#ffxiv thoughts

A)It should have been a duology.

Tural has been shafted so fucking terribly the entire expansion which is fucking wild because supposedly this was the Tural expansion. It's not, it's the Alexandria expansion the second they come onto the screen. If you don't believe me just look at the entire .x series like fuck even Stormblood didn't show it's favoritism this badly. Despite 2/3 of the zones being Turali (Yyasulani was conquered and colonized by Alexandria regardless of what the game tries to tell us), everything we know is about Yok Tural and they went the Epcot route for them.

Despite people complaining about Wuk Lamat, I do actually like her journey. I like the way she tackles problems by talking to locals and respecting their culture. I think Koana should have learned the same. We get one hilariously awful event and that's it. This could have been remedied easily with a trial series, something I've been moaning about for years. Instead of Zelenia, Doomtrain, and Ennuo make a trial series set in Xak Tural starring Koana and the settlements that get no screentime in the msq. Have Koana battle his preconceptions, show us the troubles that the game barely touches about Xak Tural being too far away from the capital to really be connected in a meaningful way, and get some neat ass new trial bosses. Hell Doomtrain can still show up as a mix of Xak Turali trepidation about trains and Alexandrian trauma about Linblum.

B) Give less focus to Alexandria. Those fuckers took the entire .x series and everything from level 97 onwards, they're eating all the screentime. And while they're really interesting, it's kind of fucked up that we pushed aside all the indigenous inspired locales for Europe yet again. Take out Vanguard as the level 97 dungeon, put it in Shaaloani instead. Have it be a normal ass adventure romp because the Warrior of Light is nosy and Erenville is avoiding going back home just a little longer (to make his feelings about Cahciua's fate more painful). Hell, instead of having yet another level 99 boss, make it a level 97 one. Or even a 96 one! I think that the second boss should have been the Gulool Ja Ja shade but that's too tied to msq NPC's, so adding a random ass Tural Vidraal in Shaaloani that we dispatch just fine. Hell you can even have an NPC talk about how odd it is to find one so close to settlements because Zarool Ja normally takes care of them by then. Always prowling around like he's desperate to prove something.

The thunder dome is still such an iconic moment that I don't want to leave it be. But there's two fun things they could do. The first is keep it the same. We never see Yyasulani pre-colonization. The second is that we DO see it pre-colonization. Maybe the dungeon is in Shaaloani but the trial is in Yyasulani. Maybe it's just some side quests that can be permanently lost. Maybe it's just some small time things before we get called back to Tural or when Erenville's parental problems come to the forefront and we leave to support him. And then the zone changes forever. Instead of six zones it's five but the fifth changes drastically. I think it would be neat and maybe you can add Living Memory in the .x series

Also with all this movement, Alexandria can use what they DO have for 97 onwards as .x stuff. Or maybe not! I'm moving a lot of things without much thought put into it! But keep the Dawntrail msq within the Dawnservant's family. A much more closed and intimate scenario and THEN you pivot into Alexandria in the .x series. Maybe.

C) For all my bitching about Alexandria, I think they deserved their own full expansion. They're neat, they're horrific, they've done terrible things and we don't really see the actual ways normal people have been affected. Do you really think a foreign nation showing up out of nowhere, devastating the tire ecosystem immediately, completely changing your way of life, and cutting you off from the rest of the continent for 30 years doesn't leave an incredibly bitter populace? WRONG!!! SHOW ME THE UGLY SIDES! SHOW ME THE DISCONTENT! HAVE WUK LAMAT AND SPHENE ACTUALLY BATTLE WITH THE FACT THAT ALEXANDRIA INVADED AND COLONIZED TURAL'S PEOPLE! It's just!!!! We just had fucking GARLEMALD and entire expansions about people fighting against that injustice and you want to tell me that body horror to the extreme Alexandria with their proven experiments on people isn't the same just because the crown is worn by a cute robot girl????

Anyway just show me people being justifiably pissed about it and Calyx more time to be the actual big bad. Plus even more negatives on Sphene's programming because she DOES love her people. But the ones out of the levin dome aren't hers.

This would also give us more Xak Turali locations and maybe even making the Mist Continent a zone instead of just an instance.

some random thoughts on Square Enix's approach to story telling, or maybe more like story progression? in FFXIV. Especially as it pertains to new players, and the business and attracting new players. I saw a post about a poor new player, who had brought a skip to SHB (because that was 'the good part') and disappointed because they did not understand what was going on. And as most people point out - yes this is how ffxiv works. You need the whole story to get the impact, and yes we can have a discussion of why the fandom dumps on ARR or HW or STB and yes it sucks, and these parts are in fact overall - good!

However, as someone who picked up the game a few years ago (late 2022) and it took me until this April to finish Endwalker (almost 3 years!) there are some interesting design choice in this sort of story telling.

yes, I am a slow gamer, but I'm not the only one out there with a life and family and demanding job - or other hobbies and other games. FFXIV can become an allconsuming endeavor, and especially there is an immense pressure to finish the MSQ - intentional or not, it's hard to "participate" in fandom when you're behind.

In addition, most traditional mmo gameplay revolves around the endgame. Not just raiding, but also taking part in various content such as the sanctuary island, relics, bonus areas, and also crafting the latest gear everyone wants. But really - the thing a MMO does that is not typically in other games is the raiding.

Now, SE has made the point to NOT race new people to the endgame - even if in the community you feel that pressure. Level and story skips can be brought, but they're extras and not something pushed on new players. Compare to WoW - which I haven't played in years and years to be fair - often included free level boosts when you return or join the game. Even if I'm not sure what goes on in the story today, it makes sense. The world changes, gets broken and unbroken, and the character changes and moves forward - even when I played. And they make it so a new player jumps into the world 'now' not 'then' - the quests I did in 2005 may not exist anymore.

I love the idea of the animal-like races behaving animal-like.

Specifically, the thought came about of miqo’te acting more catlike. Sure, there’s some good catlike emotes, but I mean like a miqo WoL attempting to hold one of the Scions still so they can “groom” their colleague’s hair.

Can you imagine, in the middle of a big ol’ political meeting with each of the nations, and miqo WoL just randomly gets up to go to where Ser Aymeric is sitting… only to clamber up onto the back or arm of his chair and begin grooming him because “he had some hairs out of place!”

The voice actors for ARR were not bad. Every one of them were very talented people. The voice direction, however, was utter shite. I mean, I wasn't in the booth or anything, but you can just tell. And some of the takes they had... woof. I doubt the actors were even given thorough notes on what was going on in what scene or how their character should be feeling.

Once they switched to European (mostly British) voice actors from HW onward, the voice direction feels so much better. And the script feels more natural, too.

And yettttttt... some really crappy takes still get through. I feel like even terrible takes from a British VA get a pass because there's a weird bias toward their accents sounding more sophisticated. So, even if the delivery is awkward as hell, the director's just like "Cut, print! Wonderful!"