#i am leveling so much just to play drk quests

[drag00ni]

please take my pen away from me

[capsicrew]

Okay, finally got home and was able to watch the new job trailer (and look at a short list of the updates)

Dragoon/Paladin- I don't play enough of either to really say. Lookin pretty cool with the dragon coming out of the ground and all the swords flying around.

Warrior- Also don't play as much, but I just leveled WAR up to at least 80, so I am impressed with all the big-looking attacks. Really keeping in that WAR spirit of just beating the shit out of your enemy.

Astrologian- I heard they took out the randomization part, which makes me sad. :( But when you get 3-4 cards at once anyway, it feels less dramatic. I hope this means cards maybe have more than just 2 uses split between them again. Also love the space explosions, still.

Dancer- Been a bit since I've DNC'd. Some of those big finishers are lookin nice.

Reaper- I'm not sure that much is different? Probably an effect of it being a more recent job. Like the big attacks--especially whatever that ranged attack was at the end the followed Hell's Egress or w/e. Probably a replacement for the proc'd normal ranged attack. I guess nothing too fancy for Ejvi until we get more BLU content and Beastmaster later on.

Red Mage- I'm glad there's a bit more to the aoe combo than just hitting the one attack (and I read that it now costs 50 black/white mana to cast that instead of the higher number. I always kept forgetting that). Like the big attacks--thought the new big finisher looked nice--Kola will love those big, flashy moves. I hope RDM gets a bit more mobility.

Machinist- Hooly cow--I was already excited about there being an even bigger saw blade that I saw in the benchmark video--but all those extra shooters during the hypercharge phase. Didn't look like anything new for automaton queen, sadly. Biggest disappointment, though, is that it looks like no change for the flamethrower. I hope it gets a damage buff to make it more worth using.

Ninja- Huton... is an innate buff. Finally .... FINALLY I don't have to fucking rush to get huton and hide in very fast before the tank pulls with no countdown the very INSTANT the entry gate is down. Anyway, everything else is lookin good, I'm excited to see how it all comes together on the play side. Bigger frog :0

Sage- Despite it being Capsisi's other job, I also don't remember Sage well, lol. Same as Reaper, I guess... not much seems very different. Just some bigger attacks.

Black Mage- YOU CAN MOVE YOUR LAY LINES. FINALLY!

Viper- Looks fun. When it hits that big burst, everything was happening so fast I wasn't sure where one attack ended and others began lol. Kola's really going to like playing this job.

White Mage- Ooohh... white mage gets a gap closer but SCH and AST don't okayyyy (lmao)

Monk- I heard they were changing a lot about this job's rotation, so it was a bit hard to compare. I liked seeing, like... overflow chakra. I think I read a lot of jobs are having some mechanics slightly changed to help avoid gauge loss and such. That's comforting.

Dark Knight- I uh... wish I remembered DRK better. Tanking makes me anxious, so I don't really play it in group content (healer less and less and less over time, too), so I forget some of those skills. Likin how it looks !

Bard- Kinda like that the songs aren't attacks any more. It wasn't always a problem, but will certainly be more useful for those times it would be. I also like that Pitch Perfect now does aoe damage. I think I read that the procs are getting combined into one proc, that'll be helpful when transfering from aoe to single target rotations, or vice-versa. That big music-magic attack at the end is cool, both visually and conceptually.

Summoner- Solar Bahamut, lmao I do like that as a contrast to "Lunar Bahamut." A shame the lack of job-specific quests means we wont be seeing much reason for its existence. I wish we could summon Alexander instead, lol

Samurai- Man, if I could remember which samurai attacks had which names, I could probably say more. I those different follow-up attacks to the main damaging moves. Beutiq is probably going to be too busy with a different job to worry about it...

Scholar- I was briefly impressed by chain strategem having a follow-up attack and then the player put on the angel costume and I was flabbergasted lmao. Jalliim putting on his magic angel costume to descend into aymeric's bedroom lmao (I really like it, is what I'm saying).

Pictomancer- I didn't watch the full explanation of the rotation, but I was really happy with what I was seeing in the job trailer. Pictomancer looks like its gonna be really fun, it's time for Beutiq to have a good time. I love the little chibi madeen. And I was laughing at the hammer. Just thinking about Krile and Beutiq holding their looney tunes ass hammers like just like lmfao

Gunbreaker- finishing strong on a job I barely remember lmao I'm sure the real GNB players are impressed

thats all I got, I'm excited about many of these additions

[vexatious-knight]

hell yeah I love seeing criticism for this game, I feel like I only ever see people talking about how great it is, it's refreshing to see someone who can criticize it.

I will say, it's been a while since I've gone through the full story watching all cutscenes, so I'm definitely going mostly off of memory here (I don't feel like it's necessary to go through every cutscene when I replay, but I do watch them the first time I play a section). This is mostly complaints and heavy criticism and if you don't want to read it, I will not blame you. Most people like this game for the story. I am not one of them, which is why I was so interested in your opinion since you have some interesting things to say about gw2 as well. I like to see more than the usual "this game is the best game ever!" opinion.

I do think there's an amount of good lore hidden in ARR that should be seen but it is far too long and convoluted, and it has been re-written and streamlined. I'd hate to be there for what it was like originally. One other thing about ARR is that they like to hide character development in conversations where you just click on the NPC and talk to them, it's where a lot of interesting development(? if you can even call it that, more like interesting character quirks) for Yda especially is hidden, things like being more than comic relief and being smarter than she seems, Y'shtola even says that she needs to stop underestimating her (except they completely forget about this and Lyse is extremely one dimensional in Stb anyway). But! if there was any hint to more of a personality, that's where they put it. It is otherwise extremely boring especially if you're going through it for the 4th or 5th time.

HW is another one I've done quite a few times, and while I do enjoy a lot of the catholic elves getting their shit rocked, I agree with all of your criticism here. It's definitely a much nicer and coherent storyline than ARR (which goes slow as hell until the very end when it goes from 0-500 in one quest). I do think Aymeric needs to get shit on a lot more bc he is complicit in like everything their military has done. Estinien also gets much better as it goes on, btw. I like his character much more since knowing him after ShB and his arc in HW is now just something that he went through that's never really brought up again. So you have that to look forward to (if you did the DRG quests for Stormblood you saw a bit of how his personality is going forward, which is nice). I also completely agree that the people in the Brume should get more and like. Improvement maybe. As well as the heretics. I think that was just. Bad to let both of those groups just. Go back to what things were which??? what was the point of the whole expac if not to improve life for everyone and not just. the Highborns. Absolute net 0 improvement except I guess there's no war now lmao.

StB I did enjoy, if only bc it was the New Thing I did after playing through HW like 6 times bc I didn't have the full game for almost a year. The fights are much more fun and I think that's where most of the improvement went, I liked the complex fights and being a tank through this expac is really fun! You start to actually get some cool skills (esp as DRK, and you finally have access to TBN by the end of it MWAH the best mitigation skill in the game, that makes doing anything under 70 a huge pain). BUT that's about where my praise ends! The storyline felt horribly rushed, but especially in Doma as soon as you're done with their rebellion and you sprint back to Eorzea and then in the next 3 levels you take over all of Ala Mhigo. And that's made worse by every map in Gyr Abania looking the exact same as the last and makes the whole thing a slog through 3 of the same desert map. Doma is at least 3 different places even if one of them is the Ruby Sea. I also think they handled the Xaela extremely poorly and Cirina is really annoying, but that's just a personal thing (especially if you're playing a Xaela, it sucks that everyone treats you as an outsider, a game this big should be able to change a couple of lines based on race. AND DONT. Get me started on Hrothgar. Everything about them is bullshit but especially the lack of women and the entire Bozja storyline is ridiculous). The only relatively interesting thing about StB is the lead-up directly into ShB. The end of the Yotsuyu storyline is what tells me that the actual story is starting, and while I like the Tsukuyomi fight itself (esp to tank lmao) how Yotsuyu is treated is one of the worst things in the game lol like I thought killing Ysayle off like that was enough to show how much they hate women but they sank lower. They Wasted that voice actor she was incredible and this storyline did not deserve her.

Anyways. The fake echo that Zenos has pisses me off and I hate it. It doesn't get much better even if EW is my favorite expac so far.

I didn't like ShB. I think the lightwarden storyline was fumbled and the designs for them were boring reskins except for the first one and the one in the mine. I loved Holminster as a dungeon, as an intro to ShB and it was a nice intro to harder fights which is highly enjoyable (people tend to have a lot of trouble with the final boss of that dungeon which is understandable, but i love that fight personally). I love the hard fights in this game and I think one of the reasons I still play is because of the playstyle, def not the story, I don't like it enough to play for that. Some of my favorite fights are in ShB, both in the main expac and in the patches between (pagl'than is one of my favorite dungeons in the game, it's got a good mix of complex fights and cool mechanics, so you have that to look forward to. def don't tank that the first time you do it tho). The maps are a nice change of pace from StB but they are still only there to walk through and I don't see a reason to hang out in them or explore. I don't like Eulmore and hanging out there a lot during the patches is super annoying since none of the characters are especially redeemable despite this fandom's love of Dulia Chai. Ran'jit was a huge annoyance and that's really all I have to say about him. What the fuck was his purpose. I hated getting beaten by him, esp because I knew I could kick his ass if this game had let me but for whatever plot reason they just decided to make him like Zenos in the first. Annoying since we already had to deal with his ass too much anyway.

It is also nice to see someone else who (currently) distrusts and dislikes Graha. I do not like him. I think he was manipulative and cruel to the WoL and now that we know his identity he is just an annoying fanboy which was a weird and uncomfortable way to go. He makes me uncomfortable and he irritates me and I only ever see love for him when he should be held accountable for all the cruel and fucked up things he did and continues to do throughout the ShB patches.

As I said before, I have a lot of gripes with the storyline. I dislike most of it and I really only play to see what they've done next and see the cool fights they arbitrarily added in. I think there's WAY too much talking and questlines that do nothing in every expac (and it gets worse in EW! there's so little actual gameplay it drives me up the fucking wall! I'm not doing this to watch a movie! I want to play a game!) and I think that's where this game really fucking fails. There's not enough gameplay in the story and you just spend 90% of your time watching the characters do stuff while you, the player character and most special person in the world!! stand and do nothing.

@vexatious-knight​​ sure, I can get into it! I know I make it seem like I utterly hated HW in those last few points but I actually don’t, it’s one of my fav expacs. it’s mostly just that I like to bitch abt the weaker parts of things I like bc constructive criticism is love and the finest form of flattery to me.

details under the cut. this is gonna be real long lol I’m sorry

Keep reading

[devotedlystrangewizard]

whoever the fuck decided that i, someone who actively avoids playing healer because i have chronic anxiety, should enjoy playing white mage this much

[liketheinferno2]

I cannot express the degree of unhinged cathartic mania I am feeling about the dark knight quests, huge spoilers ahead:

(I have failed) to keep this brief:

DRK as a class OPENS on the concept of putting down abusers and rapist knights to make the world safer for the vulnerable. That is what the class is ABOUT, it is the very first thing you do when that sword's placed in your hands.

Dark Knights as an in-universe concept started with a knight who cut down a pedophile priest in the street and had to renounce his title. All others carry on this legacy.

Rielle is being relentlessly pursued by a priest with a task force of knights, and if you've been paying attention to that first part, YOU ARE NOW AFRAID.

But then they reveal it's her mother who wants her dead because of dragon blood bullshit, so maybe not.

Sid has this to say when that first comes up:

I must note she denies him twice in this scene. Nonspecific and vaguely at that, but he's not talking about the specific thing she thinks he is either. He's extending a hand to say "you didn't want it, you're not tainted and I'll keep you safe from anything like [whatever happened] from now on", in a way she can relate to. I don't believe Sidurgu believes in the concept of sin as it is in Halonic faith, but Rielle does, so that's how he phrases it. He's also projecting a hell of lot in order to make this assumption, but that's a whole other can of worms.

Sid and Rielle are written as two people who implicitly understand what is wrong with the other one because they see too much of themselves in each other. Rielle should be far, far too young to be able to do this considering what Sid's been though, and Sid is frighteningly on-the-nose with most of his assumptions about Rielle despite never consulting her. Both of these reflect terribly on each other.

Rielle hides things from him for no apparent reason, even though she's otherwise extremely sensitive and intelligent. This is really common of abused kids and I like how real it is, it causes PROBLEMS.

Despite the problems it's that deep understanding that allows them to have their confrontations without any fear, the selfishness inherent in self defense butts up against the pain of watching others suffer when you could be suffering for them. Or, god forbid, no one need suffer at all...

But then Rielle says this:

The implication being that he keeps her around because she's desirable. Not only is Sid horrified by this accusation, it's also like... extremely significant that Rielle thinks this is an insult you can flippantly level at a PARENTAL FIGURE.

I'm just gonna paste a couple of the bits from Ystride here:

(Equating Rielle to her ex husband)

"Pray forgive my sins, for laying down with Your enemies."

Sid equating this to his own life SO HEAVILY that he confuses who he's fighting for also feels noteworthy to me. "At last," he says, "it was my turn." Which implies that it took a while.

It's layered. It's so layered. It's put together in the strange ways these two interact with each other exclusive of you. You're an outsider in this narrative, while Sid and Rielle are Those Who Know. If you're playing this and you know, you get clued into all these little horrors underneath what is already a harrowing story. I didn't think this game could EVER get me excited about a questline where someone other than the WOL is the protagonist going through their big journey, because I've disliked it all other times it happened, but they've gone and done it here. This was brutal and real and it barely had to tell me anything directly. GOOD CLASS.

[corseque]

hello, got a ff14 question if you don’t mind. can relate to your initial FF14 struggle so much… i died like 6 times in snowcloak and have keeper of the lake up next, i legit can’t sleep bc of the anxiety. why can’t i duty support this one… Q: was it difficult going from healer to tank? i cannot wait to switch to DRK but also i hate the online aspect of the game so much so if I suck it’s gonna end me I fear. on the brighter side you and nipuni got me into this game (kudos to yall) and i am not giving up until i finish EW, i need that da4 experience

omg, this gave me flashbacks. There's a few things that I wish I had known:

-healer is the most stressful class, because if you die, most of the time, everybody dies. And you have to somehow survive while healing everyone in instances that you've never seen before. Also, if you have outdated gear on, you will be able to heal less, so update your gear as much as you can. If you want less stress, switch to DPS or play Tank.

-you can unlock DRK the moment you step into the Firmament, but it unlocks at level 30. To use it as your main class, you will have to level it up to level 50, the same level as the content you're doing. Here's a guide to that. I recommend Palace of the Dead and Leveling Roulette.

-make sure that you're doing your Class Quests (a special questline dedicated to the class you're playing, that unlocks new skills and gives gear) - in the top left corner, you'll see the name of the Main Scenario quest, and if you have a Class Quest available that you haven't completed on your current job, it will be right below that, and you can click it.

As soon as you get to Shadowbringers and Endwalker, you will be able to play dungeons by yourself.

maybe take a pause and play the Crystal Tower 24-man raid series - it's side content that you have to complete to be able to continue the main story, and it's content where you don't have to play well because there will be another 5 healers healing while they eat pizza with their other hand. You should already have it unlocked. It starts with this quest.

It's very stressful for people who don't like multiplayer, but with some adjustments it can hopefully be more fun. DPS have a longer wait time, but it's because it's not as stressful to be DPS. Tanks have to lead the pace, and Healers have to heal. If you're terrible at DPS, it just makes it a little slower, but nothing bad happens. As healer, you may be getting the experience of having a very experienced Tank who pulls all the enemies in the whole level and then dies because they didn't notice you were new. A big part is the tank not balancing with a new healer. And many people are replaying these dungeons as speedruns to get leveling experience.

Anyway it's a huge hassle, and I remember being reduced to tears by not wanting to play with other people, but I promise the story is worth it. The DA devs on twitter were gushing about how good Endwalker is and how much they enjoyed the writing when it came out, and I honestly hope it inspires them.

[thessalian]

Thess vs The Saltiest Day

This ... is where I get salty.

Tumblr Salt: Tumblr, would you DO SOMETHING ABOUT THE FUCKING PORN SPAM ALREADY? I am fed up with this. I am fed up with finding someone else is following me and having to look at tits, ass or pussy in order to so much as report-and-block! And it’s never dick! EVER! I don’t really want either but seriously! Does anyone actually just, like, have a dash full of porn spam? Is that a thing? Is that worth it?

FFXIV Salt: I did some dungeons without my usual dungeon buddy last night, and will probably do so again tonight, and I will say this and only this: OH FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THE GODS THAT WALK THE EARTH AND CRAWL BENEATH, TANKS NEED TO WISE THE FUCK UP. We had a DRK in 50/60 roulette who insisted on tanking Einhandr in the middle of the room and DPS who didn’t move the explosives and it’s a stone miracle none of us died when badly-aimed flamethrower etc had the entire arena full of exploding. And then there was Hell’s Lid. Yes, DRK, I understand that you are nearly in full Ryumyaku. I understand this. I do. IT DOESN’T MEAN YOU DON’T NEED COOLDOWNS IN A LEVEL 70 DUNGEON. I swear, he used Darkest Night once, towards the end, and that was it for anything that even looked remotely like a cooldown. No Rampart. No Convalescence. No Shadow Wall. Nothing. Maybe you could manage it in, like, Kugane Castle or Ala Mhigo or something, but in Hell’s Lid? NO. HELL NO. And even if you can manage it, it’s not nice to the healer! Neither is deliberately taking more damage than necessary in general because “I’m a tank; I’m sick”. If your healer tells you that maybe standing in that one spot in the run to the final boss on Shisui would make life easier because I won’t have to deal with either the tank or the the fucking Samurai standing in bombfish AoE, the correct response is not, “That’s no fun”.

I refuse to tank for these idiots. Nope.

Fandom Salt: Okay. There’s a thing we need to get clear right the hell now: a thing doesn’t have to be beyond reproach for you to love it. It doesn’t. No. I’m sure Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey is phenomenal but you have to admit, having XP boosters in a game where places are level-locked is kind of skeevy. Yeah, sure, open world, you want to ‘encourage exploration’, but the whole point of sandbox games is the “play it your way” mentality, and there is something significantly wrong with paywalling the ability to play it your way if ‘your way’ is only doing the occasional sidequest because you want to find out how the story ends and find that extensive sidequesting takes away the narrative immediacy. This does not mean you have to attack anyone who can’t overlook the things you obviously can. The existence of the cash shop is a fact. Players finding themselves hard-pressed to focus predominantly to the story campaign without being locked out by level unless they do obsessive side-questing? Also a fact. You may love doing all the side-quests, but that is not the only way to play, nor should it be.

And this goes for all fandoms, by the way. If you love something for all that it is? Great. No, seriously, I am really happy that you have found this thing that you love. I love things too; honest! However, I’m not going to deny that things I love have problems, and I’m not going to invalidate other people’s experience just because I feel some insane need for the validation that comes from people agreeing with me. I’m sure there are people who agree with me about some of the cringey awful things I enjoy. I don’t need to get in the face of someone who didn’t enjoy what I did just because they don’t agree that it’s the best thing ever.

I’m not even asking for people to acknowledge the flaws in things they love. Just ignore it! Stop trying to force people to stop talking about their experience just because hearing less than high praise for the thing you love makes you uncomfortable! People who are flagging up issues aren’t trying to make everyone hate it or stop playing it - or if they are, they’re douchebags who need ignoring and possibly a smack in the mouth. They’re just flagging up why maybe they’re not going to be hugely enthused. Once again, I ask for people who seriously love something to stick with telling people why they love it, instead of telling people they’re wrong for not loving it.

Let people enjoy things. Let people not-enjoy things. If your enjoyment of a franchise requires that everyone around you enjoy it to the same degree as you do, or at least agree with you that it is perfection incarnate, then maybe you need to rethink your approach to fandom.

Summary Salt: I am not in a great mood. I am worried about friends, and worried about myself, and worried about the world at large, and I’m just really fed up with various amounts of bullshit. At least the FFXIV bullshit is mitigated by the fact that I can vent spleen about everything, mostly by making improbable monsters explode.

[flyingcookierambles]

ramblings of my day in ffxiv finishing 3.4 msq ghraiogh

theres something really funny to me abt making my malera's height be on the lower - middle of the character creator height slider grioahgoerhg lol. he ended up being taller than all midlander hyur, lalafell, and miqo'te in the game (so far, not sure about highlander hyur, gotta run into more players who use the high hyur to see for comparison). but during heavensward/in ishgard, i realized that he's actually around the same height as the average elezen adult. ppl that are taller are roes, female viera, hrothgar, and other auri.

also there was this female au ra that ran by me this afternoon while i was talking to y'mhitra for the arr and hw summoner quests and she was like. only as tall as my character's stomach??? like, as tall as the twins, who are literal teenagers??? lmaooo why are auri height differences like this ghrieoahofhuweabf how does anything work with this dang species?????

also its really funny to me any time i do scholar stuff bc the job quest npcs for arr and hw are all lalafell/ ancient nymian tonberries that are just semi-immortal cursed lalafell. like. im talking to scholar npcs and they just. come up to my knees. literally. fjraiohgw. really tho alka zolka is a sweet nerdy jock, a tiny marauder. he's so cute, i /pet him when i was in the marauder's guild for a job quest lol. his ponytail haircut and glasses and love for fairies and ancient nymian stuff is so cute and endearing! the ffxiv dev team really did a good job with him so far, he just seems like cute husbando material lol.

i never did summoner bc the rotation was kinda confusing/i am dumb healer, hp low, press cure/adlo/dignity button. so i leveled scholar to 60, and totally ignored smn until now since we can summon primals now. and i really like the new smn. its really responsive (bc ffxiv pets are......iffy....the egis got fixed) and fast, i like it. sad tha bahamaut-egi summon is locked to 72, bc i can't get there on free trial lol.

urianger giraffe neck. also hot. very hot. and then he went back to frumpy goggles and robes after the wol & scions vs wod fight, im sad lmaoooooo noooo sir your hotness. your hotness is concealed once again, sealed away until. like. idk. shadowbringers or whatever when he becomes an AST, as ive seen in spoilers ;-; at least i have aymeric and other handsome ishgardian giraffes to look at until then. learning the aymeric's hotness is literally because his face is custom sculped, and no player has his face (plus i heard that estinien's face is also a custom npc face?), its really one of the funniest things ive ever read honestly lol

i wanted to /hug minfillia when she left with the warriors of darkness team ;-;

also, during the wol & scions vs wod fight, i focused on the white mage lalafall while playing as a white mage. healer on healer violence lol. whm vs whm. maybe i should've focused more on leveling marauder today to get to warrior so i can be unga bunga smooth monke brain with other war players, plus i could have done a warrior vs warrior arbert fight lol

i had finished baelsar's wall dungeon (the sprout drk tank was so. fragile. the gear was a chaos set. im not sure if its the highest set for heavensward tanks or what, since i dont focus on tank sets/am not a tank main, but uh. bruh???????? why die 2 times. the pulls werent even that big, was it just the stat squish making the mobs hit harder than before???), when i got kicked. disconnected from server. lmao. whyyyyyyyyyyyy. guess i gotta wait for a few days until sunday monday and tues when i have days off from work to redo the dungeon (not use if the game counted me completing it or not) and watch the final cutscene of heavensward and then i guess i finally redeem my complete edition code and endwalker codes for the PC version. the reason i held off was partly bc i wanted to get as much out of free trial as possible, but with the bonus item redemption time expiring in feb 2022 and the current endwalker queue situation not letting free trial players in, so we have to log in at 6 am, the deadline for finishing all of 3.x has moved up, so im rushing to stormblood/4.0+. the other reason was just bc im sentimentally attached to my character and don't want to have to remake him + redo all my hotbars, so i was going to buy the complete edition of ffxiv on the ps4, or at least the starter edition, so i can do the backup character settings and such, so i dont have to redo everything when moving to laptop. i will be fantasia-ing to a bunny boy tho. i have 2 fantasias saved up in my chocobo saddlebag and i have a bunny boy avatar made from the benchmark that i plan to use.

[astroellipse]

guess :)

it’s ffxiv. of course it is. you can go now.

anyways. i created a new character and am waiting to queue for Castrum Meridianum and of course eventually Praetorium so I have plenty of time to write :)

I made an alt for a few reasons. First and foremost is trying to make better sense of ARR, since they were so so bad at explaining things. Also to try and figure out why people liked HW as much as they did. And just to replay SB and ShB because I Like Them :). Second reason is talking to all the side characters between quests, since I didn’t do that until... SB? ShB? Can’t remember. Third reason is because I wanted to make a short guy so I can play around with male armor and see what it feels like to not have some ridiculous scaling. He’s a midlander hyuy and originally he was made just to see if it was possible for there to be a hyur I don’t immediately hate, and it worked! Apparently the problem was it feels like every single person uses face option 1, including plenty of NPCs (Ardbert :/), which... it just looks weird now. To me that’s Ardbert’s face. idk man. Also he’s my height to give myself a better scale of how tall everyone’s supposed to be. AND. he fits into my little personal narrative I have with Secret, my main, but I will not explain that right now. he fits into my favorite archetype of “funny little man”. will kill you with a smile but not in an edgy kind of way. i adore the voice option i gave him the laugh is great.

I think the issue I have with Hyurs, midlanders specifically (though I have separate issues with highlanders) is that they look so inexpressive. Their eyes look glassy. It’s weird. My alt has this problem too a bit but I at least like the shape of his eyes, and having small pupils remedies it just a little bit. Maybe it’s that the glare is so apparent in their eyes specifically?

oh thank god it finally popped. granted. there are many cutscenes in this one too I think. I will be able to write again soon.

I will get a pic of him eventually. For posterity. Currently he’s wearing incredibly bargain bin glam (relatively speaking, the MSQ is flooding me with gil), but it’s at least better than... idk the artifact armor. Not that Secret has much of anything impressive either... I’m not very good at glam :(. Her DRK set is fine though. that’s just a mishmash of dungeon/tomestone armor :/

Anyhow. Particularly the speaking to characters between quests part really got me. The Waking Sands massacre hit a lot harder now that I know who the people were that died... the Baldesion duo, Arenvald’s friends the Miqo’te and Elezen, that supposed previous Scion and the masked man who I never actually learned the identity of. ALSO!!! I didn’t even REALIZE Arenvald was around from the very beginning!!! I love getting to see his own little personal story here!! And that he didn’t die with the rest!!!!! Seeing him fail Noraxia... I forget if we see more of him later here. Like in the beginning of the Rising Stones. I have no memory of him from before he became relevant to the plot.

There. that miserable nightmare’s done, now onto the second one! This one’s only a... 28 minute wait... even longer than the last one... huh

Back to what I was saying. I think that instead of all this stupid padding and filler some of the quests should have been dedicated to endearing us to the rest of the Scions. Including the main cast. Like, they had the material. Some of them have mini stories they go through even. But the first time I played this I just could not bring myself to care about any of them. It’s only now that I see what the kind of characters they’re setting up for that I care about them. It’s fun to see them talk about things that get echoed later, if not doing some actual foreshadowing.

Speaking of foreshadowing. “... Rush blindly forward without concern for your health, and you will one day pay the price.” Haurchefant said this. I’m going to reach through my screen and throttle him. I’ve made sure to give him a headpat upon every parting. Minfilia’s also said some stuff that made me squint my eyes, but they were more along the lines of ideas that would be echoed later, like everyone being of a single race and nation being Not Good Actually, but how they could transcend those things to come together for a common cause anyhow. I think this was more in reference to what the Garleans intend to do with Eorzea, but... it’s also of course very much in line with the Ascians. More so, I think.

I’m also still not so clear on the game’s lore concerning the Ascians. I could have sworn the Crystals of Darkness were supposed to be what allowed Ascian souls to return to the in-between dimension, but in ARR they’re described as being what allows an Ascian to posses people. Also I thought they were only used by lesser Ascians? Was it the other way around?? I mean. Breaking Lahabrea’s crystal would have the same effect of him being vanquished and removed from Thancred in either case. but I’m still confused. Guess I’ll just have to wait until it’s brought up again which... I think is in ShB. the next big explanation anyways. :l

27 minutes in... what else is there to say? I guess it’s been funny playing at a sprout level again. There’ve been a few people I’ve seen around that I recognize. The amount of ridiculously edgy names is funny. This character is on Adamantoise, and the difference from Faerie is fairly pronounced. Less scantily clad bara men running around. Nobody like Meat Sweats the cat man. I’ve noticed more shitty looking elf men but that might just be me and my growing hatred for them, or... no, actually it’s because I started in Gridania this time. Yeah, it was all the weird elf racism that was going on. Why’s every bit of media gotta make the elves racist?

Thank god it finally popped. Was in the middle of writing a incessant about how long it’s been, too. 31 minutes!

Man it’s weird how much of a focus ARR puts on Cid like 2/3 of the way through. It’s like they forgot they were supposed to have a plot or something. And then Cid is just sort of Around afterwards.

Actually scratch that thought. This Prae run is hilarious. There’s s chicken person who keeps making terrible jokes and a lesbian couple who got left behind and one of which subsequently became very lost. I think it was the cowboy roe woman. This is infinitely more entertaining that CidNero drama. They aren’t even new I don’t think either had sprouts and the roe’s armor is the peace lover’s which is very new and from the Firmament I think? Man I was writing about their antics but it was just too much.

It’s over now, at least. Well, there’s a cutscene going on but whoooo caaaaareeesssss. Well. i do since I haven’t skipped it yet. But still. Can’t believe Gaius didn’t die here. Completely unfair. My guy got blown up.

Aaanyways that’s enough for now. Time for post-ARR stuff. Eugh.

[forgiven-naunet]

My thoughts on live letter...

... That no one asked for! And that no one will probably read. xD (Under a cut, because I have a lot to say.)

The good:

- Pet changes. No more Ifrit dying to melee cleaves or Garuda dying to AoEs. I am intrigued by what they’ll do to make Titan useful. Also, happy to have nearly an entire action bar freed up by them consolidating pet actions.

- Following that, being able to summon egis with an instant cast is great! My hope is that weaving which egi you have summoned throughout the fight becomes part of basic SMN gameplay. We’ll see, though.

- Additional FATE rewards are nice. Though honestly, the FATE system needs a complete rework. Take a page out of Rift’s book here, SE.

- Charged actions. Now truthfully, this is just SE coming into the modern era and acting like they invented the wheel, when abilities with multiple charges has been done forever in other MMOs. But it’s still nice to have.

- PLD gap closer. Can’t not love this!

- Interrupts actually being interrupts and visually clear. When they said they were reworking the interrupt system, I had a brief flash of baseless hope that we were getting MOOs, but I’ll take this anyway!

- AST cooldown that lets us move between Sects. Interesting potential there.

- The Lily changes for WHM. From what we’ve seen, it looks like they may have made them actually useful. I still have some questions, but I’m hopeful for this.

- Role actions being automatically earned. The system as it stands now is pretty silly, so this is logical.

- Party list visual showing absorbs. Hurrah!

- As an AST main, that graphic of planets orbiting the AST in the job abilities demo made me so happy. It’s very pretty.

- DRK calling forth their inner darkness was cool.

- Very hopeful for the new and improved MCH. A little short on details, but it sounds promising!

- I was extremely bitter about DNC not being a healer when it was announced. I think I’m slowly learning to love DNC as it is, and I’m happy that SE is emphasizing its support capability as a buffer. To be honest, I may switch my main alt from BRD to DNC (especially given incoming changes to BRD).

- PIE becoming Spirit (essentially). Its usefulness will depend on spell cost balance and healing demand, but there’s finally a chance that PIE will have some import to healers.

The bad:

- Not sure how I feel about these “role quests” supplanting our job-specific quests. I enjoyed the unique stories we get to follow with new job quests. Also, the SCH Stormblood chain really left me with so many questions.

- SMN Phoenix looks like it functions basically as a Bahamut reskin. It’s just red Akh Morns. It’s pretty, but... Doesn’t really add much mechanically to the job.

- Speaking of SMN - two Aetherflow stacks?? Are we going back to the days of Ruin spam mage? :(

- Those tank changes... Just... I found it incredibly ironic that the line talking about skill being the distinguishing factor appeared on the ppt slide where they talked about how they were essentially removing most of the skill from playing tank jobs. Now, removing the damage stances and having it so you just toggle on/off a tank stance is fine on its own, but they’ve gone way too far in simplifying by having there be pretty much no reason to toggle it off unless you’re doing a tank swap in an 8-man environment. They’ve removed the thought from game play - that tactical decision of “Can I afford to take more damage/is my threat at a comfortable level?” I’d be more okay with this change if tank stance still came with the damage taken/damage done effects, which would mean you’d still have to think about when to toggle it on or off. In the same vein, they removed enmity generating combos, which one the one hand I understand, but on the other... It’s like they’ve seen tanks trying to focus on nothing but dps and have just thrown their hands in the air and given up, instead of trying to design jobs that require thought.

- AST card changes. Some of the details are still unclear, but I am incredibly wary. For one, I think making all cards give a damage buff of some kind is a big mistake. There have definitely been times where AoE or buffed Bole has been very helpful, or a well-timed Ewer on myself or a fellow healer. I main AST in large part because the card mechanic provides a layer of complexity that keeps the job mechanics engaging. It’s not super difficult, but it does require thought and planning, and it rewards preparation and knowledge of upcoming mechanics in a fight. That kind of skill-based play is enjoyable to me. But reducing card choice to just “Which damage buff goes on which job” really takes the shine off. I am not pleased at all. Also, do we even have Royal Road anymore?? It sure didn’t look like it in the demo vid. Another dark mark.

- Speaking of removing job interest... oh BRD, how I weep for thee. It feels like my favorite jobs are really getting kicked in the balls here. Despite what Yoshi wants to claim, removing the song mechanic and their different procs WILL change the play feel of BRD - and not in a good way, in my opinion. This is yet another example of them oversimplifying.

- SE’s apparent answer to how to balance healer jobs is... to make all the healers as similar as possible. This is the exact opposite take they should have gone. I’m honestly still baffled as to why SE seems incapable of designing distinct healing jobs with just three jobs, while MMOs like WoW has like six different healers and they all have distinct flavors and game play. Making them all the same is not the answer, Yoshi!!

- This move to decrease job synergy just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. While I understand the reasoning behind it (not wanting people to feel like certain jobs are required, or that certain jobs are undesirable), I feel like the answer is not to make everything as homogenized as possible. Rather, they should be finding ways to make each unique job valuable in its own right.

- Please stop trying to make every job as easy as possible. It is okay to have some jobs with a higher skill cap and some jobs with a lower skill cap.

And lastly...

Somewhat unrelated to the live letter, but after playing around in the Benchmark, I have to say... I am utterly unsurprised that the character creation options for Hrothgar and Viera are so underwhelming. Hrothgar hair being tied to face may honestly be worse than Au Ra horns. And Viera being unable to make use of any of the base game hairstyles?? Their options feel so limited, especially since half of their hairstyles are just “same hairstyle but with bangs”. I never really believed Yoshi when he said that they were going to make up for not having both genders by providing better customization.

[spinneryesteryear]

Spinner plays FFXIV Heavensward

SPOILERS AHOY

- I made sure to unlock and lvl DRG before starting HW because reasons

- I… don’t really understand why people love Foulques so much? I can only presume it’s because they find him attractive

- at first I wondered why the lancers’ guild quests emphasized courage so much, but once you realize lancer upgrades to dragoon it all makes sense: they’re training the absolute maniacs who jump headfirst at DRAGONS; of course they’re going to emphasize courage

- the literal first thing I did as a dragoon after getting my soul crystal and the jump action was to launch myself into an AOE so clearly I’m playing my job right

- the drama between Alberic and Estinien was the only reason I made it through the 2.1 - 2.3 slog, tbh

- I picked up GLD/PLD somewhere in there, too, but the GLD quests weren’t exactly riveting and the PLD quests weren’t any better. I was just biding my time for DRK

- meanwhile I had hit like lvl 62 on WHM thanks to running lots of roulettes with Adventurer in Need: Healer so I’d switch to that while wandering through a lot of the HW regions so the mobs wouldn’t attack me. I did the HW story on DRG but ran dungeons as WHM the first time bc it’s my comfort role. 

- I’m… still not sure exactly how to do the mechanics on the Steps of Faith. Whoops. Fortunately, all but once I was WHM when I got it in roulette and I could just heal/spam Holy. The exception was on DRG and I just kinda… derped around killing what adds I could.

- those cutscenes at the end of 2.5, though. Dude. Duuuuuuude.

- it did give us Pipin Tarupin, however, and he is Best Lala.

- So, like… what exactly did Ysayle expect would happen when she broke Ishguard’s magic wards and opened it to assault by hordes of dragons??She seems genuinely regretful of the innocent lives lost when spoken to in the MSQ later in HW proper, but when she actually did the deed she was channeling ‘deranged witch’ for all it was worth and talking about how the sons should pay for the sins of their fathers. Did this incident give her a rude awakening about the Dravanian desire for vengeance?? Idk, maybe further quests will explain this.

—– me: *just arrives in Ishgard*

—– me: *taking the grand tour of the city*

—– me: *notices mob near cathedral, inquires about it, learns about recent violent death of heretic*

—– me: *finds heretic corpse*

—– me: *derails grand tour of Ishgard by slaughtering my way through the streets and through various chapels, laughing maniacally as I enjoy the greater reach of my brand-new greatsword and spam Unleash*

—– me, standing amid the broken corpses of a few dozen temple knights: Count Fortemps is probably gonna regret letting me into this city.

- that one dude in Camp Cloudtop who’s entirely too obsessed with the menu deserves to be booted off his lookout platform. I’ll even rescue him via flying mount before he splatters on the ground (however far down the ground happens to be, idk), but I really want to kick him off at least once. He gave me far too many fetch quests and my inner Fray is disgruntled, to say the least.

- me, just trying to make my way across the map: WILL EVERYTHING IN COERTHAS STOP CHASING ME???

- other people think the gaelicats are too cute to kill them. I, however, just want to kill them all the more. I’d be perfectly content to leave the mobs alone and continue on my merry way, but, nooooooo, they have to attack me. So I respond in savage kind.

- me, doing sidequest chains and getting mildly attached to extremely minor characters: So, I kinda ship Ayleth and Saintrelmaux now…

- ever since I unlocked it, I get Dusk Vigil all the time in lvling roulette so I’m now an expert on ice age megafauna, undead knights, and murderous griffins of the non-Sloppeh type

- Ravana is my fave HW primal, hands down, and his theme is definitely among my fave primal music. I would say it’s my absolute fave (I have listened to it on repeat for hours at a time, but I’ve done that with other music, so it’s not conclusive evidence) but it has stiff competition in the form of the Ultima theme, Leviathan’s theme, and the Knights of the Round theme.

- going on a life-changing field trip with Alphinaud, Estinien, and Ysayle was amazing. All we needed was Zuko.

- far too many side quests in Tailfeather. Far too many. And that one quest chain ended up with the poor dude’s pet baby chocobo as chicken tenders? If I didn’t hate chickens so much IRL that would have been super painful.

- the moogle quests required to progress the MSQ weren’t that bad. The sheer amount of moogle sidequests needed to unlock flying for that zone and their beast tribe quests, however…. well, I’m completely on board now with any plans Sidurgu might have for utter moogle genocide.

- lol, the moogles were about to give us more chores to do but Estinien’s sheer murderous rage panicked their chieftain into sending us on our way. I love him. (Estinien, that is. Not the moogles. I love to hate them.)

- Estinien is just… I love him so much. It’s more than his armor. It’s more than his jumps. It’s more than his sass and swearing. No stereotypical elf qualities to be found here, folks. Honestly, he could give some elves from The Silmarillion a run for their money, with even his own equivalent of Angband PTSD post-Nidhogg. I also immensely love that he’s a character on a power level similar to the WoL. (I don’t actually enjoy the main character being the most powerful person in the world, without equal. I like someone else being better in at least some ways and that being okay.) Heck, when possessed by Nidhogg he’s the final boss of the expansion + patches. And he lives. (Which is in itself a pretty powerful moment and Alphinaud and the WoL’s desire to save him lifts the whole plot point/theme into something more sublime. It would have been easy to kill him regretfully, both from a Watsonian and a Doylist perspective. The devs had no problems throwing painful deaths at us in this expansion. But we took the harder route. And it was worth it.)

- low-key painful Heavensward moments (bc heavens know there’s enough high-key painful moments): Alberic is extremely worried about his adopted son, whom he last saw nearly possessed by a dragon’s millennium’s worth of hate and rage, and who then vanished in an explosion, but he can’t do anything about it so instead he helps another retired dragoon worry about his own missing daughter

- ngl there was some red herring foreshadowing that the primal Archbishop Thordan planned to summon was actually Halone, the Fury, Goddess of Justice and Patroness of Ishgard. Which would have been badass. But I’m pretty sure Square Enix is going the Dragon Age route of never confirming/denying the presence of the Maker with their Twelve, Halone included, so I deemed it unlikely even as I secretly hoped. A lot of players probably missed these fake hints and would wonder what I’m even talking about. 

- I couldn’t even get mad about all the bad things that happened during the Vault because the characters were juggling Idiot Balls. (1) Aymeric thought his father, who has been consorting with Ascians and plans to summon a primal, could be reasoned with. (2) Aymeric went alone to go reason with him and was correspondingly captured and tortured. (3) We fought three of the twelve Heaven’s Ward in the Vault itself and NO ONE APPARENTLY QUESTIONED WHERE THE OTHER NINE WERE. Plus, said three have clearly already been tempered and are feeding off primal energy for their second forms, even if the mechanics are unknown. Those without the Echo should have promptly skedaddled after rescuing Aymeric. (4) After a dungeon full of ambush mobs, no one thought to secure the little airship landing behind the Vault before arguing with Archbishop Thordan. In Ishgard, city of verticality with its gravity-defying dragoons, personal airplanes, and millennium-long war against flying dragons. Everyone involved should have thought to check the nearby roofs for hostiles. Am I seriously the only person who has ever thought tactically about this situation??? (5) The WoL and Haurchefant rush forward to delay the Archbishop, again without considering the whereabouts of the rest of his presumably also tempered bodyguards or whether any hostiles remain in the building behind us. And so events happened as they did.

- Regula van Hydrus has a cool name and a cool silhouette with that helmet. Better than Varis, anyway. 

- the Vundu are probably my fave HW beast tribe. The moogles are the crafting tribe so Imma do them anyway (and have fun tricking them into doing work) but I’m actually looking forward to the Vundu. I’m just benevolently apathetic towards the Gnath.

- I just, like… did not care about Azys Lla in the slightest. It was more Allagan BS and I hated the map. (I still don’t have it fully explored??? What am I doing??) The ‘terms and conditions’ bit with the node was amusing, but… the entire place got old almost immediately. Finding Tiamat and talking to her with Midgardsormr was the only high point.

- why isn’t there an option to have Hrasevelgr come and talk to Tiamat to persuade her to abandon her self-chosen imprisonment??? Or to have Estinien later come and talk to her to possibly give her Nidhogg’s perspective? Bc I think Nidhogg would have some insight into her situation, definitely. She summoned elder primal Bahamut out of grief at his loss, while Nidhogg launched a millennium-long war out of grief at Ratatoskr’s loss, and now they’ve both abandoned their vengeance. 

- ARF TILL YOU BARF

- idk, man, the Aetherochemical Research Facility is such a weird conglomerate of things for a dugneon. Firstly, you got Allagan tech and machines. Then you got mutant creatures the Allagans made (bc, if it was mad science, then the Allagans were all over it). Then you got Ascians, evil ghosty dudes who laugh evilly and throw standard Evil Ascian Attacks at you before doing the fusion dance from Dragonball Z and becoming a Giant Evil Ascian. Igeyhorm has a feminine voice but is she(?) actually female or is she just presumably possessing a female body? Do Ascians have gender or do they even care about such things? (I am very much Not Thinking about Solus/Emet-Selch reproducing here.) 

- Archbishop Thordan reveals the millennium-old, perfectly preserved corpse of Haldrath, the original Thordan’s dragoon son, with NIDHOGG’S OTHER EYE FUSED INTO THE CORPSE’S CHEST, and, like, no one really comments on it in- or out-of-universe???? What happened??? Haldrath gave up the throne, apparently because he wasn’t 100% on board with his dad’s treachery against Ratatoskr and consequent decision to kill all dragons to maintain power. Dragoons were apparently already a thing at this point (HC: to combat the voidsent infesting Abalathia’s Spine and the mountains between Coerthas and Gridania, e.g. Witches’ Drop), so what happened to Haldrath? Is this explained somewhere and I missed it??? Did Nidhogg hijack his mind? Estinien had Nidhogg’s eyes (both of them, incidentally, which Haldrath didn’t have to deal with) fused to his arm & shoulder but Haldrath had an eye fused to his chest. To his HEART. What happened.

- And then Archbishop Thordan somehow turns Haldrath’s corpse + armor + Nidhogg’s eye into a sword, the primal version of presumably Ascalon, King Thordan’s sword, somehow designing it to eat primal/Ascian aether. And then he kills Lahabrea, which, no great loss there. But it leaves my questions unanswered.

- Thordan + Knights of the Round is such a cool trial, I love it to death and not because it’s easy. It could be as hard as Nidhogg Normal and I’d still love it. I wish I had a static with whom I could do Thordan Ex and other more complicated content.

- finishing that fight and the cutscenes after, however… man, I didn’t know how to feel. I was screaming internally and torn in at least three different directions. Couldn’t get through the patch content fast enough to fight Nidhogg.

- had to fight Raubahn as DRG to represent my decimated Knights Dragoon brethren and my missing possessed dragoon brother and restore their honor. I’m also 100% convinced Raubahn learned of Ifrit’s nail trick and decided, “I can totally do that with Tizona.”

- has Aymeric ever done a dragoon jump? No? Then he’s not a real Azure Dragoon even if he has a nice color scheme and has ridden a dragon. I mean, I wouldn’t be surprised if he can do a dragoon jump (he’s survived years as Estinien’s friend somehow, and I can’t help but imagine he’s dragged Estinien off more than one rooftop), but until he does it I’m not budging on this. 

- Aymeric getting stabbed by a rando with a pocketknife and nearly dying was (1) surprisingly realistic and (2) made him look wimpy next to all the punishment so many of the other characters take without dying. Sorry, man. It had to be said. I love you, Aymeric, but still.

- standing there on the Final Steps of Faith, on the broken bridge to the Gate of Judgment, staring down Nidhogg while that beautiful music plays (TELL ME WHY BREAK TRUST, WHY TURN THE PAST TO DUST) and waiting for the queue to pop… that was a powerful emotion unlike any other. Stormblood couldn’t match it.

- Nidhogg is such a fun fight because it’s still hard and I hate that I don’t get it in trial roulette more often. (Trial roulette is my favorite, actually. I love almost all trials - with the notable exception of the Chrysalis bc everyone runs around like chickens with their heads cut off on it and rages in chat, and with the possible exception of non-Final Steps of Faith.) Akh Morn is still a killer, I sometimes just want to watch bodies hit the floor, and Final Chorus is such a badass moment even as we’re all dodging for our puny lives. We’re fighting Bahamut’s brother. 

- Estinien takes advantage of Nidhogg’s temporary aether depletion to regain enough control over his body to try to kill himself before being used to wreak any more havoc. Estinien survived weeks, possibly months of possession via ancient angry dragon, and having two giant dragon eyeballs embedded in his body and feeding him enormous amounts of foreign aether. Estinien survived his body being aetherically remade into the shape of an enormous dragon and then into a giant dragon-man hybrid. Estinien survived the Warrior of Light. IMHO he doesn’t get enough credit for this. 

- do u ever wonder about Hraesvelgr and Estinien later meeting and Hraesvelgr identifying the spirit of his brother lingering within Estinien? Bc I think a lot of us have headcanon’d that Estinien is not as free of Nidhogg as one might think, what with his red fiery aura in SB and all. On the other hand… some of us further theorize that Estinien can’t be tempered now, so he could help us fight primals. It’d be awesome.