Final Fantasy XIV - Kiwi Free Company

[Baguette Child]

it is it an unpopular opinion to find Maehiro’s writing overhyped/overrated and that he’s not as good as everyone makes him out to be?

I'm probably not qualified to give an opinion, since husband and I are only just now past the tail end of Stormblood, so take it with big ol' a grain of salt;

Based on what we've seen so far I don't feel like ARR or SB had as good of pacing as HW. I liked the buildup and fleshing out of story elements in HW- It felt like it took the time to tell the story it wanted to tell, and laid the groundwork to make the player invested in the characters involved, even if it came out a little long in places.

Comparatively, SB has been a bit of a mixed bag for us. The Doma shit was over before it even felt like it began. I was so sure there was gonna be a last minute setback or something because it felt so fast from arrival to liberation. I don't feel like I had *time* to care about the Xaela or Hien or Yotsuyu or even the Doman resistance itself (excepting established faces like Gosetsu and Yuguri). Husband and I were perplexed at how quickly things went by and, frankly, it was a little disappointing. I wanted more. I really, really wanted to care about the new characters. Honest. I do enjoy eastern settings.

But all the hurdles and problems the party faced were over way too quickly and easily. Gyr Abania wasn't much better, though I did admittedly warm up to it more by the time we liberated the city; Some of this may be attributed to the preestablished presence of the Ala Mhigans and their struggles in earlier content, though, I think.

Meanwhile, by this point in HW, there were multiple characters and factions who had been given enough screentime to make me actually give a shit if they lived or died. I knew who the actors on the stage were and what motivated them and why the protagonist should fucking care.

I don't *hate* Stormblood but if this is what the writing will be like going forward I can see why long term fans rate HW so highly compared to other expansions. It's not art. It isn't perfect or even excellent. But it did tell the story it wanted to tell in a complete and coherent manner.

 

[Well Intentioned]

After having an alt go through the msq to reevaluate it is it an unpopular opinion to find Maehiro’s writing overhyped/overrated and that he’s not as good as everyone makes him out to be? Maybe I’m just disappointed because I liked HW when it came out and during my reevaluation tour it ended up not being as good as I remembered and his writing flaws stuck out a lot more due to lack of nostalgia goggles. Same with his writing on ARR.

I think it's good for an MMORPG, good for a JRPG, etc. There's some cool stuff in there, although it's mostly lore/world building. I also think a lot of the stuff people bitch about as not being 'good' (Heavensward, Stormblood, etc.) are just people who are drooling idiots and find anything above My Little Pony or Stephen Universe to be 'complex.'

Also decided to finally start EW after being dumb enough to let the community dictate if I should enjoy it or not and I’m genuinely impressed so far. It’s really good when you don’t have a bitch from the official forums and other circles of the XIV community screaming in your ear that it’s shitty. Especially the obsessive lorefags who have a certain crystal lady living rent free in their heads. The OF had a once active 900+ page thread dragging the msq over the coals and you’d think Ishikawa killed their family with the way some of them felt about the expansion pack.

Yeah, the lore autists are the absolute worst. See: everyone whinging about Lyse 'whitewashing' the Ala Mhiggers because she wasn't as brown as my turds, while ignoring that there are multiple characters who are of lighter complexion.

They fixate on small details that are usually trivial and act like they're gaining some hidden understanding about shit, and who invariably have a 'headcanon' or fanfiction.

Cutting the community out of my life makes everything 110 percent better.

For like 95% of shit in FFXIV this is absolutely true.

I don't *hate* Stormblood but if this is what the writing will be like going forward I can see why long term fans rate HW so highly compared to other expansions.

@Baguette Child

Stormblood is a weird one with fans because it does a bit less handholding with shit but it also really rushes through shit. The two main plotlines really should've been two distinct expansions and they tried to cram way too much in and it shows.

Shadowbringers, Endwalker and even Dawntrail (arguably, considering we're still in it) don't make this mistake and tend to take their time with things. I think your sentiment of 'it's not art' is the right mindset to have. You should enjoy the other expansions, even if Stormblood felt very rushed.

 

[Soycast Guy]

After having an alt go through the msq to reevaluate it is it an unpopular opinion to find Maehiro’s writing overhyped/overrated and that he’s not as good as everyone makes him out to be?

I like him as a writer. He can’t write an interesting villain to save his life (take heavensward and FFXVI) or perhaps rather, MAIN VILLAIN. But I love how he’s actually able to write a serious story and create characters that you can get invested in MOST of the time. Estinien and Ysayle come to mind. I’d love if he came back to FFXIV to write if not Ishikawa. We need some actual talent after dawntrail.

 

[ChromaQuack]

I don't *hate* Stormblood but if this is what the writing will be like going forward I can see why long term fans rate HW so highly compared to other expansions.

Game peaks with shadowbringers, takes a tumble with EW, hits its head on the fall with post-EW and ends up a drooling vegetable with DT.

Stormblood wasn't indicative of the quality of the writing until yawntrail dropped, and yawntrail is so fucking bad it makes me appreciate even the worst parts of stormblood. Funnily enough stormblood also has an incredibly kino raid series so the similarities don't even stop at "the story is fucking shite".

I like him as a writer. He can’t write an interesting villain to save his life (take heavensward and FFXVI) or perhaps rather, MAIN VILLAIN.

Honestly the way HW is structured it kind of doesn't need a "main villain", the two that take the role of it do so less out of being masterminds and more because the circumstances leading them there; the Ishgard pope behaves exactly like you'd expect someone in his position to behave (including the absolute hubris of thinking he's going to outsmart the ascians where so many others got gigafucked by them) and Nidhogg is just angery incarnate after a thousand years of war; you're more or less fighting against the history and status quo of Ishgard over "this big bad evil guy".

Can't speak for XVI as I haven't played it yet, as no matter how much YoshiP's pleas I will not buy a PS5.

We need some actual talent after dawntrail.

They need to pull a shadowbringers 2:aetheric boogaloo out of their ass unless they want their status as "the story game" to be well and truly gone, after which you'd be left with a mid MMO.

 

[Troon Whisperer]

I like him as a writer. He can’t write an interesting villain to save his life (take heavensward and FFXVI) or perhaps rather, MAIN VILLAIN. But I love how he’s actually able to write a serious story and create characters that you can get invested in MOST of the time.

The story of FFXVI would be way better if they deleted the final boss and everything attached to it and just focused on their game of thrones rip off with FF aesthetics. Having multiple nations duke it out over dwindling resources, where the summons = super weapons and all the associated politics and scheming was pretty interesting, it's just a shame it's all thrown out the window during the final acts in favor of ancient aliens did it

 

[Dopey Cunt]

The story of FFXVI would be way better if they deleted the final boss and everything attached to it and just focused on their game of thrones rip off with FF aesthetics. Having multiple nations duke it out over dwindling resources, where the summons = super weapons and all the associated politics and scheming was pretty interesting, it's just a shame it's all thrown out the window during the final acts in favor of ancient aliens did it

I will never forgive them for doing this at the end.

I would rather watch the gay prince face fuck his gay knight again over watching this scene a second time.
Game had me doing the jackie chan meme at the end.

 

[SnowBall]

Yeah, the lore autists are the absolute worst. See: everyone whinging about Lyse 'whitewashing' the Ala Mhiggers because she wasn't as brown as my turds, while ignoring that there are multiple characters who are of lighter complexion.

They fixate on small details that are usually trivial and act like they're gaining some hidden understanding about shit, and who invariably have a 'headcanon' or fanfiction.

There’s a group of lorefags on the OF who are still raging over Venat to this day and getting into slap fights over her. They kept linking and promoting their lorefag discord server in their posts and apparently from what I’ve been told they still have meltdowns on Reddit and Twitter over the character. They also got extremely angry over seeing any praise of EW and kept throwing fits over the thought of other people daring to enjoy it.

 

[Disc]

There’s a group of lorefags on the OF who are still raging over Venat to this day and getting into slap fights over her. They kept linking and promoting their lorefag discord server in their posts and apparently from what I’ve been told they still have meltdowns on Reddit and Twitter over the character. They also got extremely angry over seeing any praise of EW and kept throwing fits over the thought of other people daring to enjoy it.

I believe this is the appropriate time to mention Zodiark Trance.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ShitpostXIV/comments/x11a6x/why_is_the_shitposting_community_sleeping_on/#lightbox

 

[Ravana]

The amount of hate Venat gets from insane people only fuels my enjoyment of her.

 

[Tari]

crystal mommy derangement syndrome

 

[Ravana]

If the ancients were so perfect then why do they have giraffe necks like the elezen?

 

[RIPRhongoBongo]

The amount of hate Venat gets from insane people only fuels my enjoyment of her.

Venat literally did nothing wrong and I am dying on that hill 1000%

Also, they totally got fucking folded in that solo duty

 

[Tari]

If the ancients were so perfect then why do they have giraffe necks like the elezen?

The majority of non-[Seven Playable Race] NPCs use modified Hyur or Elezen models if they aren't outright a beast race.
Usually the shorter ones (Most Garleans, Padjali) use Midlander, and tall ones (Some Garleans, Ancients) use Elezen.
Post-ARR Yugiri uses a modified Miqote model because Au Ra didn't exist yet and since she has a tail they had to do Miqo.
The other ones use Demihuman Entity models, like Gaia or Post-EW Wuk Lamat.

 

[Troon Whisperer]

The funniest model disaster was Fran, from memory she's a custom monster built on a oversized Hyur skeleton with a partial Viera head stapled on, with her gear being baked straight into the model unlike most other human NPCs that simply have custom equipment and faces.

 

[std::string]

Stormblood is a weird one with fans because it does a bit less handholding with shit but it also really rushes through shit. The two main plotlines really should've been two distinct expansions and they tried to cram way too much in and it shows.

When SB came out there was a lot of speculation that Ala Mhigo was supposed to be an ARR postpatch thing that got cut and then they shoehorned it into SB.

I think it's plausible since the city itself looks like it was designed to be an alliance raid.

 

[Soycast Guy]

They need to pull a shadowbringers 2:aetheric boogaloo out of their ass unless they want their status as "the story game" to be well and truly gone, after which you'd be left with a mid MMO.

Yeah the only thing left would be the fights like in dawntrail, but no matter how good those are, it doesn’t change that you have to slog through 90% of the expansion being dialogue just to get to those. Truly the only way to have a good FFXIV expansion is if it has a good story, and that was lost after shadowbringers.

 

[SuffahWhorse]

I believe this is the appropriate time to mention Zodiark Trance.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ShitpostXIV/comments/x11a6x/why_is_the_shitposting_community_sleeping_on/#lightbox

Ah, I didn't see someone already posted the comic. This reminds me of when that one anon infiltrated the discord of the guy who created this comic (they formed out of the Lackuster Story in Endwalker thread originally), and exposed them as a group of faggots and trannies who raid not just the official forums, but other websites, including reddit, twitter and 4chan in attempts to "correct" people who disagreed that Venat was literally hitler incarnate. Like if any random person anywhere on the internet simply said "I like venat and think she did nothing wrong" they would swiftly be swarmed by the Trancercord and dogpilled. They'd even go as far as to mass-report people on the OF forums to get them banned for disagreeing with them, they'd dig through your post history to find some instance of you swearing or some other bannable offense and mass-report, literally because you didn't agree that Venat=Bad.

I managed to find the original expose in a /xivg/ thread, warning it's a gigantic read:

https://arch.b4k.co/vg/thread/418958841/#418959041

I think after this expose the discord link was dropped in the thread and people from /xivg/ raided their discord until they were forced to shut it down. I'm not really sure what's happened to them since then but they seemed to have largely died off since I don't see the Lackluster Endwalker Story thread (their personal base of operations there) get bumped over on the OF forums these days.

 

[Tari]

The stupidest thing related to The Sundering is that the only piece of media that describes what it actually did (beyond NOW MAN SHALL WALK) is a Nier Reincarnation side story.

 

[Shieldman]

Funny, I thought Endwalker post Garlemald sucked ass.
I found the Venat worship and Graha fangirling specially heinous.

Maybe I should track those guys down and befriend them instead.

 

[SnowBall]

I highly suspect one of those discord guys also posts on rpgcodex under the name Thalstarion. There is a user on the OF named Theodric and the takes and posting styles of both posters match up. Also in one of the imgr screenshots of the expose there is a user on the Discord server with the exact same profile pic Thal has on the codex.
Of course I could be wrong and it could be a completely different person but there are way too many similarities to raise suspicion.