- Joined
- Jun 1, 2020
I will keep the one tank alive so hard and then get bitched out because "HEALERS SUCK THEY AREN'T HEALING WAKE UP AND STOP BOTTING".
Final Fantasy XIV - Kiwi Free Company
- Thread starter Country Matters
- Start date
- Joined
- Jan 31, 2022
I made the mistake of progging Dragonsong's Reprise Ultimate in PF. I've just finished up phase 5 and I'm moving onto phase 6. Holy shit is this ultimate something else. It's an endurance test as much as it is a skill test. I'm now on P6 and that's feeling like the toughest bit of all, not because the phase is necessarily hard, but because you have so much that can wipe the run before it that means you might only see that phase a couple times per lockout. You're pretty much trying to learn that later phase as much as you can before you go into it so you can realistically maximise the amount of prog you make.
There's also the fact that so many mechanics require knowledge of pretty much the whole mech so you know exactly what to do based on your combo of mechs, for example, a short explanation of Dive From Grace in P3
As a healer main, I much prefer this since it punishes the player directly for fucking up, and more importantly, means that being dogshit at mechanics will show if you parse. Want a good parse? You gotta do the fight properly.
There's also the fact that so many mechanics require knowledge of pretty much the whole mech so you know exactly what to do based on your combo of mechs, for example, a short explanation of Dive From Grace in P3
- Preposition based on numbers, 1s and 3s need to prepos at south, west, east. 2s need to preposition in north-east and north-west.
- Determine if your "set" has either Dark Elusive Jump or Dark Spineshatter Dive. If it does, then disregard your prepos space. Spineshatter takes East/North-east, Elusive takes West/North-west, Dark High Jump takes south (only applicable to 1st/3rd set)
- If you have either Dark Spineshatter or Dark Elusive, you must face east wall when dropping towers (if you don't, you'll seriously mess up the tower position and wipe the raid)
- Prep is done, now the actual mechanic
- 1s drop towers while 2s/3s stack north
- 3s take towers and bait a line outwards based on their prepos space. Everyone resolves either Gnash/Lash or Lash/Gnash
- 2s drop towers
- East/West 1s take towers and bait line AOEs outwards (make sure to return to center as soon as the lines are locked in)
- 1s/2s stack north while 3s drop towers
- Everyone resolves Gnash/Lash or Lash/Gnash while 2s and South 1 takes towers, baiting out lines after
Savage is great cause instead of getting vuln ups, they give out damage downs for fucking up a mechanic.
As a healer main, I much prefer this since it punishes the player directly for fucking up, and more importantly, means that being dogshit at mechanics will show if you parse. Want a good parse? You gotta do the fight properly.
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- Joined
- Sep 23, 2021
Can anyone tell me what the social climate is like in primal - excalibur? If anyone is in there. A friend told me it is quiet along with a non competitive house market. Maybe I'll get back into the game to get ready for expansion and swap realms.
All I noticed so far is that every female avatar/WoL you see is absolutely a male and the player base overwhelmingly uses a female WoL. My old FC had me as the only male WoL and we didnt have a single real women in it, just men playing women. Not surprisingly more then a few are troons now.
On second thought maybe I'll just not talk and go solo with disabled social while I play through new content. I don't want to raid anymore after going through 2 groups whose healers allowed me to die to auto attacks from the raid boss even with my mit active and properly cycled (and once after panic paladin invulv wore off).
All I noticed so far is that every female avatar/WoL you see is absolutely a male and the player base overwhelmingly uses a female WoL. My old FC had me as the only male WoL and we didnt have a single real women in it, just men playing women. Not surprisingly more then a few are troons now.
On second thought maybe I'll just not talk and go solo with disabled social while I play through new content. I don't want to raid anymore after going through 2 groups whose healers allowed me to die to auto attacks from the raid boss even with my mit active and properly cycled (and once after panic paladin invulv wore off).
- Joined
- Sep 10, 2016
Is it me or are there a lot more Stormblood stanning lately? I like to occasionally check out the XIV community on xitter and Reddit to catch up on the latest drama and suddenly I’m seeing a lot more people heavily praising the SB msq (even on shitpostxiv) after years of bashing it. I keep seeing SB fans praise the expansion’s msq because of it’s “grounded geopolitical plot” but there is nothing grounded about it and last time I checked the geopolitical plots of this game were heavily criticized for their writing and execution.
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- Joined
- Jan 30, 2021
Im in excalibur, but aside from the degeneracy in limsa and the weird dms i receive(im a lalafell) everything else is relatively normal looking. That said couldnt said if there is some sort of troon infestation or such since im mostly a solo player(play with a friend occasionally) and im not on a FC.
Ive noticed that, alot of doods playing as women, i personally find it weird, but nothing out of the realm of just people wanting to play while staring at something pretty. Although is always funny when im doing a dungeon and im the only guy on the group, i say that and there's always that one person that says "You dont know that" Or that one time one replied with "What is a male?" Which i laughed off which seems to have bother the person. Always funny how insecurities and how troons sometimes tell on themselves like that.
- Joined
- Jun 1, 2020
Most men play women in XIV and most women play men.
Well Intentioned
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Nov 27, 2018
Stormblood has always been seen as the best content in the game from a mechanical perspective.
I'm not saying whether that's right or wrong, but it's a sentiment I've seen expressed.
I personally preferred Stormblood to ShB (usually seen as the 'best' expansion) or EW (which is bog-standard JRPG 'childlike entity wants to end creation' story with all the expected plot points) even if I felt that it was a mishmash of a story and had one of the most teeth-gratingly annoying characters (Lyse.) But that's coming from the perspective of someone who only played through EW when it was current.
I do think that there is a lot of great writing in the Doma-side of things and the stuff with the Ul'dah leader...even if the Ala Mhiggers are annoying as fuck in general.
- Joined
- Sep 10, 2016
From my observations SB seems to attract two types of people in the XIV community on social media- the Tumblr sjws who demand all games to be political as long as the politics align with them, and gamers who think adding wars and geopolitics in your plot makes a game mature and grown up. The latter is mostly fans of jrpgs who are ashamed and insecure of liking anything anime related so they latch onto jrpgs that are dark and gritty and denounce anything light hearted and fantastical. I never understood why people play jrpgs if they’re just going to constantly whine about the genre tropes especially a Final Fantasy game out of all the games in the genre.
And yes SB was good content wise, I was mostly talking about the fans who latch on to the political aspects of the plot.
And yes SB was good content wise, I was mostly talking about the fans who latch on to the political aspects of the plot.
- Joined
- Dec 30, 2018
Moogle is infested with Frenchies
Omega is full of spergs
Ragnorak has Arabic, Italian, and even more frenchies
Odin is competitive and Scandinavian
Shiva is full of germs
Cerebus is the vodka appreciation server
Zodiark has even more wops
- Joined
- May 2, 2021
- Joined
- Jul 18, 2019
To be fair, Stormblood's notion that "revolutionary governments are not universally better, more moral, more functional, and more just than what they replace" is several orders of magnitude more sophisticated than the, "empire bad, rebels good" brainrot (aka Star Wars-brainrot) that we get in pretty much everything today.
I think really though it's more overcorrection. Stormblood's story has a lot of problems but a lot of people back in the day treated it as if it killed their dog and shat on their porch. And now a lot of people feel embarrassed in retrospect about those kinds of childish knee-jerk reactions to the story trying something different. Instead of pivoting back to, "Stormblood is a decent story with a ton of problems in execution" though, the community is trying to stake all the way out to, "UMM ACTUALLY STORMBLOOD WAS GOOD ALL ALONG CHUD"
I also think it's a bit of those evolving expectations I mentioned a few pages back - we've literally had two expansions back to back of increasingly ridiculous cosmic stakes and people are now nostalgic for a story that isn't about prettyboy mystery niggas farting DBZ lasers and snapping their fingers at the physical manifestation of bad vibes.
- Joined
- Sep 22, 2019
The only bad part of SB was Ala Mhiggers. Unfortunately, because Ala Mhiggers make up approximately 40% of SB, it will never be good. I really did enjoy the Doma part, and bro-ing around with Hien, Gosetsu and Yugiri. A breath of fresh air after the dead weight that was Lyse.
Well Intentioned
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Nov 27, 2018
I'd even argue that a lot of the Stormblood story on the Ala Mhigo side was good.
It was just that Lyse is such a fucking dead-weight to the story and the story really, really should have been Raubhan's story (but I guess that'd be too many manly-men and there's the standard Japanese aversion to melanin-rich characters, so that was never going to happen, lol.)
He was a far more established character in the existing game (as opposed to Lyse who is this big ass pull in one of the more ridiculous plot contrivances even for JRPG standards), had actual trials/tribulations to get over (dude was betrayed by a good friend, was maimed and was questioning everything about duty/what is 'right'/etc) and the whole 'finding the resolve' shit that Lyse/Hien go through would've been a lot more compelling than blonde waifu simpering for half an expansion MSQ.
Even the shit with Fordola was interesting.
Lyse is just not a particularly engaging character and is a part of why I can't help but roll my eyes when folks proclaim XIV's story is the best thing ever...which is generally why I take issue with the story.
It's fine if it's a JRPG story, but if people are going to hold it up as some sort of mastercraft narrative? I'm gonna rake it over the coals.
It was just that Lyse is such a fucking dead-weight to the story and the story really, really should have been Raubhan's story (but I guess that'd be too many manly-men and there's the standard Japanese aversion to melanin-rich characters, so that was never going to happen, lol.)
He was a far more established character in the existing game (as opposed to Lyse who is this big ass pull in one of the more ridiculous plot contrivances even for JRPG standards), had actual trials/tribulations to get over (dude was betrayed by a good friend, was maimed and was questioning everything about duty/what is 'right'/etc) and the whole 'finding the resolve' shit that Lyse/Hien go through would've been a lot more compelling than blonde waifu simpering for half an expansion MSQ.
Even the shit with Fordola was interesting.
Lyse is just not a particularly engaging character and is a part of why I can't help but roll my eyes when folks proclaim XIV's story is the best thing ever...which is generally why I take issue with the story.
It's fine if it's a JRPG story, but if people are going to hold it up as some sort of mastercraft narrative? I'm gonna rake it over the coals.
- Joined
- May 2, 2021
As far as MMO stories go, I’d say it’s fair to say that FFXIV has the best writing in that genre. Unfortunately that’s not what people say. It’s more so that they think FFXIV’s story is some of the best writing in gaming in general. Now there’s no doubt that heavensward and Shadowbringers have good writing. I’ve said before how much I love those expansions in this thread. But it seems when there’s a community that dedicates their lives to this game, they have to come up with any reason to convince themselves that it’s absolutely worth it. It’d be fine if they just said the story is good, but they constantly sing it’s praises like it’s the 2nd coming of lotr.
- Joined
- Jan 30, 2021
I personally enjoyed Heavensward and shadowbringer. Stormblood for me feels like a miss opportunity in some aspects, the only reason its even remotely relevant is because of my nibba Zenos. The man is as generic as they come as far as villains goes, but the shit he does and the lengths he for it is amusing to me. FF14 has a good story, but i wouldnt call it a masterpiece.
- Joined
- May 24, 2018
Stormblood is just another notch in the long list of "sandniggers ruining anything good" with an added touch of "basic white woman with saviour complex" to make it even more obnoxious.
There, how is that for political commentaty on muh jrpgs.
There, how is that for political commentaty on muh jrpgs.
- Joined
- Jan 23, 2023
I've always liked Stormblood and thought it was the last time we ever got a good expansion. I think mechanically it was when the game was the best. Thematically it was my favorite because I think Japan is cool, sue me. And the story was fine. FFXIV has never been the gold standard of storywritting. At the end of the day it's your typical JRPG story where the power of friendship and good vibes will overcome anything. Yeah it's not perfect, it has its problems, but I thought playing the role of the revolutionary was fun and I got out of it pretty much everything I wanted. Eureka was awful in every way possible, but at least the concept of field operations was good and improved when we got Bozja. The alliance raid was total nonsense of a story that could have literally been written in gibberish and it would've made just as much sense. Aside from that though I never understood why people hated it. The geopolitical stuff, and going back between Doma and Ala Mhigo I never thought was an issue. They were clearly segmented into different acts so you weren't juggling them. You can give me all the trash cans you want but I actually like Lyse as a character. I think it's interesting to have a character who is trying to deal with grief and her own feelings of inadequacy by trying to take on an alternate persona. When faced with overwhelming pressure she has to learn to grow past those feelings and rediscover what it means to be herself. She's uncertain, and clearly struggling but she is clearly more capabale than she believes and learns that she doesn't have to carry her burdens alone. If that's not good characterization I don't know what the fuck you people want.
Shadowbringer does not deserve the praise it gets. Character motivations are all over the fucking place and totally nonsenseical. It's so heavy on plot armor to make things happen, or poorly retconning the story to try and force this new plot to fit. The flood of light is such a poorly explained concept and doesn't really answer wtf happened to the world. No one explains why all the races have different names, they just expect you to already know how the world and it's culture work before the story even starts. They don't even mention that the world is in perpetual daytime until everyone freaks out over seeing stars again. Rather than feeling lost in a new world it was like reading a story with every other page ripped out. And yet that's what the community holds as the gold standard for story telling. If the community thinks that literal trash is good story telling I can see why they hated Stormblood.
Shadowbringer does not deserve the praise it gets. Character motivations are all over the fucking place and totally nonsenseical. It's so heavy on plot armor to make things happen, or poorly retconning the story to try and force this new plot to fit. The flood of light is such a poorly explained concept and doesn't really answer wtf happened to the world. No one explains why all the races have different names, they just expect you to already know how the world and it's culture work before the story even starts. They don't even mention that the world is in perpetual daytime until everyone freaks out over seeing stars again. Rather than feeling lost in a new world it was like reading a story with every other page ripped out. And yet that's what the community holds as the gold standard for story telling. If the community thinks that literal trash is good story telling I can see why they hated Stormblood.
- Joined
- May 24, 2018
Because that world is disconnected from Eorzea and grew to have its own culture and standards yet it's still a reflection.
Well yes, you are not supposed to reveal you're from another world, yet since the exarch pulled you into the first with about as much warning as the people in hiroshima got of an atom bomb you need time to learn it; it's why your first encounter with "different race names" has the hrothgar doing the exposition be absolutely puzzled that you don't know how races are named.
As for culture at large it's pretty Eorzea lite, only exception imo being Runar and his forest hippies where their entire way of living is tied to the state of the world; I can't even give points for originality on eulmore because we have the Ul'Dah syndicates in eorzea for "disconnected rich fucks", Eulmore is just the logical conclusion of how a slow doomsday scenario would hit those people.
I'd say my issue with ShB in this regard is that for a world entirely disconnected from the source the culture is fairly samey, races have different names is quite a lazy attempt even if it makes sense.
They do, there's a cutscene shortly after you arrive to the crystarium and go to rest which shows the perpetual daytime and the NPC that serves as the lodging's owner makes mention of both it and that the room is outfitted with curtains for the express purpose of sleeping.
They go plenty on this with the void pre ShB, tough you don't know it as a reflection until later I believe, there's plenty of instances throught the game where an imbalance of aether displays nasty side effects, the most notable one being sastasha where pirates start getting mutated and have tentacles or barnacles growing on them.
Even then and just in case it wasn't fresh on your mind we get a massive exposition dump multiple times explaining it, as wishy-washy as the mechanisms are (i.e. the ascians just cause a massive increase of one aspected aether because fuckitidontknowtheycandothatnow and then it magically just transfers to the source after they open the plot faucet I GUESS.) there at least is an attempt, as for the effects of said floods there's plenty of backstory on what happens and their effects on a world, they're called umbral calamities and the source has gone through multiple, the only "new" aspect ShB onwards introduces is that reflection floods can go wrong and thoroughly ruin a world which somehow prevents ascians from using the plot faucet.
Far as I know the only real asspull it does is during the Emet Selch confrontation (ok and maybe Thancred's super mega special stealth vs Ran'jit) and even then that's just "anime protagonist solves everything with the power of friendship" which is standard fare for JRPGS.
Lyse sounds great in summary but then we got a whining woman-child who would rather sulk and mope for the better part of an expansion instead working to get over it, I also don't see what qualifications she has to be the face of the resistance other than "because plot" and "because dad/sister", she just gets shoved in there by the plot and hardly earns it.
Summaries and how the story actually handles it are different beasts, she's a great example of it, and to top it all off we had a much better and developed candidate to lead the ala migghers to regain their freedom than eleventh hour Lyse:
Raubahn is already dealing with pretty much everything you mentioned (except the taking on an alternate persona), he's a native ala miggher and open about his feelings for his homeland, and he one ups Lyse hard in terms of developing a political plot since he's had to deal with the ugly side of the ala miggher resistance in the form of extremism, his missing arm being a constant reminder of just how bad it can get; not only this but he even struggles internally with his allegiances (SB does play on this hard, it's a point to its favor) having his heart torn between his duties to Ul'Dah and his wishes to lead ala migghers to prosperity.
The first time you get whooped by Zenos in doma you get yeeted into ala mhigger plot shortly after with nearly no resolution, he is then moved back to ala mhigo just so you can conveniently take over doma and bring the plot to an end with La Resistance, it most definitely could have been segmented better, and I know they are capable of this because they did it with the post-SB quests.
Barely any in the expansion itself, every nation that involves itself in the war just agrees to help because the WoL is there (iirc there is a quest in which you literally nation hop and ask for troops, they give a bit of an excuse and immediately go "well but since you're the WoL we're sending some, also please give me your autograph"), Doma itself gives you a walking plot device in the form of Hien (tough at least you and him have to put in work to regain control, so it's not too bad) and the whole Lizard quest, while definitely fun and enjoyable exists as a way to CONVENIENTLY muster troops because you just happened to arrive on the steppes RIGHT AS THEIR KHAN SELECTION WAS HAPPENING, and it just SO HAPPENS that the highly isolated and nomadic Xaela culture allows complete fucking strangers to take part in it so long as one of the tribes says "they with us lmao" and you clear one dungeon, it's just to convenient their entire cultural backdrop has that one loophole to let you become the Lizard King.
I don't even think SB is shit (much as I say it, I like to exaggerate for shits and giggles), but there's enough wasted potential and some few points of unbearable horseshit in there to sour it for me, and this is without going into great detail about how the best bits of political intrigue relating to ala mhigo are in the post-ARR quests and the post-HW leadup to SB, i.e. not in the bloody expansion itself.
What's worse is that I know SE is capable of handling such a plot,geopolitical intrigue with a side of magical lore is what FF12 was and while the 'editorial' decision to change the protagonist in that game was definitely a very bad call it still manages to work everything else in just fine.
XIV just has a lot of wasted potential in terms of 'plot', SB just happens to be one of the biggest offenders next to Endwalker, EW possibly being worse but having the benefit of being the latest expansion and too filled with fanservice for it to get any real critiques from the typical XIV plot enjoyer.
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RIPRhongoBongo
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Jan 27, 2019
Also, the 1st NPC you meet straight-up tells you it's like bedtime despite the lack of literal night
- Joined
- Sep 7, 2019
I'd still do group content, probably harder to do in FF14 due to the fragmented servers, but it's one of the few ways to meet new likeminded people, even if you have to grind through hordes of retards.
for me really depends on the look or atmosphere, don't always pick the opposite but more often than not. it's also simply statistics, since lot more dudes play MMOs, you have a lot of them picking the opposite, thus making it more noticeable. I remember way back in WoW some female guildmates played dudes too to keep the retards away.
started a fem-lala "ironically" way back when a whole group (8-10 people) of us started playing, one to annoy them and two a walking potato whacking shit with a big-ass weapon was hilarious to me. after a while I came around since it was still somewhat of a novelty (outside of degenerate circles, less of an issue in yuropoor) and as a moeshitter got used to it.
talking smack in dungeons as some knee-high stump is also hilarious. for me at least.