[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Rogalicus]

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.

Are there really 100 unique tracks or most of those are variations of each other? Like there's only one battle theme in ARR, but with slight variations according to region it takes place in, same with FATEs.

WoW's has one, maybe two, notable pieces per soundtrack and those soundtracks constitute 45 minutes to an hour of music.

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.

Let's just say it's a matter of preferences, because most of those except Against the Wind and the very first minute of To the Sun are what I'd call bland. In MoP OST I can easily name Heart of Pandaria, Why do We Fight, Way of the Monk, The August Celestials, Shado-Pan, The Golden Lotus and Kul Tiras as far better themes. Same with WoD: The Foundry, Sacrifice, Khadgar, Tides of War, Family.

[Wrecktangle]

I don't ever remember being enthralled by WoW's music short of a very few examples.

FF14's music was really strong in ARR, still strong in HW, but IMO has taken a decent downward bit of quality. Just my 2 cents though.

I actually really loved Blade and Souls music. It has a lot of really neat charming tracks. There's one in particular I haven't been able to find though that I really liked. It was you were in a tunnel rushing outside to save the corrupted Lycan. It only played that one time I think too.

I'm trying to remember if any other MMO had standout music that I remember, but nothing comes to mind.

[Faroth]

Are there really 100 unique tracks or most of those are variations of each other? Like there's only one battle theme in ARR, but with slight variations according to region it takes place in, same with FATEs.

The vast majority are unique tracks. I'm not even sure about there being variations on the battle theme in ARR beyond normal combat theme, FATEs, and boss music in dungeons. I thought all the FATEs used the same one or two themes and normal combat used another and boss fights used another.

Interestingly, the ones you listed off, while they're all great, I find to be rather similar in their style and themes (all within MoP that makes some sense) compared to the differences across the XIV entries.

Why Do We Fight and Way of the Monk are probably my favorites. Golden Lotus is....alright, but I got reeeeaaaalllllly tired of hearing it.

[Graeham]

I like the vast majority of music tracks in FFXIV. It's one of the things I look forward to the most in each new patch/expansion.

The only tracks that spring to mind that I dislike are Shiva's second phase music and the Ala Mhigan hymn.

[Faroth]

Checked out of curiosity.

5 of the 120 tracks on A Realm Reborn I'd say could be felt as variations on one of the others as battle music. There's more than one battle theme in ARR, though.
Torn from the Heavens - this one's the leitmotif of ARR

The Land Breathes / Bends / Burns is the main combat theme that's varied based on which City State region you're in and Breaks / Bleeds is Coerthas & Mor Dona


Tenacity is another combat theme
Nemesis is the dungeon boss combat theme
Battle theme 1.x is only used a couple of times, it's the one that starts with the classic FF start, often used for more comical fights
Tumbling Down is the boss music for Labyrinth of the Ancients & Crystal Tower
Bite of the Black Wolf, which does use bits from the leimotif
Calamity Unbound is the Bahamut Coil boss music

Then of course the Primal songs of Good King Moogle Mog, Fallen Angel, Under the Weight, and Primal Judgment.

The remaining 105 songs are completely unique.

Mind you, this is just the 2.0 soundtrack. 2.1 - 2.5 (Before the Fall) added another 63 songs. Heavensward has 60. I haven't picked up The Far Edge of Fate (another 50) yet.

1.0 Before Meteor has 104, but some were carried over to 2.0 and since so few know much or anything about 1.0 I figure it's safe to not look closely at those.

- - - Updated - - -

I like the vast majority of music tracks in FFXIV. It's one of the things I look forward to the most in each new patch/expansion.

The only tracks that spring to mind that I dislike are Shiva's second phase music and the Ala Mhigan hymn.

Ah, I kind of like Oblivion as it tells Iceheart's story to that point.

[StrawberryZebra]

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.

Yes indeed. Having a recognisable brand was the only thing that allowed it to claw back any credability at all with a relaunch. If SWTOR had been any other IP, the plug would have been pulled a long time ago.

It's not as if having a good IP makes your MMO failsafe though, Warhammer really failed to get any kind of serious traction and Age of Conan just seemed to vanish as soon as it appeared.

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).

Hakumen just clicked for me. In under an hour of gaming, I'd worked out most of his gameplay. Where he wants to be on screen, how he wants opponents to approach him, his tools for getting in and dealing damage etc.

That said, he's another character with easy execution but with a harder game. Not because he's hard to get damage out of, but because being on defence is naturally harder in a fighter than being on offence. He's got some glaring mobility issues and a poor pressure game which can really put him at a disadvantage against some of the cast, but your win rate is predominantly based on how well you defend.

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.

The problem with fights based on tells and animations is that they don't tend to play well with most MMO's. Games that use them heavilly, like Dark Souls for example, tend to also have a far more limited number of moves you can execute at any one time. You're also generally only looking out for yourself, not 3/7/23 others. Your typical MMO gives you enough skills you'll want easy access to that you've probably also got bars running up the side of the screen and plenty of reasons not to be looking at a specific boss at any given time. As much as I hate the phrase, you can often find yourself playing the UI more than the game.

That's a lot of things to keep track of at any one time alone, add in boss tells for every thing and you're going to need to reduce some of that UI in order to accomodate more mental capacity for players to focus on the tells rather than their hotbar.

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.

FF14 has an easy way around this one. Chalk up all those wins as being the Scions and call it a job well done. It wouldn't be entirely correct perhaps, but it also wouldn't be AS wrong as saying that it was all you, the player, the Warrior of Light who did it.

[Remilia]

It's not really that bad with tells and combat once you get used to it.
First time solo cleared this particular boss kind of gives you an idea. It's supposed to be a 4 man hardmode boss and there are definitely some things I can improve and swap around to shave off 6-7 minutes (missing 25%~ damage from elemental weakness), but spending 5m on elemental change candy seemed kind of pointless for a one time thing. The boss btw will kill me in one hit with certain attacks (ignoring the meteor) since I'm just just mainly a glass cannon.
You get used to the entire thing and it kind of becomes muscle memory. First week of this particular boss there were a lot of deaths just due to not knowing the mechanics. Everyone got used to it, less death occurs and he dies faster. However the entire game play is a lot different so there's that. It doesn't really fit that well in FFXIV admittedly as it's a much slower game.

[Granyala]

Then what do people do while waiting for ques?

I usually queue as a class that doesn't have queues, since I prefer healing and tanking anyway.
If I can't I tab out and troll the forums or watch a movie.

Yeah, queues suck and are one of the main reasons why I am not interested in playing DPS.

- - - Updated - - -

I don't ever remember being enthralled by WoW's music short of a very few examples.

Draenei starting zone and Telredor soundtrack are still one of my absolute favorites of all time. One of the many reasons why I instantly fell in love with Draenei and WoW in general.

[Graeham]

Here's the patch trailer:



Release date is May 22nd!

[zito]

Lol poor dark knights. Going to have to wait for 5.0 to be fixed meanwhile warrior gets all the love

[Rogalicus]

Here's the patch trailer:



Release date is May 22nd!

I love how both video and music fit each other. And by 'fit' I mean 'both have no direction whatsoever'.

[lawow74]

So it seems this will be the Namazu Beast Tribe mount.

[leviathonlx]

Well I'm sure it can't look any more dumb than the elephant when it's flying.

[Eleccybubb]

Trailer does look good admittedly.

Still a bit salty about 1 dungeon per odd patch now though. I miss a hard mode. Could have just done a Heavensward one each patch and done some minor story around it.

I mean we have Dusk Vigil, Aery, Vault, ACRF, Neverreap, Antitower, Sohr Khai, Xelphatol and Baelsar's Wall to choose from.

Hell with Baelsar's they could claim an imperial counterattack attempt. Sure not an elegant story but tbh Hard dungeons don't really need an elegant story.

[Remilia]

[IMG]https://i.redd.it/ibbun1abq7x01.png[/]

So it seems this will be the Namazu Beast Tribe mount.

Kill it with all the fire.

[lawow74]

Well I'm sure it can't look any more dumb than the elephant when it's flying.

Kill it with all the fire.

It gets worse.



That's what it looks like in flight. :3

[Eleccybubb]

I'm not gonna lie. I kind of like it.

It's so stupid it's brilliant.

[zito]

I'm not gonna lie. I kind of like it.

It's so stupid it's brilliant.

You cango on reddit and someone predicted this exact mount

[Remilia]

It gets worse.

[IMG]https://i.redd.it/vc9gyx7iq7x01.png[IMG]

That's what it looks like in flight. :3

Oh god nuke it.

I'll still get the mount, but oh god nuke it.

[zito]

Oh god nuke it.

I'll still get the mount, but oh god nuke it.

The mount is great stfu

Joking aside i don't have a max level crafter yet. Can it be any crafting job? What about dol?