[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Advent]

I... Don't like healing. I don't like the role, I don't like any of the fantasy healer archetypes, I don't like the job armors they wear, and healer dps is more boring than watching paint dry to me. That's why. I hope other people enjoy it so I can reap the benefits of having one in dungeon parties but if I had to play one I'd stab myself in the brain with a butter knife.

[Granyala]

I thought I'd enjoy tanking this expansion with how fun Gunbreaker is (because it really is fun), but the pressure on tanks for setting the pace and pulling as much as you can in an effort to speed up dungeon runs is just not fun, even if the pressure isn't even that bad...it's just not something DPS or even healers have to deal with, it's just something extra Tanks have to deal with.

No reason to whine. I didn't like mass pulling in ARR either butwas forced into it. You get used to it pretty quickly and ultimately notice that notching changes for you as a tank. It's all about the healer and DPS.

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In FF14, all mechanics and damage are predictable, and it's majority AOE based, so healers can plan their CDs. However it isn't really engaging when your DPS rotation in your downtime amounts to spamming 1 button repeatedly. Maybe if healers had a more RDM/DNC like, minmal button but proc/engaging rotation it would be more enjoyable. If anything it's an incredibly boring playstyle, and that's coming from someone who mains a SCH xD

This pretty much is the reason why I solo heal as much as I can in our savage runs with my coheal only chipping in if needed.
The biggest challenge to healer DPS is to not fall asleep. I have no idea how she manages it.

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I also hate mass pulls since it just devolves into spamming AoE as a DPS. I'd much prefer regular enemies to hit a lot harder and require crowd control like the good old days

Yeah that would be nice. I still have fond memories of TBCs heroic dungeons.

[Tenjen]

Made a lancer recently. Checking out if the game is for me.

What can i expect of my class later in the game btw?

[Advent]

Made a lancer recently. Checking out if the game is for me.

What can i expect of my class later in the game btw?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sP1R...&persist_app=1

This, basically.

[threads]

Made a lancer recently. Checking out if the game is for me.

What can i expect of my class later in the game btw?

you become a dragoon which is the most satisfying melee to play imo. you get the best animations, armor, and least annoying rotation.

[Sharby]

Made a lancer recently. Checking out if the game is for me.

What can i expect of my class later in the game btw?

Dragoon is amazing but leveling one is not. You don't even get your first AOE until level 40.


It's def worth the time investment heavily, but be prepared to start very very small. You are gonna' be one of the best DPS due to having insane personal damage as well as good utility. You're mobile, hard-hitting, and flashy.

[Katchii]

No reason to whine. I didn't like mass pulling in ARR either butwas forced into it. You get used to it pretty quickly and ultimately notice that notching changes for you as a tank. It's all about the healer and DPS.

Wasn't intended to be a whine, just a statement of what tanks have to deal with that other classes don't. As you say I'm sure I'd get over it, and I basically am as I have everything at ~70 and have played tanks plenty, I just prefer playing over classes over tank because of it. I have no issues playing tank when need be, but I don't think one will ever be my main.

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I... Don't like healing. I don't like the role, I don't like any of the fantasy healer archetypes, I don't like the job armors they wear, and healer dps is more boring than watching paint dry to me. That's why. I hope other people enjoy it so I can reap the benefits of having one in dungeon parties but if I had to play one I'd stab myself in the brain with a butter knife.

Fair enough. That's how I feel about some classes individually, but not roles as a whole. Warrior and Scholar mostly, but Ninja to a degree too. Narrative and the lore substance behind a class mean a lot to me and the Warrior story makes the class feel ridiculous. I've just never liked the big brute berserker archetype, at all. Scholar has a cool story but I never felt as game changing playing one as the story would lead you to believe the Scholars were. And honestly I just never like the fairy part of the job. Why couldn't Carbuncle have been used instead? Like with Alphinaud? I can't really say what bothers me about Ninja...I think it's just that playing one doesn't really FEEL like a stealthy assassin, it feels like I'm playing Naruto in FFXIV which isn't what I want at all. Am more partial to the WoW Rogue and how it's portrayed than what FFXIV did for ninja.

I didn't think I'd like healers at all, then I picked up a Druid in WoW during WotLK due to queue times and found I really enjoyed it. The whole Druid archetype in WoW, is pretty cool to me, as is Shaman for similar reasons. I think that's why I prefer WHM over the other two healers because the story and background is a Final Fantasy mix of WoW Druid and Shaman (steward of nature and also in tune with the elements/ spirits). Healing in general is a role I've accepted is something I enjoy and am actually pretty decent at it. The class fantasy, and especially game play, just has to be interesting and fun.

[Granyala]

Wasn't intended to be a whine, just a statement of what tanks have to deal with that other classes don't.

That's the point though: outside of gathering them up, the tank has nothing additional to deal with in ShB. Aggro is pretty much guaranteed by sneezing in the mobs direction and cooldown buttons are .. well.. pruned. ._.

So what's left? Run into the mobs, be the first to AoE and face them away from the group. Boom. Your job as a tank is now over, you are now a blue DPS, maximize output. Press one of the off GCD tank CDs when your HP drops too harshly but you have so few of them that they won't cover much time, so pray your DPS players know how to nuke.

[dope_danny]

Got AST to 80 finally. Really don't like the cards being a throwaway buff but the heals feel better overall. Though almost all of the post 70 new spells feel like they sat there going "okay so we reworked AST, what new spells do with give it?" "uhhhhh, fuck, okay uhhhh more regens and a potency boost?". Giving the instant heal 2 charges is nice as an oh shit button in 8 mans but beyond that it feels kind of bloated now with a lot of ways to do the same thing. Its playable but not the job i loved in HW and SB and i feel like its going to be the next job to get a rework.

[Katchii]

That's the point though: outside of gathering them up, the tank has nothing additional to deal with in ShB. Aggro is pretty much guaranteed by sneezing in the mobs direction and cooldown buttons are .. well.. pruned. ._.

So what's left? Run into the mobs, be the first to AoE and face them away from the group. Boom. Your job as a tank is now over, you are now a blue DPS, maximize output. Press one of the off GCD tank CDs when your HP drops too harshly but you have so few of them that they won't cover much time, so pray your DPS players know how to nuke.

It's the "gathering them up" part that's different, and as small as that seems, it's not inconsequential and not nearly as brain dead easy or stress free as your statement makes it seem. A number of things can cause problems when gathering them up, especially on long pulls when you trying to maximize distance and get to the pack so your actual contact time with mobs en route is minimal. The main ones being a ticking HoT as you're pulling or a rogue crit/ big hit from a ranged DPS. That said, a methodical pause at each pack to snag threat on all of them using a couple AoE's fixes that, but that "slows down the run." More on this later.

But even once the "gathering them up" part is over, you're now the focus of all the mobs attention so most, if not all, the AoEs are aimed at you so you're doing a lot more dancing than the DPS all while ideally trying to maintain the geometry of the pack so melee DPS (if you have any, if not this statement is moot) can hit their positionals. In addition to making sure you're rotating your defensive CDs and using them appropriately.

Boiling it down to you just being a "Blue DPS" is too reductive IMO as there really is SO much more to it than that. At least doing it well and being a good tank anyway, it's more than just pushing buttons IMO. My mentality might be different, but as a tank you're kind of seen as the default group leader and take on a bit more responsibility for setting the pace, making the run go smoothly and controlling the battlefield. The mentality around playing a tank vs a DPS vs a healer are all very different IMO, due to the somewhat de facto roles and responsibilities of each role.

And as stupid as it sounds (going back to the slowing down the run comment) being the center of attention for the entire group adds a layer of stress and responsibility that other jobs don't have, though healer does to a degree, but a healer only gets front and center when things go badly, tank is front and center the entire time. I've gotten comments from people about slowing down during a long pull to establish threat on the packs as I go. Yes they're idiots and can safely be ignored, but that's again something other classes or roles don't have to deal with typically unless they're either REALLY good or REALLY bad.

[Sharby]

Got AST to 80 finally. Really don't like the cards being a throwaway buff but the heals feel better overall. Though almost all of the post 70 new spells feel like they sat there going "okay so we reworked AST, what new spells do with give it?" "uhhhhh, fuck, okay uhhhh more regens and a potency boost?". Giving the instant heal 2 charges is nice as an oh shit button in 8 mans but beyond that it feels kind of bloated now with a lot of ways to do the same thing. Its playable but not the job i loved in HW and SB and i feel like its going to be the next job to get a rework.

I disagree, the old card system was hot ass imo. As much as people like to hype up the niche cards as being able to prevent wipes, they were niche for a reason. SB Sleeve Draw and Minor Arcana felt terrible, balance fishing minigame felt terrible. They managed to get rid of all the useless shit and keep the high and low roll mechanics intact except instead of useless or best its good and better which is a WAY healthier system imo. There's nothing more satisfying than getting a 3-seal'd divination into perfect sleeve draw giving all your dps a minor arcana and watching shit blow up.

The only thing I can think of is that Nocturnal Sect is kinda meh and their pdps is p trash, but those are much easier to fix. The only pruned mechanic I miss dearly is buff extension but that'd be pretty broken with current cards.

[KrayZ33]

From a recieving point of view, the new AST cards are boring af and stupid compared to %skillspeed, %crit and the bigger %dmg

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Just finished 4.55. Thoughts:

Spoiler: 

SB 4.0

Spoiler: 

"No wish to be branded as invaders" my ass. If they didn't wish to be branded as invaders, they wouldn't have invaded in the first place.





Just talk to the NPCs; it's quite evident they WANT to spill Garlemald blood. Don't turn around and say "but we want peace!"



Yeah, be proud of invading another country unprovoked, Alphinaud.



Or, you could TALK TO THEM, you know. Just a suggestion.



Garlemald has been at peace with Eorzea for at least fifteen years (ARR starts 15 years after the battle of Silvertear Skies. Given the timeline of events, 4.0 definitely takes place at least a year after the start of ARR, possibly two, and apparently the XIVth Legion's invasions were lead by rogue generals and disowned). Ala Mhigo has been firmly under the Empire for 25 years. That's not "your rightful homeland" anymore folks; that's the home of Imperial citizens, and you're invading THEIR home. I'm fine with you invading if you want to get back at the Empire, weaken its power going forward, and use Ala Mhigo as a buffer zone, but don't go around acting all high and mighty when you're no better than them. Then again, considering you didn't differentiate the rogue XIVth Legion from the rest of the Empire, and you didn't bother to perk your head up and differentiate yourselves from the rogue terrorists who massacred the garrison, you're at least consistent in that regard.



Thank you for admitting this was Imperial territory Krile.



Pretty atmospheric.

Yeah, sneaking into hostile territory while wearing BRIGHT RED CLOTHING, yuppers Lyse.

Gosh, the battle music. Two things. First, the opening few notes are bombastic, and I have to hear them EVERY SINGLE TIME I PULL A MOB, even if I'm just passing through the place. Ugh. Second, the leitmotif. In Heavensward, I wasn't fond of Dragonsong being played every other scene, but now it feels like I'm going to be stuck listening to "Storm of blood! Born of Blood! Of our fallen brothers!" everywhere too...



Well, the scout ship is still on fire. The Grand Companies mobilized their forces and invaded while the bodies of Garleans are still warm...



Wait, did the Illbred's forces actually push beyond the wall and slaughter Garleans as they were fleeing? Gosh. At least their murderers died shortly after (thanks Illbred!).

No way Rhalgr's Reach remained hidden from the Empire for 25 years. Remember, anyone except the Garleans is fully capable of teleporting to an aetheryte they attune to. All it takes to crush the Resistance's hideout is for the Empire to promise a handsome reward to any non-Garlean, have them join the Resistance, be invited to their base, and then the Empire has found it. Their operative can immediately teleport out without fear of being killed, tells the Empire where it is and they bombard the spot, and there are PLENTY of non-Garleans who'd take up the Empire on that offer. Laurentius, Roaline, Fordola, Asahi... the thousands of Garlean foreign legion soldiers, people looking to move up in the world...

Again, I love it when they bring NPCs from prior arcs like Meffrid back.

I've been in Rhalgr's Reach for five minutes and I want the music "Oh fallen brothers" to stop... why isn't there an option in the sound menu to turn off looping music?

Gosh, the Peak's Night music, that grand piano!

Even the Ala Mhigan town music is great!



No. That's not how physics works. Ever heard of the square cube law?

I am curious as to why Varis is allowing his son to run Ala Mhigo and Doma into the ground.

I knew the Empire conscripted the people of their freshly annexed provinces and sent them out into the field as cannon fodder ahead of their Garleans (also because non-Garleans can cast magic), but moving those people around to other regions is actually pretty brilliant. Away from home, they are cut off from their friends and family, and have no connection to the people of another region and are thus more likely to obey orders. It's easier to hurt some strange foreigner you don't care about than your own countrymen or the people who neighbored your country.



Let's not kid ourselves here folks. This isn't Garlemald's fault. This is the inevietblity of capitalism brought on by mass production (brought on by the magitek revolution) supplanting agrarian societies. Even if the Empire wasn't ruling, Quarrymill would eventually undergo an exodus of people as it is now because the quality of life in industrialized cities is just straight up higher than it is out in the wilderness. Until the magitek revolution reaches the point where it becomes practical and profitable for companies to begin revamping towns like Quarrymill, you mind as well just pack up and move to the capital. I'm interested in why there are still other villages after 25 years, like this is still an agrarian society. Ala Mhigo is a barren wasteland and no one is farming anything out here. Why not just move to the provincial capital, where the services and goods of the entire Empire can be accessed?

While out on a sidequest to kill Earth Sprites, I've been thinking. If if the souls, the aether, of any being - be they slimes, sprites, wild animals, or people - can reincarnate into any other being, then why does Hydalyen value mankind over other life? She apparently doesn't care whether or not we humans kill animals to eat them or if we kill sprites for their elemental crystals, but she's sad that we humans are killing one another?

Anyway, I'm loving the questing experience in Gyr Abania so far. It has me on the edge of my seat as I was during the questing experience during the first few hours of Heavensward. Seeing what life is like for these people inside the wall is very intriguing. I know my visit here will be cut short as we go to Doma to open up a second front, but if we see what life is like inside Doma under Imperial rule - all of the different ways society has changed, and how the Doman situation is distinct from the Ala Mhigo occupation - then I'll be overjoyed. Obligatory, formulaic primals aside, it doesn't seem like the Stormblood story is going to derail into banal plotlines like one dimmensional evil churches again.

HOLY CRAP THAT BEAR IS HUMONGOUS



"Attract new recruits", as in one guy. Still, gotta start somewhere!



Did any of the royal family survive? Is there a monarchist faction out there? Or are we just going with the "monarchy failed us last time so republic!" thing?

A thought about tempering. If a primal is whatever its summoners will it to be, then technically no two "Titan" summons were the same being. They may have looked the same and had been inspired by the same legend, but they were still completely different beings. Does tempering make one beholden to the overall legend, or to that Primal specifically? Apparently, the previous Ramuh summon had tempered the Sylphs, but those same syplhs obeyed the second, benevolent Ramuh summon.

Whew, I love Zenos already!

I'd love to look for the herbs without the need of the UI sparkles, but they're so small I'd never find them. WoW and GW2 did this right, where you could see the actual herb or object you were looking for, on your screen, from zoomed out far away - even a flower petal - without the need to look for a UI name, sparkle, or outline.

Wait, so we JUST recruited fresh blood, and now we're giving them a sword and tossing them at an Imperial installation with barely a day's worth of training, if that? Whew, the surrounding people sure are going to think twice about volunteering when they hear about the bodycount.

Rhalgr's Reach... wow. That was great.

How is Zenos so strong? If Garleans can't use aether, than how did Zenos manage to completely no-sell Lyse's aether infused monk punches? How did he manages to break threw a powerful mage's barrier just by pushing his sword harder? Zenos also doesn't seem to be that elegant of a swordsman if he's breaking his sword so often that he has to carry multiple swords (unless he's using his raw strength to slice through armor?).

To Doma!



Maybe we will meet him one day!

How did the ship survive the collision with the rocks?

Well that was an uneccessary deteour through a random video game dungeon.

Finally made it to the best city in the game (well, Crystarium might be better, but it doesn't have player housing. Ishgard has a chance to become the best city after the reconstruction if it doesn't look like grey, broken concrete anymore).



Spent an honest two and a half hours on the Kugan jumping puzzle. The puzzle direction is straightforward but the hit boxes are awful.



Wait, what is he referring to by that last part?

Yeah, but what is the currency of Hingashi?

Yay we finally got to see Alphinaud's artistry!

Was Yugiri arrested? Can't have been by the Garleans, otherwise she'd have been shipped off to the Empire and promptly executed. Must be being held by Hingashi for some reason.



I like how they modeled a few bricks into the stairs!

The fact that the Imperials are attacking us in public, in Kugane, means that they do not fear the Seikeisegumi... which implies that the Empire has some power over Kugane, which means that in all likelihood Yugiri IS being held prisoner. The question is: why hasn't she been executed yet? Are they trying to use her to bait out Hien and Gosetsu?



They're going be a beast tribe by the end of the Ascian saga, aren't they? They'll be hiding out in the Ilsabard mountains I bet.

I just realized: if Doma is based on China, then why is Gosetsu - a Doman - a samurai? Are samurai a thing in FFXIV's Doma?

Why is there a space elevator?

I love the grand piano music that plays at night in the Ruby Sea.



A very well founded belief. The Empire has been taking over for over seventy years and has held most of the continent for a quarter of a century.

Gotta say, while the volcano in the distance is cool, the Phon Coast was a more visually interesting zone than the coastal areas of Ruby Sea. I do love how the world looks at sunset! So Phon Coast zone geography > Ruby Sea, but Ruby Sea lighting and skybox > Phon Coast.

Doing these sidequests, it's apparent that about half of the confederacy is made up of pansies.

I really like how story rich the journey from Ala Mhigo to meeting Hien has been. There has been barely any "kill ten rats" filler; it's just worldbuidling and story all the way.



LOLOLOL (that this is sad, and wouldn't have been funny if we had seen it rather than casually told it)



Interesting.

So Kami is animist worship... that there is a spirit inside everything... which goes hand in hand with aether in this world.

... Or are they incorporeal beings like the Elementals?



Interesting!

Let me guess, Kurenai is the actual Ruby Princess and I saved her sister who was the decoy residing in the palace.

Was the magic used to tear out Hisui's soul the same used by Lambard to tear out the souls of people and fill them with his controlling thaumaturgy?

I hope we see Kurenai again.

If it was a primal, then who summoned it? The Kojin sure didn't. Did the Kami in the three treasures reincarnate their own stack of aether into a Primal, much in the same way that the Heaven's Ward Knights drew upon the aether imbued in them to reincarnate themselves as primals?

Susano best Primal!

Is Koban is soley the currency used by the Kojin, or is it used throughout the Othard region? Don't tell me that it's decimal based like Gil too! You'd think that Hingashi and Doma (before the Empire took over) would mint their own currency. I wonder what the currency of the Empire would be.

Nayoshi's inexplicable ability to fish up monsters is invaluable! Imagine all the monster ingredients he could bring in reliably! If only he was able to actually KILL those monsters after he fished them up. Man up dude, you just need an axe or a spear!

What a happy rendition of Revolutions.

Is that a wolf man in the village?

... Wait, we're just going to dive into the pond that leads to the secret base RIGHT IN FRONT of the fisherman?

Wait, if Yugiri is here, then who is the woman being held prisoner in Kugane Castle that the people spoke of?



Nice attention to detail! But wouldn't my Eorzean accent give me away?

How does the Empire manage feed their massive armies when ratio of conscripts to farmers is so high?

Don't die, Isse.

Darn, there's barely five people in the village left. Six if you include the Falcon Porter. No idea where he was during the lineup. The Imperials didn't call him out so I guess Falcom Porters are exempt from the line up and the draft.



The moon gates are beautiful.

The Vanara is a cool monster design.

Incapacitating the soldier's - though morally preferable to killing them - is going to have the same outcome as outright killing them: the soldiers will be overdue to return to their unit and that unit is going to come to the village asking questions, and they're going to assume that the conscripts rebelled and escaped, and the unit is going to punish the village. Only way the village is spared is if we take out the rest of the soldier's unit, and that requires following them back to their unit first, not blowdarting them before we see where they are headed.

The "point-and-click" scope/blowdart minigame is a welcome addition, as it breaks up the monotony of regular gameplay. More minigames please!

... How does a blowdart penetrated metal armor?

Okay, we've freed them. Still doesn't change the fact that the Imperials are going to go right back to Namai once they wake up.

Oh. An amensia drug. How convenient!

The Namai quests are pretty interesting. One guy trained his tri of sparrows to hunt pests in the paddy fields. Another guy builds and repairs the stones that support the paddy fields, a task I've never seen brought up before.

Why are there Minobi - hostile aetherial spirits/sprites/elementals - floating over the paddy fields? Is it based on a Chinese or Japanese legend?

It seems like there is no way to cross from the Southern side of Yanxia to the Northern side. I guess it's a Berlin wall scenario? Except the alleged purpose of the gates way to protect the capital, not divide the country. If the wall dividing the country was also meant to try to keep rebel forces from interacting from each other, it isn't working considering how easily the Doman Liberation Front is able to get to the Azim Steppe and the Northern side of Yaxnia.

It doesn't really matter whether they kill Zenos or not. Garlemald is simply going to keep sending ever increasingly larger, formidable, and unfettered forces to reclaim Doma and Ala Mhigo, until the point that Eorzea is contending with the full might of the Garlean Empire, and being able to use aether is hardly going to stop it when it reaches that point.

It's disappointing that the NPC dialogue inside the House of the Fierce does not update after every quest like in the Waking Sands or Rising Stones.



That's called bait girl. He had spies within Rhalgr's Reach, he probably has spies within the Doman Liberation Front, and he almost certainly (and logically) assumed that if the WoL disappeared from Gyr Abania but the Alliance is holding position in Gyr Abania, then the WoL is probably still trying to fight the Empire and went somewhere else... and he would've caught wind of the ruckus we stirred up in the Ruby Sea, if not have been informed by the commotion we caused in Kugane. We killed half a dozen Garlean soldiers there after all.

Isse, it's raining and you're fifty feat away. There's no way you could've heard us.

Yugiri, you can't stab through armor!

If Zeno's blast killed his own soldiers, how was Yotsuyu not killed as well?

If Garleans can't use aether, than how exactly is Zenos using magical attacks? Even if we discount the nebulous nature of his Samurai slashes and dashes - aether infused attacks and how it is channeled through each job's gimmick - it still doesn't account for the fact that Zenos is straight up conjuring darkness/void.

Shut up Lyse.

Please. Fordola DID do something about it rather than sitting around and whining. She joined the Empire to do good from within.

Even if the Empire has no interest building new towns on the Azim Steppe, they'd almost certainly still come out to trade with the shepherds for wool, for animal skins, and for meat.



As I just said! Sell... to the Empire! All you have to do is go a little ways south.



He's going to grow up to become Cerberus.

Bardam was an engaging encounter.



Interesting. In the 'Trails series, Orbal lights were placed along roads and on the perimeter of towns to wards off monsters and create safe areas for civilization to flourish, but here they use fire to lure monsters away from civilization.



>Oronir is the strongest tribe on the Steppe.
Only has fifty warriors.
Ha!

One thing I do like about FFXIV post Heavensward is how each questhub has a questline that follows a single character. What I really like about Stormblood is that questlines from two different questhubs can converge together into another, with those same developed characters coming along for the ride.

If the Dortharl are also fifty warriors, and if we take into account that the Mol tribe is apparently "small" in comparison to the "powerful tribes" (Oronir and Dortharl), then Hien's "Xaela army" is less than 150 men.

That's not an insult, that's simply being incredulous.

Well we do know that souls are made of aether and that aether cycles throughout the world... materializing in every way as the ground that people walk on, the wind in the air, the aether that powers magitek devices, to being reincarnated as the souls of another being. However, it implied that the same clump of aether that makes up one's soul does not reincarnate in tact, but is broken up and mixed with other aether to form a new thing. How the Dorthayl are able to maintain their same soul is unknown, much less in the same clan... unless it's foreshadowing for a later reveal about the mechanics of aether and the soul?

You wouldn't have earned the victory though, as it was due to your foe being hamstrung and not by your own skill.

Why do we need to know how it works? Isn't the solution to just throw a Carbuncle or a Verstone at it?



And massacre hundreds of innocent servants, workers, and bystanders inside too.

Lyse's character in a nutshell: "I've experienced suffering, we should get back at the Garleans! You have suffered, we should get back at the Garleans! I'm going to give my all to get back at the Garleans!" Ysalye was a pretty meh character but she wasn't actively annoying like Lyse.

Well Grynewaht just came back from as the Warp in Warhammer 40k.



Holy shit

Holy shit she shot him

"My friend has been shot thrice and is exerting all of his strength holding up this massive ceiling but I'm going to stand around and soliloquy for a minute.

Gosetsu is one of the best characters in FFXIV. RIP



What? Lyse is not revolutionary leader material. She doesn't have the patience, the wisdom, or the charisma Conrad has. M'naago would be a far better choice. She has leadership experience, knows the many different struggles Ala Mhigans face, and knows what to say.

Why are Ala Mhigo questgivers giving out Doman gear as rewards?

Again, if a primal is capable of tempering at any moment, why are we bringing non-Echo users into the presence of primals?

Wait, I can SHIELD people from tempering? Sure would've been nice to know when I was captured by the Amal'jaa way back when. Could've saved those people from being axed by the Flames.

On the Lakshmi fight, it wasn't clear when to use the charge. It sucks to die a few times and not know why I died.

Saved who? The Ananta who weren't tempered yet? Killing a primal doesn't undo tempering, remember?

What? Why is it that the Ananta tempered by Lakshmi are apparently normal now that Lakshmi is dead but the Flames apparently had to put to death all the humans who were tempered by Ifrit even after I killed him?

Shut up Lyse.

The Peaks are beautiful.

Ala Ghiri is the first visually interesting town in Gyr Abania with the red brick walls and white trim.

This doesn't feel like a war. It's basically me and a half dozen other guys just lightly hitting an Imperial fortress, and then the Imperials just give up and run away, and we take the installation.

It doesn't make any sense why the Garleans didn't develop Ala Ghiri. It's inexplicable how the Empire managed to lead the magitek revolution and nearly conquer the entire continent for seventy years, and yet they're woefully incompetent and lose every battle in the story and lose huge swathes of their army and territory in only a matter of months.

Why hasn't aerial superiority factored into this conflict at all? As of Heavensward, Garlond Ironworks was pumping out so many airships that Sky Pirates were able to amass their own fleet of them! Surely the Eorzean Alliance should have an air force on hand that could be useful here... such as bombing runs of enemy installations or dropping off strike forces behind enemy lines. And the Garleans should be using their air force as well to bomb our encampments.



"As you know" dude this is common knowledge.

No, no, no, you can't slash through a padded gambeson!

No, Raubahn and Pippin would've died right there. That tower would've collapsed within twenty seconds and there is no way they could've realized what was happening and escaped to a safe distance in time. Conrad is absolutely dead.

No, with such sheer force dealt to the tower, the whole tower would've collapsed and the entire compound leveled.

Shut up Lyse.



What

She's got moron on her that's what

M'naago is RIGHT THERE!

Are we going to just forget about the Skulls Conrad talked down?

"A grievious defeat"? It looked like we barely lost twenty guys.

Shut up Lyse.

"I'm the best-qualified" no you're not. M'naago is a better soldier and leader in every way.

The Guardian Beast is a cool monster design.

Cartoon villains.



So you're saying that if we lose another thirty guys, we won't be able to continue the campaign? I guess the Grand Companies didn't dedicate more than forty troops each then.

They either won't believe it, or they'll say the holy man was bad.

I'm actually surprised at how clean the Eorzean Alliance's occupation of Ala Mhigan settlements has been. The Allies were often just as unrestrained and as brutal as the Axis when they occupied settlements - soldiers far away from home who felt entitled and invincible, some out for revenge - the difference being that the Allies won and covered up their crimes.



What aggression? Every NPC in Ala Ghiri has only been talking about how great it is that the Imperials were gone and how bad they were.



Why don't we see events like this?

I love the music in Castrum Abania.

Shut up Lyse.

How did you go from Fordola's words going in one hear and out the other to understanding her motivations in the blink of an eye?

Again, this (Ala Mhigans hunting us for the bounty, despite the imminent fall of the Imperial rule) is a cool story concept, but poorly presented. It would have been more effective we had known the character or a family member, that would contextualize the poor sobs not as some enemies you fought and forgot about, but as real people to feel for.

The Marble Urolith is a cool monster design.

Wait, we're marching out in the morning without planning our operation?

I just want Lyse's "I remember" monologues at the start of a new zone to stop.

I do like the operation planning scenes, though the Operation Archon scene at the end of 2.0 remains the best.

Not fond of the constantly blaring music of the Lochs.

It's disappointing that Kan-E-Senna's second in command doesn't have name. When I first started FFXIV, I was under the impression that Lewin of the First Bow was Gridania's military commander.

How is Lyse able to speak underwater when she doesn't have the Kami blessing?

Oh gosh SHUT UP LYSE

There is a war going on in the ambience but I don't see any troops around, only Pipin and Alphinaud.



Did the Temple Knights and the Maelstorm seriously set up cannons and then just leave them here unmanned, just sitting there to be taken or destroyed by the Garleans?

Why is it that when we "kill" these guys by lowering their HP to 0, they simply kneel in defeat, but when we fought the Ala Mhigans from earlier who were also convinced that they had no choice, we killed them?

I hope we see Hakuo again.

YES HIEN!

The Ala Mhigo palace is beautiful.



Eh, I'd say it was because I had two others and a healer with me.

How did Alliance scouts not spot Shinryu on top of the castle the moment we stepped foot in the Lochs? Why didn't the people in the Ala Mhigan quarter immediately point out the strange beast on top of the castle of their capital? Why didn't the Scions detect the aether emanating from it?

5.0 [spoiler]I was under the impression that Hydaylen's Blessing of Light was her form of tempering, but since Heavensward it has become clear that the Echo and the Blessing of Light are two different things, which then begs the question: where does the Echo come from, if not from Hydaylen?

Wait, I can potentially become a summoner/beastmaster who controls primals? Would be really cool to take control of a summoned primal for a short period to do some heavy lifting before dismissing/killing it because of the aether drain.

Was Solus' hometown destroyed by a primal?

I accept that you are a crazy psycho who needs to be shot.

Shut up Lyse. You would've been outraged no matter the reason.

"STOP!"... what? Why? We want him dead, right? He's doing us favor by offing himself!

"No justice in that rabid animal's end" shut up Lyse.



Really? I don't.

Why aren't Varis and Eldibus voiced in this scene?

Yay Lyse is leaving us!

No Y'shtola! Lyse was leaving us! You didn't have to tell her "WTH you'll always be a a Scion" crap!

Oh okay she's leaving. Good.

It's gonna be Nero, isn't it?

Hahaha




Well, the 4.0 MSQ was great up until I reached Yanxia. After that, the story really began fumbling the handling of Garlemald, the occupation, and the actual rebellion, but it was still thoroughly enjoyable to play through because of Alphinaud, Tataru, Hancock, Gosetsu, and Hien. Once we return from Doma, the story just goes downhill as we are stuck with Lyse.

After we sedated an Imperial outpost in Yanxia, there weren't any stakes any more. The Imperials weren't ever going launch an offensive. We knew that they were just going to sit there and get taken out one by one. War is a back and forth... and there was none.

Missed opportunities everywhere. Take the destruction of the tower for instance. Imagine if rather than wearing masks, we had seen the Skulls with faces and names, saw a little bit of banter between them. It would've given us characters to latch on to. When Conrad said he was going to go into the tower and try to talk them down, I was hoping that the game would cut away to the inside of the tower and show us that scene. It could've been an emotional moment as Conrad tries to talk the children of his country down... the two sides trying to reconcile. And then we'd feel the horror when Alphinaud looks outside and sees the cannon about to fire, and we'd feel the dread for everyone inside. We never got that. The Skulls are just forgotten and Conrad's death is cartoonishly melodramatic. What waste!

The way I see it, the core problem of 4.0 is that it's supposed to be a war story... and it very poorly presents a war. You can see the writers dipping their toes into the idea that some people may prefer living under the Empire's rule, The Garleans are cartoonishly evil and incompetent.

SB 4.1

Spoiler: 

Okay Lyse. You've taken back the city. Why are you still here in Rhalgr's Reach?

Did Lyse's voice actor change? (Just Googled: apparently it's the same VA, but she still nontheless sounds really different).

Conrad's group had twenty years to figure out what kind of government they were going to institute. How do you not know? And what about any monarchists who want to restore the royal bloodline (how convinent they're all dead, guess the writers didn't want to tackle that).

Skalla looks great.

Shut up Lyse.



Man, this should've been in the 4.0 story.

Sharing memories are we?



Good lord that's several hundred victims right there! How did Krile not die?

Was Hojo cycling Krile's aether with the aether of the other subjects?

I'd guess they tried cycling Krile's aether to give test subjects the Echo.

Or not.

LOL she jumped over their dead bodies to hug Raubahn!

WTH they lived? How does slicing a man open with as such force as Raubahn's swings not kill them?

Godbert's first appearance in the MSQ.

"Godbert will be expecting us" oh? I was under the impression that you decided to visit Godbert while we were out and we went straight here unannounced.

Thanks for the teleport to the Waking Sands!

Loloritto is handsome.

Sadly not as much as to be very helpful here. The plot was climaxing so I didn't stop to do any more sidequests, so IDK much about what industries to mine in Ala Mhigo.



I don't recall having ever visited a place called "The Saltery". Ala Gannha could use development but really, it's in an out of the way location, away from the main route connecting Ul'dah and Ala Mhigo, and it's gimmick is the quarry. The mason industry would boon for the construction of new buildings to house displaced Ala Mhigans, but that's that. Ala Ghiri is apparently the biggest settlement in Gyr Abania outside of Ala Mhigo, was already a pre-established trade hub, and sits along the main route between Ul'dah and Ala Mhigo.

Huh, well I guess salt was in the name, and given the setting salt would be valuable.



No, it does not.

Would the monster have gotten away or had hurt Wiscar if I had said "hit as hard as you can"?

LOL

That was fun!

Laurentius is a triple traitor. First, he was a Wood Wailer who endangered THE ENTIRE TWELVESWOOD by not only selling information to the Imperials, but actively guilding them through the wood. A forest, mind you, that is inhabited by very tempermental Elementals that could go on a rampage and indiscriminately kill anyone should they become upset. Not only did Laurentius leak and aid the enemy, he endangered everyone's lives in the Twelveswood by enabling and aiding their advance there. The Wood Wailers put men to death for less, but they were merciful and gave him a chance. We invited him into the Crystal Braves because he we believed he would make the best of that chance, but no! He then immediately takes in another bribe, and this time people actually died. THIS TIME, he actually aided in a coup that killed dozens of innocent people, including his own comrades! Even after Ul'dah was secured, he could have fled Eorzea and had lived in peace, counting his blessings, but no! For a third time, he AGAIN sells out the lives of innocents, actively helping Illberd lead hundreds of innocents to their deaths to butcher them to stir up a war that would kill thousands.

You can't equate Fordola to Laurentius. Fordola is a true prisoner of war. She fought for her country and lost, and should be granted amnesty and allowed a chance to move on. Laurentius didn't fight for a cause. He actively murdered hundreds of people for money, and rejected not one, not two, but THREE CHANCES. He's proven that even if he was given "another chance", he'd yet jump at the chance to sell the lives of more people for money. Off with his head! I'm going with the "Their lives would be forfeit" answer but I'm half expecting Raubahn to say no. Let's see.

Do I need to say anything about the Lala who was SMILING when a sword was held to Alpy's neck and prodded Laurentius on to plunge the detonator?



No, you're an Ul'dahn general, and a person with your own mind. You had absolutely no obligation to do so.

*Sigh* don't make me run Lakshmi hard/extreme/whatever please.

I'm not against Primal trials, but 9 out of ten times they're the same story told before: humanity is being a jerk to the beast tribe, beast tribe summons a primal, the localsask us to put down the primal, we waltz into the Beast Tribe village and slaughter dozens of tribesmen on our way to the primal, kill the primal, go off on our merry way, get a call back from the locals to kill it when the beast tribe summons their primal again, etc. It was fine the first time with the Amal'Jaa, but then it was just the same story over and over again: Amal'jaa, Kobold, Ixal, Sahagin, Moogles, Vanu Vanu, Ananta... they're all the same. That's seven different tribe arcs with the exact same story, and that's not accounting for the subsequent summonings. The only interesting ones were the Sylphs, the Gnath, and the Kojin stories. The Sylphs were interesting because they had a pre-existing relationship with Gridania, so their summoning wasn't just "go here and kill it", but raised a bunch of questions as to how this affected the relationship between the Sylphs and Gridania, and the idea of negotiating with a peaceful Primal was interesting until Ramuh went "HUMANITY IS CORRUPT!" yada yada and you had to fight him anyway. Ravana was interesting because he wanted a good fight (though the lead up was generic "beast tribe summoned their primal, stop it" premise). Susano was interesting because of the Kami treasure vault and the fact that he was an accidentaly summoning, and was pretty entertaining himself, but once again the leadup to it was the usual "hostile beast tribe" shennagains I'm just so tired of.

Huh, and here I was thinking Arenvald was about to say "THEY'RE ATTACKING" or "THEY'VE SUMMONED LAKSHMI AGAIN!", but the idea of a hostile beast tribe approaching humanity for peace is interesting. We shall see... Let's not kid ourselves: they'll go back to being hostile and we'll have to fight them anyway as usual; it's not like they're going to turn all those hostile mobs in the Qalyana stronghold into friendly NPCs. Plus, we have yet to have had our obligatory solo duty battle for this patch. We're definitely going to fight them.



That was unearned.



In the most unconvincing manner possible.

*Sigh* yup. Why did I even think otherwise?

Time to use my AoE protect against tempering!

Yay

How were the guards turned? What, did the Qalyana summon Lakshmi inside the city beforehand and lured guards to Lakshmi to be tempered, and no one noticed the missing guards, noticed their erratic behavior when they returned, or noticed the summoning?



Shut up moron and flee!

The AI is surprisingly competent.

What happened to the Qalyana bodies?

Lyse every time she opens her mouth:
"I've seen suffering, I must stop it!"
"I must become stronger to stop suffering!"
"I know it's idealistic, but I want to help people!"

I cried.

Raubahn and Nanamo really are one of the best things about FFXIV.

Dude, Gosetu, just go to Hancock. Put the fee on my tab. If Hancock doesn't remember you traveling with me or somehow missed the stories floating about detailing how he and I liberated Doma, you can just used a linkshell to easily confirm it.

Does Yotsuyu have amnesia? At first I thought she had warmed up to the situation, but now she's acting completely differently.

SB 4.2

Spoiler: 

The informant is going to be Gyo isn't it?

Yup.

I'm guessing Asahi is on the airship.

Yup.

I didn't think he'd sound so arrogant.



You could say the same for any nation, especially Eorzeans. Merlwyb brokers treaties with the Sahagin and the Kobolds and them immediatley breaks them whenever she likes. Ishgard was at continuous war with dragons for a thousand years. Ala Mhigo invaded Gridania out of greed. The Eorzean Alliance launched an unprovoked invasion of Garlemald. Don't act like differing opinions within a country mean that a nation cannot honor its agreements.

Inb4 Red Kojin attack was actually a false flag operation to garner our trust with Asahi.

Finally, a good Empire character ... except he's once again not actually Garlean.



NEVERMIND!!!

Lol Zenos just waltzed into the midst of the Liberation Front's base and took it out on a whim.



How is no one else overhearing this?



Our first look at cozy Garlean interior decoration.

Oh? That was it? No obligatory dungeon?

SB 4.3

Spoiler: 

LOLOLOL



Out of context LOLOLOL

Has it been a year since 4.0?

Oh no... she went to Namai didn't she? Preparing for the cringefest that will be the villages going for her throat and a possible mental breakdown as she remembers...



I'm half thinking that by "leave you in no doubt" he means he's going to blow up the airship, but then he wouldn't be able to escape...



Can you stop moustache twirling?

She's gone AGAIN?

*Sigh* this is getting more and more ridiculous.



WTH how did she go from Tsuyu with memories of despair and guilt straight back to psychopathic "EMBRACE MY TRUE NATURE" Yotsuyu?

Asahi better be ready to draw his sword in a flash. If he's standing twenty feet away, he has barely a couple seconds to draw that sword before she reaches him.

... Annnnd then he walks right up to her. What a smart guy.

What about the prisoners? Is Asahi planning on using them as Primal sacrifices for Tsukuyomi?

That was the best boss fight in the game yet.

FINALLY! A GOOD pureblood Garlean character!

FINALLY! The protagonists recognize that they're not going to take down the Empire and they need to save it just like all the other city states.

No funeral for Yotsuyu? The game makes a bid deal about empathizing with her, and then she dies and we move on just like that?

Gosetsu, you're a sworn retainer to your lord and you didn't ask him permission to leave. Obey protocol!

How did Zenos' soul get stashed in an Elezen body? I'd suppose he can use aether now, wish makes him even more dangerous than before.

Holy crap, Gaius had six Ascian masks? Assuming he killed them for real, how many Ascians are left?

• There are 13 Ascians including Eldibus

• Nabriales killed by WoL, Minfillia, and Moenbryda using auracite

• Lahabrea killed by Thordan by a primal's aetheric consumption

• Igeyorhm killed by WoL with auracite

• Six ascians killed by Gaius, presumably by auracite

• 13 - 9 = 4 Ascians left including Eldibus

• 4.5 spoiler If we include the Emperor then there are two unnamed surviving Ascians remaining.

Wow. I said it before, and I'll say it again: the Ascians a braindead stupid. They KNOW full well the threat that mortals and the WoL pose, and yet they still deliberately place themselves in danger, and worse, provoke mortals into trying to kill them off for real. No wonder Eldibus walked up to Minfillia and I in 2.1 and told us to have fun killing off the rest; they're so useless they'd probably only hinder his plan of rejoining Hydaelyn and Zodiark.

4.5 spoiler Since Eldibus Zenos is the final boss, I wonder if we'll kill Eldibus with auracite. If so, then it'd be pretty disappointing. He's the only remotely interesting Ascian and barely known anything about him. I'm also interested if the last two unnamed Ascians will be characterized, or if they will also just be fodder. At any rate, I'm pleasantly surprised by how the Ascians have been handled. Whenever an evil organization ensemble is introduced, I feel like the story is going to drag out as we have to face off against each member one by one, first meeting them, then getting curbstomped and fighting them repeatedly, and then FINALLY defeating them for real at the end (*cough cough* Organization XIII *cough* Ouroboros. It's pretty refreshing to find an evil organization where the vast majority were actually incompetent scrubs and really only one or two guys were relevant

SB 4.4

Spoiler: 

The music in the Burn is nice, though at certain points it reminds me of "Fear not this Night" from GW2.

*Sigh* more Allagan ruins.

Why are the new recolors of the Ala Mhigan resistance sets called "Royal Volunteer's" when there is nothing royal about Ala Mhigo anymore? The royalty are dead and the monarchy was abolished.

No invitation for Hingashi either?

What, is the Dawn Throne some sort of high tech ruin?



???

Pillars... is she talking about the place where that Dortharl girl comitted suicide so that she might not be reincarnated?

Ah, so the artifact must destabilize the soul and liquify it into aether, thus how the Dortharl resurrection cycle is broken.

I love Sadu and Magnai

LOL Magnai!

LOL they're fighting again!

WTH was that

5.0 spoilers I've noticed that only characters who go to the First were hit. Is that because the Crystal Exarch/Graha'Tia was trying to pull us there?

Yup.

5.0 spoilers Has the Crystal Exarch/Graha'Tia been studying magic for thousands of years?

In 2.5, when were measuring aether samples in the Black Shround and comparing them with historic records, it was pointed out that the aether in the our world (the Source) was increasing over the ages (due to absorbing the aether from other shards). How could aether be draining from the world at a faster rate than it is being increased?

Let's sit down fellas before our souls are called and our bodies fall and crack our skulls open on the stone floor.

Well, once we're all gone, it'll be up to Riol and Arenvald in our stead. Tataru should be recalled immediately.

Wait a minute, are we going to see Ga Bu again?

Yup.

"Can't see or hear us" well he would have had to in order to follow you here and not bump into you.

SB 4.5

Spoiler: 

Yeah, no, you're not going to be able to trace their aether out of the Source.



Come on; we barely visit for more than a few hours once every six months.



Yup.

Okay. Why is the aether draining from the world? Is it because the First is becoming a Void of Light and it's SOMEHOW sucking the aether from the Source? If a calamity can weaken the barriers between worlds and cause the Source to absorb aether from collapsing Shards, then would it be possible for the reverse to happen? But that doesn't make sense. I was under the impression that the Source absorbed the aether from collapsing Shards because the Source was the largest, and thus it's pull was stronger, like how in binary stars a big star will always consume a small star.

What's to stop the Imperials from simply flying over the barrier? What, they can't fly higher than 15,000 feet? Azys Lla looked like it was miles above the mountains and the Imperials still reached it.



What if they're messengers or defectors?

Well at least the ship wasn't destroyed.

Exactly as I said!

Yes way girl. This is FFXIV. Hardly anyone dies.

"So many more remain" as in four Ascians?

Clones of Solus... I wonder how many were murdered by Selch, having spent their entire waking existance possesed and never having lived their own lives.



With an unexpectedly dull voice.



Okay, wait a minute. Is it because of my victories as Hydaelyn's champion and the prevention of mass casualty calamities has begun aspecting the Source to Light, and since both the Source and the First are light aspected, it's weakening the walls between the realms? Thus, allowing aether to flow from the Source to the First as a form of equilibrium?

I love Solus.



LOLOLOL this is far and away the most asinine thing I've heard a long time!

• - Remember that the pirates still women and put them into sexual slavery.

• - Merlwyb still allows them to attack, pillage, and rape Garlean ships of any kind, including civilian.

• - Merlwyb marches upon Sahagin and Kobold lands to take their land and mine their resources whenever she feels like it, brokers a "peace" with them when she has had her fill, then breaks it to march on their lands again...

• - Merlwyb employs a secret police force that intimidates, tortures, and silences dissenters.

Lady, you've said it before on multiple occasions that you very much subscribe to the "might makes right" mantra. Don't turn around and act like you're a righteous paragon no different from Varis.

Stick it to her Varis!

5.0 spoilers If Varis thinks opposing the Ascians is impossible, then will he think otherwise when I kill Emet Selch?

Wait, we just go into the dungeon? No plan of attack? No planning out formations, firing positions, etc?

Alisae: "The Garleans are suddenly advancing on Ala Mhigo!"
Me: "Okay"
We go to Ala Mhigo
Raubahn: "We are to have an negotiations with the Emperor."
Me: "Cool!"
We have our negotiations with the Emperor.
Me: "Okay, time to survey the battilefield, plan our formation, build fortifications, rally the troops..."
Game skips straight to the battle
Me: "Wait, what?"
Fights two annoying bodyguards who run away
Raubahn: "You've done it!"
Me: I've done what?
Raubahn: "The Garleans won't be attacking for a while. Go back to the Rising Stones."
Me: "Wait, what? Why?"

SB 4.55

Spoiler: 

Well, that was underwhelming.

Omega

Spoiler: 

Isn't aether colored blue? Isn't corrupted/unstable aether red or purple? Is this a sea of corrupted/unstable aether?

Has Midgardsormr been following me the entire time?

So Omega is the Mogu Construct Machine from WoW. That's a priority number #1 threat right there, pretty much moreso than any other threat seen in the entire game up until now.

"Another Star" as in another world within the Source, or from another Shard? I was under the impression that the universe of each shard did not expand past the world we are on.

I guess Omega is remaking us to exist inside it's dimmension.

Is the Aetherial Rift a dimmension created by Omega? Or is it a place that existed in the universe prior to Omega's creation, and it's just a place that Omega is a gateway to? Are even on the Source anymore?

Ah, so THIS was the fabled boilmaster Tataru spoke of!

More evidence to the idea that Omega originated from another shard.

Haha Nero acting as Cid's keeper.

Exactly!

Is this going to culminate in Omega's ultimate creation being a hero?

Wait, so before the big Midgardsormr landed on Hydaelyn, he was EVEN STRONGER?!?!

Great presentation of the train fight.

Alpha is the dog Wedge always wanted.

Hahaha

Oh cool, it's Vector.

Darn, Nero looks really purple.

Holy crap Midgardsormr sacrificed himself



You hear it from the horse's mouth folks: red chocobos are Omega tier.

Imagine how many countless lives were lost, created and only to be pit in a brutal gladitorial contest and die.

Is this Midgardsormr's homeworld?

It is!

The problem is that Omega has an unsurmountable advantage: the rift. All Omega needs to do is trap his target within the rift and he wins. He can immediately erase them from existence. Should they SOMEHOW inexplicably resist his erasure (there was no indication Midgardsormr would be able to resist it when we first entered the rift), he can materialize whatever he wants to kill us. How about a million tons of concrete falling on top of our heads? Yeah, no deus ex Y'shotla magic shield will stop that.

I hope we see Alpha again.

Return to Ivalice

Spoiler: 

Wow, the Prima Vista is cool!

Alma has a great character design, really wish we could get a cloak like that.



Interesting. I suppose it goes hand in hand with Solus' flair for the dramatic.



Actually no, the narrative of FFXIV has had a pretty consistent double standard that there is a story to every side... except Garleans, because in FFXIV all Garleans are either evil or traitors.

Are Ramza and Alma pureblood Garleans who aren't full grown yet? Or is their family full fledged citizens?

This doesn't look like the Rabanastre from FFXII. Where is the palace with the glass arches over the water?

Ah, nvm, it was just broken so I couldn't see it's silhoutte, didn't become apparent till I got closer.

The waterway is huge, but nothing happens in there! How many dozens of hours did the art team spend making it only for you to blow through it a couple of minutes?



Haha

So Ysalye wasn't she wielding Shiva's powers; she LITERALLY BECAME her interpretation of Shiva. Thus, why she was so convinced she was Shiva. Similarly, Thordan wasn't just wielding extreme power and donning a suit of armor, but became absolutely convinced that he was saving Ishgard because he LITERALLY BECAME the public's general interpretation of Thordan as the protector of Ishgard and the great king who fought Nidhogg.

Good lord we go with yet more aether science crap





Haha

WOOHOO they brought in Hurdy from Tactics A2!

Now I want to see what a gore-stained Moogle looks like.

Whew, even with tomestone 390 Scaeven gear, those choco-meteors hit hard, and the window in which to move out the AoE is so small. I wiped the first time, second time had to preemptively use sprint and keep moving.

He's gonna send me to go get Shamani's wine, isn't he? That said, it is most impressive that Shamani's wine is heard as far away as in the Empire and in Hingashi.

Wasn't the whole point of me slaying monsters for their hides way back in ARR 2.0 was so that Drest could afford to go home to his family? Why is he still here over a year later?

Why can't I pay for Drest's passage back home? Game, don't just have me take his bottle and leave him there!



WTH Hancock

This Ba'Gamnan's story is sad.

If it's true that the city of Goug was a Garlean city, than that's really sad. Everyone can use magic but the Garleans can't. They used their ingenuity to build a great city uniquely their own... and then they were driven out. Then they lost their second home to the surrounding nations. I really look forward to seeing the capital of Garlemald, I hope it's a gorgeous city - their crown jewel - and not just Mordor made out of metal. It better not be a dungeon either, but an actual city.



Yeah, considering it has been taking me several hours just waiting for my queues for the Return to Ivalice raids to pop, I'm not going to finish this story before I hit 5.0 content.

Construct 7 had an interesting boss fight.

(To be continued in my 5.0 ruminations)

Paladin 50-60

Spoiler: 

Solkzagyl killed by bandits? Hm... I suppose it's possible.

Oh? I was under the impression that the region around Tailfeather was a pretty chill place. You had to go deeper into the Forelands to run into manglers, bears, and Gnath, and the Dragons were at war with Ishgard and ignored the Tailfeather hunters.

Ah, nevermind!



That just about sums up this questline.

In regards to job Soul Stones

Spoiler: 

In regards to job questlines, I wish they expanded upon the Soul Stones. "... the uncommonly clear facets of the carefully cut shard catch and transcribe the ebb and flow of a soul's aetherial composition - effectively capturing an imperfect echo of the wearer's memories". The idea of experiencing the memories of past Soul Stone users is a fascinating idea! It's a shame that they never did anything with it. Apparently the role quests of ShB do something like that. Looking forward to them!

SB final thoughts

Spoiler: 

As Usual, what I loved most was the world building. How How the War of the Magi between Vylbrand, Amdapor, and Mhach led to the world being flooded and the persecution of mages, how the refugees prayed to Rhalgr and his star led them to Ala Mhigo. How King Theodric thought the monks were trying to overthrow him and massacred them, which was confirmation in the public's eye that he had lost it. How the Crimson Duelists were formed, reading ancient texts about the Red Magic that was created as a result of the Sixth Calamity. How the Empire annexed Ala Mhigo during the bloody civil war and Gaius' rule. How the conscripts of one annexed province are swapped with the conscripts of another to separate them from their friends and family and prevent rebellion. How people volunteer to join the Empire to rise of the ranks and gain power with the intention of making things better from the inside. How Ala Grannha was once a quarrying town that even built the magnificent palace, and then declined when Garlemald arrived and only built metal builds (and how the town is built into the quarry!). How the refugees were resented by everyone for being a burdern on Ul'dah and being seemingly ingrateful to Imperial rule, and how the annexed Ala Mhigans - while unhappy about their culture being lost - had accepted the Empire and didn't want the resistance coming in to make things worse. How the Ruby Sea was patroled by an alliance of extortionists and how they semi-legitimized their presence over the decades. How Bardaam's journey set a precedent for the trial that determines a leader for the tribes. How the Dortharl reincarnate and how the tribe treats its reincarnates.

My only problem with the world building is how poorly it is presented. The Revolution would be more impactful if we had seen flashbacks to the Mad King's descent, the massacre of the Fists of Rhalgr, or the Crimson Duelists fighting for freedom, etc.

Another complaint is the zone/environment art design. As interesting as the Ala Mhigan lore was, the actual design of the Gyr Abania zones were lackluster. All three zones were the samey, barren desert wasteland with maybe a little bit of vegetation here and there. Honestly, if I hadn't known about the lore, I would've thought that we were still in Thanalan. The Peaks was the most beautiful of the three. Contrast that to Doma, where all three zones were uniquely distinguishable from one another and visually interesting. They were a joy just to be in, even in spite of the boring lore. My only complaint with Doma is that the Azim Steppe was flat, and that my game kept stuttering in Yanxia.

I'm really frustrated with the portrayl of the Garlean Empire. We can't get a single, sympathetic Garlean character. They're all either crazy butchers or they're traitors.

Drex: Hyur conscript
Baut: Hyur conscript
Asahi: Seemed like he was a good guy, but then turned out to be crazy evil. Also not Garlean.
Nael: axe crazy and omnicidal maniac who got tempered and tried to wipe out Eorzea.
Gaius: Still acts villainous and then becomes a traitor.
Varis: crazy evil.
Regula: Villain
Zenos: Doesn't give a damn and only wants to have fun and butchers thousands to acquire it.
Solus: Crazy evil Ascian
Cid: traitor
Nero: traitor
Lucia: traitor
Maxima: traitor

Not a single sympathetic Garlean character, except maybe the Lexentale family, but they're relegated to the side-story raid and will never appear as major characters in the MSQ.

I'm not a fan of the post-modernist thought that seems to be all the rage in this day and age, that everything has to be "morally grey" or that there can't be explicitly, absolutely GOOD and EVIL factions. I quite like simplicity. However, when a story like FFXIV goes to such great lengths to flesh out its nations and make them multidimmensional, I expect that it does the same for all them. When you compare how fleshed out, how multifacted Ul'Dah, Gridania, Limsa Lominsa, Ishgard, Ala Mhigo, and Doma to Garlemald, it's quite jarring.

To me, Stormblood was about as enjoyable as HW. Yes, Heavensward had really great moments, but the overall experience was bogged down a lot by the Ul'dah plot that fell flat on its face, the obligatory Primal stuff, the filler in the Churning Mists, and yet another Evil Church plot #2813. Stormblood was enjoyable throughout the entire MSQ with no bad arcs, the worst I can say about it were the missed opportunities (which were also present in Heavensward). The story lays the ground work for nuanced explorations of the countries, to flesh out the nuances of the political situation and explore various factions, but doesn't do anything it. In Heavensward, you had a theological-aristocratic city state with the Clergy on top, the nobles in the middle, and the commoners on the bottom. There are four High Houses, but we only see house Fortemps. The clergy or the religion of Ishgard, the Fury, isn't explored at all; we only see it run by boring evil folks who inexplicably lead the populace. It is suggested that most of the heretics who abandon Ishgard to join the Dragons are the disenfranchised who lived in the Brume, but this aspect is never explored. We never get to know any of these folks and follow them to that point.

Stormblood has a strong start and it was great up until we hit Yanxia, at which point it begins tripping over itself in the presentation of its ideas. Conrad brings up that there are multiple factions in the Resistance, but we never see them. There is so much that could have been mined from different factions in conflict with each other, such as monarchists seeking to restore the royal family to the throne coming into conflict with republicans who want to do away with the monarchy entirely. We could have seen the occupation from the other side, by infiltrating Doma Castle and the Ala Mhigan capital city and seeing how the people are benefitting from the Empire, how their children have been able to receive Garlemald education, how the people have access to healthcare and the goods created as a result of Garlemald's industrialized society, and how they don't want to go back. How the eyes of the Resistance is opened when they see that not only many of their countrymen can't be bothered to resist, but how many of them actively enjoy the Empire's benefits. This never happens; all we get is universally evil Garleans and Garlean sympathizers.

Ostensibly, Zenos is to blame for this, being an antagonist who wants to stir the pot for his own amusement. His rule would be at odds with nuanced explorations of the factions, but considering that Heavensward was laden with this problem as well, I wouldn't wholly attribute to Zenos. (Not to mention that the villains of Stormblood - Zenos, Yotsuyu, and Fordola - are a step up from Heavensward's. Does anyone remember Nidhogg "rawr rawr VENGEANCE or the evil pope?". Zenos and Yotsuyu were entertaining, and Zenos and Fordola had interesting motivations.)

Another thing is that it doesn't feel our "victories" don't feel earned when they are pretty much all predicated on the villain not even bothering to put up a fight. The Garleans only ever set out to attack us three times in both wars: 1. when Zenos decides to take a trip to Rhalgr's Reach to see if there are any warriors who can challenge him, 2. when Zenos decides to take a trip to Doma to see if there are any warriors who can challenge him, and 3. when Zenos ordered Fordola to have the gun blow up the tower, so as to provoke us further so that we might pose a challenge to him. Not only does our enemy just roll over in the war, but it makes the rebellions feel hollow. If the Garleans haven't been caring to put up a fight at all, then how has the Resistance and the Doman Liberation Front failed to overthrow Garlemald? If all it took was just me and a handful of my pals walking in to give pep talks...

TL;DR: Storblood has a great plot but it's poorly presented.
- You don't really feel the struggle of the Ala Mhigans/Domans when it comes to rebelling; it feels like the WoL just walked in, gave them a pep talk, they and twenty guys got out their pitch forks and just overthrew the Imperials.
- Battles consisting of twenty guys at most.
- Flooding of Doma Castle completely glossed over, no one talks about how someone they knew died in there, no cut aways showing people drowning and being crushed.
- The game dips its toes into giving the Garleans a sympathetic side in offhand NPC dialogue but never shows it in the game. They're just cartoonish masked villains.
- We didn't get to see the other factions in the resistance or how they'd inevietbly clash with Conrad's group.
- The inevietble negative public reaction to the occupation by the Eorzean Alliance is also completely glossed over.

A + to Stormblood for keeping the Ascian/Hydaelyn/aether science crap down to a minimum. ARR and HW really dragged whenever it became about guys in black robes playing the pronoun game and talking about how everything is proceeding according to plan despite our efforts, Archons standing around talking about "aether this" and "aether that", something something evil god Zodiark something something, etc. The supernatural plot is far and away the least interesting part of the FFXIV story.

What Heavensward as a whole does have over Stormblood is that its story has an actual ending. 3.3 doesn't just have you kill the final boss of the HW storyline, but actually gives closure the Ishgard and the Heavensward characters. It took a moment to step step back and looked at everything that had happened, and you went "wow", and breathe a sigh of relief, and then with the slate clean, made me anticipate what came next. Meanwhile, Stormblood doesn't have that closure. You kill the villains... and then transistion straight into the next arc. There is no sense of "finality", that this chapter of the story has come to a close. While more happened in Stormblood than in Heavensward, it doesn't feel that way because the story doesn't take a moment to look back at what had happened, and the story doesn't take a moment to breathe and set up the next arc. It feels a little exhausting to go from one tense storyline straight into the next.

I know it might seem like I hate this game given how much I am criticizing it, but I actually really like it. I wouldn't have poured 500 hours into it if it wasn't thoroughly enjoying it. I've just seen the various story ideas that FFXIV tackles presented far better in other games. I just want FFXIV to be the best it can be

Best characters:
- Cid
- Aymeric
- Gosetsu
- Hien

Very good
- Deftarm

Good
- Alphinaud
- Tataru
- Minfillia
- Nanamo
- Raubahn
- Estinen
- Q'yantaa
- Arbert
- Zenos
- Ramza

Fine
- Thancred
- Urianger
- Kan-E-Senna
- Haucherfant
- Eldibus
- Hraesvelgr
- Hilda
- Regula van Hydros
- Conrad
- Meffrid
- M'naago
- Fordola
- Magnai

Okay
- Y'shtola
- Merlwyb
- Alisae
- Yugiri
- Ysalye
- Yotsuyu

Boring
- Nidhogg

Bad
- Lyse
- Thordan VII
- Every Ascian except Eldibus

Everyone else is forgettable.

[Irian]

From a recieving point of view, the new AST cards are boring af and stupid compared to %skillspeed, %crit and the bigger %dmg

Yeah, honestly I'm not too happy with a lot of class changes to healers and tanks in ShB but this one really takes the cake. AST was my go-to healer since release, I adored it in the past, but it's really kinda dead to me now.

There's just something that's not nearly as fun or compelling about flat %damage increases. Knowing which cards worked best with which classes was a part of learning AST and it's pretty much all gone to the wayside now.

[dope_danny]

I disagree, the old card system was hot ass imo. As much as people like to hype up the niche cards as being able to prevent wipes, they were niche for a reason. SB Sleeve Draw and Minor Arcana felt terrible, balance fishing minigame felt terrible. They managed to get rid of all the useless shit and keep the high and low roll mechanics intact except instead of useless or best its good and better which is a WAY healthier system imo. There's nothing more satisfying than getting a 3-seal'd divination into perfect sleeve draw giving all your dps a minor arcana and watching shit blow up.

The only thing I can think of is that Nocturnal Sect is kinda meh and their pdps is p trash, but those are much easier to fix. The only pruned mechanic I miss dearly is buff extension but that'd be pretty broken with current cards.

If people just want a buff or slightly bigger buff they may as well make the whole system a single button buff that sometimes procs a potency increase. It would function the same.

[Sharby]

If people just want a buff or slightly bigger buff they may as well make the whole system a single button buff that sometimes procs a potency increase. It would function the same.

I don't see how that goes against what I said.

I'd say remembering which of the new cards work with ranged vs melee takes the same amount of brainpower as 'learning' the old cards did. Except now every draw feels useful instead of potentially frustrating. Let's not pretend a 10% crit buff or Haste buff was any more exciting than 10% more damage. I feel as though the variety was only memorable because of just how terrible a bad roll could be. Ofc if you enjoy high-high's and low-low's I can see how you'd fine the current one boring, but I find the ShB AST way more healthy as far as game design goes.

Could they have found a way to balance the defensive cards vs offensive cards? Sure, but like racials in WoW it takes way too much effort for very little reward so you might as well scrap/change it, which unlike WoW they scrapped it and I think the class is much better for it. Now it can be balanced properly without having to account for such massive variance and I think the job is in a very decent spot rn.

EDIT:

2) The bigger problem is with XIV's class/encounter design overall. AST is supposed to be the "Utility Healer" but the game doesn't really know how to do "utility" outside of just damage buffs. The concept is so singular that when discussing it we pretty much use "damage buffs" and "utility" interchangeably because there's really little else. So if you think AST cards are boring, it's really just because the concept of utility in general is bland.

I agreed with most of your post except for this point. I feel like there's only so much you can do with a healer to make them really impactful due to the nature of how healing works. Unlike doing damage, overhealing exists, and you only want so much defense. So naturally, they give them more offensive oriented utility. I guarantee if a healer had something like a guardian angel type ability that gave someone a weakness free raise on death we'd still be in the same spot as we are now because while that kind of thing is great for prog, in the long run it doesn't really mean much compared to an AST giving a dps 14% more damage.

I feel like WoW's healers are a lot more 'healbot'-y than FF's which makes them really boring imo, but FF's issue is that the fights are such that you can p much just fire and forget your healing CD's without much thought unless again, you're progging. I think overhealing should be a lot more punishing in FF, I kinda want a mythic mannoroth type fight in the game that really stresses spacing out your healing cd's.

Hell I don't think I've ever seen someone be like 'Okay AST I'll use my CD's first X you use them the second.' because even if they both pop cd's at the same time nothing changes.

Essentially, the issue isn't that there's a lack of defensive utility but more-so there's no pressure to use it properly.

[Faroth]

Well i'm down to one Crystalline Mean questline left for Leatherworker. I wonder if this unlocks anything at the end like all the role quests. The CUL/ALC one was interesting and kind of makes me think people will miss Amaro's when Shadowbringers is over. FFXIV's Chocobo's are kind of lacking in terms of being more than mounts with nothing like Fat Chocobo, Choco hot and cold or Chocobo Gardens and the like from other games so the Amaro as their Norvrandt counterparts were a nice change of pace and its a shame they might be left behind.

Unless you get every class to 80 for the Amaro mount i guess

I'm leveling all jobs for the first time ever just to get an Amaro mount because of their Ill Mheg questlines and that one. I must have a feathered camel dragon friend to be best buds with my chocobo.

[Irian]

A few things about AST:

1) People blow the card changes so damn out of proportion. You spent half your time getting rid of shit cards and fishing for the good one anyway.

2) The bigger problem is with XIV's class/encounter design overall. AST is supposed to be the "Utility Healer" but the game doesn't really know how to do "utility" outside of just damage buffs. The concept is so singular that when discussing it we pretty much use "damage buffs" and "utility" interchangeably because there's really little else. So if you think AST cards are boring, it's really just because the concept of utility in general is bland.

3) Everything else about AST is pretty much the same. If you loved it before and somehow hate it now, that's a case of "Feels not Reals".

4) Someone else mentioned Square not seeming to really know what else to add to AST post-70 and honestly that's kinda the case with healers in general. Because much like the concept of "utility", Square also doesn't always seem to be entirely sure how to create situations that put healers strongly to the test in their role and then give them tools to work with to overcome that.

Not really. I liked AST because of the card system and while yes it was frustrating at times, the entire card system was fundamentally changed in its design. No more RR, shuffle changed, all cards redesigned to be lesser balances.

What I liked about AST before was the card minigame I had to juggle while healing. Without it, yeah, I don't like the class anymore.

[threads]

it's amazing how much more enjoyable e3s is compared to e2.

[Wrecktangle]

I really, really hate the wall-to-wall meta. I'm trying to level my WHM, and I simply cannot keep a levelling tank alive in Shadowbringer dungeons. The last two dungeons I tried were wipefests, because the tank refused to pull smaller.

Assuming you're playing WHM correctly, (swiftcast Holy -> stagger Holy-> into oGCD heals and not panicking overhealing the issue is less on the tank and more on the DPS.

Trust me when I say that if the mobs aren't at sub 35% HP by the time 10s of Holy Spam mitigation is up, the DPS aren't pulling their weight. This is why ACT is super useful. As a tank, If I see abysmal DPS (and trust me it's like 1/3 of roulettes I run, I adust as necessary). I'm blunt about it too. I'll flat out call out the DPS and say big pulls are off the table due to poor DPS. If DPS is high, but tank is dying, it makes it trivial to assign blame and hope they'll improve.

Why such a strong aversion to leveling a healer?

Not directed at me - but I don't like how you heal in this game. I'd KILL for some kinda grid/clique mod in FF14 or at least let mouseovers work in the default UI and not require macros. Until then healing will always be a pain in the ass to me.

However, I actually enjoyed healing more than I thought I would. I love the delicate balance of letting my healing do its work while I maximize damage. This includes not healing people when they take damage (passive regen is kinda busted in this game) and letting regens do work. In addition I love abusing oGCDs to see how low I can let a tank get without dying.

I think healers are more engaging to play in XIV than in other MMOs. In other MMOs, you spend 90% of your time healing, and if you aren't healing, you're useless in combat so you just sit there and do nothing.

In XIV, you can get the party healed up pretty quickly and then start doing damage. It's engaging to alternate between healing and playing the micromanagement game when heavy damage is coming in to refreshing dots, CCing, and dealing damage.

I can't speak for other MMO's that use the trinity system well, the only good examples I have are WoW and FF14 and I can say with absolute certainty if you're just heal botting in WoW you're an average at best healer. Some of the best healers put out tank level DPS and contribute very meaningfully.

Yeah, I dislike healing in FFXIV since I'd rather heal than DPS. I also hate mass pulls since it just devolves into spamming AoE as a DPS. I'd much prefer regular enemies to hit a lot harder and require crowd control like the good old days, though given how much some people in MMO's struggle with basic mechanics that's just wishful thinking I suppose.

Just out of curiosity whenever I see this statement, I'm not sure people know what they're asking for. CCing mobs just means making pull sizes smaller, it's not really any more engaging because you just do it at the beginning of a pull then focus down.

Where I really like mob design is in Mythic+ in WoW. Where the affixes add layers of depth that require adaptive solutions and collaboration. Stuff like raging making stuns and interrupts way more important (interrupts in general being more important), stuff like Necrotic making slows really valuable, bolstering forcing you to be smart about AOE, same thing with bursting (while also allowing specs with off-healing utility time to shine).

If FF14 simply made you CC mobs due to high damage you'd be just single targeting every single pack, that's not really engaging or fun. Unless I'm misunderstanding?

It's the "gathering them up" part that's different, and as small as that seems, it's not inconsequential and not nearly as brain dead easy or stress free as your statement makes it seem. A number of things can cause problems when gathering them up, especially on long pulls when you trying to maximize distance and get to the pack so your actual contact time with mobs en route is minimal. The main ones being a ticking HoT as you're pulling or a rogue crit/ big hit from a ranged DPS. That said, a methodical pause at each pack to snag threat on all of them using a couple AoE's fixes that, but that "slows down the run." More on this later.

I have to disagree. It sounds like you're not using your tools efficiently. For instance when I am pulling large wall to wall packs, Here's what I do:

Typically trash packs are in 3's. You run into the middle of them activate your PBAoE a half a second later (netcode...) to grab the one that's usually a pain and far away as it moves into the position you WERE in. You have plenty of time to do this while sprinting. If you miss one, or there's spares I'll regularly jump swing the camera and toss a shield lob or voke if they're too far. All while not slowing down an iota.

We can run an expert together and I can show you better since we only did that one the one time.

I agreed with most of your post except for this point. I feel like there's only so much you can do with a healer to make them really impactful due to the nature of how healing works. Unlike doing damage, overhealing exists, and you only want so much defense. So naturally, they give them more offensive oriented utility. I guarantee if a healer had something like a guardian angel type ability that gave someone a weakness free raise on death we'd still be in the same spot as we are now because while that kind of thing is great for prog, in the long run it doesn't really mean much compared to an AST giving a dps 14% more damage.

I feel like WoW's healers are a lot more 'healbot'-y than FF's which makes them really boring imo, but FF's issue is that the fights are such that you can p much just fire and forget your healing CD's without much thought unless again, you're progging. I think overhealing should be a lot more punishing in FF, I kinda want a mythic mannoroth type fight in the game that really stresses spacing out your healing cd's.

Hell I don't think I've ever seen someone be like 'Okay AST I'll use my CD's first X you use them the second.' because even if they both pop cd's at the same time nothing changes.

Essentially, the issue isn't that there's a lack of defensive utility but more-so there's no pressure to use it properly.

That's kinda his point though. Because of the way encounter design is handled (and subsequently healer design) that's why they're not impactful. If the design was less binary/more organic and there was genuine resource tension you could bring in situations where utility really shines. Without it though? No chance. We're in agreement on that.

Regarding Mythic Mannoroth, Mythic raiding has always been about CD management (almost exclusively healing CDs, but occasionally DPS ones too (i.e. ashvane, Furnace in BRF, etc.).

I do agree with your assessment that the defensive utility really isn't pressured very often or well.