Final Fantasy XIV

[LemonDemonGirl]

It's Talanji all over again....

[Finarfin]

It's Talanji all over again....

oh no. why did you have to remind me of her? Is she relevant in the addons after bfa?

[Oyster Sauce]

Most ******* insane account recovery process I've ever seen. Did you know they use case sensitivity for your email based on how you typed it when you first registered? I sure didn't!

[Nooneatall]

Gaming should have remained a niche hobby. I blame everything bad in the gaming world to it being enjoyed by normies.

Yep. Early on, you ran into weirdoes from time to time, but for the most part the people playing games, and the early MMOs were "normal" professionals and hobbyist. Not only that, but they understood gaming, why you play a game, and did not whine and complain constantly about how things should be easier, faster, simpler, etc... Trying to explain why negative mechanics are important in play is lost on the normies. They think games are all about "fun" and "relaxing while being stoned" and go on about "I don't have time to do that, I work all day!" when something requires long term progression, learning, etc...

Gotta have that "quick fix" instant grat play where every action "something happens" and there is an epic reward for it!

I want a quick fix and things to happen instantly. I don't want to slog through nonsense. Games are supposed to be fun.

[Xenich]

I will now try your game

You seem to have a type.

His "inner ***" "sensitive man" desperately trying to come out.

[Finarfin]

@Vergil Hey verg, gimme your characters name, i'll try to add you.

[Finarfin]

So I started the addon now, and I have to say I like Wuk Lamat. For the first time in a long time, am I playing with French dub instead of japanese (don't get me started on the german dub it's horrible, english one sounds nice but I don't want to skip scenes with Lamatyi since she's a cute inexperienced gal, that we are shaping to become a worthy successor to the throne) Bakool Ja Ja is a ****, while Koana seems like a calm and calculating man.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Finished the expansion story.

► Show Spoiler

My engagement fell off by the time I reached the Mamooja village at level 94. Then I abandoned the story to go do FATEs and level up samurai after reaching 100 on Viper. Another FF14 expansion where the story loses steam in the middle, though this is the first one where I became so bored I abandoned progressing through the story entirely. I was engrossed in the story up until the first trial. The problem is the lack of tension. There is no feeling of danger, no feeling that we might lose. The story is now also indulging in the usual writing issues that have plagued prior expansion stories.





We've been cleanly winning every single keystone. And then Bakool Ja Ja sets loose the most powerful Tural Vidraal ever, Valimarganda the Skyruin. The expansion hyped up this Vidraal so much, with how it breathes everlasting fire with its massive firey claw marks still burning on the mountain 80 years later, and how the even the Dawnservant couldn't slay it so he had to trick it into freezing itself into its own everlasting ice. And then the giant elder on the top of the mountain took us to the gravestone that was made in rememberance of those who fought against the Vidraal. Then Bakool Ja Ja frees Valimarganda from its prison, and apparently it unleashed a firery conflagration upon the giant's village... which doesn't kill anyone, or evaporate the fountain water, or burn any grass. We then run back to the Giant's village, and they start talking about how the Skyruin is going to kill countless people and how they must send messengers to nearby villages and tell them to evacuate. But then we just walk up to Valimarganda and kill it just like that. The most powerful Vidraal ever. The cool monster advertised on the cover of the game. And it didn't kill anybody or wipe out any towns. No heroic sacrifices required to stop it. What a let down. Even the Vidraal in the Viper questline actually managed to kill some nobodies offscreen.




We then go to the Hrothgar village and get into a cooking competition, where each claimant as to pair up and only the winning team gets keystones. I was hoping we would get paired up with Zooral Ja or even Bakool Jaja, but we get paired back up with Koana and the other Scions. Then I was hoping we would lose the competition (finally! A setback! Some tension!), and then have to be confronted with the awful reality of having to rob another claimant of their keystones in order to win, or having to persuade another claimant to pool both our keystones together and the tension of there being a betrayal. Then we go to the Mamooja Village, and Zooral Ja and Bakool Ja Ja get ejected from the succession competition, so now it's just between do-gooder A and do-gooder B. Boring.

It's a shame that the cooking challenge did not happen in gameplay like in GW2 or WoW's cooking quests where you have to run around the kitchen and quickly toss the chef the correct ingredients. You just click on an NPC to watch a cutscene and then get told that you won the cooking competition, quest complete. Aw. Actually, this seems to be a recurring issue with these feats. The story is about accomplishing seven feats, but aside from fighting the Vidraal, the completion of these feats happens in a cutscene you watch rather than you actually doing something.




The cooking competition was total bullocks. You have to cook the Hrothgar village's local dish, but they don't tell you the recipe. Except there is blatant favoritism as you go around and the villagers talk about ingredients *wink wink* and conspicuously point out their underground ovens. The recipe calls for wrapping up the meat in banana leaves and the cooking it in an underground oven, but said banana leaves were impossible for the other team to procure because the road to the forest at the bottom of the canyon below was blocked (again, why don't these princes having flying mounts?). Except a conspicuous Hrothgar elder walks into the village, takes us out to a spot in the middle of the forest, and gives us a history lesson, where a basket of banana leaves "just happened" to be buried nearby! It is also a stretch that we perfectly cooked the dish on the first try, but I digress. And then the elector has the gall to accuse the other team of not being interested in their village's history, when no one without prior knowledge could have known how the dish was the result of a specific event. If you are asked to race against another person to cook enchilada, do you stop to go around researching the deep lore of Mexico? No! You are going to be trying to acquire hard facts on what it is made up of and how to cook it! The Hrothgar elector called out the Mamooja for being biased, but he is just as biased as them given how he rigged the feat in favor of his daughter so that the two Mamooja claimants would lose. At least the Mamooja elector was upfront about who he wants to win.

I can see an argument that the Dawnservant is supposed to serve all of Tural and that's why the elector expected a potential Dawnservant candidate to take an interest in the people he is supposed to serve, but we see the current Dawnservant in the capital ruling like an emperor from his rich, grand palace overlooking the city and issuing decrees, and evidently doesn't leave his capital to go visit local towns and villages. It feels like a thinly disguised title for a ruler like "First Citizen", rather than an indicator of being an actual servant. If the Dawnservant lived in a more small, humble house, then it might make more sense.




Hold up. Krile is 20 years old? I thought she was in her mid to late 20s. And that was when she was introduced as Alphinaud's teacher in Heavensward almost a decade ago. She should be in her 30s by now.

Not fond of this "No! We can't execute the murderous bandits who just tried to slit our throat and sell us into slavery, we gotta find out why they became bandits and then fix the problem so they don't need to be bandits anymore!". This game doesn't believe in accountability or that people can be evil. Everyone has to have a sob story that gets them off the hook.

I was peeved that Koana threw away his claimant status for Wuk Lamat. Well, at least he became co-ruler with Wuk Lamat, though that is rather weird that they aren't married. Sounds ripe for conflict.

The sudden gospel music is... something. Secularized too.




We already have powerhouses who can defend the city. We are the ones close to the sphere, we should go to the sphere and see if we can get in and relay information back to HQ.

Krile's new retconned in backstory is intriguing, but it's starting to feel silly how special everyone in the Scions is turning out to be. I preferred when they were simply top students who joined this organization and then just so happened to get taken on a wild ride, rather than them turning out to be super special even before they joined the Scions.




Why aren't Wuk Lamat and Koana being accompanied by and conferring with some Landsguard generals/captains, the military warriors and leaders of Tural? Why are they exclusively hanging out with us foreigners?

Too bad the train turret defense section didn't happen in gameplay.




A cute feminine girl. Nice. Kinda looks like a Xenoblade 2 design, though. Too bad she inhabits a consumerist futuristic sci fi city. Solution 19 looks nice, it's just not what I want out of Final Fantasy, much like how I liked FF13 but it shouldn't have been branded as "Final Fantasy" as that comes with certain expectations as to what it will aesthetically look like.

"This society destroys people's souls, but let's not be judgemental! We have to understand their culture! (Unless it's Garlemald)". Feels like this was written by a redditor.

Not fond of this "we're not related by blood, but we are just as true brothers!" no. God didn't allow Abraham to pass on his inheirtance to some pretender. He gave him a true flesh and blood son.

Same stupid existentialist spiels as Endwalker.

There is far too much standing around and talking vs actual stuff happening.

All of this stopping to stand around and quip during battle deflates the tension.

Goodness gracious not yet another cringey insert song.




Missed opportunity to have some dragoons on those dragons. Ancient Ishgard (encompassing Dravania, not just Coerthas) had man riding on dragons, and Heavensward ended with the men of Ishgard and the dragons beginning to reconcile. Even if these aren't Dravanians and are just dragons from the area surrounding Thavnair, you would think at least one of them would have bonded with a human who would have tagged along.

Zoraal Ja's ordering the bombardment of Tuliyollaland the following solo duty in Solution Nine was the tipping point for me. I muted and started fast forwarding through dialogue. I don't like these characters, there is no tension, I just want to get my new job armor and go do more fates.

The Otis scene holds little weight when he is defending just one of many different robots that a central computer can take control of, and Otis him self can likely be brought back.

Why on earth are we stopping our pursuit of Zoraal Ja to play therapist for a half dozen civilians? Countless more people are dying this very instant. We should be killing Zoraal Ja to prevent that.




You've known him for 10 minutes.

The choir for the fifth dungeon's music does not sound good.

Thancred's and Y'shtola's voices do not sound quite right. Different microphone setup or mixing?




This is the third expansion in a row where the story ends with you pursuing the villain to a fake recreation of a long dead civilization with the aesthetics of a modern urban city. They just held back Alphinaud/Alisaie/Thancred/Urianger/Y'shtola to make it not as blatantly obvious.

(The art looks good, the story just isn't landing with me)




Is it? In this universe, there is no God who dictates right and wrong. Without him, there is nothing to anchor morality. It's just preferences. And in this world, "souls" are actually just aether. If the "denizens" of this world are memories impressed upon aether, then they are effectively people just like the in the Source who are memories and aether. The "living" people of the Source aren't magically more "alive" than the Endless given the metaphysics of the setting. Endless Cachiua doesn't have the "soul" of the original but in the end, its just aether and they are both people regardless. Sacrificing the "other" for the sake of "our" own people is what everyone in this setting does, including us. We waged war against other countries and killed other people because we preferred that our own people would survive. We wiped out the Amaurotine civilization and any hope of humanity returning to its original form because we preferred our present fallen civilization would survive. Sphene is no different, preferring to kill others to keep her people alive. Not seeing what's so wrong about that in this setting.




I fail to see how in this setting, that being "born" because your aether was taken from other people is any different from being born because your tribe wiped out another tribe and took their food which allowed your parents to support having a child.




Imagine saying "we'll stop the empire's leaders from waging war against us by massacring all of their people! Then they won't have any motivation to fight!" do you realize how backwards that sounds? You could try killing Sphene without wiping out her people? And it's not like the memories she uses to impress upon aether to create new people is being lost, so she isn't really losing a motivation to continue fighting here.




You had no issue killing Imperials or Amaurotines before, but now it's hard?





Empty words when there is no true Heaven or resurrection in this setting, and you just reincarnate over and over as different beings until your planet's lifestream dies and that's it.




No! You're not meant to die! Death is unnatural! In the beginning, all men lived forever! Stop trying to pass off the fallen state of humanity as "normal"!




It's a shame you can't actually ride the zipline to different parts of the Unlost World. You talk to an NPC and then get a fade to black as you get teleported around.








Come on Krile! Let's go murder the clones of your parents together! This story is hillariously psychopathic.




Who says this is twisted? Your own arbitrary moral system based on your feelings at the moment? Alexandria simply replicates how the lifestream it works. Who is to say what is "natural" and "unnatural"?

Did we just manipulate a guy into murdering the clone of his mother? Wow.

We are doing the exact same final dungeon for the third time in a row of running through a recreation of the downfall of civilization while said villain narrates.




Cool final boss design. Too bad it's the fourth final boss in a row that is some thing floating off of the platform, rather than a boss that the tank can manuever around on top of it. Then again, FF14 sadly doesn't do WoW-esque boss fights where you have to drag the boss around away from ever increasing amounts of lava on the floor. Given that she teleported G'raha, Krile, and Wuk Lamat away, I also have to wonder why the boss doesn't just teleport the player over a pool of lava and kill him just like that.

The fun was frontloaded with the succession competition and the Vidraal. Should've just been about that, not that would have fixed the lack of tension and the abysmal pacing. I liked some of the ideas and designs later on, but it just never matriculated into something I really liked. As hard as Endwalker dropped the ball, at least I was invested enough to rage about it, and it had some interesting twists like Thavnair, or the high tension bodyjacking scene, or the fun Elpis arc. But here, I finished the story and just didn't really care all that much, aside from the poking holes in the philosophical conclusions in the final zone. After the first trial, the only thing that piqued my interest was the turning point at level 96, and then that was it. Biggest problem with the final act is that it is beat for beat rehash of the last two expansions and has the same issues. I don't mind the rehashing so much as the execution and the bleak worldview.

The things I like about Dawntrail are other than the story: the new city of Tulliyollal, how the first two zones look, some of the music, the new Viper job, the new Samurai outfit, and... I guess that's it for now. Hope the new Eureka and Beastmaster job come in the next patch in November. The first two trial fights were kinda fun (haven't done them on extreme yet), though I don't really like doing the same scripted instanced fight over and over. And overworld content is disappointingly easy, even the S-ranked Vidraal notorious monster was zerged down in seconds. Should have been a critical engagement.




EDIT: forgot to mention that I liked Tural as seen in the first three zones. A fantasy land based on South America with fat bird people and two headed lizardmen and bug eye giants and little people in duck masks was something I hadn't seen before. Also, I enjoyed the sidequests.

Final Fantasy XIV gone woke? Steam reviews drop to mixed. Video clip added.

Players are upset with the latest MMO expansion, which shifts the story away from the player to focus on Wuk Lamat, an NPC which they find insufferable and who is voiced by a ***** voice actress.

The story and voice acting is considered so bad that people want to skip every cutscene involving her. Listen for yourself in the attached clip. Personally, I don't care if the VO is *****, but it does sound pretty wooden and stilted and forced here. It is also curious that English/USA is the ONLY place they cast a ***** VO.

Blame is falling everywhere from bad writing, bad (and woke) localization, but especially the voice acting.

Is this another move by the Square Enix "Ethics Department" which mandated Tifa's breast reduction?

They kept hammering in "Tural is diverse! Isn't that so unique and wonderful?". Huh? The Eorzean cities are as multiracial as you can get (Gridania with humans, elves, catgirls, Moogles, and Sylphs. Limsa with humans, catgirls, Roegadyn, goblins, lizardmen, and kobolds. Sharlayan has every playable race, and Garleans, and rabbits, and lizardmen. Garlean had literally every race they conquered, be it all playable races to NPC races like the wolfmen), and yet the narrative didn't praise them for their multi ethnicism. And this isn't unique to Dawntrail; nobody bent overbackwards to praise the nations of FF9, 10, 11, or 12 either. Why this push now?

Also weird for gospel music to be secularized and used as an insert song with lyrics about happiness and togetherness.

[Vergil]

I'm level 40 now =D

[LemonDemonGirl]

Man, Square really does have an obsession with exploring long-dead civilizations.

[Oyster Sauce]

I'm a level 28 marauder after maybe 3 play sessions. Biggest complaints so far:

-Fake gameplay, I'm essentially invincible. Haven't died or even come close to dying. There aren't any dangerous aggressive mobs in zones, they don't pull in packs very often, and they're trivial to run away from. It doesn't seem like there's a daze mechanic for being hit in the back.
-Very few abilities, and fewer worth using. Sometimes I press buttons just to see a different animation.
-Haven't seen a single chat message. Assuming everyone is in a grooming Discord.
-The map sucks mad ****. Delete it, look at the map WoW had 20 years ago, and copy it.

I want to be a cool class so I'll keep playing.

[Vergil]

Fake gameplay, I'm essentially invincible. Haven't died or even come close to dying. There aren't any dangerous aggressive mobs in zones, they don't pull in packs very often, and they're trivial to run away from. It doesn't seem like there's a daze mechanic for being hit in the back.

Have you been doing sidequests alongside main quests? I tried doing every quest available and ran into this problem as I waaaay outpaced the story missions until I focused exclusively on them until I finally got to about the appropriate level. Even then it's not very challenging though.

Very few abilities, and fewer worth using. Sometimes I press buttons just to see a different animation.

What class are you? Lancer has a decent-ish combo rotation that means you'll use most abilities but then you get absolute stinkers like the ****** heal spell or the jump abilities.

The map sucks mad ****. Delete it, look at the map WoW had 20 years ago, and copy it.

Yea it's a big unintuitive piece of ****.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

-Fake gameplay, I'm essentially invincible. Haven't died or even come close to dying. There aren't any dangerous aggressive mobs in zones, they don't pull in packs very often, and they're trivial to run away from. It doesn't seem like there's a daze mechanic for being hit in the back.

Yup. There is no real challenge outside of a handful of content like Eureka (a normal mob 2 or 3 levels above you can kill you), or the roguelite Deep Dungeons where you can get killed by a landmine. There were a few difficult story fights (Great King Moogle Mog where you have to kill the Moogles in a certain order, Steps of Faith where you had to stop this humongous dragon from crossing a bridge, the In From the Cold solo duty in Endwalker with the 20 minute time limit, the level 60 Red Mage solo duty where you duel a fast moving boss, etc), but they were nerfed. Some of the later ARR dungeons could be difficult (namely Dzemael Darkhold when pulling lots of mobs, Aurum Vale where you had to be careful when pulling packs due to the incoming DoT damage, and Stone Vigil where you had to be careful about how many mobs you pulled), but again they were nerfed.

-Very few abilities, and fewer worth using. Sometimes I press buttons just to see a different animation.

Yeah. There is no class customization outside of Eureka/Bozja (which only has a little, like being able to turn a DPS job into a tank). You don't have any real utility like in WoW where paladins can use Turn Evil to vanquish undead enemies, or Warlocks who can lay down Demonic Gateways, Rogues who can stealth the group, etc. At high end you have three hotbars and you're just memorizing the order in which to press all of these different buttons just to deal damage, not because they actually do something different.

-Haven't seen a single chat message.

You will only see chat in cities (namely the starting three cities, and the latest expansion city of Tuliyollal) as people shoot the breeze, Eureka/Bozja maps as people ask for a rez (because if you die there you lose exp and can delevel unless you are rezzed) and organize groups for difficult raids there, or in two of the current expansion zones if people are waiting for the S-rank world boss to spawn.

-The map sucks mad ****. Delete it, look at the map WoW had 20 years ago, and copy it.

Yup. The only zone that have anything interesting going on gameplay wise is the second Eureka map, where you have to walk past sleeping dragons (otherwise they wake up and two shot you) or carefully drop off the edges of cliffs onto narrow ledges below to access secret caves where you forge your relic weapon or fight the S-rank world boss of the zone. And then for the UI map, it the zone maps are unattractive compared to WoW's drawn maps or even GW2's, though I like the new world map art of the continents and the little details like dragons or ships.

I want to be a cool class so I'll keep playing.

Newer classes like Reaper and Viper tend to be flashier than older classes (also Dragoon with the writhing serpentine animations and the jumps), though unfortunately you don't get the flashy abilities until high level (as in around level 80 or 90), and if you do lower level content than that then you get temporarily delevelled and lose access to your cooler high level abilities.

Have you been doing sidequests alongside main quests? I tried doing every quest available and ran into this problem as I waaaay outpaced the story missions until I focused exclusively on them until I finally got to about the appropriate level. Even then it's not very challenging though.

I would not recommend doing the sidequests to level up. They are among the most inefficient methods of levelling. They should only really be done if you want to soak in the lore/flavor of the region. There are only a few sidequests I remember. The Convictory in Western Coerthas where you have these low ranked nobles camping out in dragon infested territory risking their lives trying to make a name for themselves and climb up the social ladder by killing some dragons. The Chocobo breeders in Dravania. Some of the sidequests in Gyr Abania, Doma, and Kholusia that show how impoverished the region is. The Elpis sidequests with the wizards creating magical creatures. The sidequests in Tural are generally kinda interesting, like the Moblins who kidnap craftsmen and force them to make beautiful art while the Moblins cheer them on with the hidden camp of escapees nearby. Questlines with a blue icon like the post moogle questline or the ones needed to unlock an aether current are generally at least okay, sometimes fun (like the Post Moogles questline started in Limsa, or the Great Serpent of Ronka questline in Rak'tika).

If you want to level up:

• If you are too low level to queue for dungeon roulette, then do your job's hunt log and go down the list killing each enemy listed in it.
• If you are high enough level to queue for roulettes, then do your four daily roulettes: levelling dungeon roulette, main story instance roulette, alliance raid roulette, and Frontline PvP roulette.
• If you have finished all four daily roulettes and still want to continue levelling, then you can either continue spamming levelling dungeon roulette (you get near insta queues as a tank or a healer), or you can do a roguelike Deep Dungeon run (such as Palace of the Dead), or if you are sick of instanced content then you just do FATEs around your level.

[Oyster Sauce]

Why doesn't this game have any loot? Monsters don't drop any gear whatsoever. Quests constantly have the same reward options. The 3 dungeons I've done all have the same few items and if you already have the piece it just refuses to give you a duplicate to sell. Merchants have the same items that quests and dungeons have.
Very strange experience

[Finarfin]

Why doesn't this game have any loot? Monsters don't drop any gear whatsoever. Quests constantly have the same reward options. The 3 dungeons I've done all have the same few items and if you already have the piece it just refuses to give you a duplicate to sell. Merchants have the same items that quests and dungeons have.
Very strange experience

I agree. It's a weird system, since most mmos have enemies drop gear or junk or sometimes something rare. MSQ always have the same type of rewards, be it an armor set, dyes, foods or at the end of an addon some small cosmetic. Dungeons always have the same stuff that drop with no variation. Merchants usually exist to either sell you materials for crafting jobs, take your stuff or repair. Though seeing as you are only at the beginning it'll be "boring" later on you have dozens of merchants you need to interact with to unlock content or have a high rating (which means doing content for the currency to buy gear)

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I like how the new raid doesn't start with long winded exposition dumps or character introductions, and instead gets you into two fights almost immediately, and then only after the second boss does it take a moment for characters to talk. Prior raids had more appealing premises (saving the world with the Scions, more Ancients) but were hamstrung by slow pacing as you're hanging out with academics who talk talk talk and has loads of exposition.

► Show Spoiler

The monster transformations are neat.






The cityscape backdrop of the fourth fight looks great. Too bad this wasn't a Garlemald zone.

[Vergil]

Unfortunately the game's only major redeeming quality is letting me play dress up with my pretty character and new gear that looks good is so thinly drip fed it can't keep me interested.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

new gear that looks good is so thinly drip fed it can't keep me interested.

You can get cool looking job outfits from Stormblood early on (long before you would normally get them 200 hours into the story) by doing a little bit of PvP and then going to the Wolf's Den and buying the transmog outfits from the vendors there. Each armor piece only costs 1,500 trophy crystals and you get about 1,000 for each 5v5 Crystalline Conflict PvP match you do, and a match only lasts 5 minutes.

[Nooneatall]

-Fake gameplay, I'm essentially invincible. Haven't died or even come close to dying. There aren't any dangerous aggressive mobs in zones, they don't pull in packs very often, and they're trivial to run away from. It doesn't seem like there's a daze mechanic for being hit in the back.

Yup. There is no real challenge outside of a handful of content like Eureka (a normal mob 2 or 3 levels above you can kill you), or the roguelite Deep Dungeons where you can get killed by a landmine. There were a few difficult story fights (Great King Moogle Mog where you have to kill the Moogles in a certain order, Steps of Faith where you had to stop this humongous dragon from crossing a bridge, the In From the Cold solo duty in Endwalker with the 20 minute time limit, the level 60 Red Mage solo duty where you duel a fast moving boss, etc), but they were nerfed. Some of the later ARR dungeons could be difficult (namely Dzemael Darkhold when pulling lots of mobs, Aurum Vale where you had to be careful when pulling packs due to the incoming DoT damage, and Stone Vigil where you had to be careful about how many mobs you pulled), but again they were nerfed.

-Very few abilities, and fewer worth using. Sometimes I press buttons just to see a different animation.

Yeah. There is no class customization outside of Eureka/Bozja (which only has a little, like being able to turn a DPS job into a tank). You don't have any real utility like in WoW where paladins can use Turn Evil to vanquish undead enemies, or Warlocks who can lay down Demonic Gateways, Rogues who can stealth the group, etc. At high end you have three hotbars and you're just memorizing the order in which to press all of these different buttons just to deal damage, not because they actually do something different.

-Haven't seen a single chat message.

You will only see chat in cities (namely the starting three cities, and the latest expansion city of Tuliyollal) as people shoot the breeze, Eureka/Bozja maps as people ask for a rez (because if you die there you lose exp and can delevel unless you are rezzed) and organize groups for difficult raids there, or in two of the current expansion zones if people are waiting for the S-rank world boss to spawn.

-The map sucks mad ****. Delete it, look at the map WoW had 20 years ago, and copy it.

Yup. The only zone that have anything interesting going on gameplay wise is the second Eureka map, where you have to walk past sleeping dragons (otherwise they wake up and two shot you) or carefully drop off the edges of cliffs onto narrow ledges below to access secret caves where you forge your relic weapon or fight the S-rank world boss of the zone. And then for the UI map, it the zone maps are unattractive compared to WoW's drawn maps or even GW2's, though I like the new world map art of the continents and the little details like dragons or ships.

I want to be a cool class so I'll keep playing.

Newer classes like Reaper and Viper tend to be flashier than older classes (also Dragoon with the writhing serpentine animations and the jumps), though unfortunately you don't get the flashy abilities until high level (as in around level 80 or 90), and if you do lower level content than that then you get temporarily delevelled and lose access to your cooler high level abilities.

Have you been doing sidequests alongside main quests? I tried doing every quest available and ran into this problem as I waaaay outpaced the story missions until I focused exclusively on them until I finally got to about the appropriate level. Even then it's not very challenging though.

I would not recommend doing the sidequests to level up. They are among the most inefficient methods of levelling. They should only really be done if you want to soak in the lore/flavor of the region. There are only a few sidequests I remember. The Convictory in Western Coerthas where you have these low ranked nobles camping out in dragon infested territory risking their lives trying to make a name for themselves and climb up the social ladder by killing some dragons. The Chocobo breeders in Dravania. Some of the sidequests in Gyr Abania, Doma, and Kholusia that show how impoverished the region is. The Elpis sidequests with the wizards creating magical creatures. The sidequests in Tural are generally kinda interesting, like the Moblins who kidnap craftsmen and force them to make beautiful art while the Moblins cheer them on with the hidden camp of escapees nearby. Questlines with a blue icon like the post moogle questline or the ones needed to unlock an aether current are generally at least okay, sometimes fun (like the Post Moogles questline started in Limsa, or the Great Serpent of Ronka questline in Rak'tika).

If you want to level up:

• If you are too low level to queue for dungeon roulette, then do your job's hunt log and go down the list killing each enemy listed in it.
• If you are high enough level to queue for roulettes, then do your four daily roulettes: levelling dungeon roulette, main story instance roulette, alliance raid roulette, and Frontline PvP roulette.
• If you have finished all four daily roulettes and still want to continue levelling, then you can either continue spamming levelling dungeon roulette (you get near insta queues as a tank or a healer), or you can do a roguelike Deep Dungeon run (such as Palace of the Dead), or if you are sick of instanced content then you just do FATEs around your level.

Just play guild wars 2, it feels like an actual rpg

[Val the Moofia Boss]

-Fake gameplay, I'm essentially invincible. Haven't died or even come close to dying. There aren't any dangerous aggressive mobs in zones, they don't pull in packs very often, and they're trivial to run away from. It doesn't seem like there's a daze mechanic for being hit in the back.

Yup. There is no real challenge outside of a handful of content like Eureka (a normal mob 2 or 3 levels above you can kill you), or the roguelite Deep Dungeons where you can get killed by a landmine. There were a few difficult story fights (Great King Moogle Mog where you have to kill the Moogles in a certain order, Steps of Faith where you had to stop this humongous dragon from crossing a bridge, the In From the Cold solo duty in Endwalker with the 20 minute time limit, the level 60 Red Mage solo duty where you duel a fast moving boss, etc), but they were nerfed. Some of the later ARR dungeons could be difficult (namely Dzemael Darkhold when pulling lots of mobs, Aurum Vale where you had to be careful when pulling packs due to the incoming DoT damage, and Stone Vigil where you had to be careful about how many mobs you pulled), but again they were nerfed.

-Very few abilities, and fewer worth using. Sometimes I press buttons just to see a different animation.

Yeah. There is no class customization outside of Eureka/Bozja (which only has a little, like being able to turn a DPS job into a tank). You don't have any real utility like in WoW where paladins can use Turn Evil to vanquish undead enemies, or Warlocks who can lay down Demonic Gateways, Rogues who can stealth the group, etc. At high end you have three hotbars and you're just memorizing the order in which to press all of these different buttons just to deal damage, not because they actually do something different.

-Haven't seen a single chat message.

You will only see chat in cities (namely the starting three cities, and the latest expansion city of Tuliyollal) as people shoot the breeze, Eureka/Bozja maps as people ask for a rez (because if you die there you lose exp and can delevel unless you are rezzed) and organize groups for difficult raids there, or in two of the current expansion zones if people are waiting for the S-rank world boss to spawn.

-The map sucks mad ****. Delete it, look at the map WoW had 20 years ago, and copy it.

Yup. The only zone that have anything interesting going on gameplay wise is the second Eureka map, where you have to walk past sleeping dragons (otherwise they wake up and two shot you) or carefully drop off the edges of cliffs onto narrow ledges below to access secret caves where you forge your relic weapon or fight the S-rank world boss of the zone. And then for the UI map, it the zone maps are unattractive compared to WoW's drawn maps or even GW2's, though I like the new world map art of the continents and the little details like dragons or ships.

I want to be a cool class so I'll keep playing.

Newer classes like Reaper and Viper tend to be flashier than older classes (also Dragoon with the writhing serpentine animations and the jumps), though unfortunately you don't get the flashy abilities until high level (as in around level 80 or 90), and if you do lower level content than that then you get temporarily delevelled and lose access to your cooler high level abilities.

Have you been doing sidequests alongside main quests? I tried doing every quest available and ran into this problem as I waaaay outpaced the story missions until I focused exclusively on them until I finally got to about the appropriate level. Even then it's not very challenging though.

I would not recommend doing the sidequests to level up. They are among the most inefficient methods of levelling. They should only really be done if you want to soak in the lore/flavor of the region. There are only a few sidequests I remember. The Convictory in Western Coerthas where you have these low ranked nobles camping out in dragon infested territory risking their lives trying to make a name for themselves and climb up the social ladder by killing some dragons. The Chocobo breeders in Dravania. Some of the sidequests in Gyr Abania, Doma, and Kholusia that show how impoverished the region is. The Elpis sidequests with the wizards creating magical creatures. The sidequests in Tural are generally kinda interesting, like the Moblins who kidnap craftsmen and force them to make beautiful art while the Moblins cheer them on with the hidden camp of escapees nearby. Questlines with a blue icon like the post moogle questline or the ones needed to unlock an aether current are generally at least okay, sometimes fun (like the Post Moogles questline started in Limsa, or the Great Serpent of Ronka questline in Rak'tika).

If you want to level up:

• If you are too low level to queue for dungeon roulette, then do your job's hunt log and go down the list killing each enemy listed in it.
• If you are high enough level to queue for roulettes, then do your four daily roulettes: levelling dungeon roulette, main story instance roulette, alliance raid roulette, and Frontline PvP roulette.
• If you have finished all four daily roulettes and still want to continue levelling, then you can either continue spamming levelling dungeon roulette (you get near insta queues as a tank or a healer), or you can do a roguelike Deep Dungeon run (such as Palace of the Dead), or if you are sick of instanced content then you just do FATEs around your level.

Just play guild wars 2, it feels like an actual rpg

I rotate between WoW, FF14, and GW2. Last I played GW2 was during End of Dragons. I had finished all of the story content and all of the masteries except for the pointless super grindy Icebrood Saga masteries. I did a lot of ranked PvP over the course of several months and obtained all of the timegated mats I needed to build a full set of legendary armor... and then tallied up the costs and realized that I would have to spend $400 on mats to level up my crafting and the mats required to craft the full set of legendaries. Obviously wasn't going to do that, so there was nothing else to do, so I stopped playing. The announcement that they were transitioning to the mini-expac model where you pay more for less also dampened my enthusiasm for the game. The new Janthir expac looks a little more appealing due to the locales, and the cool spear animation for Ranger, and the new player home, and the reworked Warclaw mounted PvE combat, but I am not eager to get to it ASAP.

[Finarfin]

Yup. There is no real challenge outside of a handful of content like Eureka (a normal mob 2 or 3 levels above you can kill you), or the roguelite Deep Dungeons where you can get killed by a landmine. There were a few difficult story fights (Great King Moogle Mog where you have to kill the Moogles in a certain order, Steps of Faith where you had to stop this humongous dragon from crossing a bridge, the In From the Cold solo duty in Endwalker with the 20 minute time limit, the level 60 Red Mage solo duty where you duel a fast moving boss, etc), but they were nerfed. Some of the later ARR dungeons could be difficult (namely Dzemael Darkhold when pulling lots of mobs, Aurum Vale where you had to be careful when pulling packs due to the incoming DoT damage, and Stone Vigil where you had to be careful about how many mobs you pulled), but again they were nerfed.




Yeah. There is no class customization outside of Eureka/Bozja (which only has a little, like being able to turn a DPS job into a tank). You don't have any real utility like in WoW where paladins can use Turn Evil to vanquish undead enemies, or Warlocks who can lay down Demonic Gateways, Rogues who can stealth the group, etc. At high end you have three hotbars and you're just memorizing the order in which to press all of these different buttons just to deal damage, not because they actually do something different.




You will only see chat in cities (namely the starting three cities, and the latest expansion city of Tuliyollal) as people shoot the breeze, Eureka/Bozja maps as people ask for a rez (because if you die there you lose exp and can delevel unless you are rezzed) and organize groups for difficult raids there, or in two of the current expansion zones if people are waiting for the S-rank world boss to spawn.




Yup. The only zone that have anything interesting going on gameplay wise is the second Eureka map, where you have to walk past sleeping dragons (otherwise they wake up and two shot you) or carefully drop off the edges of cliffs onto narrow ledges below to access secret caves where you forge your relic weapon or fight the S-rank world boss of the zone. And then for the UI map, it the zone maps are unattractive compared to WoW's drawn maps or even GW2's, though I like the new world map art of the continents and the little details like dragons or ships.




Newer classes like Reaper and Viper tend to be flashier than older classes (also Dragoon with the writhing serpentine animations and the jumps), though unfortunately you don't get the flashy abilities until high level (as in around level 80 or 90), and if you do lower level content than that then you get temporarily delevelled and lose access to your cooler high level abilities.




I would not recommend doing the sidequests to level up. They are among the most inefficient methods of levelling. They should only really be done if you want to soak in the lore/flavor of the region. There are only a few sidequests I remember. The Convictory in Western Coerthas where you have these low ranked nobles camping out in dragon infested territory risking their lives trying to make a name for themselves and climb up the social ladder by killing some dragons. The Chocobo breeders in Dravania. Some of the sidequests in Gyr Abania, Doma, and Kholusia that show how impoverished the region is. The Elpis sidequests with the wizards creating magical creatures. The sidequests in Tural are generally kinda interesting, like the Moblins who kidnap craftsmen and force them to make beautiful art while the Moblins cheer them on with the hidden camp of escapees nearby. Questlines with a blue icon like the post moogle questline or the ones needed to unlock an aether current are generally at least okay, sometimes fun (like the Post Moogles questline started in Limsa, or the Great Serpent of Ronka questline in Rak'tika).

If you want to level up:

• If you are too low level to queue for dungeon roulette, then do your job's hunt log and go down the list killing each enemy listed in it.
• If you are high enough level to queue for roulettes, then do your four daily roulettes: levelling dungeon roulette, main story instance roulette, alliance raid roulette, and Frontline PvP roulette.
• If you have finished all four daily roulettes and still want to continue levelling, then you can either continue spamming levelling dungeon roulette (you get near insta queues as a tank or a healer), or you can do a roguelike Deep Dungeon run (such as Palace of the Dead), or if you are sick of instanced content then you just do FATEs around your level.

Just play guild wars 2, it feels like an actual rpg

I rotate between WoW, FF14, and GW2. Last I played GW2 was during End of Dragons. I had finished all of the story content and all of the masteries except for the pointless super grindy Icebrood Saga masteries. I did a lot of ranked PvP over the course of several months and obtained all of the timegated mats I needed to build a full set of legendary armor... and then tallied up the costs and realized that I would have to spend $400 on mats to level up my crafting and the mats required to craft the full set of legendaries. Obviously wasn't going to do that, so there was nothing else to do, so I stopped playing. The announcement that they were transitioning to the mini-expac model where you pay more for less also dampened my enthusiasm for the game. The new Janthir expac looks a little more appealing due to the locales, and the cool spear animation for Ranger, and the new player home, and the reworked Warclaw mounted PvE combat, but I am not eager to get to it ASAP.

Kinda like me, I currently rotate between, WOW, FFXIV, DDO and SWTOR (I'm going to take a break from FFXIV for an indefinite period of time because I got something like a burnout while playing Dawntrail (I'm also a bit bored with the addon, which is a shame because I loved Endwalker, Shadowbringers and even rushed through it, without skipping of course).)
I'll most likely will be playing Warcraft more since War Within actually looks cool.

[Nooneatall]

Just play guild wars 2, it feels like an actual rpg

I rotate between WoW, FF14, and GW2. Last I played GW2 was during End of Dragons. I had finished all of the story content and all of the masteries except for the pointless super grindy Icebrood Saga masteries. I did a lot of ranked PvP over the course of several months and obtained all of the timegated mats I needed to build a full set of legendary armor... and then tallied up the costs and realized that I would have to spend $400 on mats to level up my crafting and the mats required to craft the full set of legendaries. Obviously wasn't going to do that, so there was nothing else to do, so I stopped playing. The announcement that they were transitioning to the mini-expac model where you pay more for less also dampened my enthusiasm for the game. The new Janthir expac looks a little more appealing due to the locales, and the cool spear animation for Ranger, and the new player home, and the reworked Warclaw mounted PvE combat, but I am not eager to get to it ASAP.

Kinda like me, I currently rotate between, WOW, FFXIV, DDO and SWTOR (I'm going to take a break from FFXIV for an indefinite period of time because I got something like a burnout while playing Dawntrail (I'm also a bit bored with the addon, which is a shame because I loved Endwalker, Shadowbringers and even rushed through it, without skipping of course).)
I'll most likely will be playing Warcraft more since War Within actually looks cool.

I usually just play old games alone in the dark with a large Pizza Hut® pizza on my gut. I wash it down with a large Mountain Dew: Code Red®

[Finarfin]

I rotate between WoW, FF14, and GW2. Last I played GW2 was during End of Dragons. I had finished all of the story content and all of the masteries except for the pointless super grindy Icebrood Saga masteries. I did a lot of ranked PvP over the course of several months and obtained all of the timegated mats I needed to build a full set of legendary armor... and then tallied up the costs and realized that I would have to spend $400 on mats to level up my crafting and the mats required to craft the full set of legendaries. Obviously wasn't going to do that, so there was nothing else to do, so I stopped playing. The announcement that they were transitioning to the mini-expac model where you pay more for less also dampened my enthusiasm for the game. The new Janthir expac looks a little more appealing due to the locales, and the cool spear animation for Ranger, and the new player home, and the reworked Warclaw mounted PvE combat, but I am not eager to get to it ASAP.

Kinda like me, I currently rotate between, WOW, FFXIV, DDO and SWTOR (I'm going to take a break from FFXIV for an indefinite period of time because I got something like a burnout while playing Dawntrail (I'm also a bit bored with the addon, which is a shame because I loved Endwalker, Shadowbringers and even rushed through it, without skipping of course).)
I'll most likely will be playing Warcraft more since War Within actually looks cool.

I usually just play old games alone in the dark with a large Pizza Hut® pizza on my gut. I wash it down with a large Mountain Dew: Code Red®

based as ****.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I'll most likely will be playing Warcraft more since War Within actually looks cool.

I was really excited for the hero talent specs when they were announced at Blizzcon, but now looking at youtube showcases of the hero talents, they look incredibly lackluster for the classes I play, if they have visuals at all. Reaper's Mark's animation is meh and the DoT is barely noticeable. Exterminate is the most visible DK hero talent but still doesn't look great or feel impactful when compared to say charging up Oka Namikiri and the camera shake from FF14 or the hefting around the hammer as an Untamed in GW2. The Horseman just appear and disappear just like that? No polished summon/unsummon animation? Can't tell what San'layn even does. Monk Conduit of the Celestials: Xuen/Niuzao/Yu'lon suddenly appearing, just standing there, and then disappearing without any dressup animation doesn't look very good. Chi-Ji dashing around is kinda okay but not very cool. Can't even tell what the other two Monk specs do. Lightsmith: your ally only gets your Holy Armament for 3 seconds? What? And so on.

What happened to the art team that designed HotS' good looking ability animations? Even the Covenant abilities looked cool. Even the new GW2 spear animations look cooler than this. Feels sad that WoW's once renowned art team is being easily outclassed by its competitors.

TWW would have been a day 1 purchase for me if they had nailed it, but I am not so excited for TWW now. Maybe they will improve the visuals in the patches, but given how Blizzard has continually neglected player ability animations for the past decade, I doubt it.

[Finarfin]

I'll most likely will be playing Warcraft more since War Within actually looks cool.

I was really excited for the hero talent specs when they were announced at Blizzcon, but now looking at youtube showcases of the hero talents, they look incredibly lackluster for the classes I play, if they have visuals at all. Reaper's Mark's animation is meh and the DoT is barely noticeable. Exterminate is the most visible DK hero talent but still doesn't look great or feel impactful when compared to say charging up Oka Namikiri and the camera shake from FF14 or the hefting around the hammer as an Untamed in GW2. The Horseman just appear and disappear just like that? No polished summon/unsummon animation? Can't tell what San'layn even does. Monk Conduit of the Celestials: Xuen/Niuzao/Yu'lon suddenly appearing, just standing there, and then disappearing without any dressup animation doesn't look very good. Chi-Ji dashing around is kinda okay but not very cool. Can't even tell what the other two Monk specs do. Lightsmith: your ally only gets your Holy Armament for 3 seconds? What? And so on.

What happened to the art team that designed HotS' good looking ability animations? Even the Covenant abilities looked cool. Even the new GW2 spear animations look cooler than this. Feels sad that WoW's once renowned art team is being easily outclassed by its competitors.

TWW would have been a day 1 purchase for me if they had nailed it, but I am not so excited for TWW now. Maybe they will improve the visuals in the patches, but given how Blizzard has continually neglected player ability animations for the past decade, I doubt it.

Maybe these things will be improved upon. I'd wager these are only beta/unfinished animations.
I might record some footage from the beta later on.

[Finarfin]

Well. Seems like my indefinite break is a permanent one now. A FFXIV online developer permanently banned me from the Steam Community Hub of FFXIV for saying "Yes, it's a guy" to someone asking what is up with Wuk Lamats English Dub. I know that I can play the game without any problems but I don't really want to give them my money anymore when they perma ban someone for uttering 4 words that contain nothing but the truth. Hope they have fun with their ****** subs

[Hauberk]

Well. Seems like my indefinite break is a permanent one now. A FFXIV online developer permanently banned me from the Steam Community Hub of FFXIV for saying "Yes, it's a guy" to someone asking what is up with Wuk Lamats English Dub. I know that I can play the game without any problems but I don't really want to give them my money anymore when they perma ban someone for uttering 4 words that contain nothing but the truth. Hope they have fun with their ****** subs

They will be their own undoing.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

The official forums are also thought policed. One of the most polite and constructive posters in the almost 1,000 page long megathread that criticized Endwalker's story was permabanned from the official forums, while cultist syncophants who were constantly insulting and strawmanning people were not.

[rusty_shackleford]

The official forums are also thought policed.

So is the game itself. It's why everyone is so fake nice, you get chat banned for anything.
Y'know, except for publicly advertising that you want to engage in cyberfucking. They seem ok with that.

[Rand]

Y'know, except for publicly advertising that you want to engage in cyberfucking. They seem ok with that.

Well, they have to cater to their core audience of mentally ill incels.