Final Fantasy XIV - Kiwi Free Company

[ovenmath]

So, given the state of dawntrail, is ff14 worth the dive for someone who has played half of heavensward? Is the game fun during the catch up phase? Is dawntrail actually as shitty as the rumors insinuate?

 

[Baguette Child]

for someone who has played half of heavensward?

There's good content in SB to EW, of varying quality. I would argue I had a consistent amount of fun with the content in literally every expansion except Dawntrail; Even Stormblood, considered by many to be a weak point, was enjoyable to play on the whole. It's really the EW post-patches and then all the DT content that started to suck too hard to derive any enjoyment from.

 

[Fcret]

So, given the state of dawntrail, is ff14 worth the dive for someone who has played half of heavensward? Is the game fun during the catch up phase? Is dawntrail actually as shitty as the rumors insinuate?

Playing up through Shadowbringers and Endwalker is actually pretty great. Shadowbringers is a fantastic story and Endwalker mostly sticks the landing (although it's not as good as Shadowbringers).

Dawntrail is not worth engaging with. If you want to continue on to endgame, DT's battle content is okay but I'd recommend skipping cutscenes and just reading a summary online. To put DT's story's badness into context: I don't even recommend cutscene skipping for ARR's patch content.

 

[Baron Reginald]

he new trial’s bgm is a huge miss for me. I’m not asking for a 1:1 rendition but it completely lacks the energy and spirit of the song it’s based on.

I mean, I thought the exact same way for Beatrix theme (weird they never even used her actual battle theme) as well. Not sure why they always miss with the ps1 era music remakes for the most part, since it lacks a lot of the "impact", literally. The percussion is always extremely toned down, as well as the stings being mellowed out. It's a weird place where Fan remakes have blown Soken out of the water for that era of music, even if they did a mid job instrumentally they understood the assignment better. 4:20 in the song is a perfect example of that, as it lacks any of the buildup. The choir and the drums should of been building and ascending in crescendo with each set of DUN-DUN's! But it just remains flat, with an every flatter payoff.

Going purely for the Orchestral approach for Necron is such a meh approach without the commitment. Unironically a song I would've asked for a The Black Mages-esque approach to. (Actually, looking back Black Mages actually already did a Grandcross cover. if I resub I'll just mod that in instead lmao.)

 

[CharlesBarkley]

The warrior of light needs a t-shirt that says "FUCKED THE BIG CAT, GOT AIDS"

 

[SnowBall]

I just finished the msq too.
Basically all of the above.

If this was their course correction due to the backlash they tied things up pretty well all things considering. I appreciated the small mini games just to break up the VN monotony, they had to know spending 90% of patch story running around in the city would get boring quick. The trial was okay, but I really liked the dungeon. That 2nd boss was a nice change of pace. Also: That fucking director's locker.

I liked the puzzle mini games too. Made the msq a lot more bearable. It felt like they were doing a lot of experimentation with this patch in terms of adding more stuff to do in the msq and the increase in cutscene quality.

 

[Golfing on the Moon 1971]

So, given the state of dawntrail, is ff14 worth the dive for someone who has played half of heavensward? Is the game fun during the catch up phase? Is dawntrail actually as shitty as the rumors insinuate?

The nation vs nation story through the end of Stormblood is still pretty good. Shadowbringers ditches that but provides a fun fantasy adventure. And then it goes downhill from there into the patches (though 5.3 had a fun moment). After 5.3 it is never good again but at that point you mind as well just tough it out and beat Endwalker. The Elpis zone was pretty neat. Once you have beaten the storyline, you can rest the game there unless you really like the aesthetics and the music of the game. The Endwalker patch storyline and Dawntrail have forgettable stories but you get to run down more cool looking dungeon hallway levels, listen to more neat music, unlock cool new job outfits, etc. And then once you are fully caught up you can unsub until the next expansion drops or something. Or if the story is so boring that the aesthetics are not enough to retain your attention.

 

[Froggy Fresh Sextape]

The percussion is always extremely toned down, as well as the stings being mellowed out.

There's been something really off with the audio mixing since around the EW postpatch quests. It's really noticeable with Zeromus' battle music, where it seems like Soken couldn't figure out what volume the tracks were supposed to be played at so he just turned them all to 11.

I wonder if they changed studios due to COVID or something.

 

[Well Intentioned]

So, given the state of dawntrail, is ff14 worth the dive for someone who has played half of heavensward? Is the game fun during the catch up phase? Is dawntrail actually as shitty as the rumors insinuate?

How invested are you in the story/how much does the story factor in for your enjoyment of the game?

For me, XIV is like a Final Fantasy theme park where I see some new stuff, explore reimaginings of old stuff and scratch the MMO itch I have. The story is interesting to me because I'm a FUCKING NERD, but for all the moaning I do in here (and I'm sorry for that) it honestly wouldn't change much if I stopped caring about it.

It has a very basic gameplay loop, but I'd argue that you haven't gotten into the best that XIV has to offer, so I'd recommend going through it.

Re: Dawntrail specifically, it is objectively the worst thing to happen to the game since 1.0, but they seem to be slowly pulling up and out of the nosedive they were in. Whether they can actually follow through and do anything substantive remains to be seen, but I'll remain optimistic for now and say that you'll probably get your money's worth if you pick up the rest of the expansions.

Just....do the Dawntrail MSQ in chunks and take breaks.

 

[Agarathium1066]

Just....do the Dawntrail MSQ in chunks and take breaks.

If anyone does get into DT from other parts of FFXIV listen to this. Please listen to this. If you aren't skipping the cutscenes take breaks because holy shit it was cringey drudgery to plow through ONCE let alone multiple times.

 

[Tanner Glass]

So, given the state of dawntrail, is ff14 worth the dive for someone who has played half of heavensward? Is the game fun during the catch up phase? Is dawntrail actually as shitty as the rumors insinuate?

If you had fun during HW, you'll have fun through the whole thing, probably. It really depends on where you derive the fun from.

DT is not great, but it's not so bad it should instantly wreck your fun and a fair bit of DT frustration is carried over from missteps from SHB and EW that weren't fixed and were just kind of doubled down on. The content is fun at least, I enjoy the raids so far.

Just when you stop having fun, wherever you stop having fun, hit the eject button. Chances are that it's all downhill from wherever you run out of steam and unless something drastic happens it's likely downhill for a minimum of one more expansion.

 

[Baron Reginald]

Soken couldn't figure out what volume the tracks were supposed to be played at so he just turned them all to 11.

In general, I think Soken is shit and overhyped.
He can put some interesting spins on themes, but his normal work and arrangements are inferior and pathetic unless he has someone babysitting him and making it actually work, like what happened with FF16, where he had Yoshitaka Suzuki babysitting his ass for the bangers (also babysits most of his 14 bangers too).

They need to remove him from any arrangement work and put Tadayoshi Makino in charge of it, since they used him for FF7:RE. (Responsible for Dragons Dogma Orchestra work, and worked on most of Monster Hunters arrangements, which are almost all phenomenal, Proof of a Hunter, etc)

 

[Froggy Fresh Sextape]

He can put some interesting spins on themes, but his normal work and arrangements are inferior and pathetic unless he has someone babysitting him and making it actually work, like what happened with FF16, where he had Yoshitaka Suzuki babysitting his ass for the bangers (also babysits most of his 14 bangers too).

I assume they just let him do whatever he wants since ShB (LAHEEE)

The Radz-at-Han night theme is some weird bhangra big band blend and it works perfectly. He misses more than he hits though.

 

[Goycast Guy]

So, given the state of dawntrail, is ff14 worth the dive for someone who has played half of heavensward? Is the game fun during the catch up phase? Is dawntrail actually as shitty as the rumors insinuate?

Yeah it absolutely is. Shadowbringers is great. Endwalker is… questionable in a lot of ways to say the least but I personally like it and it provides a conclusion to the FFXIV story. Skip everything after.

In general, I think Soken is shit and overhyped.

I don’t personally think he’s shit, but I do agree that he’s overhyped, especially by the faggot ass FFXIV community. Yoko Shimomura is a far better composer and I would much rather hear her music than Soken. (Yet she doesn’t get as much attention as him)

 

[Well Intentioned]

Spoiler: 7.3 Thoughts

All of the encounters are fun and interesting. The 24 Man in particular is probably the most fun I've had doing content in this game. Meso Horny Terminal is fun, particularly the 2nd boss, and the Trial was also pretty good (although I'd argue not on the level of the 24 Man or Meso Terminal, although I haven't jumped into the EX yet)

The rest of the patch felt a lot more 'involved' where you weren't just standing around listening to dialogue. There were a couple of small puzzles or things for the player to do, which was nice, because this is a fucking game, not a movie or whatever.

They're still in the habit of overstating things and handholding for the retards, though. It's something that's done throughout XIV, but Dawntrail was really bad for it, and this last patch irritatingly so. It's like they were writing dialogue using an AI that was trained exclusively on Blue's Clues and Dora the Explorer.

Regarding Wuk Lamat, I think you can see a few changes that were made to make the main character feel more involved in the game we are playing. Barring an interview or reveal from a dev, I will go to my grave believing that the bit where we save Classic Sphene at the end of the Necron fight originally only had Wuk Lamat jumping in (she's reduced to a secondary role) because everything in that scene and everything that led up to it fits perfectly with Wuk wanting to do it for Speen and save her pee pole.

I think they were reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaally trying to farm for those Twitch/YouTube react moments (SoyFace.jpg WUK LAMAT DEAD?!?!?! ShockedEmoji) and were thinking fans were going to be touched by her almost death.

The bitter asshole in me figures, why not just pull the fucking trigger. Perfect moment to have done it and made a statement that they were listening to fan response. I know it was never going to happen, but the moment was there.

 

[SnowBall]

I still think ShB has the best OST in my eyes with EW and StB close second.

 

[Dopey Cunt]

Damn that was a long MSQ patch:

Spoiler: Here's spoiler bullet points for the story summary for those who no longer play but are still a little curious

• Calyx is revealed to have founded preservation at 11 years old during the Storm Surge. He was already sick by then and it's speculated that he started his crusade because he himself didn't want to die and researched a way to escape his eventual fate. He then justifies extending his desires onto everyone by claiming that he's doing it for their benefit.
• Geode dies.
• Calyx specifically targets and murders Alexandrians who aren't wearing regulators so that people remember their deaths and so that he can harvest both their soul and their corporeal aether. The purpose is to both stoke fear to drive more people into becoming endless and to harvest resources for their eventual conversion. The piles of dust are what become of the people who have their corporeal aether harvested.
• Endless are confirmed to be nothing more than bundles of data given physical form through corporeal aether, meaning that they aren't alive. They are just meant to simulate a living person.
• Some research director who worked under Calyx in the past has some weird, obsessive gay crush on him, would murder anyone who didn't agree with Calyx and kept a locker full of his pictures in some creepy shrine in his office.
• A group of Alexandrians finally grow a pair and decide to reject the whole endless plan. They help out by going around and convincing people to accept death as part of every day life.
• It's explained that Calyx orchestrated the events in Alexandria in 7.0 and he couldn't just take the key from Endless Sphene when she activated it because her desperation allowed her to override his authority temporarily. He takes mild pride damage and admits that it was a "miscalculation" on his part.
• Calyx's efforts to sow fear was two pronged, not only to drive people into becoming endless, but to trick them into helping him summon a primal.
• Oh yeah, Calyx is revealed to know both how to perform summoning and how to use concepts to bring something to life.
• Trial is the final boss from FF9, Necron. He's supposed to be a primal that's the embodiment of death and the fear of it.
• We end up falcon punching the machine keeping Calyx's memories stored and destroying it at the last moment before...
• Galool Ja decides to train in the landsguard to be a swordsman to get strong and become a worthy leader.
• It's revealed that all the memories of those who passed away weren't actually erased from people and that they were only "locked away"
• The Alexandrians make the choice to have all of their locked memories restored. This is done by going back to Living Memory and reactivating all the terminals we shut off previously, turning Living Memory's lights back on but without the perpetual piss sky. Now it's just lit up with a normal sky.
• Sphene retakes her position as queen.
• Smile plays again.
• Calyx survived our encounter as he managed to transfer his memory data successfully a split second before we destroyed the terminal.
• We end up scaring the piss out of him so bad we gave him PTSD.
• The ascians are back.
• Calyx has apparently been working with the ascians since the beginning and probably will come back in the future as their lackey.

The end, Dawntrail is over.

 

[Brandy [◉'']]

Dawntrail has ended. I didn't feel anything for this, to the end none of the characters on offer spoke to me, and the one that I thought was the most cliche and trite is the one they decide to make a more permanent villain, which sure is a choice.

Overall DT failed in its most critical aspect: Worldbuilding. We have spent most of the MSQ in fucking Alexandria, Tulliyolla was completely dropped. This was supposed to the basis for the next saga, so we have to compare it to ARR. And yeah the plot of ARR was simpler and you can make a point that DT was better story wise (which I would disagree but I also like the Scions so I might not be objective). However ARR was so good at establishing the setting and getting you invested in it. 3 city states all very unique with their own issues and views on life, the garlean empire at the borders, the beastmen population and their primal summoning and mystery villains in the black cloaked organisation. It made you root for the people in the world and made me want to have my character be a part of it. Dawntrail has nothing of it. No one will think fondly back on the... idk Pelupelu and imagine their character being part of them, we did nothing with the south america theme at best we got a justification for the modern clothing that is populating the realms now. And because they did nothing, established nothing, they had to pull out the Ascians at the end again. They can pull of a ShB/EW tier narrative but it will never work if Tural is going to be their basis because it is built on tacos and neon cyber lights and nothing else.

I sincerely hope 8.0 will do a tabula rasa and start new, this time not wanting to tell a tale of the writers pet but build a world, the game needs it.