Considering levequests are a relic of 1.X design, you can fully blame the game designers of that one for that.
SE has been trying for years now to get their overworld populated more, with various levels of success. I think the FATE-linked rewards was the most successful of the bunch. Other things like specific drops from specific FATE bosses just meant everyone gathered to nuke that one boss, then ran off again once they were done. Sure, spectacular when it happens, but as content grow outdated good luck finding anyone to help. (I had a pretty cool experience though where randos gathered to help a newbie with the Cancer Crab FATE. Got up to like a dozen or so who just joined without prompting, a full half were level 80s who otherwise were just passing through for whatever reason.)
no excuse tho when other games already did it quite well and smarter. it might be because they're still mainly catering to the nip market, or they're stuck in such a panic loop after 1.0 bombed so they go overly rigid with that they now (and sells) before it goes inevitably stagnant. FF14 is the prime example that you can't just stack shit on top forever and hope for the best, especially when everything's tied to the MSQ.
LIGHT RAMPANT... i have yet to clear that fight because fuck having to put weeks of prog just to handle one mechanic that belongs in a ultimate fight and not a savage...
I've cleared the fight, and Light Rampant is why I don't bother with it again. NA is full of glue sniffers who grind fflogs, so you get retards who won't clear the mechanic because they want a high score.
Talking about fflogs, fflogs in China is cancelled because the Chinese can't help themselves but cheat
Imagine caring so much about a game that you have this unhealthy obsessive need to be the best at it to the point of cheating or acting like a general retarded cunt.
Are you kidding me? I liked this fight. Ruby was boring.
I've cleared the fight, and Light Rampant is why I don't bother with it again. NA is full of glue sniffers who grind fflogs, so you get retards who won't clear the mechanic because they want a high score.
Talking about fflogs, fflogs in China is cancelled because the Chinese can't help themselves but cheat
I haven't even touched SoS EX yet. I'm tits deep in crafting shit and fucking busting a clit every time I try to overmeld 20+ materia only to have every single fucking one of them fail after spending hours grinding the fucking scripts to buy them.
She really thinks Stormblood (probably the worst expansion storywise in FFXIV so far) was great storytelling? The expansion where we liberated two zones we had little reason to care about with two of the most unlikable characters leading the charge (downgrade Yda and that asshole Hien) and stealing your credit while mistakes like Yotsuyu character arc just happen and nobody learns anything from it. Domans are still unlikable pricks and Ala Mhigo may see some improvement but will otherwise have little spotlight. Oh and we can't forget about the constant asspulls like the revival of Zenos and Gosetsu (literally the only likable character) somehow miraculously surviving a collapsing tower and multiple gunshots.
She really thinks Stormblood (probably the worst expansion storywise in FFXIV so far) was great storytelling? The expansion where we liberated two zones we had little reason to care about with two of the most unlikable characters leading the charge (downgrade Yda and that asshole Hien) and stealing your credit while mistakes like Yotsuyu character arc just happen and nobody learns anything from it. Domans are still unlikable pricks and Ala Mhigo may see some improvement but will otherwise have little spotlight. Oh and we can't forget about the constant asspulls like the revival of Zenos and Gosetsu (literally the only likable character) somehow miraculously surviving a collapsing tower and multiple gunshots.
She dismisses any criticism of Ala Mhigo and its characters as racism, She also gets mad when people say they don’t like the Gyr Abania maps and deliberately takes bad looking screenshots of ShB areas to try to prove the dislike is due to everyone being racist. Her hate boner for ShB is intense.
I still can’t get over her making all her in game avatars dark skinned despite being white as snow.
She dismisses any criticism of Ala Mhigo and its characters as racism, She also gets mad when people say they don’t like the Gyr Abania maps and deliberately takes bad looking screenshots of ShB areas to try to prove the dislike is due to everyone being racist. Her hate boner for ShB is intense.
I still can’t get over her making all her in game avatars dark skinned despite being white as snow.
Gyr Abania maps, like desert, bigger desert, and even bigger desert with a city at the end with nothing but the color brown. Seriously after doing those MSQs I was sick to death of the color brown and had to take a break parking myself at Kugane. I don't even think I have flying unlocked there.
Man the new ex trial is underwhelming. There are two neat mechs, (mage towers, quintuplecast) and everything else is just meh. The music is kind of a meh, and visually the particle barf is not interesting. Hell the normal version of the fight feels better than the ex for sime reason.
Man the new ex trial is underwhelming. There are two neat mechs, (mage towers, quintuplecast) and everything else is just meh. The music is kind of a meh, and visually the particle barf is not interesting. Hell the normal version of the fight feels better than the ex for sime reason.
People are praising it highly because the last two trials were boring and badly designed. (Pushing Ruby before his flight/quicksand would have him instantly cast Ultima when finishing it.) This current trial feels like a copy of the Varis trial that was introduced for the relic in 5.25, with slight adjustments. Fight itself is fine.
Still think it's insulting with what they did unreal/faux leaves. Can completely skip unreal Shiva if you had a gold Khole ticket or buy it right off the market board, while upscaling an extreme fight made even easier with all the new abilities put into the game. The cult community eats the fresh steaming shit though and doesn't question anything, ever.
People are praising it highly because the last two trials were boring and badly designed. (Pushing Ruby before his flight/quicksand would have him instantly cast Ultima when finishing it.) This current trial feels like a copy of the Varis trial that was introduced for the relic in 5.25, with slight adjustments. Fight itself is fine.
I think Hades was actually really well designed, Ruby was generally fun in terms of feel, and I guess my group never ran into bugs. Varis was fun, but this recent one is just uninspired as fuck. We already have an overabundance of mechanics vomit fights this expansion, Voidwalker comes to mind as a prime example, and this fight definitely just feels like mechanics for mechanics' sake. There isn't anything impactful about fucking limit break bars filling, the arena just busy to the point of being boring.
GKMM is a more impactful fight than this most recent trial. And with better mechanics.
I actually like the re-syncing of old fights to modern gear. Call me a shithead, but it's fun watching people REE that they can't easily steamroll something, and realize that no, old content wasn't actually easy. Rewards are shit, but them's the breaks I guess.
Battle on the big bridge and GKMM ultimate please.
I enjoyed the ARR zones more, HW was way too big which made them feel even more empty and dead than the old zones after squeenix made fate trains pointless. HW also might have better story, but the only difference is you run around less for longer cutscenes. like I said I never got to that triggered even by the seven astral era quests since I did them on the side while doing other shit.
underutilized overworld is probably one of my biggest gripes with the game, there were so many different solutions to get people out there to do shit while waiting for dungeons (fate daily for specific zones for example), it's incredible how ass backwards the whole overworld design is. I mean who in his right mind though levequest resetting once you port out was a good idea, on top of being already limited?
Might be a taste thing - I hated the ARR zones and they felt way, way too video-gamey. Now that I can fly around there, there's all these sights and things I could never see from below - where it just feels like you're moving from one cluttered area of the same handful of mobs to the next one, with weird-ass geography all about. I really preferred the zones getting bigger, even if much of them aren't really used - that seems to be more of a problem with lobby-like MMOs in general, though.
ARR's story problem isn't necessarily the running around shit, but rather that I have virtually no idea who the players are, what the stakes are, how the world operates, any personality traits of the main cast, why I should care, or what the motivation of -anyone- is throughout the whole thing. You're constantly bombarded with names and places and events that don't make any sense to you and aren't really explained, and it's disorienting. HW by contrast has a simple conflict, a simple cast of characters, explains where you are, and explains the simple motivations of all of the different players - and the nice cliffhanger from the 7th astral era quests both gives you a reason to care and sets the tone that you're actually going to get to know some of the characters. I get that ARR's botched storytelling is a holdover from the reboot, but still - leaves the wrong impression.
She really thinks Stormblood (probably the worst expansion storywise in FFXIV so far) was great storytelling? The expansion where we liberated two zones we had little reason to care about with two of the most unlikable characters leading the charge (downgrade Yda and that asshole Hien) and stealing your credit while mistakes like Yotsuyu character arc just happen and nobody learns anything from it. Domans are still unlikable pricks and Ala Mhigo may see some improvement but will otherwise have little spotlight. Oh and we can't forget about the constant asspulls like the revival of Zenos and Gosetsu (literally the only likable character) somehow miraculously surviving a collapsing tower and multiple gunshots.
To me, Stormblood is the ultimate in "alright, that's a cool idea but literally the worst way you could execute it."
The idea of some crazy bastard drawing the major players into an open conflict that most saw as inevitable was neat, but the pacing is so fucking bad and the characters literally aren't allowed to have arcs. Lyse begins our story castigating people living under occupation for not rising up against their rulers while having fucked off and pretended to be her dead sister for years-on-end, displays no ability to think beyond what is immediately in front of her, frequently displays incredible immaturity, and is given downright nonsensical prominence and respect by an organization that should be ambivalent to her useless ass. After the jaunt in asialand, she... hasn't changed at all? And it's not just her - Hien is a complete board, Gosestsu isn't allowed to have his sacrifice that was genuinely built up to, Zenos remains a campy cartoon character, most of the Scions are completely absent and uninvolved so we can be told how cool Lyse is.
I guess Yugiri gets some development, in that she completely goes against her character and behaves in a dumb, erratic fashion so we can paper over the whole "why -would- any peasant be dumb enough to fight?" She is then tossed in the "not lyse" bucket of characters and completely ignored. We go from the fun cast of characters that got time to develop in HW to "isn't lyse cool? she's so smart and so strong and so beautiful and so inspiring, player, she's really just the coolest character and you know it" with some random mooks on the side to give an offhand comment about how cool Lyse is.
Hell, after the bizarre choice to begin the story somewhere that you then proceed to ignore for the bulk of the story's runtime, almost every single plan goes by without any failure, setback, or twist. There's a lot of cool set pieces and props and ideas all along the way - but everything is rushed along to the point where the pacing gives nothing any time to breathe. Despite the fact that the whole point in going to asia was to distract the evil bad guys, there is absolutely no mention when you return to allahmeego of their forces being recalled and withdrawn and transfered. Yet suddenly you blow through them as if they were nothing, facing essentially no pushback because there isn't enough time left for something to go wrong.
I actually like the re-syncing of old fights to modern gear. Call me a shithead, but it's fun watching people REE that they can't easily steamroll something, and realize that no, old content wasn't actually easy. Rewards are shit, but them's the breaks I guess.
Battle on the big bridge and GKMM ultimate please.
Might be a taste thing - I hated the ARR zones and they felt way, way too video-gamey. Now that I can fly around there, there's all these sights and things I could never see from below - where it just feels like you're moving from one cluttered area of the same handful of mobs to the next one, with weird-ass geography all about. I really preferred the zones getting bigger, even if much of them aren't really used - that seems to be more of a problem with lobby-like MMOs in general, though.
ARR's story problem isn't necessarily the running around shit, but rather that I have virtually no idea who the players are, what the stakes are, how the world operates, any personality traits of the main cast, why I should care, or what the motivation of -anyone- is throughout the whole thing. You're constantly bombarded with names and places and events that don't make any sense to you and aren't really explained, and it's disorienting. HW by contrast has a simple conflict, a simple cast of characters, explains where you are, and explains the simple motivations of all of the different players - and the nice cliffhanger from the 7th astral era quests both gives you a reason to care and sets the tone that you're actually going to get to know some of the characters. I get that ARR's botched storytelling is a holdover from the reboot, but still - leaves the wrong impression.
To me, Stormblood is the ultimate in "alright, that's a cool idea but literally the worst way you could execute it."
The idea of some crazy bastard drawing the major players into an open conflict that most saw as inevitable was neat, but the pacing is so fucking bad and the characters literally aren't allowed to have arcs. Lyse begins our story castigating people living under occupation for not rising up against their rulers while having fucked off and pretended to be her dead sister for years-on-end, displays no ability to think beyond what is immediately in front of her, frequently displays incredible immaturity, and is given downright nonsensical prominence and respect by an organization that should be ambivalent to her useless ass. After the jaunt in asialand, she... hasn't changed at all? And it's not just her - Hien is a complete board, Gosestsu isn't allowed to have his sacrifice that was genuinely built up to, Zenos remains a campy cartoon character, most of the Scions are completely absent and uninvolved so we can be told how cool Lyse is.
I guess Yugiri gets some development, in that she completely goes against her character and behaves in a dumb, erratic fashion so we can paper over the whole "why -would- any peasant be dumb enough to fight?" She is then tossed in the "not lyse" bucket of characters and completely ignored. We go from the fun cast of characters that got time to develop in HW to "isn't lyse cool? she's so smart and so strong and so beautiful and so inspiring, player, she's really just the coolest character and you know it" with some random mooks on the side to give an offhand comment about how cool Lyse is.
Hell, after the bizarre choice to begin the story somewhere that you then proceed to ignore for the bulk of the story's runtime, almost every single plan goes by without any failure, setback, or twist. There's a lot of cool set pieces and props and ideas all along the way - but everything is rushed along to the point where the pacing gives nothing any time to breathe. Despite the fact that the whole point in going to asia was to distract the evil bad guys, there is absolutely no mention when you return to allahmeego of their forces being recalled and withdrawn and transfered. Yet suddenly you blow through them as if they were nothing, facing essentially no pushback because there isn't enough time left for something to go wrong.
And it didn't even blur the lines between humanity vs humanity. The Garleans are irredeemable assholes all throughout who do inhuman acts even Hitler would've found morally wrong and the resistance slaughters all of them with no sign of remorse and seems to almost take glee in it. There could've been moments when the Garlean's humanity began to show through like maybe you see a soldier carrying his friend away from battle or you find pictures of loved ones on them or, and I know this is going to make you laugh as it did myself, a "just following orders" trial. Nope, they're all just irredeemable villains now kill them with gay abandon.
And it didn't even blur the lines between humanity vs humanity. The Garleans are irredeemable assholes all throughout who do inhuman acts even Hitler would've found morally wrong and the resistance slaughters all of them with no sign of remorse and seems to almost take glee in it. There could've been moments when the Garlean's humanity began to show through like maybe you see a soldier carrying his friend away from battle or you find pictures of loved ones on them or, and I know this is going to make you laugh as it did myself, a "just following orders" trial. Nope, they're all just irredeemable villains now kill them with gay abandon.
The Garleans were ironically humanized better in the Heavensward era, where you first fight the VIth Legion to stop them from accidentally awakening the imprisoned primals on the Allagan ships, only to later join them to stop the final primal from awakening. And the leader himself gave his life to save another companion's life.
Honestly the entirety of SB was just a waste of potential, and what-ifs. I hope I never see Lyse in any future content because fuck me her character had been irredeemably ruined by the godawful arc they put her through.
I wasn't a fan of SB either. I think it would have been better had they focused on one nation rather than split the narrative in half and get sub par story for both instead of a really good story for just one. Lyse and Hien didn't resonate with me at all because they don't get much development for the time they are around for. Nothing about them makes them stand out and they both were basically the same character: two people who ran away and hid from the people looking for them only for them to show up or reveal themselves out of the blue because the plot demanded it. Oh yeah and they both just happen to be related to the respective leaders of both the rebellions. The only 2 good characters that came out of SB were Yotsuyu and Fordola. We get infinitely more of them than the two dunderheads that are supposed to be the faces for the expansion. Lyse and Hien are completely forgettable and I didn't understand the thinking behind why they just swoop in after being absent for so long and suddenly they become darlings at the drop of a hat. Oh Lyse was hiding in Eorzea pretending to be her dead sister all along despite knowing that she had ties to Ala Mhigo and that she's the fucking daughter of the resistance leader? Sweep that under the rug, she's back out of nowhere to lead us to victory even though she's been absent having adventures in Gridania with her midget dad while her countrymen were out there fighting for their liberation. Oh Hien was just chilling in the Steppe the whole time even though lots of people were feverishly looking for him because he's the son of their previous leader and they needed him to return to rally them but he was too busy doing everything except what he should've been doing? Sweep that under the rug, he's back after playtime with the lizard mongs, here to lead us to victory because he finally decided he felt like being a leader.
I could go on with this autistic sperging but the short of it is that SB was shit and I want to pretend like it never happened.
