Final Fantasy XIV - Kiwi Free Company

If massive job overhauls are being made by people who don't even play the job at a competent level, where does it go from here? How did it get there?
No one at SE who is involved with redesigning jobs plays any of them. They don't need to - in fact it's probably better for their stated design goal to have playtesters that are bad at the job, because then you can just aim for "incompetents can no longer fail at this job", neatly aligning with SE's stated design goal since Shadowbringers of eradicating skill gaps in job performance.

As for where it goes, it continues down this same direction jobs have been "evolving" since late Shadowbringers - lobotomized husks with a sleepwalking filler rotation and a baker's dozen 1000+ potency hits on a 60 or 120s cooldown you hit under 2m buffs, where the skill ceiling becomes not drifting your CDs and praying you crit with as many of your giant hits under buffs as possible.
And SE will look at this and go "complete success", since it made player numbers go up now that Limsa AFKers are flocking to the "new, improved" Black Mage where it's impossible to fail at it short of just not pressing buttons. Same thing that happened to SMN - SE reduced it to basically a two-button wonder with infinite movement that you can't possibly fail at, and player numbers skyrocketed, and they have stated that they view that as a complete success.

Then they'll do it to another job soon enough, though they're starting to run out of jobs that haven't been lobotomized by now.
 
It's been awhile, FFXIV threadbros. Hope you guys have been well.


Returned to FF14 for the first time since DT killed my previously enthusiastic love for the storyline that I had been documenting here as I played through the game from start to finish for the first time. Unfortunately husband needed another healer slot for his static, so here I am again. I still think DT was hot fucking trash.


Latest patch wasn't completely devoid of value though. The new Ex is pretty entertaining. We haven't cleared it yet but we're making good progress now that I'm back in the flow of things. Wish me luck.
 
Managed to get my EX4 clear last night. Pretty pleased I was able to go from fresh to clear in one night. I also rolled a 99 on the coffer so rip my Savage rolls luck

The most intimidating mechanic was probably Escelon's Fall / Witchhunt. But then I learned there are only 2 possible movement options and you only need to pay attention to the first 2 symbols.
  • If it's purple->purple or pink->pink you move swap->stay->swap
  • if it's purple->pink or pink->purple you move stay->swap->stay.
There's 6 mechanics named Bloom but there's two types of them. Blooms 3, 4 and 6 have most of their difficulty in solving the puzzle. You're supposed to figure out that
  • Bloom 3 - 4 players drop rose tiles but if two towers end up connected by rose tiles you wipe. You're supposed to figure out how the rose players position to avoid linking two towers
  • Bloom 4 - 1 player gets an 8 person stack but everyone gets a tether that forces them to run at opposite edges of the arena. You're supposed to figure out that rose tiles extend the range of the stack marker so the 4 rose players have to drop rose tiles in a way that connects the opposite edges of the arena so the party can share the stack marker even though they're at opposite edges. This is the puzzle where the earliest video guide on youtube rushed their vid so much they couldn't solve it and just left it as is lol 1000011292.png
  • Bloom 6 - There's 4 towers that need to be soaked but 2 towers will get cleaved. The 4 rose players have to figure out which tower gets cleaved and use their rose tiles to extend the tower so the tower soaker can have a safe spot while still making sure two towers don't end up linked
But if you're 90% of the playerbase Blooms 3 and 4 get trivialized since the guides already solved the puzzle for you. Bloom 6 still has some difficulty in determining which tower to extend and where but PF here seems to have standardized into Tank lb3 for Bloom 6 to trivialize it. And I expect it to start being skipped once we get Savage gear.

By comparison, Blooms 1, 2 and 5 are much simpler "just dodge everything" mechs but unlike 3 and 4 looking at a diagram doesn't immediately trivialize it you still need an attempt or two to get the timing down.
 
Too bad Zelenia doesn't seem to have any of Beatrix's attacks. A shame really. Fuck it, still sounds like a fun boss anyways
She uses Stock Break as her multihit stack attack, Thunder Slash during Blooms 2 and 5 as the in/out and I swear I hear the JP guidemakers say "Climhazzard" whenever they talk about "Escelon's Fall" so maybe Dawntrail localizers fucked up that reference but I'm not sure since aparently Climhazzard was also a PS1 era localization screw up?
 
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I'm not sure since aparently Climhazzard was also a PS1 era localization screw up?
Partially, Climhazzard in JP is literally "Climb Hazard" and first appeared as one of Cloud's limit breaks. They just kept the name in FF9 because it's a reference to cloud. The FF7 remake localizes it as Ascension, so dunno where the "Escelon's Fall" part comes from.
 
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Parking here to wait to hear how the MSQ story is like this time
Slightly more tolerable than the last patch.


I like that the new bad guy tried to kill us without a speech first or revealing himself. Just straight up dropped a lightning bolt that took all of Everkeep's energy production to make on our head wthout any warning. Proper way to assassinate someone.


Then had Diet Sphene ask us politely for the MacGuffin because 'fuck, that didn't work." Also Sphene Classic and Diet Sphene are actually vaguely tolerable unlike DT Sphene. All in all it's still a shit story but I felt less personally insulted than Dawntrail itself did.
 
Slightly more tolerable than the last patch.


I like that the new bad guy tried to kill us without a speech first or revealing himself. Just straight up dropped a lightning bolt that took all of Everkeep's energy production to make on our head wthout any warning. Proper way to assassinate someone.


Then had Diet Sphene ask us politely for the MacGuffin because 'fuck, that didn't work." Also Sphene Classic and Diet Sphene are actually vaguely tolerable unlike DT Sphene. All in all it's still a shit story but I felt less personally insulted than Dawntrail itself did.

So is the Warrior of Light more the main characteror still a sidekick this time? Because i'm not paying money to do something i can for free in other games
 
Dancing Green's theme reminds me of Mirror B's theme from Pokemon XD.
 
So is the Warrior of Light more the main characteror still a sidekick this time? Because i'm not paying money to do something i can for free in other games
You're back to being in the driving seat again. Tranny cat gets conveniently side-lined repeatedly and is getting Lyse treatment.
 
So is the Warrior of Light more the main characteror still a sidekick this time? Because i'm not paying money to do something i can for free in other games
Wuk Lamat was present, but twice went off to deal with other things allowing WOL and Sphene Classic to take the spotlight. Definitely felt like the main character for this patch. We'll see how long it lasts lol.
 
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You're back to being in the driving seat again. Tranny cat gets conveniently side-lined repeatedly and is getting Lyse treatment.

Wuk Lamat was present, but twice went off to deal with other things allowing WOL and Sphene Classic to take the spotlight. Definitely felt like the main character for this patch. We'll see how long it lasts lol.
Good, that was what really annoyed me the most when learning about DT
 
So is the Warrior of Light more the main characteror still a sidekick this time? Because i'm not paying money to do something i can for free in other games
Main character, evil hacker bad guy has business with US and not Wuk Lamat because we have the Azem mcguffin/multiverse travel key he wants. He's only interested in seeing how strong we are and couldn't give less of a shit if Wuk Lamat is there or not.
 
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