I jumped on the bandwagon when the game got popular and recently finished Heavensward. I'm not going to go into spoilers, but the game has some of the worst politics I've ever seen in a videogame. I didn't expect anything good, but jfc it was so much worse than I imagined, especially the first part, ARR.
Anyway, I don't want to spoil anything for people who might want to try it out, but I have to share my pain with someone or my head will explode. I didn't know if I should post it here or on the dunk tank, but it's a screenshot from a videogame, so I settled on this community.
I present to you: the worst take of all times. For context, that's basically the protagonist and the leader of the organization that tries to pretent world ending events. And if anyone thinks that just means killing monsters, they also overthrow corrupt kings and fight evil empires. In the most liberal way possible, it's insufferable.
I'm disappointed that no one yet mentioned the copypasta about the critically acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV, with an expanded free trial which you can play through the entirety of A Realm Reborn and the award winning Heavensward expansion up to level 60 for free with no restrictions on playtime.
Game's good. It's probably the best of its genre. Yes, it has some seriously problematic ideology to it, but I can acknowledge those problems and still enjoy it. As far as JRPG ideology goes, it's on the bearable side.
If it helps at all for some people on the fence, that liberal punk the OP mentioned gets dunked on pretty hard for his interventionalist regime change antics by the end of ARR and through Heavensward. He's almost a comrade by Shadowbringers.
Oh, yeah, I don't have any problems with the game itself. Well, except the rpg part, a lot of skills unlock too late. Monk, for example, should unlock their level 50 toolkit around level 30, their level 60 toolkit around level 50, etc.
But on the whole the game is great. I just wish watching the cutscenes didn't raise my blood pressure. I'm too invested to skip it all at this point, too.
I'm looking forward to Shadowbringers then.
I must warn you if you haven't done Stormblood yet: Godbert Manderville does some absolutely :jokerfication: levels of capitalist realism ideology when it comes to the post-70 story arc.
Also, as much as I liked Shadowbringers overall, Eulmore doesn't really get that much better post-80. It just does the "GOOD ONES" oligarchy thing. :joker-gaming:
Shadowbringers spoilers:
spoiler
I was really hoping they were going to realize the People’s Republic of Eulmore after they dispelled their obsession with Vauthry, but it never really went that way despite the hints at it. Maybe I was just seeing what I wanted to see though
I felt there was potential for that, too. I was disappointed, but perhaps I was expecting too much.
spoiler
I saw the exact same thing! I imagine a Monty Python-esque sketch where the former Eulmorites get all revolutionary, and then someone describes Democracy to them, and then they all decide that that sounds like too much effort and just pick a different guy to be the dictator and keep things exactly the same.
The whole experience up to level 50 needs to be reworked, including all of the ARR dungeons and trials. Every class should have their main rotations online by that point and eveery boss that has no strategy beyond "tank and spank" needs to get some mechanics.
Monk, for example, should unlock their level 50 toolkit around level 30, their level 60 toolkit around level 50, etc.
a lot of that comes from stretching things out over more levels now i think? some of it definitely used to be a bit more condensed im sure
Yeah, there needs to be a reason to level past 50, so obviously they have to gate some skills behind higher levels, I get that. But damn, way too many jobs in the game felt like absolute crap until I hit way too high a level. Monk is the most recent example. Playing monk before I hit 60 didn't feel good at all. Why they locked monk's gauge so far into the game is completely beyond me.
Honestly monk has always been the worst class, it feels like the devs don't really know what they want to do with it.
Well I've only just unlocked it at level 60, so I don't know how well it will perform at 90 (although ACT says it's in top 3 best dps in the game the last time I checked), but so far imo it's pretty, pretty good. I'm going to vomit a wall of text on you, if you don't care about monk, feel free to stop reading right here.
Monk's gimmick is his free flow. Unlike rng based jobs like dancer, monk always* has all six of their main combo attacks, you don't have to fish for procs to use anything. Unlike any other job, monk doesn't have a rigid combo. Sam, for example, has a kasha combo and a gekko combo, you can't mix and match them. Going Hakaze > Shifu > Gekko will completely break the combo. But that's not how monk works, monk thrives on fluidity in combat. Monk has three "1" attacks, three "2" attacks, and three "3" attacks, one of each is aoe. So as long as you go 1 > 2 > 3, you won't break your combo, even if you switch from the monk's version of kasha combo to the gekko combo right in the middle of your 1 > 2 > 3 combo. You can even switch between single target and aoe attacks on the fly in the middle of a combo, something no other melee job can do as far as I know. That's a pretty fun gimmick, but it's not enough. It's a foundation for a good character as long as you add something more to make it actually fun.
Besides that, he doesn't even have a 1 > 2 > 3 > *1 > *2 > *3 combo because you switch 1 and *1 (same with 2 and *2) every other combo, but for the third attack it's 3, 3, *3 - two to one ratio. Plus at any point you can give yourself a buff that lets you use any of the six attacks, which means you don't have to open your combo with a "1". In aoe "2" gives you a 10% damage buff, so it makes sense to start your aoe combo with a "2". On top on top of that monk also has a buff that lets them use three attacks without following a 1 > 2 > 3 combo, so you can do 3 > 3 > 3 or *1 > 1 > *1. And not only it's theoretically possible, it's expected. Both aoe and single target have one form that deals way more damage than other attacks (1 for single target and 3 for aoe).
And as a very nice bonus, SE realized that having a positional on every attack is too much hassle on top of having to worry about every individual attack instead of just alternating between combos like a sam or a drg. In 5.X I've leveled my monk to 50 and I just did 1 > 2 > 3 > *1 > *2 > *3 combo over and over again because worrying about positionals all the time was too much work. But now that monk has only two positionals in their basic combo—same as drg and sam—you can focus on the main gimmick of the monk, the free flow that allows you to think about your individual attacks instead of following a rigid combo over and over again.
Greased lightning lowers your 2.5 second GCD to only two seconds, which isn't that big of a deal in on itself, but it makes the game more fun and dynamic. Another good reason why removing positionals from most attacks is a good thing. Worrying about every individual attack and their positional and doing it in a smaller timeframe was a lot of work, I'm glad it's over.
So with all of that foundation, all we need is a cherry on top to make the job feel good. For sam, it's slowly building up your three sens to use Setsugekka. And thanks to 6.0 and level 60, monk has one too now. Every 40 seconds (which is kinda long, but not that long) you spend Perfect Balance, do three attacks, and then deal massive damage with Masterful Blitz. That's already pretty fun, but on top of that using Masterful Blitz also gives you a "sen". After you get a sun sen and a moon sen, Masterful Blitz deals even more damage. Just like sam, you're always working on building sens to spend it on a crazy attack. So if you like sam, monk might be a good job for you, at least that's how I feel now. And of course there's still free flow and greased lightning.
All in all, I'd say monk seems to be in a pretty good spot now. It might be my favorite dps in the game, at least on paper. I might be too smooth brained for it, there's a lot to squeezing out every drop of a dps potential of the monk job while also avoiding enemy aoes and buffing healers with mantra. And I don't really play a lot of dps because I hate sitting in queues for 15 minutes. I usually play whatever job lets me jump into a dungeon instantly.
All of this only comes together at level 60 when monk unlocks Masterful Blitz. Until then, it's pretty meh. Which is why I said I just unlocked the job at 60 instead of saying I leveled it to 60. It felt like a joke for the first 50 levels when I didn't even have six basic attacks, which is why I put an asterisk next to always in the beginning. And it felt like half of a job between 50 and 59. If you already have a level 60 monk, try it out, you might like it. If you want to level one from the very start then oof, prepare for some pain, it won't be pretty.
I like to consider myself a fisher main in ff14, yeah means I got to go through the story but at least there's some neat side things to do :v
I also like the culinary class
you're like the exact opposite of me, fisher and culinarian are my least favorite jobs in the game :)
The Ascians at least are dialectical materialists, only they understand that the history of all hitherto existing society is a history of struggles between Hydaelyn and Zodiark
Alphinaud is an insufferable idealist
except even that is too generous for him because he doesn't have any ideals
he just wants to grill
I enjoy playing FFXIV but the whole game is basically an endorsement of the Great Man of History theory. I suppose it couldn’t be any other way though since it’s basically a single player MMORPG and they want to make you (the Warrior of Light) feel special.
There are some interesting quests at level 70 and 80 which
spoiler
question Eorzea’s colonial relationship with beast tribes
that are different though.
I don't mind the protagonist trope in a fictional world with magic and gods, of course in that setting great men will be far more influential than in the real one.
I just wish the main characters did something good with their powers because they believe in improving the world, not because they want to keep the status quo.
I'm asking too much, I know. In capitalist fiction, only villains are allowed to try and improve the world.
I’m interested to see what you think of the next few expansions with this comment in mind!
I might make another post after I'm done with the whole story, but considering how long it's taking me, it probably won't happen for a while.
The part when
post stormblood patch quest
Emperor Galvus calls the Eorzean Alliance a bunch of hypocrites for preaching freedom while being colonizers, calls the peace treaty at the end of Heavensward "easy when you kill all who oppose you", and points out that all you did for Doma was swap one group of nobles for a different one
was so good! I almost wanted an option for the WoL to defect, if not for the fact that the person saying it was literally an emperor.
I thought we don't know anything about that yet? Squenix said something about hoping to see nfts in their games, but not specifically in ffxiv, no?
Incredibly boring game. Very little opportunity or incentive to play with other people prior to max level. Dungeons are braindead, and too far apart and few between. There's little to no reason to interact with the wider world. Dungeons are only relevant during the brief moment of time when they have gear you need (save for cosmetic desires you might have. The cosmetic armor system is also archaic). Getting involved in the raids requires submitting to a whole wider system of time wasting to get incremental improvements to gear required prior to participating in a raid. After you have the prereq gear, then you have to learn the paint-by-numbers dance prepared for you by others that have had the pleasure of inventing it for you on youtube, depriving you of at least having the pleasure of doing the experimentation for yourself. The alternative to this is to find 7 other people who have a similar timeframe of playtime, a similar level of skill, tolerance for each other, and similar interest in learning and experimentation (a pipe dream if I've ever heard of one). The Main Story Quest is nearly totally divorced from the game. It may as well be a supplementary book or film, because the Main Story Quest does not actually have the player interact with the wider world of the game, it has the player travel from place to place (by teleportation if you value your time), and speak to NPC's to forward dialogue, and/or deliver fetch-quest stuff. Occasionally it has you gather a fetch-quest doodad by killing something, but not usually more than 1 or 2 things. Once in a blue moon you unlock a dungeon that, again, unlocks some dialogue at the end of the dungeon relevant to the story. Dungeons late in the series do a better job of giving cameo appearances to the major NPC's in the dungeon, but I wouldn't say that they really make the story feel at all tied together with the world. The character you play as is also a vacuous non-entity, which is very weird set alongside the rest of the cast, who are pretty well varied and characterized.
