Final fantasy XIV any good?

[Trithne]

Cloud of Darkness was dealt with back in ARR. Void's beyond saving anyway, that's Golby's whole deal. Probably the main thing we'll get from this patch is that whatever they do to get us back to the Void will be used to make going to more shards possible.

 

[Myobi]

I dont think we will explore the 13th like we explired the first in shadowbringer.

I don't think so either, yet, again, that was never my point.

 

[Mebrilia the Viera Queen]

Cloud of Darkness was dealt with back in ARR. Void's beyond saving anyway, that's Golby's whole deal. Probably the main thing we'll get from this patch is that whatever they do to get us back to the Void will be used to make going to more shards possible.

The cloud of darknes was fought in the void tho. Voidsent cannot really die in the void they keep regenerating. So is most likely she is alive and well.

 

[somerandomdude]

This is the worst MMORPG I've played. I tried the game out, but the main story quest with all the pointless fetch quests with very little action in between was just the most mind numbing experience I've had in a game in quite some time. I made it to level 14 before calling it quits. Even Diablo 4 is better than this game.

In most MMORPGs, you're not walled out of the content you want to do by some retarded main story quest/gauntlet of fetch quests. In this game they'll sell you main story quest skips as a pay to avoid the grueling gauntlet of tedium.

Even WoW let me skip the content I didn't want to do, and I didn't need to buy a skip to have some amount of agency. Another one I used to play, Anarchy Online, an old school MMORPG, there were plenty of fetch quests there too, but you could skip them all and focus only on the content that you wanted to do.

 

[Mebrilia the Viera Queen]

You are most likely playing by skipping dialogues and such. That game is not meant to be played like that.

 

[Theodora]

This is the worst MMORPG I've played. I tried the game out, but the main story quest with all the pointless fetch quests with very little action in between was just the most mind numbing experience I've had in a game in quite some time. I made it to level 14 before calling it quits. Even Diablo 4 is better than this game

It's a slow burn alright, presumably a choice to be accessible to some degree on the mechanical side; but while I'm not going to go all "you need to spend 100 hours with a game before you can judge it", quite frankly you have no idea about FFXIV if you stopped at level 14 of all things.

It's a story driven RPG first and foremost, and most of the first 40 levels or so is setting up a world that the rest takes place in. You're not going to get any of the geopolitics or commentary on organised religion and such at that level.

edit: and what mebrilia said, skipping dialogue is considered a mortal sin by the FFXIV community

 

[Tacgnol]

There is no point playing FFXIV if you aren't in it for the story, and skipping/not paying attention to dialogues is just going to make the whole thing impenetrable later on.

 

[Mebrilia the Viera Queen]

This is the worst MMORPG I've played. I tried the game out, but the main story quest with all the pointless fetch quests with very little action in between was just the most mind numbing experience I've had in a game in quite some time. I made it to level 14 before calling it quits. Even Diablo 4 is better than this game

It's a slow burn alright, presumably a choice to be accessible to some degree on the mechanical side; but while I'm not going to go all "you need to spend 100 hours with a game before you can judge it", quite frankly you have no idea about FFXIV if you stopped at level 14 of all things.

It's a story driven RPG first and foremost, and most of the first 40 levels or so is setting up a world that the rest takes place in. You're not going to get any of the geopolitics or commentary on organised religion and such at that level.

edit: and what mebrilia said, skipping dialogue is considered a mortal sin by the FFXIV community

The game never time gates you (Unlike wow) the old content remains consistent and you don't have stuff like borrowed power or expansions that invalidate all your progress. Is perfectly easy to find people to run old content with because the game rewards actually high-level players doing so.

I played wow and i stopped to WOTLK because i notice how stale it was. Was also the same stuff all over again. A new expansion dropped and all the progress you made was absolutely useless.

Ff14 has:
Dungeons-Raids.
Pvp that is actually fun and not in your face.
Variant Dungeons (Dungeons that change depending on what path you chose)
Roguelike Dungeon (Palace of the dead is a long dungeon wich you save your progress and is procedurally generated as well)
Borkja open world battlefield (Content related to the resistance vs the garleans were players are in an open battlefield dueling defeating boss and armies)
Eureka (An open world to explore in wich you have to attune to the element of the creatures in order to progress)
Crafting and Economy that works.
Housing.
Island sanctuary (Basically a lite stardew valley in the game)
Various minigames: Triple triad, Chocobo raising and racing, and a lot of minigames in the saucer.
Gear customization (You can save and tint countless of gear to create your look)

The game never time gates you. All the stuff you do is content. Has nice writing and and intense storyline and continuity on the setting.

Wow has:
Dungeon and Raids: That become obsolete every time an expansion drops.
Timegates and restrictions: In order to mask the poor content of the expansion
Island Expeditions
Pet battles (A lite version of pokemon in the game)
Pvp
Broken economy
Useless crafting.

And that's it.
Don't even make me start off the writing is laughable and how the setting make no sense because of the countless retcon they made.

 

[Theodora]

The game never time gates you

It does timegate you in a few small ways -- that's why there's a "weekly reset" in the first place -- it's just that there's very few hard locks on progressing through the game if you're willing to grind past the various boosts you get from roulettes, challenge log stuff, etc. Off the top of my head, the most impactful way this matters is that you are locked out of drops for the latest savage and alliance raids until the next week (which is why a lot of statics raid on a Tuesday, when the weekly timer for everything resets). Though it's understandable you'd miss that one since you're new to Savages, it's definitely a thing, just far less than in most MMOs

Elite hunt marks also reset once a week. Basically if there was zero timegating, then this wouldn't be a thing.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

To the OP: depends, do you like dressing up in furry costumes and LARP playing an MMO?

 

[Mebrilia the Viera Queen]

The game never time gates you

It does timegate you in a few small ways -- that's why there's a "weekly reset" in the first place -- it's just that there's very few hard locks on progressing through the game if you're willing to grind past the various boosts you get from roulettes, challenge log stuff, etc. Off the top of my head, the most impactful way this matters is that you are locked out of drops for the latest savage and alliance raids until the next week (which is why a lot of statics raid on a Tuesday, when the weekly timer for everything resets). Though it's understandable you'd miss that one since you're new to Savages, it's definitely a thing, just far less than in most MMOs

Elite hunt marks also reset once a week. Basically if there was zero timegating, then this wouldn't be a thing.

Thats is vastly different from having to farm conduits or even rep points in order to progress the questline or you are stuck there. Or from the awful rng enchanting of BDO for example.
Timegate in the sense that blocks you totally from progression in any form.

 

[Tacgnol]

Thats is vastly different from having to farm conduits or even rep points in order to progress the questline or you are stuck there. Or from the awful rng enchanting of BDO for example.

Whilst I'm not disagreeing with the overall point, I will point out that rep has rarely ever gated anything of consequence in wow for the last few expansion packs.

Usually rep grinds are purely for unlocking mounts, pets and transmogs these days.

 

[Mebrilia the Viera Queen]

Thats is vastly different from having to farm conduits or even rep points in order to progress the questline or you are stuck there. Or from the awful rng enchanting of BDO for example.

Whilst I'm not disagreeing with the overall point, I will point out that rep has rarely ever gated anything of consequence in wow for the last few expansion packs.

Usually rep grinds are purely for unlocking mounts, pets and transmogs these days.

Flying was also timegated in shadowlands putting timers on your research

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Biggest timegate in FF14: waiting in the massive line to the nearest Furbarber.

 

[Mebrilia the Viera Queen]

Well the game offer a huge variety of activities all different to keep you busy. So even in the instance where you have to wait the rewards to refresh you can do something else and have fun. Also porky if you havento post something about the game post about the game. Lets keep this gaming thread about gaming hm?

 

[somerandomdude]

This is the worst MMORPG I've played. I tried the game out, but the main story quest with all the pointless fetch quests with very little action in between was just the most mind numbing experience I've had in a game in quite some time. I made it to level 14 before calling it quits. Even Diablo 4 is better than this game

It's a slow burn alright, presumably a choice to be accessible to some degree on the mechanical side; but while I'm not going to go all "you need to spend 100 hours with a game before you can judge it", quite frankly you have no idea about FFXIV if you stopped at level 14 of all things.

It's a story driven RPG first and foremost, and most of the first 40 levels or so is setting up a world that the rest takes place in. You're not going to get any of the geopolitics or commentary on organised religion and such at that level.

edit: and what mebrilia said, skipping dialogue is considered a mortal sin by the FFXIV community

To be perfectly honest, I 100% don't care about the story. So a way to skip the story entirely, and get into the dungeons and raids would be preferable to me, but I'm not paying for a sub or a skip. This game clearly isn't for me. 14 levels is more than enough time to figure out if a game is for me or not. People say the entire AAR questline is you playing Fedex for the entire world, doing random monotonous shit, and you don't need to play even 5hrs in this game to figure that out. I would just as soon go play WoW or any other number of MMORPGs over this one.

 

[Mebrilia the Viera Queen]

This is the worst MMORPG I've played. I tried the game out, but the main story quest with all the pointless fetch quests with very little action in between was just the most mind numbing experience I've had in a game in quite some time. I made it to level 14 before calling it quits. Even Diablo 4 is better than this game

It's a slow burn alright, presumably a choice to be accessible to some degree on the mechanical side; but while I'm not going to go all "you need to spend 100 hours with a game before you can judge it", quite frankly you have no idea about FFXIV if you stopped at level 14 of all things.

It's a story driven RPG first and foremost, and most of the first 40 levels or so is setting up a world that the rest takes place in. You're not going to get any of the geopolitics or commentary on organised religion and such at that level.

edit: and what mebrilia said, skipping dialogue is considered a mortal sin by the FFXIV community

To be perfectly honest, I 100% don't care about the story. So a way to skip the story entirely, and get into the dungeons and raids would be preferable to me, but I'm not paying for a sub or a skip. This game clearly isn't for me. 14 levels is more than enough time to figure out if a game is for me or not. People say the entire AAR questline is you playing Fedex for the entire world, doing random monotonous shit, and you don't need to play even 5hrs in this game to figure that out. I would just as soon go play WoW or any other number of MMORPGs over this one.

You make 14 levels in less than an hour. But yes go play wow where you do that for the base game and all the expansion and the story is just nonsense. Tho if you dont like story focused games you wont have fun with ff14. Even tho gameplay talking offers much more variety and quality that many other mmo included the one you mentioned.

 

[somerandomdude]

You make 14 levels in less than an hour. But yes go play wow where you do that for the base game and all the expansion and the story is just nonsense. Tho if you dont like story focused games you wont have fun with ff14. Even tho gameplay talking offers much more variety and quality that many other mmo included the one you mentioned.

I'd have preferred if the story were divided up into optional story archs, like what is done in other MMORPGs. If you're a certain level, you can skip ahead to the next area or dungeons. The main reason I don't like this game is because you can't do that. The fact that they sell story skips really says it all.

 

[Mebrilia the Viera Queen]

You make 14 levels in less than an hour. But yes go play wow where you do that for the base game and all the expansion and the story is just nonsense. Tho if you dont like story focused games you wont have fun with ff14. Even tho gameplay talking offers much more variety and quality that many other mmo included the one you mentioned.

I'd have preferred if the story were divided up into optional story archs, like what is done in other MMORPGs. If you're a certain level, you can skip ahead to the next area or dungeons. The main reason I don't like this game is because you can't do that. The fact that they sell story skips really says it all.

A realm reborn sets the preparation for the story arcs coming this is why is slow paced till you reach the climax of it in the second part of it. It is long but is less long for example than the wow base game. To enjoy this MMO you have to play just like you play a JRPG the games starts to open up early from level 30 onward you will be able to make various activities. The impact at the beginning is huge so i understand you. However i suggest you to watch this video.

Is very good to pinpoint the differences.of the major mmos.

 

[somerandomdude]

Last time I played WoW, I don't remember having to play Fedex to slowly unravel a forced MSC before I could get to the content I wanted to do. I haven't played WoW since the Lich King update, but I leveled my warrior up pretty quick just queing for dungeons, and herding mobs up on the overworld. Kept doing higher level dungeons until I was leveled up. I'd have honestly preferred to progress in this game in the same way.

 

[Mebrilia the Viera Queen]

Last time I played WoW, I don't remember having to play Fedex to slowly unravel a forced MSC before I could get to the content I wanted to do. I haven't played WoW since the Lich King update, but I leveled my warrior up pretty quick just queing for dungeons, and herding mobs up on the overworld. Kept doing higher level dungeons until I was leveled up. I'd have honestly preferred to progress in this game in the same way.

Wich is just different. This is a Jrpg that happens to be an mmo. Most people play wow skipping dialogues and rushing forward because the fun starts in the end game. Ff14 is not like that you dont have to rush as there is no really reason too. The game opens up pretty early you get your first serious raid speaking of hard content at level 50 with the coils of bahamut but you unlock a lot of dungeons along the way. By doing the main quest as well unlocking side content. (Blue quests. And main quests have a flame icon) so is more about the journey than the destination really. For istance in wow content is always non relevant a new expansion drops and almost nobody do the old raids because unlike ff14 is an hassle that gives no benefits..In ff14 players are rewarded in doing old raids for example as you unlock the duty roulette you even do massive bonus xp that will make your char level once or twice in a row. Also unlike wow ff14 is super vary on content. Raids are just a part of it but is not the whole game. Along the way you discover an extremely rewarding crafting, hunts treasure hunts, various minigames and new way to play the game. Is way more fun than rushing to endgame and do the same things all over again knowing that when a new exp drops the content you did will be meaningless and thats the only content wow has.

 

[Theodora]

What Mebs was trying to express is that the form of timegating that FFXIV has isn't pointless timewasting. From an article on the patch coming out today (I didn't watch the dev stream on it myself).

In a typically Yoshi-P move, FFXIV’s drops from its high-end content are changing with a goal to force less time spent grinding by players. Pandaemonium: Anabaseios (savage) will no longer reward duplicate armour pieces for the same slot, and body gear can be earned from The Eleventh Circle of Anabaseios.

Gear has been consolidated into a single coffer rather than two, although Yoshida emphasises that the amount of drops hasn’t changed. Books can be exchanged between floors, with the fourth floor able to be turned into any of the other three at a one-to-one exchange rate.

“Since I want everyone to tackle a lot of content and play other games too I didn’t want this to feel like it will take forever and you’re bound to raiding in FFXIV,” Yoshida says. “There are so many other games coming out in May and June.” In response to the chat asking if this change has been made for the Final Fantasy 16 release date, which Yoshida is directing, he says that the plan is to keep this model for the future as well.

YoshiP in a past life was a nolife'er MMO gremlin, and doesn't want others to feel compelled to play FFXIV like that (in part because he also knows those people can never be pleased -- people with infinite free time will find a way to grind their way through everything no matter how steep you set the curve and will ultimately still complain about there being nothing to do).

edit: somerandomdude Worth noting, a lot of people still do older raids like the coils synced to its minimum item level with echo turned off (this is a thing consciously supported to a degree by the devs, and quite popular if you want a challenge). Later raids have a much more accessible base level, before savages (and potentially ultimates); but the coils from the start is already somewhere between extremes and savages, individual turn depending.

It's also a hell of a nice feeling when you reach the end of the base game or one of the expansions and reach the post-expansion content, in part because you suddenly get access to a heap of dungeons, trials, raids, and a few other eccentricities. (Just don't use the English audio on your way there, but especially with the base game (A Realm Reborn / ARR), it's just not very good by comparison.)

 

[Trithne]

If you just wanna raid, then buy a skip and go raid. But the general gist of things is ad mentioned above:

FFXIV is a JRPG with periodic multilayer segments.

As they add more and more content to the Duty Support list, it's getting easier and easier to play the whole story without ever joining a group.

There is a lotnof optional content, including the raids, but 14 is really a game for storyfags.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Thoughts on the 6.4 MSQ as I played through it:

Spoiler

I would like to see the game stand by the ideology it touts. Have one of the main characters refuse to do something wrong and die for it.

*sigh* we are relying on Sharlayan scholars to magick up the solution. Again! We could have tried finding a clan of Garlean reapers, who would've known how to open portals to the Void so Voidsent could come through to be bound. But no, that's too cool for FFXIV.

Wait, the Tower of Babil - aka the Imperial Palace, aka the tower cobbled together out of the broken civilization of Garlemald - hasn't been dismantled and buried? Talk about using the seat of power and the graveyard of a civilization to suit our own ends.

Why not just say "Zenos' and Fandaniel's spies"? The Telephoroi turned out not to be an organization as implied in 5.4, but just two dudes.

They're trying to downplay it but Garlemald is effectively being occupied by the Eorzean Alliance. That is interesting. Why don't they show us this occupation?

If Hydaelyn could power a starship, then why did she run out of strength after shielding the WoL from the Ultima Weapon in ARR 2.0? Why was she so weak that she had to had to bodyjack Minfillia just to talk, rather than projecting her spirit like she did at Mor Dhona in 5.5 or on the boat to Sharlayan in 6.0?

You're not my dear friend at all.

That's what happens when the writers closed up every trouble in the setting over the past two years. Different pirate factions and some of them are hostile? Gone, they all obey Merlwyb now. Beast tribes that kidnap and sacrifice people? They are ALL best buddies with the city states now. Garlemald? All of their legions are wiped out or surrender offscreen. Only thing left is to pull new hostile forces from out of thin air and have them invade.

You'd think that the visit of the sovereign of one of the wealthiest countries in the world to Sharlayan would attract attention. You know, maybe guards escorting Vytra, or politicians coming out to greet him, or people curious to get a glimpse at him.

The Isle of Haam intro cutscene is dizzying.

I'm playing on max settings, and wow look at that pop in!

My samurai's Tenka Goken AOE is now too big. I'm almost at max zoom and my AOE effects are covering most of the ground onscreen.

Too bad the actual game world isn't as picturesque as the dungeons.

Again, the Eorzea depicted in the corridor dungeons is much cooler than almost all of the zones you get to actually run around in.

When I saw the arced platform and the tentacles pop up out of the water, I got excited for a few seconds thinking that maybe it would be a multi-target encounter where you would have to split the party up to cut down multiple different tentacles, like Megaera from Throne of Thunder. Then it turned out that no, it's just a straight forward tank and spank on a single target. Missed potential.

Knock it off with the navel gazing.

... What neutrality? You fought for the Eorzean Alliance against Garlemald.

Why would the remnant of Garlemald heed the request of their great enemy, the Warrior of Light who slaughtered thousands of their people and had a hand in destroying their civilization? The hero of their occupiers? Just because I saved them from zombies isn't going to make them forget that.

Didn't Lucia and Maxima just tell us that the Garleans had proper housing now? Why are they still sleaping on the seats of passenger trains and burning fires inside containers?

I'm surprised Jullus has not been shanked yet for being a collaborator.

It's been how long, and the Garleans still haven't scrubbed the brains of their beloved general off of the wall?

Sorry. That tower is the only method of easy transportation to the moon. Your country will be a vassal province of the Eorzean Alliance forever. You will never be allowed to decide what to do with the tower.

See, I find it incredulous to believe that all of the Legions surrendered or were destroyed. Surely there must be an underground or gueriella movement that has been accumulating Garlemald's powerful weapons or research to use one day to drive out the occupiers, such as those Weapon Project mechas. Would also help if there were Garleans who were burning the documents so the Alliance doesn't know how many assets there are that could be used against them or how many more soldiers and loyalist organizations there are than those that have officially surrendered.

The Alliance controls the narrative in Eorzea, and in much of Othard. They will just take your words out of context, reframe the situation, or outright lie to make themselves look like just and reasonable guardians to their peoples.

Again, for an empire this huge, there should be several Garlean organizations helping you, just as a Jewish or Muslim disapora is tight knit and resourceful.

... They can't. They're being occupied. The Alliance wants to use the tower, which means occupying the surrounding area in which a local populace dwells. Said populace must be prevented from seizing the tower or interfering with people travelling to and fro the tower. Which means that the populace must either be controlled or eliminated.

How is it ridiculous? It's the pragmatic move. Garlemald was the most powerful state in the world, and now that it is gone, other countries will begin viewing each other as competitors. Which means they must become more powerful to dominate each other or thwart being dominated. Meanwhile, there are plenty of remnants lying around of a vast industrial empire that was on the cutting edge of research. It doesn't matter if you don't intend to be a looter. Someone else is going to loot them and reverse engineer them and begin producing their own magitek weapons, or airship fleets to move armies over mountains, or dark magics to summon powerful demons, and use them to dominate your neighbors, so everyone else has to loot them too. It's a big fish eats small fish world. The very existance of Garlemald - of a people being repeatedly driven out of prosperous lands and into infertile ones until they drew upon dark magic and created magitek weapons to push back - is a testament to that fact. How do you not know your own history? The Emperor established Prussian-style schools to educate every citizen. "Jullus" is not talking like a Garlean inhabiting the setting. He is talking like an author's mouthpiece.

Vytra buying magitek from Garlemald does not seem like a strategically sound plan. The source of Thavnair's magitek will be from a foreign country that is extremely vulnerable. Garlemald can be ravaged by other countries and the supply line to Thavnair broken. Also, Garlemald is in ruins. The factories have to be rebuilt. Seems like the better idea would be for Vytra to try to lure away Garlean engineers and scientists by offering them a nice house and a big fat paycheck in Thavnair. Get them to migrate to Thavnair and bring their technical knowledge and expertise with them. Build magitek mecha and airship factories in Thavnair. For some reason Fourchenault passed up that opportunity when he visited Garlemald, and thus only brought home a handful of takers.

Inb4 the Lord Mettius goes missing and we are sent to find him and we save him at the last second from a mech and then he changes his mind and then agrees to the deal.

(it happens) *sigh*

More speechyifying *snooze*

Goodness gracious, why is an elderly statesman asking a teenage boy with blue hair if there is any hope?

It illbecomes the people who wrote this crap.

Nobody is allowed to dislike the WoL for longer than 5 minutes. Everyone must bow to the WoL! And we will have speeches about TRUST! *spits*

Goodness gracious, if I have to hear the word "trust" spoken one more time...

And stop pulling your hat down. You've done this 30 times.

... Why is it when Zero talks about "a friend you can trust", the WoL thought back to a mass murderer who tried to kill him?

STOP PULLING YOUR HAT DOWN!

I am 3 hours into this patch storyline and it's been pretty much all standing around and talking. Only actual gameplay thus far was in the 15 minute long corridor dungeon, and two shotting a mob. I was hoping that the story would have opened up with a massive demon invasion of Thavnair or the planet and you would have ran around getting to fight a lot.

Finally, after 4 hours we are now embarking on a high fantasy adventure.

Why isn't this a zone?

Oh look, it's another "win the boss fight, lose in the cutscene" moment.

Oh look, it's a Protoss! Or a Xel'Naga.

Add Voidcaller to the list.

Like today's GW2 patch, I am playing what is supposed to be a high fantasy game, but there is very little adventuring to be had. It's mostly people standing around talking and empty platitudes. What little actual adventuring there is, it's just not enough. Need more combat. Need new zones to visit. Also, tension. Story is predictable. Look at the state of the AAA high fantasy RPG genre and weep.

I guess there is the raid story, but I have a migraine so I'll do that tomorrow.

 

[Mebrilia the Viera Queen]

Thoughts on the 6.4 MSQ as I played through it:

Spoiler

I would like to see the game stand by the ideology it touts. Have one of the main characters refuse to do something wrong and die for it.

*sigh* we are relying on Sharlayan scholars to magick up the solution. Again! We could have tried finding a clan of Garlean reapers, who would've known how to open portals to the Void so Voidsent could come through to be bound. But no, that's too cool for FFXIV.

Wait, the Tower of Babil - aka the Imperial Palace, aka the tower cobbled together out of the broken civilization of Garlemald - hasn't been dismantled and buried? Talk about using the seat of power and the graveyard of a civilization to suit our own ends.

Why not just say "Zenos' and Fandaniel's spies"? The Telephoroi turned out not to be an organization as implied in 5.4, but just two dudes.

They're trying to downplay it but Garlemald is effectively being occupied by the Eorzean Alliance. That is interesting. Why don't they show us this occupation?

If Hydaelyn could power a starship, then why did she run out of strength after shielding the WoL from the Ultima Weapon in ARR 2.0? Why was she so weak that she had to had to bodyjack Minfillia just to talk, rather than projecting her spirit like she did at Mor Dhona in 5.5 or on the boat to Sharlayan in 6.0?

You're not my dear friend at all.

That's what happens when the writers closed up every trouble in the setting over the past two years. Different pirate factions and some of them are hostile? Gone, they all obey Merlwyb now. Beast tribes that kidnap and sacrifice people? They are ALL best buddies with the city states now. Garlemald? All of their legions are wiped out or surrender offscreen. Only thing left is to pull new hostile forces from out of thin air and have them invade.

You'd think that the visit of the sovereign of one of the wealthiest countries in the world to Sharlayan would attract attention. You know, maybe guards escorting Vytra, or politicians coming out to greet him, or people curious to get a glimpse at him.

The Isle of Haam intro cutscene is dizzying.

I'm playing on max settings, and wow look at that pop in!

My samurai's Tenka Goken AOE is now too big. I'm almost at max zoom and my AOE effects are covering most of the ground onscreen.

Too bad the actual game world isn't as picturesque as the dungeons.

Again, the Eorzea depicted in the corridor dungeons is much cooler than almost all of the zones you get to actually run around in.

When I saw the arced platform and the tentacles pop up out of the water, I got excited for a few seconds thinking that maybe it would be a multi-target encounter where you would have to split the party up to cut down multiple different tentacles, like Megaera from Throne of Thunder. Then it turned out that no, it's just a straight forward tank and spank on a single target. Missed potential.

Knock it off with the navel gazing.

... What neutrality? You fought for the Eorzean Alliance against Garlemald.

Why would the remnant of Garlemald heed the request of their great enemy, the Warrior of Light who slaughtered thousands of their people and had a hand in destroying their civilization? The hero of their occupiers? Just because I saved them from zombies isn't going to make them forget that.

Didn't Lucia and Maxima just tell us that the Garleans had proper housing now? Why are they still sleaping on the seats of passenger trains and burning fires inside containers?

I'm surprised Jullus has not been shanked yet for being a collaborator.

It's been how long, and the Garleans still haven't scrubbed the brains of their beloved general off of the wall?

Sorry. That tower is the only method of easy transportation to the moon. Your country will be a vassal province of the Eorzean Alliance forever. You will never be allowed to decide what to do with the tower.

See, I find it incredulous to believe that all of the Legions surrendered or were destroyed. Surely there must be an underground or gueriella movement that has been accumulating Garlemald's powerful weapons or research to use one day to drive out the occupiers, such as those Weapon Project mechas. Would also help if there were Garleans who were burning the documents so the Alliance doesn't know how many assets there are that could be used against them or how many more soldiers and loyalist organizations there are than those that have officially surrendered.

The Alliance controls the narrative in Eorzea, and in much of Othard. They will just take your words out of context, reframe the situation, or outright lie to make themselves look like just and reasonable guardians to their peoples.

Again, for an empire this huge, there should be several Garlean organizations helping you, just as a Jewish or Muslim disapora is tight knit and resourceful.

... They can't. They're being occupied. The Alliance wants to use the tower, which means occupying the surrounding area in which a local populace dwells. Said populace must be prevented from seizing the tower or interfering with people travelling to and fro the tower. Which means that the populace must either be controlled or eliminated.

How is it ridiculous? It's the pragmatic move. Garlemald was the most powerful state in the world, and now that it is gone, other countries will begin viewing each other as competitors. Which means they must become more powerful to dominate each other or thwart being dominated. Meanwhile, there are plenty of remnants lying around of a vast industrial empire that was on the cutting edge of research. It doesn't matter if you don't intend to be a looter. Someone else is going to loot them and reverse engineer them and begin producing their own magitek weapons, or airship fleets to move armies over mountains, or dark magics to summon powerful demons, and use them to dominate your neighbors, so everyone else has to loot them too. It's a big fish eats small fish world. The very existance of Garlemald - of a people being repeatedly driven out of prosperous lands and into infertile ones until they drew upon dark magic and created magitek weapons to push back - is a testament to that fact. How do you not know your own history? The Emperor established Prussian-style schools to educate every citizen. "Jullus" is not talking like a Garlean inhabiting the setting. He is talking like an author's mouthpiece.

Vytra buying magitek from Garlemald does not seem like a strategically sound plan. The source of Thavnair's magitek will be from a foreign country that is extremely vulnerable. Garlemald can be ravaged by other countries and the supply line to Thavnair broken. Also, Garlemald is in ruins. The factories have to be rebuilt. Seems like the better idea would be for Vytra to try to lure away Garlean engineers and scientists by offering them a nice house and a big fat paycheck in Thavnair. Get them to migrate to Thavnair and bring their technical knowledge and expertise with them. Build magitek mecha and airship factories in Thavnair. For some reason Fourchenault passed up that opportunity when he visited Garlemald, and thus only brought home a handful of takers.

Inb4 the Lord Mettius goes missing and we are sent to find him and we save him at the last second from a mech and then he changes his mind and then agrees to the deal.

(it happens) *sigh*

More speechyifying *snooze*

Goodness gracious, why is an elderly statesman asking a teenage boy with blue hair if there is any hope?

It illbecomes the people who wrote this crap.

Nobody is allowed to dislike the WoL for longer than 5 minutes. Everyone must bow to the WoL! And we will have speeches about TRUST! *spits*

Goodness gracious, if I have to hear the word "trust" spoken one more time...

And stop pulling your hat down. You've done this 30 times.

... Why is it when Zero talks about "a friend you can trust", the WoL thought back to a mass murderer who tried to kill him?

STOP PULLING YOUR HAT DOWN!

I am 3 hours into this patch storyline and it's been pretty much all standing around and talking. Only actual gameplay thus far was in the 15 minute long corridor dungeon, and two shotting a mob. I was hoping that the story would have opened up with a massive demon invasion of Thavnair or the planet and you would have ran around getting to fight a lot.

Finally, after 4 hours we are now embarking on a high fantasy adventure.

Why isn't this a zone?

Oh look, it's another "win the boss fight, lose in the cutscene" moment.

Oh look, it's a Protoss! Or a Xel'Naga.

Add Voidcaller to the list.

Like today's GW2 patch, I am playing what is supposed to be a high fantasy game, but there is very little adventuring to be had. It's mostly people standing around talking and empty platitudes. What little actual adventuring there is, it's just not enough. Need more combat. Need new zones to visit. Also, tension. Story is predictable. Look at the state of the AAA high fantasy RPG genre and weep.

I guess there is the raid story, but I have a migraine so I'll do that tomorrow.

Told you. The huge story will come with the expansion proper. Content patches usually add raids,features dungeon and trials. Major story content is given with expansions.

There

Was predictable because is extabilished that the 13h is beyond saving. Nobody truly expected to explore the 13th like we did with the first.

Reapers cannot truly open void portals they can blink to brief distances using sort of a portal but they can move in the vicinity. They also have limited knowledge on the 13th themself.

About haydeline at the time of Arr she was severely weakened that changed when minfilia absorbed part of the flood of light in shadowbringer. As haydeline reside in the lifestream all that aether went directly to her.

Another legion of garleans is still active in Dalmasca.

About the old man well was basically saved by foregner. And the young garlean if you remember the past questline in endwalker took a long of time before coming to trust. Also Garlemald was truly destroyed by their ruler and right now is in shambles they have to rely on foreigners to survive. And they fear the tower because is more a product of sorcery than machines in their mind. They had an entire civil war because of that one they lost.

I will elaborate further tomorrow.