bag of gold, it's your own fault for not putting that in the bank before risking a run in with Robin Hood's merry band. Bear in mind, though, the item looting in EverQuest was only in guild vs guild PvP and was agreed upon between guild leaders. From what I recall, when the two agreed to the terms of war, you had loot options. They could set it anywhere from no loot to a few silver/gold/platinum to money + 1 item, etc. It wasn't an arbitrary across the board pvp element.

As an Alliance player I've never felt shitty when we lost something (even though you KNOW Blizz favors the Horde ). I welcome the adversity honestly (but you knew that about me already). My wallpaper with my Paladin on it has a quote: "The flames of judgment burn brightest in darkness". In that, concept is that the more you push me down and beat me up, the brighter my judgment will burn and eventually overcome whatever obstacle ails me. Even when I raided top US 20 and was on Horde, I never felt like I belonged. I felt like a traitor.

So you were okay with having a big victory in Dalaran only to immediately be told "Hey, idiot, you've ruined everything. We were about to have the blood elves, Silvermoon, and ultimately Dalaran ALL ON THE ALLIANCE, but you and Jaina screwed everything up. Way to go, morons." That didn't make you feel remotely like what should have been a victory was pulled out from under you? You actually enjoyed everything you did resulting in failure for 2 expansions?

You're EXTREME minority I've ever seen who felt like getting their teeth kicked in at every turn for 4 years was a great experience.

To be fair, look at the Gnomes. I mean they haven't even EVER had a capital city that wasn't a level ~30 dungeon...Meanwhile NE's got a capital city, a somewhat relevant race leader, tons of zones modeled after their architecture and lore. What did Gnomes get again? Not to mention NE's do fucking flips when they jump sometimes... That's almost equivalent to the Paladin's Ashbringer tax. While I hate to use the look at X to justify Y, it hopefully grounds a little bit of the "hate" on NE's philosophy you mentioned.

Yeah, let's talk about the gnomes... who were the mirror of the trolls in terms of lost home, but the trolls managed to regain their homeland. The gnomes are given a new set of tents in the snow. More reason I have no faith that this expansion will result in anything but the Alliance getting their head's stomped on and then kinda shrug and say "Well, we're okay with everything we've lost and will stop any actions against the Horde after this big bad is defeated" all over again. I'm just friggin' sick of that crap.

But the NEs? It's not about their location, Wreck. It's about them as a race. They've been consistently watered down, made incompetent at every turn, are the standby Alliance cannon fodder anytime Blizzard needs to kill dozens of soldiers to "show just how dire this is" anytime there's a single fraction of the Horde to be fought. Garrosh facerolled them in their own forest. Their druids are pacifist hippies now. They've become purple humans with no cultural or racial differences they started with. There's no sense of an Amazonian culture that is deeply entertwined with nature and reflects that nature is both peaceful and simultaneously an utterly destructive raging brutality that has no mercy for anything in its path. They're just another group of humans, just taller and purple. And now they're looking to be shuffled off to Stormwind so they can be even more human and less night elf.

At least the gnomes maintained their racial identity over the years. Night elves can't remotely say the same.

We'll need to see how it plays out in order to decide how believable the cause was. What we do know is that the current Alliance leader is young and inexperienced, saddled with grief and loss, and likely hatred. Again, looking at it logically, it makes sense that rash decisions are made, and I covered the how/why of the resource. Imagine if the Alliance possessed all the resources in Azeroth, they'd surely control the rules, laws, and land and the Horde way of life. It's natural and grounded in reality and fits why either side would be trying to prevent it.

Because after the Horde waged war, fractured, was at its weakest and the Alliance was, and I quote, "the only remaining super power in Azeroth" and they just said "go on doing whatever Horde stuff you wanna do, we're not asking for any conditions, peace treaty terms, concessions, or anything. It's all good, bros" I don't think the Alliance would do jack squat if they had supreme power to control everything. They're consistently an incompetent faction. The only reason they've even existed the last decade is because the Horde is written to regularly give up and lose on the Alliance's behalf.

So again, I have absolutely 0 faith Blizzard is capable of telling a nuanced faction vs faction storyline. Nuance is completely outside of any realm of existence at Blizzard. From class balances to story telling, they approach everything with a chainsaw, not a scalpel.

As far as the "working together" bit goes, it's never been a good or stable truce. Always a really tense rocky truce that could fall apart at a moments notice.

But they never explore why. While one may or may not feel it's done entirely well, in Ul'dah we at least see some political maneuvering and why there are forces within the government that cause struggles in pursuits of betterment of the people - the monetarists don't want to lose their luxury and profit flow. We never really get pulled deep enough into why the Horde and Alliance remain at each other's throats time after time. The prelude to Cataclysm (in one of those oh so lovely books ) is the best we've gotten.

But after orc, human, and night elf stood side by side at Hyjal, we had years of relative peace. Then "the drums of war echo once again" because....reasons, really. Skirmishes, sure. Orcs and night elves squabbling over hunting rights in the forest, sure. But why do the blood elves truly care about that? Why do the Forsaken? "We're allied with them" isn't enough of a reason for the dwarves to commit to all out war on behalf of the deer hunted in the night elves' forest. It would be more of a token "we condem the actions of the orcs" statement and a support through supplies situation than putting soldiers in the forest to fight.

Which means Blizzard also ignores the opportunity for some political intrigue in their stories with some friction within the Horde or Alliance. The Gilneans complaining the night elves don't seem committed to the Alliance because they're not actively seeking to head to Lordaeron. The tauren feeling the Forsaken's methods are an affront to the Earth Mother. All these opportunities completely thrown away because the Horde and Alliance are now faction hive minds at the whim of their Warchief and High King (which was also one of the stupidest decisions in a while... Supreme Commander was the title beared by Varian's role model and hero. The weight of that title would have been heavier than "High King of the Alliance."

I just resubbed to WoW since gaming is slowing down in FF14 (I'm basically done until 4.2, not going to put a ton of time into Ultimate, because I simply don't have the time to commit to it) and the Argus questline felt good. No bs quests, just real gritty world building and base building stuff. It was the furthest thing from revolutionary, but felt more relevant than your average quests.

Glad to hear this. I'm resubbing in late December when I've got some vacation time. I'll have plenty of time to do world stuff and LFR will be open for my once-and-done raid storyline experience.

Not sure transcontinental applies considering Teldrassil exists surrounded by Horde territory (likewise for Undercity/Lordaeron).

Again...It's an island with its closest shore being strongly held night elf territory.... It's not surrounded by Horde at all.

Undercity/Lordaeron is surrounded by Plaguelands - Horde controlled with Argent Crusade neutral - and Silverpine - Horde controlled. Closest after is Hillsbrad, entirely Horde controlled now. North of the Thandol Span, the Hinterlands is the only area with Alliance presence whatsoever. I'm not sure how Undercity is in dangerous territory when that entire northern continent was under Forsaken control.

No matter how well something is defended a committed surprise attack can be devastating. I imagine no one saw it coming.

There's no way Teldrassil can be that surprising when you have to sail a war fleet to it. Even a single ship full of mages would be spotted.

Lordaeron is even worse. It is completely and 100% IMPOSSIBLE for a surprise attack at that location.

FF14 pop isn't united. Eorzea is, and even then, during the MSQ we learned it wasn't all rainbows between the GCs. And it truly wasn't united until we did it. Even then, Doma and Ala Mhigo wasn't, and Garlemald isn't. Ishgard definitely wasn't at first.

Ishgard used to be! We just got them back in the fold.

Ala Mhigo is new. Ironic since they're the reason for the Eorzean Alliance in the first place. Doma is totally new. I do wonder, though, what they'll do after the Garland Empire is converted to whatever it becomes. It sounds like the Ascian threat is meant to be resolved with the conclusion of the Garlemald conflict, but that's not necessarily the planned conclusion of FFXIV.

Definitely interesting to see what they do from there. Of course, a benefit Hydaelyn has that Azeroth doesn't is we don't have the entire ancient history written out for us. There could be new continents on the planet beyond Eorzea & the Far East that we're unaware of.

I'm hyped over it, but it's because I care about the story. Not everything is rainbows and butterflies. Sometimes people have differing ideologies that bring about conflict. It's ok to play on that. The trick in storytelling will be to make sure it's believable and nuanced and not just black and white. I'll be disappointed if it ends up being black and white.

Two crippled armies going into all out war immediately when they are at their lowest just doesn't make sense, man. You can be hyped and think it somehow makes sense, but I don't see any remote line of view where it does. When has Blizzard ever shown any nuance in Horde vs Alliance storytelling? And how would you propose a world war between Horde and Alliance be resolved since there simply cannot be a winner. There is no "Germany surrenders" to this World War. There is no way this can ever be resolved. That's the core of why this is such a bad idea to me.

You mean like:

• Thancred
• Regulus
• Nero
• Fordola
• Estinien
• Lolorito

Thancred was never evil, he was possessed. He doesn't have that much of a redemption arc so much as a personal feeling that he needs to do so.
Regulus was never evil so much as opposing sides of the conflict who made a heroic sacrifice. He didn't really flip or have a redemption arc.
Nero......is he really redeemed? He seems more like a personal opportunist through and through.
Estinien softened, but didn't really go from good to evil to redemption arc either.
Lolorito..... same as Nero. Has he changed? He seems same as he ever was. Personal advantage neutral with slight good leanings more than good or evil.

For instance, I did not like the way Blizz did it to Kerrigan in SC2. I did however find the way they did it with Illidan to be nice in WoW.

As a long time detractor of Illidan as some amazing character (I feel 85% of his fans and 99% of his biggest fans don't understand the character), I was absolutely apathetic to his return and even thought it was a bad idea. Blizzard did do pretty good with him. They maintained his arrogance while tempering it and actually showing some growth and maturity in him. I'm still not a huge fan of "he was a good demon elf and you guys were just too dumb to understand" angle, but his post-return stuff won me over on him finally being a good addition to bring back.

I quite liked Zenos. I saw his plight. I understood why he did the things he did and why he didn't care about Garlemald and why he cares about the WoL. Zenos was an asshole, but he wasn't one for the sake of it. He had reasons and they made sense and showed in his actions and interactions.

His reasons were a little off the rails crazy, though. If we boil it down to the simplest description, he killed a LOT of people because he was essentially bored with life. But that off the rails crazy, with reasons from his crazy point of view, is why I did like him.

[Kazgrel]

Another interview with Yoshida:

Some interesting takeaways:

JOL: Balancing the jobs in FFXIV is a real challenge. Both expansions went through trials and errors, and it took as long at 4.1 to reach an equilibrium after Stormblood. During that time it was difficult for 'weaker' jobs to find good raid groups. Have you thought about adding a kind of beta system for players to test job changes and give feedback prior to their public release?

NY: Are you okay with the expansion release being delayed with the implementation of a test server?

Editor's note: Our personal opinion is yes, but please share yours.

As an MMO player I understand how beneficial it would be to implement a test server, however the heart of FFXIV is the main scenario. Releasing a test server before the main game could lead to spoilers. Building a test server that would hide these spoilers demands a lot of resources. Then we would have to unmask all the spoilers for the public release version, and go through QA (quality assurance) and debugging, so it could delay the expansion by 3 to 5 months, maybe even 6 months. We're not in a good situation at the moment to implement that kind of things.

I'm somewhat split on the test server idea. It could allow players to try out new job changes and provide feedback that may (or may not) result in changes for the better. I do see how such a server could lend itself to spoilers. I'll say that I don't believe they've done anything egregious enough to warrant a "need" for PTR.

JOL: Many players enjoy treasure-hunting and the Lost Canals of Uznair. But players can only carry one map at a time in their inventory. Would it be possible to lift this restriction?

Editor's note: Naoki Yoshida thought about the answer for a few seconds.

NY: No I don't think we'll do that. The reason why we set that limit is because of the value of the potential rewards. Every time a player opens a map, they can get items such as materias or rare drops that are worse a lot. If we lifted the restriction and players could start farming maps we would probably have to devalue the rewards obtained from there.

I guess he's unaware of the ends and means we go through to circumvent that limitation. My friends and I will mail maps to each other just to store them in the mail for later use. The map limitation is merely an inconvenience...if people want to chain run maps, they're going to make it happen.

JOL: The lack of restrictions on housing, one house per character or free company, makes it easy for players to buy multiple plots by creating alts. Some FCs even bought an entire ward. This is causing frustration and divide among players. What will be done concretely to FFXIV to resolve the housing crisis, aside from adding more wards?

NY: Of course we are aware of this situation and we are looking into a different approach than adding wards to solve this. In fact we already have a plan in the works, but I am unable to give you any information at the moment. Be assured that we are working on it and details on the new restrictions will be revealed very close to the release of the new wards in patch 4.2.
The reason why we do not want to disclose any detail is that we want to give a fair chance to everyone. If we told you our plans, players will immediately start to prepare and we want to avoid that. That said, there will be more features and policies around this new addition, so please don't worry about plots selling out too quickly.
About players creating multiple accounts to buy more plots, unfortunately as long as they pay multiple subscriptions it would be very difficult for us to track that. So I'm afraid there is little we can do.

Editor's note: we actually asked about alts on the same account, but it seems this has been misunderstood, so the answer doesn't quite fit.

However we are able to track players who buy a house with the intent of making a profit reselling it, so rest assure that we are taking actions against these players.

Sounds like the limitations/restrictions that have been clamored for over the past...idk, 4 years, may come to fruition. One personal house (and optionally 1 FC house) per account or something to that effect.