Final Fantasy XIV - Kiwi Free Company

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There was a similar reception to Lyse and Stormblood and she basically vanished into the ether in post-Stormblood content. Depending on what their plans are for the story, I'd say odds are probably good Wuk Lumat will be taken to a farm in Meracydia where she can babble about family all day long.

4.1 had a lot of Lyse since it was most likely already finished before they realized they needed to calm the fuck down on that whole character. I imagine 7.1 will be the same. After that, though, that'll be the end of Wuk. Japanese players really hate her honestly.

 

[SnowBall]

I was checking the XIV community to see all the discourse surrounding DT (I can’t help but watch fandom train wrecks) only to remember why I completely cut contact with the fanbase, I could feel my brain turning to pure liquid mush from all the sheer stupidity and horribly bad plot takes. Also forgot how horrible the reading comprehension skills of your average XIV player are.

 

[Kane Lives]

So is coming back to this game even worth it despite the msq failings? I’ve been getting this irresistible itch to replay but after hearing about all the discourse of EW and DT I’m hesitant. Seeing the backlash towards EW especially made me weary of coming back because as someone whose been playing since 1.0 I was really looking forward to how the whole saga that started from ARR would wrap up but after being told how much of a mess it makes me feel like I didn’t miss anything, Though yet again I hear so many divisive opinions of the EP with it being either the best ending to the saga or an absolute dumpster fire. As for DT I am willing to put up with all the msq stuff if the gameplay and content is worth it. The only reason I’m really asking about this is because I want to know if it’s worth putting down money for the monthly subscription fee.

(On an unrelated note despite all my shit talking about Stormblood in this thread I genuinely did enjoy the EP despite it flaws. Before the honeymoon period wore off I even thought Stormblood was better than Heavensward when I first finished it.)

I'd say that if you enjoyed even Stormblood, then you'd probably enjoy Endwalker as well. At the very least, it's not worse. Endwalker also has the benefit of being the bookend for many of the story threads that were started in 1.0 and ARR so I think it's worth it for that alone. EW role quests were quite kino imo.

Now Dawntrail on the other hand, I cannot say. Though from what I read from the thread and from the comments of others outside this circle, I can confidently say I will most likely not enjoy my time. Time will tell if it would be the first xpac where I actively used the skip cutscene button. (I intend to eventually get it anyway, though likely not soon).

 

[Kotol]

Man, I was really hoping the main baddies in Dawntrail were up to some more complex themes, but no.

Spoiler: Baddie One

Zoraal Ja starts off as this dude trying to be the best, perfect and stoic and living up to his title of "miracle child". Once he actually starts telling us of his plans of "teaching the people of Tural the horrors of war" and wanting them to suffer and fight for their happiness, I first thought "Hey, maybe he is up to something. After all, not having to suffer in some way to achieve happiness makes happiness obsolete, like the lost civilization in Endwalker that had achieved eternal peace and managed to live life without any form of strife or obstacles. In the end they couldn't value their perfect lives and decided to kill themselves.

Once you find out though that Zoraal Ja was just the equivalent of a spoiled brat that had never actually tasted failure or experienced disappointment, I couldn't help but take his entire plan and motivations as temper tantrums of an obsessive retard, whose only goal in life was to either be his father or surpass him. Bro, calm the fuck down, like go and explore the world or the continent, fight some shit, make some friends, geez. His dying words are utterly pathetic and spoiled. His son is like "Why would you do this? Now you're gonna die and I got no one...I will be all alone." and he answers "LOL tough shit, my father also left me nothing." You know, except a people that looks up to you, siblings that liked you before you became a mad killer, the love of your father, royal titles, the list goes on. So this dude's entire reason to wipe out every living soul in every reality possible is because he has daddy issues and thinks the only way to live up to his father's legacy is by killing/conquering everyone and everything that has ever lived and existed. Alright.

Spoiler: Baddie Two

Sphene annoyed me. For one, I wanted the story to end since I really didn't enjoy how many quests and cutscenes were just "Go talk to this dude and he will explain shit you already know or probably already figured out, but they will sprinkle in at least one new piece of information, hooray." Secondly, I hate characters that are designed to make you feel bad for killing them, what with her design of a young girl shouldering the responsibility of an entire kingdom that got wiped out in a world ending event. And every time she was like "I wish you could see things how I see them" or "I wish we could have been friends." I was angry lol. I was happy when G'raha Tia called out her bullshit, because the end goal of hers is to kill everyone and harvest their souls. But uh...in 400 years of existence none of you fuckers managed to find a better solution? Bro, you need a ressource that isn't finite. Granted, the story could have become way more fucked up and dark, like idk, let her be a benevolent tyrant and be all like "We offer people prosperous lives in our city full of advanced technology, but they must pay a price." and make people pay tribute. Or enslave people you conquered and harvest souls that way. But killing everyone just means you run out of souls sooner or later. And of course Sphene just dodges G'raha's criticism by saying "Yeah, but killing everything and THEN dying is better than just dying now!" Well shit, Sphene, you just declared war on every living being in every dimension ever. Don't go crying that nobody wants to be your friend.

In the end both baddies are just broken people. But Zenos at least had a certain autism to him that made me pity him in a way. A dude so egotistical and pleasure-addicted that he never did anything worthwhile in his meaningless life, but hey, at least he had some fun fights I guess. The Dawntrail baddies just declare they want to eradicate everything everywhere and still act like I should pity them. Nah, bro, that shit drove me up a wall. I know my own autism probably makes me so heated against these two, but their sheer lack of empathy and egocentric worldview coupled with a naïveté that demands you somehow understand or even accept their plans...oof. I WISH Wuk Lamat had grown some balls in the last quarter of the expansion and faced both villains not with the mindset of "Aw please, can you stop being evil? We gotta work together and live in harmony!" and just called it like her father would have: "This is no longer a misunderstanding or a situation that can be remedied by negotiations. It's us or them. Prepare to die." and split their skulls.

 

[ChromaQuack]

I WISH Wuk Lamat had grown some balls in the last quarter of the expansion and faced both villains not with the mindset of "Aw please, can you stop being evil? We gotta work together and live in harmony!" and just called it like her father would have: "This is no longer a misunderstanding or a situation that can be remedied by negotiations. It's us or them. Prepare to die." and split their skulls.

She kind of does for Zoraal Ja, when she enters the last few areas she does not really mince words and goes full "I'm here to kill my brother", Zoraal Ja is an irredeemable piece of shit (and a deadbeat ) and I think his dying words cement that.

Maybe that's just me enjoying his antics a bit too much because having a full pants-on-head retarded 100% evil piece of shit of a villain is a breath of fresh air after a decade of varying degrees of 'gray morality'.

But of course the writers just could not resist the allure of a "baww so deep" villain and had to punt dollar store emet selch spleene into the story.

 

[Dopey Cunt]

She kind of does for Zoraal Ja, when she enters the last few areas she does not really mince words and goes full "I'm here to kill my brother", Zoraal Ja is an irredeemable piece of shit (and a deadbeat ) and I think his dying words cement that.

Maybe that's just me enjoying his antics a bit too much because having a full pants-on-head retarded 100% evil piece of shit of a villain is a breath of fresh air after a decade of varying degrees of 'gray morality'.

But of course the writers just could not resist the allure of a "baww so deep" villain and had to punt dollar store emet selch spleene into the story.

Sphene is just an offbrand combo of Emet and Meteion.

She's like Emet in that she makes it a goal to murder millions of people to save her singular society while being absolutwly determined to follow through and like Meteion in that forcing people to become Endless is a kindess and means they get to "live" and be "happy" forever despite the enormous cost.

 

[King Of Braves]

So is coming back to this game even worth it despite the msq failings? I’ve been getting this irresistible itch to replay but after hearing about all the discourse of EW and DT I’m hesitant. Seeing the backlash towards EW especially made me weary of coming back because as someone whose been playing since 1.0 I was really looking forward to how the whole saga that started from ARR would wrap up but after being told how much of a mess it makes me feel like I didn’t miss anything, Though yet again I hear so many divisive opinions of the EP with it being either the best ending to the saga or an absolute dumpster fire. As for DT I am willing to put up with all the msq stuff if the gameplay and content is worth it. The only reason I’m really asking about this is because I want to know if it’s worth putting down money for the monthly subscription fee.

(On an unrelated note despite all my shit talking about Stormblood in this thread I genuinely did enjoy the EP despite it flaws. Before the honeymoon period wore off I even thought Stormblood was better than Heavensward when I first finished it.)

Assuming you haven't played Shadowbringers, yes. The MSQ is great to fine all the way through ShB and EW, at least in my opinion. But even where the story is middling, the actual gameplay is great.

 

[ChromaQuack]

A lot of the shit I think most people in this thread (and me in particular) give EW is due to wasted potential, what it manages to bring to full bloom is great, it's just a rushed product with soul that takes a few stupid tumbles.

DT is unequivocably shite, whatever good there is in the first part is taken away by having to babysit an overgrown retarded character; and whatever growth she has in the second part is overshadowed by the story quickly turning to fucking shit.

There is a sweet spot in the middle of the quest (skydeep cenote) where you're dealing with a much less obnoxious Wuk Lamat and the plot gets actually rolling but it unfortunately doesn't last much, if most of the expansion were on that quality I'd give it 4/5 pretty good, but it isn't.

 

[Scream Aim Fire]

So, we've talked plenty about the story and a little bit of the new jobs, but what about the other, older jobs in FFXIV? I know that Dark Knight's not doing too great at this point, but what about everything else? Any jobs that are making the community mad? Well, more than usual...

 

[King Of Braves]

So, we've talked plenty about the story and a little bit of the new jobs, but what about the other, older jobs in FFXIV? I know that Dark Knight's not doing too great at this point, but what about everything else? Any jobs that are making the community mad? Well, more than usual...

Autistic BLMs are still melting down over how good Picto is.

 

[RIPRhongoBongo]

I know that Dark Knight's not doing too great at this point, but what about everything else?

I cry inside knowing I main the bastard child of tanks

 

[Dopey Cunt]

Autistic BLMs are still melting down over how good Picto is.

I imagine potency will be reduced in the upcoming patch. Picto does a ton of damage which I guess is supposed to make up for the fact that our hardest hitting spells are gated behind a 3-4 second cast that we have to sit still for and our regular aetherhue spells when not monochome'd are piss weak but are quick to cast and let's us move a bit more freely at the cost of severely reducing our dps output.

Pictos going full spell speed autismo makes them stronger than black mages in both damage and how much faster they can get their spells out. I am in agreement that Picto should not be outdamaging black mage though. Vipers aren't out dpsing samurai, as it should be because samurai is supposed to be the high damage melee job available. So I don't know why they would let picto be this imbalanced. I say this as someone who loves picto but also someone who plays black mage on the side.
Also, it's really fucking annoying that every time I queue as a picto, I have never gotten a tank that is able to hold aggro on whatever I attack. The amount of times I've died on a simple dungeon mob pull because the tank was too busy with their head up their ass to realize I was being attacked and the healer would have to let me die just to keep the tank alive has been too many. So I'm forced to cycle every mob I hit and wait a bit for tanks to establish aggro before unleashing my burst.

 

[Troon Whisperer]

I WISH Wuk Lamat had grown some balls in the last quarter of the expansion and faced both villains not with the mindset of "Aw please, can you stop being evil? We gotta work together and live in harmony!" and just called it like her father would have: "This is no longer a misunderstanding or a situation that can be remedied by negotiations. It's us or them. Prepare to die." and split their skulls.

She kinda did, when entering the fifth zone she straight up declares "He might be family, but I will kill him for his crimes". Then doubles down when she finds out Zoraal Ja has a kid by saying to an NPC "He's a nice kid, but I need to explain that I'm about to murder his dad and he needs to make peace with this because I'm not going to stop".

 

[Soycast Guy]

Zenos at least had a certain autism to him that made me pity him in a way. A dude so egotistical and pleasure-addicted that he never did anything worthwhile in his meaningless life, but hey, at least he had some fun fights I guess.

I like Zenos just for the fact that while one dimensional he’s just a fun villain. Obviously Emet-Selch was when they struck gold, but ever since then it’s been a downward spiral. Meteion was more of a force rather than a villain, and sphene was blatant plagiarism of emet-selch without all the build-up or understanding of what made him so compelling in the first place.

Assuming you haven't played Shadowbringers, yes. The MSQ is great to fine all the way through ShB and EW, at least in my opinion. But even where the story is middling, the actual gameplay is great.

Endwalker at least has the virtue of being the end of the FFXIV story, so I guess it’s worth going through just for that.

 

[iceteayo]

Me watching every single scion and myself the WoL look on as we know Sphene will betray us and has lied to us go on her heel turn speech, and then steals the chalice as we all do absolutely nothing even though Estinien can jump 100 feet in the air, depending on your wol class you can easily stop her, and only for Y'shtola to do something but it was too late.



Personally, Wuk Lamat hate is overblown and tainted with tranny talk, Sphene is the worse fucking thing and I hate her. If she wasnt pretty her actions would be painted as horrible but shes pretty so its okay for us to feel bad for her.

 

[Ravana]

I wonder if Endwalker being the cap to the story is what’s hurting Dawntrail’s story and consistency. Yoshi P said that he wants players to be able to start with DT if they want and as a consequence our travels to the edge of the universe mean nothing and we’re back to being treated like a temp. People in Tural should be shitting their pants because we went into space and even further. They can’t even remember that their festival boats keeps the crops healthy.

 

[Well Intentioned]

Personally, Wuk Lamat hate is overblown and tainted with tranny talk, Sphene is the worse fucking thing and I hate her. If she wasnt pretty her actions would be painted as horrible but shes pretty so its okay for us to feel bad for her.

Nah, Wuk sucks because we spend the entire expansion joined at the hip with her and she's a shitty, sloppily written character. There is nothing wrong with that kind of character, it's just the one we got is meh. Unless you're talking about retards like Mark Kern, then yeah, I'd agree.

Sphene is fine as a villain -- wanting to preserve the people under her protection by any means necessary is very common motivation (eg, Arthas, Anakin Skywalker, etc.) -- but everything constructed around her falls apart as you realise just how fucking stupid everything is.

EG,

Okay, memories of people who die are erased.

But what about paintings? Photographs? Written correspondence? There's literally a quest chain you go through in Heritage Found that round-aboutly addresses this and it's just sort of shrugged off as no big deal.

Or,

There's this big resistance against the whole process, but everyone's forgotten what it was about and now it's just a plot convenient group here to stop the low-IQ lizardman. There's even a character who literally goes 'well, it ain't so bad, I have no complaints.'

It's just so nonsensical.

 

[std::string]

I wonder if Endwalker being the cap to the story is what’s hurting Dawntrail’s story and consistency. Yoshi P said that he wants players to be able to start with DT if they want and as a consequence our travels to the edge of the universe mean nothing and we’re back to being treated like a temp. People in Tural should be shitting their pants because we went into space and even further. They can’t even remember that their festival boats keeps the crops healthy.

Probably. Every MMO deals with this at some point.

You go from mowing over the strongest forces in the universe and checking their pockets for loot to collecting bear asses for random townspeople.

DT just seems especially bad because there's a lot of nonsense that goes down in cutscenes where your character just watches, bored. It would've made more sense narratively if there was some reason why you had to voluntarily restrain yourself.

 

[Übertroon]

I noticed the graphics update did more to the eyes than I saw in the benchmark

 

[EmpGulcasa]

I cry inside knowing I main the bastard child of tanks

Go do frontlines. DRK is broken there.