FFXIV

[Bebpo]

Oh shit, the story just came together and I'm pretty happy with the plot. It seems logical and cool and FF. Seems like they pulled it off.

Final stuff MSQ spoilers

spoiler (click to show/hide)

A negative emotion wave from space in an FF4 themed expansion?

SOUNDS LIKE ZEROMUS :O

[close]

Pretty stoked for the final zone and rest of the MSQ

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Hoping the final zone is a cooler space zone than zone 4 which is a bit lackluster for our trip to the moon

[close]

*edit* Ok, maybe things didn't go exactly the way I thought they were heading. Still enjoying the ride and curious how this thing wraps up. The pacing for the MSQ gets pretty hard to find a stopping point after a certain point.

[Bebpo]

Goddamn there are a lot of cutscenes in this game 

Got a bit into the final zone, but given how cutscene filled this stuff is, how trials with randos have taken about an hour each with a bunch of wipes so far, and how FF14 endings are about 2 hours long...will need probably two more nights to finish this out. Since its down tomorrow night for maintenance, might finish it on Wednesday night and do the raid on Thursday. Eh, was hoping to make night 1 for the new raid, but I guess two/three days late isn't going to be terrible.

[Bebpo]

Finished the MSQ. Fuck this was a long game!

Good stuff. Suffers a bit from that Japanese style of writing where every character has to always have a scene which drags the finale out, plus some really slow filler fetchy questlines, but overall very good & satisfying finish to the whole saga.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

The Zenos solo instance was really stupid tho. Should’ve just had a 2nd final boss trial if they were committed to doing that fight. It’s incredibly unepic compared to the trial before it.

[close]

No idea how they will make FF14 exist after this. They went full on Gurren Lagaan. There’s no where left to go that can compare.

[Bebpo]

Welllll, now is the real server fuckup effect.

Go to do the new raid and you need to be i565 to get in. Look at MB to see if I can just buy some crafted gear. No endgame crafted gear available yet. Gotta do 1-2 weeks of roulette grinding and be late to the raid tier. Sucks.

[Akala]

there is no cap on base tomes to get to 565, you really only need a few (most of the accessories you get doing expert).

I think there are a few other places it can go but we'll have to wait and see.

It was fine but overall I think I liked ShB more.

[Bebpo]

Yeah, I did all the roulettes outside MSQ and got like 800 tomes and to 563. Just need 2 more roulettes tomorrow to hit 565 and do the raid.

Apparently they raised the raid ilvl requirement by 10 this time around. So you used to be able to get in with just job gear + an Ex weapon. Kinda weird making the normal raid higher ilvl than the Ex bosses since it's way easier casual content but it is what it is. Two nights of grinding to get in isn't the worst and at least once you're in the first raid tier you can just use it to gear up for each subsequent one for the rest of the expansion.

[Bebpo]

Man, that raid tier was dreadful in story. Fight mechanics were fine at least.

It's weird that after really stepping up their game the last few expansions for both the MSQ and 8man & 24man raid series that they made such a dull raid here. Even when ARR's MSQ was not the greatest, Coil of Bahamut and Crystal Tower were great raid series.

So far I think Pandaemonium is likely gonna be the worst raid in the game unless it really picks up story-wise next tier.

[Bebpo]

Just saw Ishikawa, the writer of the msq of Shadowbringers & Endwalker is leaving the FF14 team and new writers from 6.1 onward.

Considering how much of the heavy lifting the msq writing does these last two expansions, definitely worried about FF14 starting a large quality decline now that the original plot is over with. Sucks.

[Bebpo]

Cleared my first Extreme/Savage fight in like 3-4 years? I bailed out of that stuff a couple post-patches into Stormblood because it was too stressful and time-consuming spending a day in PF teams trying to clear stuff.

But cleared the first Ex trial of EW after about an hour in a learning/practice party. Was fun and wasn't too bad. Still died a lot because the timings are real tight, but felt good knocking one off my long list of Exs/Savages to catch up on some day.

Will try to do the other Ex for EW this weekend and gonna try to clear at least Savage 1 next week. The first raid fight is so incredibly simple in the normal version I gotta imagine the Savage will be pretty entry level/lenient for that one.

[Bebpo]

Cleared Ex2. That was...hard. Like it's not too bad in concept but I went through 3 teams and even with a team that all knew the fight it took like 6 tries and a good 30-45 mins until one clear.

Luckily got my i580 weapon so I never need to do it again. Between all the right hand gear at i580 and this and the raid drops I'm at i574 already. Should be ready to try Savage #1 once it's out. Doubt I'll go further than Savage #1 though, maybe #2 at most. No way am I ever going to raid a #4 on a current Savage.

[Bebpo]

I've been pf raiding for the first time in 4 years and it reminds me why I stopped doing this 4 years ago. Spent about 3-4 hours every night so ~10-12 hours on P1 Savage. At this point I have my role down 100% from start to enrage so it's basically just doing it over and over and over again with different groups until someone clears it. It was stressful getting to enrage but now it's just going through the motions for my role. Would be nice if I can get a clear and then give up on raiding for another 4 years.

[Bebpo]

Spent another 8 hours in PF today on P1S. So at ~20 hours so far since Tuesday on this fight. .2% enrage lol

Giving it one more day and then if I can't clear I move on in my life. May just take a break from FF14 either way after tomorrow. Burn out is strong. Non-static raiding just ain't a life.

[Bebpo]

Nm, decided to call it and uninstalled the game. Enjoying my day so far not running P1S.

[Rahxephon91]

Been rushing through the Post Shadowbringers story to get to Endwalker.

Its been basically two years since I've played the game, so its kind of rough to get back into it.

I'm just doing my Monk now as that's the job I tackle everything first with. I guess they got rid of some stuff and now Monk has a thing like Ninja where you unlock an ability based on the combination of your rotation. Well I think Ninja is an amazingly fun job that I like so thats good, but it seems a bit random to me.

Anyway, I finished Shadowbringers and I actually thought the build-up to Endwalker was a little meh...I don't know, the Shadowbringers build-up was just exciting and crazy, everyone disappearing, the empire getting a bit crazy, body switching. It was insane.

Either way, happy to be back but I wouldn't be surprised if this is my last outing for XIV.

I'm not a hardcore player. I play through the story. Play the Jobs I like and get them leveled and well thats it. Don't care about Gear or Savage content. So the game is getting a little long in the tooth and I don't actually like coming back every two years and just being super confused on how to play and the story. Endwalker may be a jumping-off point for me.

[Rahxephon91]

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Well just like in 15, FF deny us the chance to really see the high tech land of the enemy that we've heard about for years when it actually looks cool.

[close]

[Bebpo]

...and I don't actually like coming back every two years and just being super confused on how to play and the story. Endwalker may be a jumping-off point for me.

I mean...there is a middleground solution between this and subbing indefinitely. You can always come back once a year or so and do the new story stuff.
A lot of people just come back every 6 months for a month sub and play a few weeks doing the latest raid tier and some MSQ/side stuff/24man raid catchup.

I take breaks but I still play every 3-6 months and I've never had an issue with breaks.

[Rahxephon91]

Yeah I get that, but I'm not a big raid person. I've really only done the Stormblood raid because of the Tactics/XII connection, the story, and because I wanted the armor for aesthetic reasons. I did the raid when I came back for Shadowbringers. I'm not even that interested in the Nier raid and I haven't finished Eden yet. Which I may, but the reality is I'm mostly into the main story quests. Once I'm done with those and leveling the jobs I like I usually bounce. Yeah I could come back for the patch story, but those are usually less than 5 hours long.

[Bebpo]

The raids, the trial sidestories and other stuff are pretty substantial sidequests.

I mean that's fair if you're not into them. But Coil, Alexander, Omega, Eden, etc... are all worth doing and outside Coil they aren't any more difficult than the main story so it's just as accessible.

Coil is really good btw if you never did it. Worth doing unsync'd with people on party finder. Good story. Eden has a good story too.

[Rahxephon91]

I have finished Omega and most of Eden and yes they have some of the best boss battles in the game along with decent stories. I figure I should do Coil since it seems to have a decent story with some good background lore.

But I'm now past the 2nd dungeon. Despite my joke about having some XV deja vu since we finally go to Galermald and it's destroyed, I have to say the whole storytelling there was good. It continues XIV's penchant for having actual mature storytelling.

[Rahxephon91]

Finished Endwalker. It was ok. I don't like it as much as Shadowbringers and would honestly say it ranks below all the other expansions.

My opinion can b summed up as "It's Shadowbringers 2, but less good.

That doesn't mean its bad, FFXIV in general is a great game and this was a good conclusion, very much a reward for longtime fans.

But...

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I guess my problem is with the story. Like all expansions, it has filler and those story beats that involve helping out some other group that is kind of boring but will eventually tie into the main story. But I felt like there was a lot of filler and a lot of downtime and goofy moments. But also I simply do not like the End of Days being tied to the Ancients. To me it makes the story smaller hasn't it not be as much of a mysterious force, something even they could not ascertain. No instead memory hijinks and Hydelanjust keeping to herself are the reasons this all happen. Its strangely not epic and also not very interesting to me. Maybe I didn't want to know the full background as to why, but its just I wish it was an even greater force then the Anchients.

But I get it. Emet Selch was very popular. Got to bring him back. Shadowbringers was popular so do another story about a sad man who you can feel sympathy for. But Hermes is no Emet(which bravo good on them for making a distinct character) and this whole thing rubs me the wrong way. Other expansions took daring turns and introduced new characters. Here I feel like we are just doing Shadowbringers 2, which is maybe fine as this is the conclusion. And again I like all this stuff, but I do wish maybe it had gone a different way.

And why I find Hermes, Meltion, the worlds of despair, and how they also connect with what happens in Garlamold and the general idea of the Ascians not being able to let go very interesting. In fact, the whole game's themes do work as a call back to Shadowbringers themes of being unable to let go and accept. Which then compiles with this game's big push of "keep going". It did start to feel like they were beating me over the head with it. Which I can't say I felt that way in the other stories.

I also kind of think the Scions were rather stale in this game. Yes they are still the best FF party no doubt. I like most of them, but they were all pretty stagnant. No real character arcs beyond reciting were they a now. But see that's not true for the other expansions. Shadowbringers had Thancred and his dilemma with Reyn and Milfinina. Here everyone is pretty much the meme version of themselves. I also feel maybe my man Estenien became a bit too much comedy relief. Also Gra should have died, he's fine but adds nothing to the Scions. 

[close]

[Bebpo]

All fair points. I enjoyed the end stuff and felt it came together pretty well even if it was just nonsense anime power of hope & friends.

It definitely has filler, holy fuck does the lvl.84 MSQ quest drag. And I think it would've honestly been better if the

spoiler (click to show/hide)

End of Days causing negative dyunamis wave from space was...Zeromus from FF4, since that's exactly what Zeromus is...a negative wave of hate in space. I think if the story had been that the ancients caused it by sending out probes to deep space only to find Zeromus and bring earth to its attention it would've been better.

The whole "every race we encountered destroyed itself so we went crazy and tried to kill everyone back on Eorza" was a bit iffy.

That said I did like Hermes/Fanandiel. They could've got even more development and that finale of Hermes on the lvl.89 dungeon was just alright. Emet-Sech was done better.

[close]

I think you're right in that it's like Shadowbringers but not as good, but I think even if the story isn't quite as good, it pulls off the ending pretty well for the whole thing and that's impressive and quality.

I actually like the story of every expansion after ARR. Heavensward was great, Stormblood's Japan side story was great, Shadowbringers was great, Endwalker was great. ARR was ok but just too long and too much filler. I thought all the post-patch MSQs were weak and mostly filler except Heavensward which was exciting and finished off the story well.

Otoh, the more I play and get my other battle jobs to 90, the more I think the gameplay in Endwalker is stale af. The jobs I play really didn't get anything groundbreaking this expansion and pretty much just play the same as always with a couple new buttons. I think the Trails/Raid fights are still well designed, dungeons are still mostly boring with some fun bosses, but gameplay really feels like they gave up and it's just more of the same. I think Stormblood combat was the pinnacle of FF14's combat system and then Shadowbringers/Endwalker just started dumbing things down and making all jobs the same.

Also the Endwalker role quests are boring compared to the old job quests.

I feel like either the combat designers/gameplay designers mostly moved on to other projects or there is just a lack of direction in FF14's combat at this point. The encounters are still very well designed so they aren't falling off with that. It's just the gameplay rotations and style for the jobs need a refresh.

If that doesn't happen I'll still keep playing for the stories and raids, but definitely not as into the game now as I used to be. Having run the Pandeamonium raid a million times at this point I think this first tier is really plain, so I'm interested in seeing the quality of the first 24man in March.

[Rahxephon91]

Heavensword Post-MSQ is fucking amazing. I remember just being at the edge of my seat watching what was happening, not knowing it would be Shadowbrinngers later that would make good on it. Baelsar's Wall is still a favorite of mine and I still sometimes hum that tune. And man the quotes! Yeah that was an exciting storyline.

Post Stormblood was lots of set-up, so it was ok. Ghimlyt Dark is great though.

I think my problem comes down to:

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Meteion. She's just a bit too troupy. I know it's an obvious choice, it's just scray anime Andriod complete with crying blood ghost face was not what I was expecting. Also every time they said Dynamis, I would reply Gundammhh(for you 00 fans).

[close]

Yeah combat seems to be a little stale these days. Its new to me, but the Monk's perfect balance not only doesn't seem to make much sense but also a lame "eh here this will spice up the rotation" throw away. Like I feel MNK players want more directionals. I think people want jobs to feel more unique.I hated in SHB that Astro lost the random aspect. I started playing Ninja because it was very diffrent. I just started leveling other jobs so I'll see what happens. Unlike with SHB and whatnot, I have not really followed Endwalker updates. Everything I'm doing I'm finding out as I go.

[Bebpo]

Yeah, maybe I should play Monk.

Ninja is ok. The problem is the rotation is just so much work for so little damage it's kinda ehh. The old Ninja only let you do a ninjutsu attack every maybe 40-60 seconds so mostly you were just doing your 1-2-3 combos with weaving in oGCD attacks and hitting a ninjutsu when it was available. Now it's just ninjutsu all the time and it's a little overboard. I think if I hadn't played Ninja for like 4 years straight I'd probably enjoy it currently, but it was my first real job (I started FF14 as a Gladiator and then switched to Ninja at lvl.16 when it became available) and I only played 1 job until post-patch Stormblood so I'm pretty over it. The lvl.90 NIN skill is ok but kind of boring and spammy.

Dark Knight is lol, I honestly like it for Ex/Savage fights because it is the most simple boring job ever but it makes it easy to not fuck up and you can just pay attention to the mechanics the whole time. The lvl.90 end skill is a joke.

White Mage is pretty boring these days. It's serviceable, but all the new Endwalker skills are pretty boring. It only got 3 new things, 1) an extra shield charge which is very nice but it's just an extra charge, 2) a 15% DEF UP for 8S on someone which is...ok but kind of boring, and 3) the lvl.90 bell skill which is super underwhelming. At the end of Shadowbringers WHM at lvl.80 got an all party shield for like 10-15% for a decent amount of time while ALSO boosting all heals for 20% during that time. That was a nice end skill.

Red Mage is decent. It's the next job I'm going to take from 80->90. Not sure what the new stuff is. They remastered the existing stuff in a nice way to get a 5% or 10% all party damage up buff instead of just to self and they increased some charges.

I have Samurai up a bit through doing the HW beast tribes. It seems fun and I've only seen through like lvl.60 in terms of skills. I might level it further and see if it's a more fun job.

Those are the only battle jobs I've done. For the remaining role quest I'm either going to do Bard, Dancer or Machinist. Machinist looks pretty boring and I like that Bard can actually play music outside of battle. Dancer seems neat, but I'm leaning towards Bard. Hopefully it'll be a fun job to play.


Honestly though because of queues and stuff I kind of dislike DPS jobs. Not only that but with 8 man or 24 man fights you never feel like your personal damage is visible and doing much because you're only doing like 1/7th of the total damage at any moment. Whereas when you play Healer you are constantly seeing what you are doing for the fight by keeping people alive and reviving people and shielding people. Same with tank when you're taking tank busters or shielding party members or leading the boss around. It feels like you're actually doing something.

So maybe what I need is to level a new tank and/or a new healer job for something fresh with new skills and rotation style while also still being more interactive in combat. For Tank Gunbreaker seems the most complex and fun tank so I'd go with that. For healer I'd probably play Sage just because it sounds like Astrologian has been totally nerfed and is boring simple like WHM and same with Scholar now.

[Bebpo]

Ok, started leveling my lvl.80 Red Mage and despite one nerf change on acceleration, once I got in the hang of the new rotation it is very fun and very active. They made it kind of like Ninja in that you're constantly shooting off holy/flare/scorch.

[Akala]

ShB > EW, although it was a fine enough stopping point. The moon was super-underutilized after all of the buildup. I just found the pacing really bad, but there is the fact I was powering through to avoid big spoilers when that is absolutely the wrong way to play.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I agree should have gone the Zeromus route, it honestly was what I was expecting that and was kind of disappointed in the super animu arc out of nowhere. It kept reminding me of kingdom hearts tbh.

[close]

There are a lot of good bits though. I think overall I'd put it even with HW.

I hate tome grinds so will be avoiding that mess, I am still having fun trying out more DPS/tank stuff after having been straight heals from ARR >>> ShB. we'll see how long I stick around for.

[Bebpo]

I like this shot I took the other day

[Rahxephon91]

I keep getting The Seat of Sacrifice in the Trial dallies and:

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Yeah I really wish this was the finale appearance of Emet-Selch. Yes, I know Endwalker doesn't bring him back alive and that’s some restraint. But it still comes pretty close to making him your “buddy friend”. And I know he’s so popular that you have to bring him back. But it was just the most obvious thing to do to please the fans that honestly I don’t like it. I’ve found XIV in general to have pretty daring storytelling that does not feel like it makes concessions to the fans. Until Endwalker.

But I like Emet’s appearance in the trial because it’s the developers winking and smiling at you. “Yeah, you know who this is”. But it’s still somewhat subtle and it’s a nice little epilogue. He’s “helping” you to smack some sense into Elidibus. Complete with his sarcastic nonchalance emoted through only his animation. It’s just a nice touch and I wish they had complete restraint to limit it to this.

I guess this just further cements my feelings about Endwalker’s storytelling. That it was a little too fanservicy.

[close]

[Rahxephon91]

I think I can say Ninja is my favorite job. It's just so active and I feel like I'm always jumping around doing crap.

I've enjoyed it sine Shadow, but I hit 90 yesterday on it and it was just a real fun leveling experience.

Compared to MCH anyway, which I don't know how to play I think. MCH is my easy mode job.

[Bebpo]

Glad you dig it. It's pretty busy, though the issue with too busy is it feels like a lot of work for DPS.
But I feel similar about RDM as I'm taking it from 80->90. It's almost as busy as NIN and in a fun way.

Mostly just been going through the normal "!" quests from Endwalker with RDM and doing my daily custom deliveries to get my crafting/gathering glam gear done. Already done with all the new master recipe books (which are mostly boring stuff so far) and fully gear out my gatherers and about half my crafters.

Regular players always look down on getting the crafting/gathering gear since the generic i570 HQ gear with melds has better stats, but I really prefer my crafters/gatherers all have unique gear for their visible slots so I can glamour outfit each job. Worth the 10 mins of custom deliveries once a week for a couple months each expansion. For the next set of crafter/gatherer gear in expansions that they all share, I get the gear but I don't even bother saving it as a template for any of them. If I need to craft something that's hard I'll just hit the recommended gear button and equip it that way. But otherwise I leave the unique gear on them.

[Bebpo]

I might try another attempt on P1 Savage this weekend a month later after my 20+ hours of PF failing to clear it last month. People are better geared now, so maybe it'll go smoother. Otherwise might just give up until next expansion and then do it unsync.

[Bebpo]

Welp, they had their live letter tonight on the next ten years of FF14 and ...it's nothing 

New graphics starting with 7.0 for the whole engine and all past content/future content and AI partners for ARR/HW/SB dungeons so you can solo the entire game without interacting with another person once.

But otherwise pretty much just the standard post-expansion patch cycle. Some new dungeon content that scales between 1-4 players, otherwise same old, same old.

[Akala]

what did you expect? we aren't even at 6.1 they have been on vacation lol

[Bebpo]

Game is back on Tuesday with 6.1.

Feels too soon, not ready for more FF14 in my life right now haha. But will be curious to see where they go MSQ-wise from here and to see the new 24man raid start. The trailer bosses for it seemed kind of cool and Ivalice-ish where you're fighting "gods" aka summons for each of the bosses. Ivalice fights were amazing, so definitely hyped for it.

[Bebpo]

Solo'd the boss of the 6.1 MSQ dungeon for the back half of its HP after my healer/team died as DRK thanks to the new 6.1 Living Dead.

It's still no WAR, or really as survivable as any other tank, but before DRK was useless without a healer and died quick. Now you can actually survive a bit since delirium + bloodspiller absorbs enough HP during LD to max you back to full HP and not instakill you when LD ends.

[Bebpo]

The new 24man raid's alright. Didn't think the fights were too memorable, but they were decent and the music was real good.

Also my retainer got some old piece of NIN chest gear that is craaaazy looking.

[Bebpo]

Been playing a lot of FF14 this week now that 6.15 added the story content of 6.1. Sidequests, Hildebrand, Beast Tribe. Fun stuff.
With the Beast Tribe already finished off my 4th character for role quests with my Red Mage. So just have 1 role quest left with physical range.

Started a Bard from lvl.1 this week and already at lvl.40. You go through 1-30 so fast now.

Bard seems fun. Feel like I have good dungeon DPS so far.

[Bebpo]

Finished HW with my Bard, into Stormblood now. HW job story was pretty good! Getting the hang of Bard life.

[Bebpo]

Next raid tier is out.

They got some real budget going on here. Awesome music, awesome graphics, visually cool and interesting fight mechanics. Will be interesting to watch the Savage vids for these fights.

[Bebpo]

Also most important update to FF14 was this patch:

Glamour dresser upgrade from holding 400 pieces to 800 pieces!!

My retainers now actually have some free space after shuffling things around. That's more than two full retainer inventories worth of inventory space (they really should double retainer inventories).

[Bebpo]

FF14 added these new variant dungeons this week. I guess they're a replacement for Palace of the Dead/High on Heaven.

They're a lot better in that the difficulty level is way higher with much more exciting boss patterns. There's also a savage version of the them with savage level mechanics.

Basically it's a dungeon with 12 branching paths. So there's some replayability and some challenge. There's no role restrictions and like Bozjan you can bring in two extra actions (so like bring in cure/raise on a tank). Feels fun so far after one run.


They also added a farming sim at 6.2 to get on the Harvest Moon/Stardew Valley craze. It's pretty simple and grindy but it's alright. Not hugely time consuming and I'm sure they'll expand it over time.

[Bebpo]

Rave bunnies was not on my FF14 future additions bingo card