Final Fantasy XIV - Kiwi Free Company

[Agarathium1066]

In a few months I'd expect the average player to be able to clear just by signing up to one of the carry to clear events these communities usually do like with BA and DRS. Shame about it being Discord exclusive content filled with fags like this but oh well.
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If there was a halfway popular option for organizing this out of game shit (or you know, a way to sign up for FT or the like IN GAME that didn't suck ass) these fucks would eventually start to lose their death grip on the social aspect of the game. SE doesn't seem to give a shit and likely won't stop designing this awkwardly balanced stuff.

Bozja's raids must've been lightning in a bottle because I thought the normal difficulty for that was enjoyable but not ball busting.

 

[Smug Chuckler]

So it's chaotic raid again? It's extreme level content but I need to find 23 more competent people who are willing to wipe and progress? I have to sign up for some discord bullshit? Dawntrail feels like the anti-Endwalker, like EW they fail to cater to the midcore but unlike EW they cater more to the sweaties. They should have a normal version where you can get the notes and the card and maybe a more solid conclusion for the story in this area, keep the method of entering for this mode. Once you beat the normal version, you unlock an npc that you can enter the "savage" version. I won't bother with the tower for now, hopefully the card and notes are drops in the next area or something.

 

[Twin Addler]

but I need to find 23 more competent people who are willing to wipe and progress?

23-47 other people. Ideally more cause it becomes much less forgiving if you have the minimum number of people.

 

[The Bovinian Derivative]

I tried WoW for the first time in years because I really don't enjoy the loss of morale and motivation in FF14 right now.

WoW in all forms is so detached and aimless I bounced off immediately. I really like the playable races (hot elves) and classes (sick ass demon hunters and death knights) but the world and quests are so disjointed I can't get into it.

I guess I will wait for the next expansion or something, I'm still only 60% through DT...

I floated the idea of starting WoW a while ago to my friends because I wanted an alternative to FF so I was immediately dragged off to classic WoW on the Anniversary realms because their nostalgia kicked in. I also got turned off at first because I was like "where's the msq? the fuck is going on?" now that we're level 60 in a raiding guild I got some mmo-envy. FF dungeons and (most) normal/alliance raids up to DT are so braindead compared to the raids and later dungeons in the base WoW game it's insane. The raids and dungeons I've been to in WoW have their routine too that we stick to, but it's not just pulling wall to wall and dodging a-year-ahead-telegraphed boss mechanics.

 

[Troon Whisperer]

WoW's MSQ is a horrible disjointed mess that makes no sense, but the individual zone stories are pretty good. I'm having a lot of fun just picking a zone and working my way through the quests. It's interesting to see how they do things differently, like one thing I'm doing now in WoW is the Nightfall senario, which is just a FATE that pops every hour on the hour, but it's got a wide variety of tasks to do to mix things up while it's in progress, and for extra flavor it's got NPC voice lines. The NPC telling me to "get in there soldier!" lives rent free in my head.

 

[00R-Gundam]

Color rocks grind has been completed. The last one didnt wanted to spawn. Only spawn after me doing solo fates as a Tank. Now to get the tomestones to buy the weapon. Probably will level up the occult classes or get back to leveling up miner, maybe even tackle cosmic exploration

 

[Baguette Child]

This uh... seems like a really bad time to be selling tickets to an event in downtown LA.

 

[Ravana]

It’s hilariously out of touch and I hope Sena shows up then gets flash banged by police.

 

[SnowBall]

You know I genuinely wonder if the FFXIV community in general deserves DT’s shitty writing. One of the biggest criticisms of DT is that it’s basic, childish, full of black and white morality, and tries too hard not to offend anyone. I spent years dealing with fans getting extremely offended by the most mild shit to the point of making posts detailing trigger warnings, seeing them rake Ishikawa and, to a lesser extent, other writers over the coals from Stormblood onwards with accusations of glazing Nazis and being racist, fascist imperialism apologists and colonialism supporters for daring to take a nuanced approach to certain characters like Emet, Venat, Yotsuyu, Gaius, etc. as well as taking nuanced approaches to places like Garlemald (the SJW crowd despises the Garlemald section of EW because apparently according to them Ishikawa wants us to feel sorry for Nazis.) It’s very obvious this community cannot handle even the most mildly controversial parts of the plot so now we have this Saturday morning cartoon writing in DT that tries too hard to be “culturally sensitive” and politically correct.
Unless we get another staff shake up we’ll never get villains like Emet or Gaius or extremely morally grey characters like Venat again because the community would just go back to screeching that the writers are Nazis and imperialism apologists or that they portray genocide in a positive light. It’s obvious DT caters to the crowd who spent all of Stormblood through Endwalker screaming about “problematic” writing and those who were literally bedridden for multiple days and/or seeing a therapist for depression because of Venat’s actions (literal true stories.)

(ETA: trigger warning list I posted hundreds of pages back that shows the fragile mind of your average XIV player.)

 

[Well Intentioned]

You know I genuinely wonder if the FFXIV community in general deserves DT’s shitty writing. One of the biggest criticisms of DT is that it’s basic, childish, full of black and white morality, and tries too hard not to offend anyone. I spent years dealing with fans getting extremely offended by the most mild shit to the point of making posts detailing trigger warnings, seeing them rake Ishikawa and, to a lesser extent, other writers over the coals from Stormblood onwards with accusations of glazing Nazis and being racist, fascist imperialism apologists and colonialism supporters for daring to take a nuanced approach to certain characters like Emet, Venat, Yotsuyu, Gaius, etc. as well as taking nuanced approaches to places like Garlemald (the SJW crowd despises the Garlemald section of EW because apparently according to them Ishikawa wants us to feel sorry for Nazis.) It’s very obvious this community cannot handle even the most mildly controversial parts of the plot so now we have this Saturday morning cartoon writing in DT that tries too hard to be “culturally sensitive” and politically correct.
Unless we get another staff shake up we’ll never get villains like Emet or Gaius or extremely morally grey characters like Venat again because the community would just go back to screeching that the writers are Nazis and imperialism apologists or that they portray genocide in a positive light. It’s obvious DT caters to the crowd who spent all of Stormblood through Endwalker screaming about “problematic” writing and those who were literally bedridden for multiple days and/or seeing a therapist for depression because of Venat’s actions (literal true stories.)

(ETA: trigger warning list I posted hundreds of pages back that shows the fragile mind of your average XIV player.)

It always amuses me that the morons who praise the everliving shit out of the story are also functionally illiterate and only understand the MSQ in a very surface level way while misunderstanding a lot of things they complain about.

What I think is telling is that both JP and NA were reaaaaaally unhappy with Dawntrail's story and since the devs generally only give a shit about JP opinions, and the higher-ups at SE only care about $$$, we're probably going to see some adjustments next expansion.

 

[00R-Gundam]

Would've been cool if along the story as Wuk Lamat explores the country she slowly realizes that Zoraal Ja was right or atleast has the right idea culminating in her coronation and becoming a tyrant of sorts that youll eventually fight, even teaming up with Zoraal Ja to defeat her.

 

[King Of Braves]

You know I genuinely wonder if the FFXIV community in general deserves DT’s shitty writing. One of the biggest criticisms of DT is that it’s basic, childish, full of black and white morality, and tries too hard not to offend anyone. I spent years dealing with fans getting extremely offended by the most mild shit to the point of making posts detailing trigger warnings, seeing them rake Ishikawa and, to a lesser extent, other writers over the coals from Stormblood onwards with accusations of glazing Nazis and being racist, fascist imperialism apologists and colonialism supporters for daring to take a nuanced approach to certain characters like Emet, Venat, Yotsuyu, Gaius, etc. as well as taking nuanced approaches to places like Garlemald (the SJW crowd despises the Garlemald section of EW because apparently according to them Ishikawa wants us to feel sorry for Nazis.) It’s very obvious this community cannot handle even the most mildly controversial parts of the plot so now we have this Saturday morning cartoon writing in DT that tries too hard to be “culturally sensitive” and politically correct.
Unless we get another staff shake up we’ll never get villains like Emet or Gaius or extremely morally grey characters like Venat again because the community would just go back to screeching that the writers are Nazis and imperialism apologists or that they portray genocide in a positive light. It’s obvious DT caters to the crowd who spent all of Stormblood through Endwalker screaming about “problematic” writing and those who were literally bedridden for multiple days and/or seeing a therapist for depression because of Venat’s actions (literal true stories.)

(ETA: trigger warning list I posted hundreds of pages back that shows the fragile mind of your average XIV player.)

Excellent write-up. However, can Venat be considered "morally grey?" By all accounts, she was the one that suffered for thousands of years just to protect the planet when she wouldn't have had to if the Ancients could have dealt with the slightest hardships without losing their fucking minds and feeding people to the Zodiark meat grinder. Her entire existence since the Final Days was self-sacrificing.

 

[BruhSheep]

(ETA: trigger warning list I posted hundreds of pages back that shows the fragile mind of your average XIV player.)

I have read some dumb fucking shit in my life, but that is some of the stupidest dickless trash in a long time. It's a fucking wonder these people can function enough to wipe their own asses without crying that the smell of their own shit offends them.

 

[Agarathium1066]

Would've been cool if along the story as Wuk Lamat explores the country she slowly realizes that Zoraal Ja was right or atleast has the right idea culminating in her coronation and becoming a tyrant of sorts that youll eventually fight, even teaming up with Zoraal Ja to defeat her.

It would be interesting if they at least found out why he felt that way beyond him being a jughead. If there was some serious conflict brewing or the wildlife was growing more out of control but Zoraal Ja was actually working feverishly to keep a lid on it all. Could have even opted to go with the idea that Zoraal Ja was in secret fighting against the Alexandrian invasions then decided to turn coat.

There were ways to make the character more interesting but they opted for him having a raging inferiority complex.

 

[Sheep King]

It would be interesting if they at least found out why he felt that way beyond him being a jughead. If there was some serious conflict brewing or the wildlife was growing more out of control but Zoraal Ja was actually working feverishly to keep a lid on it all. Could have even opted to go with the idea that Zoraal Ja was in secret fighting against the Alexandrian invasions then decided to turn coat.

There were ways to make the character more interesting but they opted for him having a raging inferiority complex.

I hate to come back just for the story sperging, I just haven't found the energy to jump into the Occult Crescent grind yet.
But as I said before; Zoraal Ja's entire motivation revolves around his relationship with his father, but the two of them don't get *a single scene* to see their relationship in person until he decides to kill him.

There are a lot of ways you could make him interesting; there's nothing fundamentally wrong with the idea of him having an inferiority complex, but you need some kind of development or discovery to make a character interesting. We're told how much the people root for him, maybe he should've been a charismatic playboy kind of prince who's hiding his true ambitions. Or maybe he could've changed in personality when he comes back from the portal to Alexandria, so instead of still acting like a repressed freak he now projects an air of authority like his father and he wants to kill Wuk Lamat because deep down he's terrified of people who know his true weakness. Instead Krile literally takes one look at him and says "yeah that guys fucking nuts", and he returns after spending 30 years in an alternate dimension completely the same as when he left.

This is a consistent problem across all the characters in DT, every character is basically the same from beginning to end with no reveals that change the way the player will see them. The only characters with twists are Bakool Ja Ja (turns out he's a good guy!) and Sphene (turns out she's a bad guy!) but the only reason you won't predict them is because they're fucking stupid and inconsistent.

(ETA: trigger warning list I posted hundreds of pages back that shows the fragile mind of your average XIV player.)

I find it hard to believe that's even real. Funny how they mention Vauthry being a "fatphobic" character but no mention of Dulia-Chai being a comical depiction of a fat rich white woman who's overbearing and completely clueless about other people's struggles, almost like whoever wrote this knows bringing her up would lead to an obvious comparison

 

[Agarathium1066]

I just haven't found the energy to jump into the Occult Crescent grind yet.

I've enjoyed it but I'm fond of Field Operations. The job system is a neat little idea but none of it is going anywhere anytime soon.

But as I said before; Zoraal Ja's entire motivation revolves around his relationship with his father, but the two of them don't get *a single scene* to see their relationship in person until he decides to kill him.

This is why I didn't like it. Most of the characters have their traits told to us by Wuk. We then see very little of that. Koana we see be techy or forward thinking once and it only does half the job. Zoraal Ja only fights a big monster to keep people safe once along with the party. You don't see how he tamed the golden alpaca, you don't see much of him at all. The only reason his prowess in battle is proven is you get to see him krump Bakool in a cutaway scene we should not know about as it involved no one who would tell us or the party.

Too much tell and no showing for most of the cast that isn't Wuk but that drum has been beaten to near breaking point. There's multiple effortposts and video essays that put in more energy and sense into breaking down why Wuk was a mistake.

Instead Krile literally takes one look at him and says "yeah that guys fucking nuts", and he returns after spending 30 years in an alternate dimension completely the same as when he left.

I'd have loved if Zoraal Ja really upped his game in the 30 year gap. Instead he threw on some tech garbage and still got owned. No new techniques, no new insight, no new anything.

ED: me spell wrong? unpossible

 

[Xerxes IX]

What's the joke? You deadass don't.

Warriors have this odd dichotomy - best in dungeons bar none. Worst in higher content, because they have the worst mitigations and cooldowns for that content... unless there's an encounter where the low cooldown on Holmgang lets them cheese mechanics.

Good in casual content, bad in high end content is job design I personally dont mind. We have the opposite in Ninja, it's got problems in dungeons with its big cooldowns having bad synergy with AOE (using either Mug or Trick Attack I forget which in a pack sucks even with the upgraded versions) and tanks pulling out of Doton but I heard it's consistent if not good in Ultimates with all their downtime phases because of how their burst works. Meanwhile you play a DPS that needs to generate resources like Reaper and Samurai and its a pain in the ass to try to optimize or plan around

Why should I level all my subjobs or work on my gear if there isn't at least something to use it in? Give casual players some flashy fights they can use their shiney toys in.

They apparently tried to listen to feedback from both Eureka and Bozja but I don't get it, did people on the Japanese official forums hate Dalriada and CLL because no normal difficulty raid is a glaring omission. It's fine to have something like BA or harder but there has to be a more casual difficulty raid too.

It’s very obvious this community cannot handle even the most mildly controversial parts of the plot so now we have this Saturday morning cartoon writing in DT that tries too hard to be “culturally sensitive” and politically correct.

And DT is still not good enough because of Robot Speen and Solution Nine kek. Sphene might as well become another Emet to them, an evil colonizer the writers want you to like and feel sad for. And part of that is because for their plot to be inoffensive and yet a universe ending threat they gloss over Sphene wanting to suck out everyone else's souls to keep her people, who are already dead up and running.

can Venat be considered "morally grey?" By all accounts, she was the one that suffered for thousands of years just to protect the planet when she wouldn't have had to if the Ancients could have dealt with the slightest hardships without losing their fucking minds and feeding people to the Zodiark meat grinder. Her entire existence since the Final Days was self-sacrificing.

According to the clique of hardcore Ancients fans she was a genocidal lunatic who wanted Total Ancients Death and to replace them with sundered ubermensch. They forget the part where Team Zodiark wanted to kill the new life on the planet that appeared after his summoning to bring back his summoners.

 

[Well Intentioned]

There were ways to make the character more interesting but they opted for him having a raging inferiority complex.

I don't mind the inferiority complex thing -- familial relationships are the main theme in Dawntrail with all the characters having various issues with their parents/family (Zoraal, Wuk, the male miqote who is so forgettable I can't be arsed to remember their name, Erenville, Krile, Bakool's relationship with his parents in Mamool, etc.) and it almost approaches something interesting (and could have if they explored the whole notion of culture through the lens of family.)

Anything that could have been explored or the writers could have sunk their teeth into by fleshing out a unique and new chunk of the world is cut off at the knees so we could do Shadowbringers 2.0 with Speen.

It also feels like these problems are bleeding into Occult Crescent.

I am enjoying OC, from an old school FF perspective. But there are problems that hopefully tonight's maintenance addresses, like accessibility for FT, but I'd also argue that there's a lack of overall story that made Bozja more interesting to me and gave it a bit of character. The only thing that is kinda like that is the Tortoise CE.

I dunno. It's weird going from seeing people on the dev team talking about how they're putting a lot of effort into exploring things like the number of optional dialogue options, etc. circa 3.0 and what we're getting now.

 

[Pigeon Enthusiast]

They apparently tried to listen to feedback from both Eureka and Bozja but I don't get it, did people on the Japanese official forums hate Dalriada and CLL because no normal difficulty raid is a glaring omission. It's fine to have something like BA or harder but there has to be a more casual difficulty raid too.

They said they looked at feedback to combine the best aspects of Bozja and Eureka, but there's nothing about OC that feels at all like they learned anything from Bozja. Hell, it feels like they outright forgot or ignored the lessons from Eureka that they already applied in Bozja, and instead just kind of took several steps back towards just rehashing Anemos.

Except somehow worse, because there's just like... no reason to do anything in there, unless you want to do Forked Tower. The relic's just a tome sink after the one-time demiatma step, and there's literally nothing to use the other stuff you can grind out on. The armor makes no noticeable difference to any content in the zone, and phantom job grinding is just a chore that forces you to play the shitty ones with no fun actions because you're wasting XP if you actually run a PJ that's levelled and has some fun buttons to press.

It's not like they didn't have the solution either. Add something to aim for where you can actually feel like there's a reason to grind for the increased power/maxed PJs. Duels and a CLL/Dal equivalent would have been fine enough. But nope, in OC all there is to do is hang on by the seat of your pants behind the nonstop breakneck fate train, spending your time for effectively nothing. At least in Anemos you got a relic out of it.

I am enjoying OC, from an old school FF perspective. But there are problems that hopefully tonight's maintenance addresses, like accessibility for FT, but I'd also argue that there's a lack of overall story that made Bozja more interesting to me and gave it a bit of character. The only thing that is kinda like that is the Tortoise CE.

Another aspect that feels like a downgrade from Bozja - the whole thing was just packed with little story details. FATE/CE chains with little connected stories, recurring characters you see and fight several times, and an actual sense of progression as you pushed up through the zone, culminating in assaulting the Castrum.

In OC there's like... the capitalist chelonian, who is admittedly kinda fun, and that's it. Your supporting characters stay in the camp for a bit to exposit in like two cutscenes then disappear back into the phantom village. All the fights are just random monsters, none of them are connected in any way, etc.

IDK the whole thing just feels like they kinda phoned it in. But that's how the whole game feels these days, TBH. Like they're just in maintenance mode and phoning in the stuff that's on their fixed content schedule to keep that sub money rolling in, and not a bit more.

 

[Well Intentioned]

Another aspect that feels like a downgrade from Bozja - the whole thing was just packed with little story details. FATE/CE chains with little connected stories, recurring characters you see and fight several times, and an actual sense of progression as you pushed up through the zone, culminating in assaulting the Castrum.

I'm curious if BU3 is in like a sort of endless crunch cycle where they're behind on everything and are trying to keep up, so the bare minimum to meet the board's expectations (or whatever) is causing problems to seep in.

Square Enix are generally not particularly business savvy and we've seen similar issues with other titles they've published. I know it sounds like I'm ballwashing the dev team, but I'm not trying to exempt them from criticism -- shit like the lackluster MSQ or the very, very staid job design, and formulaic content are valid criticisms in my mind.

But when it is coupled with things like the audio production fuckery Rich Evans highlighted or the numerous small errors like some of the Cosmic Tools having the wrong name and other similar typos as well as more significant errors (IIRC there were some at launch, with Zoraal EX iirc, but the recent debacle with OC's loot tables being utterly fucked (and subsequently crashing a TON of high value items as a result), and a bunch of jank with the phantom job system necessitating a bunch of live hotfixes and patching today screams a level of sloppiness that I don't feel was present when I first picked up the game.

Maybe it is something that happens to just about any MMO when it gets large and bloated enough, but these feel like the type of fuckups Blizzard routinely makes and ones that BU3 tended to avoid.