1. #50881
    The Unstoppable Force Granyala's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by matheney2k View Post
    People play ff14 through steam? wtf???
    Yup bought it back in the ARR days on steam.

  2. #50882
    I think people vastly over-exaggerate the importance of ARR. Some of the so-called world building gets changed/retconned later on, most of the characters aren't memorable* including some of the Scions who don't get fleshed out until later, and a lot of it is just straight up filler. The main antagonists have no story arguably until ShB, the Ascians are no more than generic robed bad guys who have no motivation other than to cause chaos in the name of their "dark god".

    * I especially love every time an NPC says, "Remember me?" I have no idea who any of these people are. Okay, great, I helped you get medicine back in the day in Quarrymill, I guess that unmemorable quest line was leading up to this non-event moment? Fantastic. Same as when people say they couldn't cut the wine & cheese arc because you meet those characters later, who I can guarantee you I will not recognize when the time comes either. I'm reminded of the old gag where people feign that you've met before when you really haven't and because you can't remember they get to tell whatever story they like and you accept it. :P

    Also, regarding streamers, they are the worst people to get feedback from because they're entertainers. They're going to say/do what keeps an audience, not what they really think or feel. I've noticed every person who's started streaming FFXIV miraculously enjoys ARR despite threads everywhere of new players saying please tell me when this gets better, I think I'm going to quit, I can't keep powering through the MSQ it's so long and so bad, etc. Because no one wants to tune in to someone bitching through 50+ hours of content not to mention the stigma against skipping cutscenes/dialog.

    I still maintain that the game could've easily started at the Feast (Hell of an introduction) and not much of value would've been lost except for the quests leading up to HW.
    "We must now recognize that the greatest threat of freedom for us all is if we go back to eating ourselves out from within." - John Anderson

  3. #50883
    Quote Originally Posted by Lane View Post
    *importance of ARR post*
    It's a sign of good story writing that the world is interconnected and the consequences of our earlier actions, both good and bad, come back to us later. Be that the lives of people we influenced even if we don't know them (We never met the person the medicine was for at the time we got it) or how the story is weaved so its not retconning but simply established assumptions and speculation proven to be a misunderstanding, fabrication or simply untrue. Like the entire nature of certain magics in ShB not being that big of a surprise to anyone familiar with BLM spell mechanics.

    Not valueing that is on the player, not the game but thats besides the point of your post anyhow since you're speaking from the perspective of ARR's bloat. ARR sets up the foundation for everything that comes later. Can't value the big stuff as much without the little interactions and details before then that build up to it. It just doesn't hit right and feels much less impactful without it.

    That being said, it was made a long time ago under the burden and pressures of a rebuilt game with little funds and resources available, the taint of 1.0 and a lot of lessons to learn. Now that those lessons are learned (quite brilliantly that too), it could do with some adjustments to bring it on level with later content, make it a better build up and foundation.

    Yoshi P has said he is open to further adjustments of ARR over time. Hopefully we can see some filler changed to side quests. Especially the non-va lines improved because Arr has a lot of instances with fat 12 paragraph chat bubbles which could have been explained in two paragraph's or less (it only made sense for Alphinaud who was a know it all and for Urianger who is Urianger), that was seriously grating to me. But hopefully we will also have minimal loss of good stuff like the "If this isn't Thancred then we found a suitable replacement" lines which got removed.
    Last edited by Tenjen; 2021-10-18 at 07:39 AM.

  4. #50884
    The setup of the world is inconsequential if you lose the player's interest in the way it's presented.

    The "good story writing" seems to fall on the shoulders of Ishikawa, who was able to take shallow story threads from ARR and weave them into something deep and meaningful. As such, I disagree that you can't value later content without the earlier since ARR wasn't crafted from the beginning to culminate into what it did in ShB, which also makes it look worse in hindsight. Every time I do MSQ roulette I'm endlessly disappointed in Lahabrea. Plus, I watched through ShB with little context and still loved it, in fact, I can't think of anything from ARR that would've enhanced the experience though the reverse is true. I would've had no appreciation for the Crystal Tower series had it not been for ShB.

    Also, I wouldn't file cameos of obscure NPCs under 'good writing' either. I didn't remember who Laurentius was and the only reason I recognized Brayflox was because that was the name of the dungeon. I'm all for running into old characters, but they need to have left an impression. It'd be like a stranger coming up to you and saying, "You helped me once and it made all the difference!" You can be glad things worked out, but if you don't remember then it loses the impact.
    "We must now recognize that the greatest threat of freedom for us all is if we go back to eating ourselves out from within." - John Anderson

  5. #50885
    Quote Originally Posted by Lane View Post
    I'm all for running into old characters, but they need to have left an impression. It'd be like a stranger coming up to you and saying, "You helped me once and it made all the difference!" You can be glad things worked out, but if you don't remember then it loses the impact.
    Because you are mistakenly equating a "returning cameo" as something that's meant to be surprising with just characters that would be involved with something going on actually showing back up.

    They didn't have Laurentius show up to be like, "Oh shit remember him?" He's there because he would be.

    There's a subtle difference there but a difference nonetheless.

    It's not like WoW where some person just randomly shows back up after being absent for 5 years even though there were storylines that should have involved them but they were conspicuously absent (Like Wrathion in Legion)...it's characters just being there to a thing relevant to their previous motivations or plotlines.

    I've noticed every person who's started streaming FFXIV miraculously enjoys ARR despite threads everywhere of new players saying please tell me when this gets better, I think I'm going to quit, I can't keep powering through the MSQ it's so long and so bad, etc
    Which streamers have said that ARR is amazing or anything other than above average? I've watched Asmongold, Rich Campbell, Preach, Bellular, and even Pyromancer all do ARR and while they said they enjoyed it, all 5 of them while discussing ARR during the credits talked about parts that they did not like. Just because new people aren't overselling how 'bad' ARR is like long time players trying to convince their friends not to quit during the incredibly boring Post-Titan until Coerthas parts of ARR (Or patches 2.1-2.3) doesn't mean people are just lying. People are just saying they didn't find it as bad as much as the community made it out to be.

    Rather than streamers lying about ARR being amazing to keep their audiences (Which is just ridiculous, all the people listed had audiences that were already watching them and would continue to do so either way except Pyromancer I guess), what actually happened is that FF14 players, in their fervor to defend the game at all costs even when it doesn't need to be (Like Jesse Cox points out in his FF14 vs WoW comparison video) drastically overexaggerates how 'bad' ARR is.

    I'm still a relatively new player and I heard people say that ARR is atrocious and while it most certainly has its own myriad of problems, after finishing it, I found it nowhere near as bad as the apparent public opinion (or at least the loudest opinions in the community) said that it was.
    Last edited by Drindorai; 2021-10-18 at 10:09 AM.

  6. #50886
    The Lightbringer Pannonian's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Drindorai View Post
    Which streamers have said that ARR is amazing or anything other than above average? I've watched Asmongold, Rich Campbell, Preach, Bellular, and even Pyromancer all do ARR and while they said they enjoyed it, all 5 of them while discussing ARR during the credits talked about parts that they did not like. Just because new people aren't overselling how 'bad' ARR is like long time players trying to convince their friends not to quit during the incredibly boring Post-Titan until Coerthas parts of ARR (Or patches 2.1-2.3) doesn't mean people are just lying. People are just saying they didn't find it as bad as much as the community made it out to be.

    I'm one of those! I tell my friends asking me about FF14 that is a long and boring slog in the beginning. Why do i do this? Did it felt like a long and boring slog to me? Not really, but i like sotry rpgs. I tell this to people that i befriended playing other MMOs, and given that i know they like MMOs but have no idea how they feel about Story games, this works well, because:

    1. They don't surive ARR - yeah, the game gets better, but if it cannot grip you at least a bit on your way to 50, you wont love the better parts either
    2. If they DO like it, even better.

    In the end i overexaggerate the slog because i don't want to oversell something (especially given the current hype).

  7. #50887
    ARR is the fine time you play through it. Yeah, its a paint by the numbers game, but you're not replaying it so its still world building that is new to you. However, its rough should you go through it again. The pain in the ass part, the post launch content, is so easy since 5.3 it's not even worth talking about.
    Last edited by Dakhath; 2021-10-18 at 07:25 PM.

  8. #50888
    ARR is dreadful if you're a MMO player who isn't into long winded JRPGs or visual novels, which is a big problem when FFXIV is being touted as the alternative to WoW and as the current top dog of the genre, so ofcourse you're going to get people coming in with different expectations. Almost every other MMO out on the market right now let's you create a character and get instant action within a couple minutes, even if takes a while for you to reach endgame. Whereas with FFXIV, you create a character and have to sit through an hour of cutscenes and dialogue boxes before you even get to kill your first rat. And then you have to spend 300+ hours playing through a singleplayer JRPG before you can reach endgame and start doing the latest raids.

    Even if you do like long winded JRPGs and visual novels, ARR is just not well presented and comes off as subpar. It's very poorly paced. You have long stretches of the story where there is little tension and you ask yourself "what am I doing?". Even when the story is supposed to be urgent, like trying to rescue the Scions, you still somehow wind up sidetracked with doing boring chores. The ARR patches are also poorly paced as the only remotely interesting stuff going on is the Ul'dah drama, which is interlaced with more boring primal fodder arcs. None of the characters become fun until the expansions (except Tataru, who gets a gag here and there). There isn't much in the way of spectacle or somewhat fancy cutscenes until literally the final dungeon. Your character isn't fun to play in combat until late Stormblood. None of the boss fights are challenging. Only a handful of dungeons like Stone Vigil remotely pose a threat to you the player.

  9. #50889
    I've never understood the hate for ARR because while the story isn't as focused as the expansions, the gameplay is pretty much exactly the same.

  10. #50890
    Quote Originally Posted by Bovinity Divinity View Post
    I would have to disagree. ARR gameplay is absolutely awful in comparison.

    Most classes don't have anything resembling their late-game toolkit, and the longer GCD/overall slower pace make the early level gameplay an exercise in boredom and frustration sometimes. Many classes lose their identity altogether in early levels.

    Where other games in the genre have worked to make early levels more engaging, XIV actually does the reverse and actively pushes abilities further back for some reason.
    Sure, from the standpoint of classes, it's worse. I meant in terms of quest design - you're still largely going from person A to person B and talking. The only new things are those quests where you play as another character, and those are pretty hit and miss imo.

  11. #50891
    Over 9000! Poppincaps's Avatar
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    I always thought the hate for ARR was overblown. I will admit that around level 27, before they reworked ARR, I was considering quitting because the story and gameplay were boring, but after Titan is starts to ramp up and becomes decent. I'd say ARR is like a 7/10, Heavensward and Stormblood are 9/10, and Shadowbringers is a 10/10. So, relatively ARR isn't as good, but it's still serviceable. The quests leading into Heavensward are some of my favorite in the whole game.

  12. #50892
    Quote Originally Posted by Pannonian View Post
    I'm one of those! I tell my friends asking me about FF14 that is a long and boring slog in the beginning. Why do i do this? Did it felt like a long and boring slog to me? Not really, but i like sotry rpgs. I tell this to people that i befriended playing other MMOs, and given that i know they like MMOs but have no idea how they feel about Story games, this works well, because:

    1. They don't surive ARR - yeah, the game gets better, but if it cannot grip you at least a bit on your way to 50, you wont love the better parts either
    2. If they DO like it, even better.

    In the end i overexaggerate the slog because i don't want to oversell something (especially given the current hype).
    I understand entirely why it's done but my point is a streamer doesn't need to lie about how good or bad ARR is after doing it because they aren't trying to convince other people to play it. They're just giving their own feedback. And the claim that that they're being dishonest in terms of ARR's quality is a pretty ridiculous claim to make when other explanations make much more sense and don't require all of them to be weirdly nefarious for no reason. Especially people who draw in tens of thousands of viewers no matter what they do, like Asmongold.

  13. #50893
    I'd argue there's plenty of places where it makes sense for a character to show up or be mentioned and yet they're just entirely absent.

    The writers are pretty good at making stuff fit retroactively but they've admitted in interviews that they sort of wing it on many fronts. The entire of the First, for instance, is an unplanned offshoot of the Warriors of Darkness storyline.

    Yet then you have Regula van Hydrus who reveals that Garlemald isn't full of unhinged sociopaths and has honourable soldiers willing to die for the sake of a former enemy who in his dying breath states that the Emperor will have need of him someday. Yet there's zero follow up to that, not even an option to mention Regula during the peace talks in Stormblood.

    So, yeah, I have to agree with Lane. The 'remember me?????' moments often fall flat.

  14. #50894
    Part of my dislike of ARR is preference. I did not care about the city-state politics, the disputes with the beast tribes, or the Garlean threat, and that's 90% of ARR. The other 10% were primals which were so-so, Ascians which hadn't been fleshed out to be anything more than generic bad guys behind the scenes, and Scions who for the most part I didn't like and wouldn't have joined given the choice.

    I didn't feel like a protagonist. Minfilia and Alphinaud were both unbearable and the two I was most often running errands for or acting as the weapon of, so that wasn't fun. It wasn't until 2.4 that things started improving and also part of why I love HW/Ishgard so much because it seemed like they were the only ones who appreciated my character. Add to that the NPCs start journeying with you, treat you as a friend/family, etc. HW was everything I wanted in ARR and didn't get (aside from Thancred).

    I figured maybe it was a matter of taste, because the subjects in ARR didn't interest me, the gameplay didn't interest me, most of the NPCs didn't interest me. Then you add onto that the bulk of the MSQ is teleporting back and forth across the world to click through dozens of paragraphs of dialog about things you're already not interested in and it was rough. I would rate it a 2/10 only because it had moments, but it took me a month to get through as I'd go days not wanting to play because the MSQ was that off-putting. HW is 9/10 and ShB is 10/10. It pains me to dock a point from HW because I love it so much, but 3.4+ did kind of suck because I don't care about the Ala Mhigans. SB is going to be great. :P
    "We must now recognize that the greatest threat of freedom for us all is if we go back to eating ourselves out from within." - John Anderson

  15. #50895
    I am Murloc!
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    Keep in mind that when people are discussing ARR there's multiple versions of ARR. A lot of the people commenting on it now didn't get to experience the OG version of ARR. It's certainly not a badge of honor that I like to shove in peoples faces, but the recent people getting into the game and saying that ARR really isn't that bad got the trimmed down version of it. Which is probably for the best, because if it wasn't for my ex-GF at the time, there's absolutely no way I would have pushed through the rest of that experience several years ago.

    ARR is honestly something you can skim through and not really lose any major plot points. You literally go around keeping beast tribes down because you're one of the few people with the power to do it, while wading through city state politics, a looming Garlean threat and Ascians lurking in the shadows. The best part of ARR was it finishing up the original FF14s story through the raid at the very end. It's pretty much impossible to find groups for this shit, but it's something I highly recommend you do de-synced when you can go back and do it (even with just a couple people).

    I'm still not sure I like the majority of the scions aside from Urianger and the 'newest' member who joined at the end of Shadowbringers, but that might just be a different strokes for different folks kind of things. I do however like a lot of the secondary characters that aren't part of the main cast, in addition to some of the antagonists that show up during Shadowbringers.

    FF14 as four different parts is truly an ebb and flow for me. The low points to me are ARR and Stormblood, while the highs are really high in both HW and ShB. Stormblood might have gotten higher marks for me if the leveling experience wasn't so putrid. Not everything has to be hack and slash, but I swear to fucking god that there is more action in a dozen Shadowbringers quests than the entirety of Stormblood (and that's not much of an exaggeration). The only bad part of HW was the pre-patch content that lead into Stormblood TBH, lol.

    I can't really put my finger on it but both HW and ShB made me care about a lot of the characters, or dislike the villains in such a way that made it satisfying to ultimately put them down. I'm hoping for the best, but considering how the villains they currently have framed for Endbringer I don't have super high expectations. I'll be okay with the conclusion as long as it's better than Stormblood though.

    I've played quite a few of the jobs in the game and from a story telling perspective most of the job stories are pretty, uh, underwhelming. Except for Dark Knight, which seems to be where they put all of the good job story telling effort in. I recognize that the WoL is pretty much everything, but thinking of yourself as a DRK through the entirety of FF14 seems to make the most sense from a canon perspective (or a split between Paladin/DRK, much like Cecil in FF4).

  16. #50896
    Quote Originally Posted by Graeham View Post
    The writers are pretty good at making stuff fit retroactively but they've admitted in interviews that they sort of wing it on many fronts. The entire of the First, for instance, is an unplanned offshoot of the Warriors of Darkness storyline.

    Yet then you have Regula van Hydrus who reveals that Garlemald isn't full of unhinged sociopaths and has honourable soldiers willing to die for the sake of a former enemy who in his dying breath states that the Emperor will have need of him someday. Yet there's zero follow up to that, not even an option to mention Regula during the peace talks in Stormblood.

    So, yeah, I have to agree with Lane. The 'remember me?????' moments often fall flat.
    The Populares was a big part of the patch content of Stormblood, what do you mean? They also address what happens to them by the end of 5.3's final cutscene. They are not exactly the same group but essentially that idea. And they had essentially tried fleeing Garlemald because their cries were being unanswered.

    To say that this angle isn't discussed again is pretty false.

  17. #50897
    Quote Originally Posted by Drindorai View Post
    The Populares was a big part of the patch content of Stormblood, what do you mean? They also address what happens to them by the end of 5.3's final cutscene. They are not exactly the same group but essentially that idea. And they had essentially tried fleeing Garlemald because their cries were being unanswered.

    To say that this angle isn't discussed again is pretty false.
    I was specifically referring to Regula van Hydrus and not having any real follow up despite how huge a plot hook it was for the Emperor's best friend to turn out to not only be a reasonable guy, but sacrifice his life in order to protect the Warrior of Light, Scions and Unukalhai. Nobody ever brings it up again. Not even as a throwaway comment about how Zenos is a far cry from someone like Regula. Or when trying to push for peace with Varis right at the end of Stormblood.

    Maxima and the Populares are a different beast. They're not really Imperials in the typical sense and the defector trope has been done to death already so even as a huge fan of Garlemald in general, I'm glad we didn't get yet another copy and pasted 'liberation' storyline with the Populares at the forefront.

  18. #50898
    Quote Originally Posted by KrayZ33 View Post
    What makes you say that? Considering we are like 4 expansions in and there wasn't any significant problem up until now that is of any importance what so ever with the raids.
    Their internal group can beat the savage content just fine. That's all there is to test.
    FFXIV isn't as complex as WoW when it comes to mechanics and spec/class interactions.
    And who the heck does need to "re-learn" his class after an expansion has released? Wtf. That's a whole lot of nonsense.
    Neither the quest nor dungeons require you to even remotely play good/correct. You can probably get by with 1-2-3-1-2-3.

    We will probably be able to go with Trusts again anyway.
    ShB had this issue. Theorycrafting due to lack of access caused misconceptions and the lack of early player feedback due to poor internal testing led to issues with multiple jobs. This did affect the first raid tier, it still affects player perception today, a month before the new expansion.

    I'm sure you as a SMN main are looking forward to having all of 2 dungeons to learn your new job before you do a trial min ilvl and hit a DPS check like caused problems on Titania. Maybe instead of playing the new content everyone is looking forward to, SMN players should go play old content and SSS until they're comfortable with the new job, like they would've on a PTR? Never going to happen. Get those shoulder straps ready.

    If this isn't a problem, it's very weird that SE releases new jobs 10 levels below the previous expansion's cap.

  19. #50899
    The Unstoppable Force Granyala's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by infinitemeridian View Post
    I've never understood the hate for ARR because while the story isn't as focused as the expansions, the gameplay is pretty much exactly the same.
    All I remember of ARR: they had some nice threat going on and were trying to create a sense of urgency .... then they send me off to get some dumb cheese for 10 levels or so.

    Not much else stuck after so many years.

  20. #50900
    Quote Originally Posted by BiggestNoob View Post
    ShB had this issue. Theorycrafting due to lack of access caused misconceptions and the lack of early player feedback due to poor internal testing led to issues with multiple jobs. This did affect the first raid tier, it still affects player perception today, a month before the new expansion.

    I'm sure you as a SMN main are looking forward to having all of 2 dungeons to learn your new job before you do a trial min ilvl and hit a DPS check like caused problems on Titania. Maybe instead of playing the new content everyone is looking forward to, SMN players should go play old content and SSS until they're comfortable with the new job, like they would've on a PTR? Never going to happen. Get those shoulder straps ready.

    If this isn't a problem, it's very weird that SE releases new jobs 10 levels below the previous expansion's cap.
    Who has these issues? Misconecptions?
    Who and what are they based on?

    Never even noticed anyone complaining about that stuff.
    E4S was cleared 1 day after release.
    World FirstDPS were:
    DNC, Bard, MNK, DRG
    What kind of issues are we talking about?

    DPS Check on Titania?
    That wasn't even difficult to hit for casual players when it was relevant content and it sure as hell didn't matter in the slightest what classes you were going with.

    If you want to learn your class go to "what are the dummies called"-area and hit them for 30 minutes.
    Done. Or visit your guild house.
    Why do you need a PTR for that?
    Why exactly do you have to play 100% perfect as soon as the expansion hits? Please explain that to me.
    What is preventing you from doing it after you hit max level?
    If you want to learn to play your class properly, you can do it as soon as you hit max level and can do so on your own. If you can't figure it out on your own, you go for guides. That's not something that would change if you had a PTR.
    Last edited by KrayZ33; 2021-10-19 at 02:41 PM.

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