Final Fantasy XIV - Kiwi Free Company

[Sheep King]

To continue my theme of rewriting expansions, I feel DT should have been flipped as well.

Spoiler: DT MSQ Spoilers

The first half of the expansion should have been the vacation arc where we just go around all the Tural zones with Erenville as he delivers the required backstory and lore about the area, we meet all the players and see what they are about. Nothing crazy here, just helping the locals. Spooky tomb full of monsters? No worries, we'll go in and solve the problem, queue the first dungeon, ect, ect. Have troon cat just lurking in the background, same with Koana, Bakool Ja Ja and Zoraal Ja.

Then at 75 we should have the Valigarmanda trial to cap off the first half where we have to solve a real crisis, get invited to meet with Gulool Ja Ja and have Spheeeeeeen invade with her people. Zoraal Ja turns traitor, game continues as we got it. Sole exception is that Gulool Ja Ja doesn't bite the dust until way later on.

We solve the Alexandrian issue, and now the 7.X msq deals with the royal election stuff, where it's just a three way contest between Koana, Bakool Ja Ja and Wuk. It's resolved by 7.3, which then lets us lead into the next expansion.

If we're rewriting DT I would've said shrink Alexandria down and

Spoiler: Dawntrail fanfiction

kill off Gulool Ja Ja earlier. Instead of having the Rite of Succession conclude Wuk Lamat as the victor and then kill off Gulool Ja Ja, have him die before it finishes, maybe right after Valigarmanda. Zoraal Ja either assassinates him secretly with poison, or he takes advantage of his position as the trueborn son to accuse the other claimants of killing the Dawnservant. This causes Tuliyollal to fall into civil war, maybe even do a Romance of the Three Kingdoms kind of deal with Zoraal Ja, Wuk Lamat and Koana each taking a portion of the continent. Bakool Ja Ja can be the Lu Bu of this metaphor, just an asshole that rides around fucking shit up.

Wuk and Koana are temporarily enemies, leading traditionalist and progressive factions respectively and the Scions do end up at potential odds before they manage to unite against Zoraal Ja's militaristic faction that's completely taken over Xak Tural. Then you can introduce some of the Alexandrian elements to enhance Zoraal Ja's military might rather than give him an army of completely non-threatening remote control drones.

Overall I would've liked to see more of the political intrigue and battles that a Rite of Succession for an entire continent should be about. Honestly Tural is so large that it might even fit into two expansions, but that could be going too far.

I was really stoked for the Zenos fight by the end.

Having him basically go "whatever, fine, I'll help you save the world if it'll make you so fucking satisfied" in order to remove all distractions was actually pretty perfect for him. I also liked that I was able to have my WoL give the dialogue answer I'd wanted to give all along and accept his challenge.

No solo duty is genuinely difficult but the Zenos fight at the end came pretty close. Very satisfying, I enjoyed that one a lot, wish I could replay it. No gods, no threat to the world, just two obscenely powerful warriors fighting to the death to see who is best.

You can use New Game Plus from the duty menu to replay quests/duties, but annoyingly you have to start from level 85 onwards. Hopefully they add a simple way to replay solo duties if they're going to keep putting more effort into them like they have been.

 

[Baguette Child]

With a little help from my friend Jack Daniel I've finished the first two trials in Wuk's gay little contest to become king of the mexicans.

Encouraging a rural village of primitives closely related to a known beast tribe to focus all their prayers and aether into an idol of their god seemed like a patently bad idea. The old Scions never would've gone along with that. It just screamed "hey theres gonna be a primal" but the writers are probably too out of touch with the previous storylines to understand the parallel.

The zone designs aren't bad though; I have sympathy for all the poor designers that worked hard to make these areas aesthetically pleasing only to have the story that takes place in them be so dull. I've actually been surprised at just how boring it's been once we left Tural's capitol to go do these first two, versus outright rage-inducing.

In the rare couple seconds Wuk isn't speaking I've found Erenville and Krile to be mildly palatable and I think if I focus on the idea we're trying to stop an invasion of Garlemald by the spics maybe I can muster up the energy to keep going.

 

[King Of Braves]

With a little help from my friend Jack Daniel I've finished the first two trials in Wuk's gay little contest to become king of the mexicans.

Encouraging a rural village of primitives closely related to a known beast tribe to focus all their prayers and aether into an idol of their god seemed like a patently bad idea. The old Scions never would've gone along with that. It just screamed "hey theres gonna be a primal" but the writers are probably too out of touch with the previous storylines to understand the parallel.

The zone designs aren't bad though; I have sympathy for all the poor designers that worked hard to make these areas aesthetically pleasing only to have the story that takes place in them be so dull. I've actually been surprised at just how boring it's been once we left Tural's capitol to go do these first two, versus outright rage-inducing.

In the rare couple seconds Wuk isn't speaking I've found Erenville and Krile to be mildly palatable and I think if I focus on the idea we're trying to stop an invasion of Garlemald by the spics maybe I can muster up the energy to keep going.

I'm gonna be real honest with you, you can skip every cutscene and miss almost nothing. Literally everything in DT is better than the story. The faster you get through it the better.

 

[Baguette Child]

I'm gonna be real honest with you, you can skip every cutscene and miss almost nothing. Literally everything in DT is better than the story. The faster you get through it the better.

Yeah, I probably should. That's what my husband has been doing. I just wish I didn't have to. The story was a pretty big part of the fun for me until DT.

 

[Kane Lives]

Yeah, I probably should. That's what my husband has been doing. I just wish I didn't have to. The story was a pretty big part of the fun for me until DT.

Watching you crumble to the shoddy MSQ of Dawntrail in real time is very informative, to say the least.

Why does Hiroi have a job again?

 

[ChromaQuack]

Watching you crumble to the shoddy MSQ of Dawntrail in real time is very informative, to say the least.

Why does Hiroi have a job again?

Why do most people in Square Enix at large?

 

[Lou's Sentient Backfat]

Why do most people in Square Enix at large?

I would assume most of the worst parts of SE had tard wranglers at one point to keep them in check, but as the leadership of SE has made increasingly dumb decisions, like letting DEI consultancy firms wipe their ass all over everything, the whole NFT and play to earn stupidity, and now having their own internal DEI division, a lot of the quality employees have left so now the morons are running the show. Hell, look at what has happened to their main money maker since Yoshida has been off working on 16.

 

[King Of Braves]

It also doesn't help that FF14 is the main money making machine these days, so funding that should go back into the game is getting funneled into Squeenix's newest flops. It's likely a large part of why we so rarely get new types of content instead of the usual patch staples.

 

[Rich Evans Ayypologist]

Why do most people in Square Enix at large?

The consumerist impulse to value the brand above the talent has clearly proven to be the more profitable outcome.

Stock your company with people who are OK with just rehashing and remaking the same crap people know and recognize, and you have a save vehicle to attraction pension fund investors.

 

[Lou's Sentient Backfat]

The consumerist impulse to value the brand above the talent has clearly proven to be the more profitable outcome.

Stock your company with people who are OK with just rehashing and remaking the same crap people know and recognize, and you have a save vehicle to attraction pension fund investors.

That's exactly what keeps Acti/Blizz, Ubisoft, and EA in business. Most of their games aren't good, but people remember when they were good and keep dumping money into sub-par products hoping that the next one might be better.

 

[Troon Whisperer]

It also doesn't help that FF14 is the main money making machine these days, so funding that should go back into the game is getting funneled into Squeenix's newest flops. It's likely a large part of why we so rarely get new types of content instead of the usual patch staples.

I find it so fucking bizarre that when FF14 is successful and making money hand over fist, rather than invest that funds into the game and expand the team Yoshi-p decides to increase the time between patches and put less shit in them. Expert roulette was far more interesting when I had 2-3 new dungeons as potential options rather than just 1 dungeon for 4 months.

 

[Baguette Child]

I find it so fucking bizarre that when FF14 is successful and making money hand over fist, rather than invest that funds into the game

It tells you they probably don't view it as a long term asset anymore which is retarded. It's been providing cash money for them for ages and if they'd just keep delivering content vaguely on par with what they had been it could be for a long time to come.

But instead they're trading stability in the long term for short term gains. Doesn't bode well for FFXIV.

 

[ChromaQuack]

Ubisoft

They aren't doing too hot right now.

Acti/Blizz

Depends on the game, I know that OW2 failed to reach all the targets for profit share recently.

rehashing and remaking the same crap people know and recognize

I reckon they have not been doing this with the Final Fantasy brand at all (XIV aside), from the ps3 era onwards they have either been hybrid turn/action abortions with shitty systems like XIII, or full blown action games like XV and XVI. Turn based for SE seems to only exist in other IPs they own.

OT but speaking of XVI does this shit have any gameplay? I spent 45 minutes in the steam demo and it was all fucking cutscenes with 10 second long "press the forward key to climb a rock" segments. Definitely not inclined to drop $50 after that.

 

[Gravemind]

OT but speaking of XVI does this shit have any gameplay? I spent 45 minutes in the steam demo and it was all fucking cutscenes with 10 second long "press the forward key to climb a rock" segments. Definitely not inclined to drop $50 after that.

Very OT but did you not actually get to the actual gameplay segments of the demo? Did you not try the Eikonic Challenge segment?

The demo just literally consists of the opening of the game, so of course it's gonna be slow-going at first.

 

[ChromaQuack]

Very OT but did you not actually get to the actual gameplay segments of the demo? Did you not try the Eikonic Challenge segment?

The demo just literally consists of the opening of the game, so of course it's gonna be slow-going at first.

No, because I got bored before I got to it. I know it's going to be slow but I got tired of being baited into gameplay only to get even more cutscenes. At least in FFO I got to facepunch a goblin in the first 10 minutes of the game.

I'm not asking much, just throw me a couple guards or mooks to fight in the introductory chapter and I'm good.

 

[Gravemind]

No, because I got bored before I got to it. I know it's going to be slow but I got tired of being baited into gameplay only to get even more cutscenes. At least in FFO I got to facepunch a goblin in the first 10 minutes of the game.

I'm not asking much, just throw me a couple guards or mooks to fight in the introductory chapter and I'm good.

So... You quit before you actually got to the gameplay.

I'm pretty sure you can skip cutscenes if you just wanted to get to a sampling of the gameplay. (Also how do you spend almost an hour on that very first intro segment? It shouldn't take THAT long unless you're just pausing cutscenes and letting it sit in the background while you tab out. I'm still confused on that claim.)

 

[Trash Pandit]

OT but speaking of XVI does this shit have any gameplay? I spent 45 minutes in the steam demo and it was all fucking cutscenes with 10 second long "press the forward key to climb a rock" segments. Definitely not inclined to drop $50 after that.

I'm halfway into it(and watched a full stream of the base game back on the original PS release, I bought it because I wanted to play the DLCs myself) and the only actual gameplay is when you're fighting something with a stagger bar. As a very rough estimate I'd say that's 15, *maybe* 20% of the overall playtime at most? Any enemy without one is entirely unthreatening, meaningless fluff you can just spam 2-3 of your basic combo at and win.

 

[Baguette Child]

I'm halfway into it(and watched a full stream of the base game back on the original PS release, I bought it because I wanted to play the DLCs myself) and the only actual gameplay is when you're fighting something with a stagger bar. As a very rough estimate I'd say that's 15, *maybe* 20% of the overall playtime at most? Any enemy without one is entirely unthreatening, meaningless fluff you can just spam 2-3 of your basic combo at and win.

I know we're straying off topic for the thread, but I appreciate hearing this. I had been considering picking up XVI for something to try, but this doesn't sound like my cup of tea. Bummer. Wish SE still knew how to make decent games.

 

[Gravemind]

I'm halfway into it(and watched a full stream of the base game back on the original PS release, I bought it because I wanted to play the DLCs myself) and the only actual gameplay is when you're fighting something with a stagger bar. As a very rough estimate I'd say that's 15, *maybe* 20% of the overall playtime at most? Any enemy without one is entirely unthreatening, meaningless fluff you can just spam 2-3 of your basic combo at and win.

What difficulty did you play on?

 

[Trash Pandit]

What difficulty did you play on?

Whatever the "Action Focused" option at the start is. I haven't used any of the ez mode accessories that affect combat, just the one for more gil. I even tried out that difficulty mod on the Nexus for the last couple quests I did and all it accomplished was making the attacks of enemies I already thought were fine into oneshots while doing nothing of note to the trash since you can still stunlock them with a combo.

I know there's also an unlockable hard mode for NG+ but as far as I can tell from reading about it, it's just "more enemy health/damage" with no AI changes and a level cap for Clive(which I don't think I'll hit on this difficulty before DLC anyway) so I doubt it'd make common enemies any better.