Wow refugees, what are you enjoying about the game?

[NineSpine]

Big disagree for me. I felt that EW had some pretty significant pacing issues, and the fact that they effectively sidelined Garlemald to turn the bulk of the second act into "people get sad and turn into monsters" didn't sit well with me. Like, why put so much effort into introducing the Telephoroi and resurrected Zenos in the post-game ShB patches when they were sidelined for a depressed tween introduced at the 11th hour?

I also hated Elpis and everything associated with it on the grounds of "timey wimey bullshit is a terrible narrative device and it almost never works out well." But I was never part of the Emet-Selch fanclub, and I didn't want to bang/be banged by Hythlo/Venat/Emet-Selch like the rest of the apparently very thirsty playerbase, so maybe that's just me. Clearly a lot of people liked it, so I'm perfectly fine with just accepting it wasn't my cup of tea. Endsinger was a *very* Final Fantasy final boss... and while that gave me nostalgia, I also tend to not think of "Final Fantasy final boss" as a generally good narrative end to a story. She kind of came out of nowhere in the final act of the game, at the same time they introduced dynamis as a retconned explanation for why things happened (kind of a shitty resolution to the "what 'sound' was Emet-Selch talking about?" plot thread if you ask me, but YMMV.) Not to mention the good guy brigade just going "idk I guess?" when Zenos shows up and wants to munch on what was left of the mothercrystal.

I don't understand where people get emotional investment in Ultima Thule from. Gorgeous zone, great music, awful plot. Sacrifices aren't meaningful, or sacrifices, if you're literally telling the player that they can make it all better when they feel like it. At that point it just becomes a monologue conga line.

There's also the separate issue that, for me... I don't really like the Scions that much? They're okay. But I feel like they're getting more and more Bowdlerized with every expansion, because Square-Enix doesn't want to threaten their cash cow. Yet with any story that's expected to be told for such a long stretch, and where the designated protagonist is effectively faceless and mute (at least Link has the benefit of expression, if not voice...), it's hard to keep using the same characters over and over, especially when by all rights they finished their story arcs long ago. Like, by the end of ShB, Thancred should have been retired as a primary character - either he dies protecting someone (as with many, I think he should have killed Ran'jit and died shortly afterwards from the strain, during that duty you play as him in ShB) or he's just sidelined like Krile and new characters become part of the "player party." See also: every other Scion that's part of the "player party" right now. Even the twins. None of the primary characters are really growing or advancing or changing in these narratives.

Alphie hasn't really changed substantially since the end of ARR - he's still the same arrogant, stubborn kid that expects success all the time, fails, does the shonen anime protagonist HEROIC DETERMINATION thing, and repeats. Alisaie is still a tsundere-for-WoL kid that gets angry and hits things and starts chewing the scenery as soon as Designated NPC That Will Die Later, in fact, dies later because they were marked for death the moment Alisaie made them her emotion pet. Y'shtola has never once stopped being a catty, "I seek knowledge!" person with zero complexity or nuance to their character, the downside of being the designated waifu. G'raha stopped developing after ShB, becoming just an uwu WoL-senpai husbando counterpart to Y'shtola. Urianger talks about being more open and honest with people and then in literally the very next fucking sentence wants to hide him doing another duplicity. Oh, and they mentioned Moenbryda, that one NPC that was introduced and then killed off a month or two later (and now less than an hour of gameplay these days), to the point that most people only vaguely remember who she is or what she did other than "yeah she was Urianger's gf or something idk." Great voice acting in that scene, seriously A+ work, but not exactly good storytelling.

I dunno. I think ShB benefited *greatly* from being a "contained episode." They could introduce new characters without having to worry about tying them into the greater whole, and they could have the Scions be somewhat different from their normal selves, owing to them arriving on the First months or years ahead of the WoL.

I think you missed the point with Garlemald. The point is that we didn't have to fight them. They destroyed themselves before we ever really got there. Thematically, this leads right into the next chapter of the story, which is not about "people getting sad". It's about how societies destroy themselves, which is exactly what the Garlemald story was all about. What happened to Garlemald echoes throughout the rest of the story.

[Wrecktangle]

People who say gearing alts is hard do not actually plat the game. I ran 6 different toons in SL 5 of which were alts. I literally played maybe 30 minutes a week in each alt to keep them raid ready for when I needed to switch. Each alt is only around 10ilvls lower than my main and I barely played them. All fully unlocked with full leggos. I also did it all before the catch up mechanics.

Mind you I agree that the time burden often placed on WoW is considerably over-stated or flat out wrong by some people here. I play quite literally 8 hours a week and that includes raiding and maintain a top 100 spot. My actual playtime that isn't raiding is generally less than 2 hours a week mandatory. I do however one trick so no alts for me.

Ive seen savage and I know people who run it. It is not even close. Savage in FF14 is heroic difficulty in WoW. This is coming from players who run top 50 world mythic.

I read your post. You said savage is equivalent to mythic which is just 100% false. Do not back peddle. No one cares about lockouts. That is not even remotely what is important in your post.

The first four words of your post is the part where you are wrong.

I've actually progressed both content at a very high level. This isn't a savage = heroic or savage = mythic, it's actually incredibly nuanced. Savage bosses are absolutely and without a doubt significantly harder than early heroic bosses playing at an elite level. We don't clear them in 1 pull. We don't figure the mechanics out the first attempt. Now with that said, very few (cough Shiva) if any savage bosses compare to the average mythic end boss.

The problem with this comparison is that Mythic is 20 people and FF14 raiding is 8. I could clear Mythic 100% easier if you let me cherry pick the best 8 players from my raid. Heroic? Good grief we'd probably clear in less than 5 wipes blind at minimum ilvl. Each game has aspects that make it simultaneously harder and easier than the other so it's VERY silly to compare them in a vacuum, or so matter of factly as you both have done.

I'd be glad to share more expertise on this if you're actually curious or have some additional input/specific examples.

[Arlette]

It's a pretty common tactic when people are trying to tear something down. If they can gaslight people into thinking that the best thing isn't actually that good then subconsciously they'll start to think that everything else must surely be crap.

Oh yeah for sure, that's what I was going with when pointing that out. It's that its a bunch of incredibly dishonest, bad faith, spins on what actually happened (Or just flatout lies) trying to insist the things that people found the most enjoyable isn't actually good.

It's incredibly transparent. And people like that can write paragraph after paragraph all they want trying to pretend it's a valid criticism, but if they're going to open with, "The second half of EW is about people being sad" then I just dismiss your criticism right out of the gate. You either just skipped the dialogue or you are intentionally not getting what the story is actually saying.

Its also a funny caveat that this "sound" crap is brought up when it was the most insanely vague tease that certain people latched their entire hopes onto even though it wasn't really even being teased for the future, was just a thing people noticed a few times. Even the honest actors that I saw who used to talk about it have stopped because it was nothing. lol Now it's just invoked by a dishonest actor to try and pretend they set up some big storyline that they 'retconned' (Most hilarious use of that word in this context I've seen so far) it.

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I think you missed the point with Garlemald. The point is that we didn't have to fight them. They destroyed themselves before we ever really got there. Thematically, this leads right into the next chapter of the story, which is not about "people getting sad". It's about how societies destroy themselves, which is exactly what the Garlemald story was all about. What happened to Garlemald echoes throughout the rest of the story.

"I think you missed the point" could be the thesis to every one of his posts on FF14. And this is me assuming he's not just intentionally deliberately being dishonest, a big assumption based on his posts already.

[Ghost of Cow]

Mind you I agree that the time burden often placed on WoW is considerably over-stated or flat out wrong by some people here. I play quite literally 8 hours a week and that includes raiding and maintain a top 100 spot. My actual playtime that isn't raiding is generally less than 2 hours a week mandatory. I do however one trick so no alts for me.

The thing I found with WoW is that it doesn't require that much time, but it's very, very easy to be inefficient with your time such that you might think it does.

[Sorrior]

That seems to be the general consensus, honestly. EW was full of moments that are seemingly made to provoke memes and fanarts, but it was kind of weak as a story compared to ShB.

Yeah it reallly felt to me like it should have been two expansions instead of one.

Like one with the focus on garlemald and patch content leading to the big reveal/hints of going into space(maybe end with Zodiark and then a cutscene to finish the main story). Having sharlayan could still work as an idyllshire type "hey go here for endgame shit but just a note in the .0 patches" thus even allowing space reveals in patches

Then next expansion gets us in space exploring the worlds afflicted by what was going on. It would allow more worlds to be fleshed out and could have used the moon as the hub.

It just felt like it was so perfectly split..Plus would jave had the first story arc end at le el 100..which pleases my ocd side.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Is there a solution for me or do I need to either suck it up and deal with the godawful storytelling method or give up and play other games?

If you don't like long winded visual novels, don't play FFXIV. That is the essence of FF14. There is other stuff tacked on such as raiding and PvP, but there isn't much meat to them. If you skip through the VN to get to those parts, you will be disappointed.

[Arlette]

If you don't like long winded visual novels, don't play FFXIV. That is the essence of FF14. There is other stuff tacked on such as raiding and PvP, but there isn't much meat to them. If you skip through the VN to get to those parts, you will be disappointed.

Unless you like them like a lot of people because a lot of them are super fun. Especially the end-game raiding content.

But hey here's Val again hating everything about it and pretending the game is just a VN.

[Yarathir]

I mean, it's a pretty strong singleplayer story first and foremost. It just also has multiplayer elements added to it, housing, a bunch of side content, gathering and crafting jobs, yadda yadda yadda.

And it's good that way.

[Yarathir]

A story with gameplay attached, like a video game? You heard it here first: Val is upset FF14 is a video game.

Pvp is fine, raids are great and visually telling of an entire story in an MMO-fight, but some like DSR sort of require you to have paid attention in heavensward, which is wholly different to wow where most bosses are just loot pinatas reskinned.

Sometimes they say "ENOUGH!" though...

[Yarathir]

“I was just protecting you from a far worse threat because I loved you so much”.

The Firster Ones....

[Arlette]

It's also a little weird to see somebody talk about how bad the raid fights are in FF14 when in WoW we just had an expansion where multiple WF guilds came out talking about how bad Sylvanas was as a final boss in a raid.

That's not to say raiding in SL was bad. Nathria and Sepulcher were super fun. Just seems like a really bizarre attack to lob when people have been talking about how they loved Ultimate Dragonsong's Reprise for a while, not to mention the others.

[bmjclark]

Loved everything through shadowbringers. Actually struggled to get through endwalker (i took a 3 month break or so after shadowbringers and came back for endwalker so it's not like I was just burned out or something). I had to force myself to log in just to finish it at the very end. Really just didn't care about the story in the slightest

It's also a little weird to see somebody talk about how bad the raid fights are in FF14 when in WoW we just had an expansion where multiple WF guilds came out talking about how bad Sylvanas was as a final boss in a raid.

In fairness, I think a good fight is for a WF guild vs what a good fight is for an LFR or normal player are 2 very different things. Sylvanas is a pretty cool fight if you 1 or 2 shot it. Not a very cool fight when you wipe 10 mins in 400 times

[Yarathir]

It's also a little weird to see somebody talk about how bad the raid fights are in FF14 when in WoW we just had an expansion where multiple WF guilds came out talking about how bad Sylvanas was as a final boss in a raid.

That's not to say raiding in SL was bad. Nathria and Sepulcher were super fun. Just seems like a really bizarre attack to lob when people have been talking about how they loved Ultimate Dragonsong's Reprise for a while, not to mention the others.

I mean, WF guilds also weren't happy with Sepulcher. Spent the majority of their time doing splitruns to the point that it looked like their soul was about to leave their bodies.

[Jinpachi]

I don't feel compelled to log in and do chores every day.

In WoW, you had to log in every day and do your chores, or you were falling behind. You had to do your world quests, and kill the world boss, and then your mythic + run for your chest, and then do the LFRs, and then do your visions. And then, once you had done all that, hopefully you were high enough ilevel to get accepted into a PUG for the latest raid so you can get your weekly lockouts. If you don't keep up with doing your chores, you eventually won't be able to get into a PuG, and that's GG because everything in WoW boils down to "doing the latest raid on the highest difficulty possible".

In FFXIV, not everything boils down to raiding. Raiding is just another activity you can do if you want to do. Yes, there are chores (your roulettes), but they aren't mandatory: they're for leveling up the other jobs if you want to. Yes, there is stuff at endgame that have ilevel requirements, but it is pretty easy to meet them (buy exarchic gear, or turn in your tomestones at Eulmore, or do a few dungeon/Nier runs, or any combination of those three). I can not log in for weeks or even a few months and come back and I can still pretty much jump into almost anything just like that, whereas WoW felt like a secondary job.

The only real problem is that PuGing trial/raid content suffers from the same problem that PuGing WoW content does: if you're not in a learning party during the first day or two, you've missed the train and pretty much every PuG after is going to expect that you perfectly know the mechanics, and sometimes expects that you have a ilevel higher than what the instance actually drops. That's not so much a problem with the game itself, but with the absurd expectations MMO players have formed.

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I guess the other thing I like about FFXIV is the story and the music. I have my gripes with the story but it's pretty consistently good. The music is also pretty great.

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I do really wish that the dialogue/text boxes during battle were voiced. I am in the middle of a fight - in addition to having to watch my cooldowns and rotation - I also have to be looking at the AoE markers on the ground, what my target is casting, the status of my party members, etc, and I just can't really read a dialogue or text-box that only lasts 4 seconds.

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I also like how FFXIV doesn't remove content from the game. Well... yes, they do remove stuff: the Garo glamours, the Yokai Watch and Dragon Quest minions and the FFXV car mount disappear for years at a time, and then there is the seasonal event stuff that gets put into the store... but they don't do the stupid WoW thing where they literally yank out entire storylines from the game. In WoW, the second half of the MoP and WoD stories were told in the Legendary Questline... which were removed for arbitrary reasons (imagine if the Heavensward post patch MSQ was removed). And the excellent Mage Tower content in Legion was removed... for arbitrary reasons. Really great, amazing stuff that my friends won't ever get to see because they weren't playing when that stuff was still in the game.

This is the EXACT reason i started buying(with gold) carries through heroic. That, and the nathria plate set is absolutely SICK.

[Arlette]

I mean, WF guilds also weren't happy with Sepulcher. Spent the majority of their time doing splitruns to the point that it looked like their soul was about to leave their bodies.

I had quit by then so I followed it less so I didn't want to assume. I just don't remember hearing as much about it except for that one boss that looks like it's out of Starcraft requiring 400 pulls or something.

I do distinctly remember people saying how much they hated Sylvanas' raid fight.

[ippollite]

Zepla lost her mind. You can too!

[neik]

The game is designed with astronomical and very specific intentions behind, and that's how as a player you should try and approach it. I kept barking up the wrong tree with various hysterical methods (skipping scenes, zerging, buying tales, rushing to endgame, reading absolutely zero dialogs) until I decided to meditate on my actions and just play the game the way it should be played when you begin your journey for the first time.

So the way you fall in love with the game (again, for some of you) is just to ride that boat the moment you create your character. Without any preconceived notions on how you think it should be designed and so on. You can apply same method to any other video game, and I won't try to take it away from you. But just meditate on FFXIV itself, and go on that journey like a good pilgrim you are.

Many good things will follow after. You probably will become a better human being. Wild claims? Don't say I didn't warned you. It's just a recommendation, you don't have to do anything I say, but for those who are willing to try FFXIV, I'd say go for it.

[Coldkil]

Eh, o cam feel your point. It wasn't my case with ff14 but playing so many years basically "only" wow made me "fossilize" into a very specific playstyle which in the end only works well with wow. And even there it's due to the players and not the game itself.

Reason why after 18 years i decided to quit it for good. I'm waiting for D4, but even there i'm gonna play it solo and totally blind - i have become tired of optimizing the fun out of games.

[Ghost of Cow]

Reason why after 18 years i decided to quit it for good. I'm waiting for D4, but even there i'm gonna play it solo and totally blind - i have become tired of optimizing the fun out of games.

Funny thing, I said this to myself when WoW first released. That I was gonna just go in fresh and stop worrying about min/maxing and optimizing like I had been doing in other games and etc.

...guess we see how well that worked out for me. ><

[Coldkil]

Funny thing, I said this to myself when WoW first released. That I was gonna just go in fresh and stop worrying about min/maxing and optimizing like I had been doing in other games and etc.

...guess we see how well that worked out for me. ><

Haha. Yeah i suppose that in general we're that kind of players, always searching to do better. But i think it's different between "i like this build, let's see how farvi can bring this" and "you either do this or you're suboptimal". To me, out of respect for the time the people spend with me playing, the second option has always been the way to go.

Now i'm at a poi t where basically no one cares, everything is already written and explained, here's your ladder to climb. And i have zero interest in climbing ladders against other people.