Yoshi p is a man of culture 🤣

What if I told you, that one day, they will give you a lore reason for your fetch quests and everyday tasks?

I wish u all the very best and hope u all have a wonderful and healthy new year great news on the move and help with the team 👍🏽

I'm in those servers, but I don't have a subscription active atm, pain

As usual love the video and think you have some very good takes/interesting points, Mike! Just wanted to voice a bit of disagreement with a few of the points you've made, and I believe you will change your opinion with time once you see what the writers are going for: 1) I don't think it's necessary to kill off characters to build a sense of danger or suspense in a story. Good writers can make you feel worried/grief/loss without _even killing off_ anyone. That said, FFXIV really makes you slowly over time care about the world of Eorzea and its inhabitants, and you genuinely feel heartbroken when even unknown characters die because you know how sweet, innocent, and unfortunately powerless most of them are. It's not about killing off the main cast of characters: this is not an inherent good or necessity to build danger or urgency. The Scions are made up of incredibly powerful people, they literally hunt and fell gods, and they're not going to go down so easily. 2) I don't think the confederacy are anywhere near as vile and evil as you seem to think they are. It is explained that their patrols of the Ruby Sea and the "Ruby Tithe" is a necessary evil: this funds the Confederacy and allows them to defend their homeland from the Imperials, who would do far worse if given even a small measure of control. Furthermore, they are all talk. Sure, they tied up some civilians who refused to pay and threatened to cut off their arms, but they would never actually follow through with this. In fact, they rarely, if ever, kill anyone especially not their own. They simply have a reputation and tradition to uphold, and their homeland to defend. Paying the Ruby Tithe is the cost that protects the Ruby Sea from Imperial Rule, and they understand this. If they were truly committing heinous crimes and tyranny, the Scions would oppose them. You're correct about that. 3) Zenos isn't "underpowered" in the fights you have against him just because of a number on a health bar. Throughout the fight, he literally is walking. He doesn't even break a sweat or bother trying to dodge or block your attacks, or even so much as sprint... allowing you, the Warrior of Light, to repeatedly hit him with your strongest and most powerful attacks. Meanwhile he lazily throws out attacks that would be far more deadly and difficult to dodge if he was trying _even a little bit,_ and when he decides he's bored with you, he ends the fight immediately and there's nothing you or anyone could do if he wanted to kill you. 4) The biggest "ideological difference" I'm seeing between you and the major characters of this story (the Scions, Lord Hien and Doma, etc.) is that you seem ready to harshly judge and cast people to the wayside simply because they're different, or have their own belief systems, or ideals that you do not like and agree with. Make no mistake: you're in for a disappointing ride if you can't understand why Hien and the Scions care about and respect _all people,_ regardless of their belief systems or practices. They choose to try and see the good in everyone, to build bridges and protect the weak and defenseless even if they don't necessarily deserve it... and it is through this that they build connections and alliances with others where they can set aside their differences and move forward as people for the betterment of Eorzea. This is why the Warrior of Light will rarely land a killing blow when enemies are ripe for the taking. This is why he always hesitates, and it sometimes costs people their lives. You're dealing with people who would rather die than kill someone who they do not absolutely have to kill. People who choose to see good, or at the very least understand even the most vile and criminal of foes... so they'd never be so petty as to say "yah we want nothing to do with these people because of their strange beliefs and practices." 5) I don't think it's strange for Lyse to be a bit taken aback by the notion that her people have more or less given up hope and submitted themselves to the will of the Imperials. You have to remember that she lost everyone she loved and cared about at a young age, people who more or less sacrificed themselves for the sake and protection of others. It is only natural that she would develop a sort of fantastical ideal in her head about Ala Mhigans never backing down from a challenge, even if it comes at the cost of one's own life. And to be fair, it is only one small moment of weakness & confusion from a character that is otherwise young and somewhat headstrong. She quickly realizes the error in her way of thinking and comes around to better understand their plight. 6) You're not done with Stormblood. There are 6 total Trials/Primals that you need to fight, though 3 of them are optional/not tied to the MSQ (look for a Blue Quest in Kugane). Make sure you also do the Omega Raids! They're really fun/well made. 7) This is a big one. You call the quest design "MMO mundane bullshit," but you seem to fail to understand FFXIV's very design philosophy. You see, the quests are not meant to be "exciting." Instead, the devs decided that quests would serve as a tool to better tell their story, while allowing players to interact with said story. Doing it this way allows them to put the vast majority of their focus into insanely fun "quest duties," trials, dungeons, raids, and otherwise big "payoff" fights and battles. You'll have to get used to it, because this is the direction they decided to go, and many of us prefer it. Perhaps the problem is you're used to WoW's ridiculous "go here and kill this" or "farm 600 different mobs to build up reputation to unlock x-feature" quest design, which I'd argue is far worse, as there's only so much you can do with quests out in the open world and repeatedly killing weak mobs and calling it a "quest" gets old. I'd MUCH prefer that the devs put their focus for "action" and "payoff" in exciting and insanely well designed duties, trials, raids, and dungeons, which you'll soon realize that's what they doing, starting with Stormblood and onward. The quests, setting aside a few rarities and a ton of epic "quest duties," are no more than a method used to level players and tell their story. Furthermore, as others have pointed out... the Warrior of Light is written to be a "man/woman" of the people. He takes joy in helping, and integrating himself with the locals and helping out wherever he can, even if it means sometimes solving menial problems or doing someone a favor.

@@kyeda Because it was not his intention that the player would be OP af. Hien himself explain in the OP's way that helping the Mol is to show his leadership

@@kyeda Hien didn't know how stronk the WoL was when he tells you that plan.

@@kyeda at that point Hien was on the run, the last heir of Doma would fetch good coin to any merc able to bring his head in. So any information from Doma let alone the outside world would be rare on the steppe. Even the Doma Ninja were given do not contact orders until Yugiri broke protocol thanks in part to getting the WoL to aid her. So with or without you Hien would have gone with the plan, it's just you being placed in the mix made it far easier to succeed.

@@kyeda No? They DO answer to him in the liberation. Also, you are like his general (All Tribe leaders have them) and Cirina is the leader of the Tribe that won.

@@kyeda Cirina basicly answer to Hien. sure the tribe itself follows her but what's the difference when she follows him? chain of command.

I agree he's not trying very hard. But also, as a more casual MMO player than Mike, it was easier for me to screw up. I'm also playing BLM and I was trying to use my longer casting abilities to hit him harder not quite realizing that no matter how hard I did him I wasn't going to win. Because of his mechanics I ended up failing the first time

I think they might have been trying to invoke that Darth Vader type of menace with him. The unstoppable tank that takes everything you throw at him as he leisurely makes his way towards you until he grows bored and boom! Personally, I liked it.

That was the idea. It’s literally like the Infinity War scene where Tony just go omnislash on Thanos and Thanos goes on saying “All that for a drop of blood”. That was the intent. Zenos isn’t slow, he just knows our character ain’t stronk enough so he’s not even trying. Plus the man is just bored lol. We’re nothing compared to the level of fairness that he wants. I think I over explained this lol

Me too.

I took Zenos like a slasher villain, he is Michael Myers. Sure you can fight or run, tire yourself out but it will avail you naught since he will just walk up and shank you for your trouble.

Yep streamers get a totally different experience of the game, or any game for that matter

Then they shouldn’t stream plain and simple. You want a pure play through do it privately.

those streamer orbiters are super insufferable

@@vaan_ I've seen the same usernames go from stream to stream copy and pasting the exact same things everytime certain story beats happens. It's obnoxious.

I really do think it's important to take a break between patches as well because i dont think FF14 was meant to binge. Veterans like a lot of us wait months in between, getting to know the dungeon and trials intimately. Even rewatching expansion trailers more than once. All these are important imo to get thar max effect for the story.

:)

That, I can't deny.

Like Zenos dipping his toe into the preach-water to see if its warm enough to be enjoyable xD

That upvote is yours for the taking, now leave

Why is your prey not dead yet?

Yep, good reminder. And an extra emphasize on "Eorzea". You get somewhere new where people don't know you? Well imagine a random weirdly foreign dressed person walk up to you at a tram station and would try to recruit you for a fight you vaguely heard about. To proof they're legit they'll tell you tales of battles and enemies that haven't been any part in your "reality". That person can be lucky if they aren't just being ignored, or even worse, arrested for admitting being a war criminal. :D

Does that mean I have Eorzia's Ass??

@@kzorander8577 Only if you use the 2B pants.

right, a "hero" that refuses to help someone because they find the task too "basic" or menial is no hero at all.

It's not even that we mind doing mundane things, but these people don't know you, they don't give a fuck about your title, you are just a random dude/chick that showed up talking about how you gonna beat up the Empire and save them.

I like how yall come up with "lore" reasons to explain staple fetch quests

@@Splizacular it's not coming up with lore. Just explaining why not all of them bother me.

I agree, she feels more like a real person than most of the other characters, up there with Alisaie and G’raha

Yes this, the Confederacy are part of why Stormblood always gives me big Water Margin and Suikoden vibes.

The confederacy are basically privateers, not pirates. Sort of, anyway, they aren't sanctioned by Kugane explicitly.

I'm not going to say that you're wrong because I don't have that eastern context so it may well be the case what you're saying is right but some of what you're saying is contradicted within the game. Firstly we're told the confederacy was founded long before garlean influence in the area so the ruby tithe has been there to extort locals just as a way of plundering a living from innocents. Secondly it's only under yotsuyu that the garleans even cracked down on the practice. There was no conflict between the two groups historically as the creed of the confederacy is to have no other allegiances or affiliates so they had no opposition to the garlean empire until it affected them directly. Thirdly they do charge the ruby tithe to everyone in their territory. Afterall it was only through helping them that we weren't charged despite being in direct opposition to the garleans and in the hilibrand quests one of the scouts said he was going to charge the gentle dead man before he realised it was a corpse. So to me it does feel like they were presented as pretty evil pirates and it's one of the few story points that really bothered me in stormblood because I saw no reason as to why our characters could ally themselves with a group of gangsters

@@michaelm8529 I think you're misreading the situation. Firstly, I did not mean to imply that the confederacy is a new thing, but that in the context of occupation the confederacy acts as locals profitting off of the occupying foreigners. In addition, the ruby tithe is very much only for traders and foreigners. Tsukikage: “As you know, all boats seeking safe passage through the Ruby Sea must pay our levy─the Ruby Tithe. Give us more than we ask, and we might even provide you with men to guide your ship through especially difficult waters." Local fisherman are not subject to the tithe so long as they don't seek passage through the sea, which poor farming folk and fishing folk do not. In essence the confederacy acts as a de facto navy for the local fisherman, regulating and profitting off of those who pass through their area and preventing them from being conscripted as free naval guides through the shoals. It's also important to remember that the sea is not sovereign ground of either doma nor kugane, it is a third party essentially ruled by the locals. The conferderacy is formed by the locals, and are not a foreign power, and any attempt to replace them with domans, kuganeans, or garleans would be an act of subjugation. Hancock: “Therefore, if your friends are to reach Doma, they must first cross the Ruby Sea. Alas, this is easier said than done as the Ruby Sea does not fall within the dominion of either Hingashi or Doma, being controlled since antiquity by a third party: namely, the Confederacy." Both in the scions going through, and Hildebrant, you are foreigners, seeking to pass through an area controlled militarily by the locals (or as much as they're able to). They're just more direct about what happens if you don't want to. It is a sovereignty's right to declare the rules for how travelers pass through their lands. Although, the confederacy doesn't have a royal house, it doesn't make them any less legitimate in their claim over the seas, what with being native and recognized by the neighboring domans as a neutral but not allied neighbor. Gosetsu: “Doma’s position on the Confederacy could be best described as one of ‘guarded acceptance.’ They pirates, aye, but they adhere to a code and are a stabilizing force in the Ruby Sea.” Force and pretense is all you really need to claim dominion over an area, the only difference between the eorzean grand companies and the confederacy is their size and complexity. The confederacy is no less a nation state than ancient venice or athens.

@@minway3829 I dunno man. Considering the confederacy was founded before any foreign influence. I don't think you could say that those merchants and traders were implicitly supporting garlean rule when the garleans weren't there yet, it was just extorting money out of innocent people. Even when the garleans first conquered Doma, the confederacy didn't oppose them because the garleans didn't start fighting the confederacy until yotsuyu became the acting viceroy. Also I think framing them as a navy that protects people is a bit odd given that the only force they're strong enough to protect you from is themselves. We see garlean ships and red kojin as a threat but the confederacy admits they couldn't beat them without our help. Like I understand them saying the relationship they have is of "guarded acceptance" as their operation doesn't warrant an all out war, but I think for a paragon group like the scions to ally themselves with the confederacy is a bit far since they are legitimately gangsters preying on people who can't defend themselves

That Greg storyline was so fun and interesting, I actually hope we get to explore more of that tribe's beliefs, especially with some of the developments in ShB and EW

Yeah its a really good sidequestline, but at the end it made me go "Oh really ... and u couldnt have told this poor soul all that a bit ealier?". But yeah the tribe kicks ass

It is not just an believe as the Tribe explaining to us that they have People sensitive to the Soul and can see the Colour of another Person's Soul. Which IS canon even outside of the Azim Steppe with the Life Stream in which every Soul returns after Death and an new Soul emerges from the life Stream. That is not just an believe, they prepare us for an Concept of the Future Expansion, Shadowbringer. Which explained that each Soul has an unique Colour to them within their Shard. Basically they tell us about Y'shtola's Vision after she emerges from the Life Stream

i absolutely love Gosetsu he was my favorite character in the game alone with Greg and maybe thancred

FUCK and the grumpy ascian how dare i forget

Interesting, so it isn't just me then...

Guess we better not have anything at stake anymore 4Head

Glad it's not just me. And not glad how they did it, like they didn't know what to do with him and just threw him off to the trash can. I can't take it. How they did to him and Yda is horrible. They're my comfort characters, my favourite duo but the writers just couldn't find a place for them to shine. Luckily Yda has a better fate but not my boyy! Fck I'm gonna take a whole day whining about this...

@@jinn3604 I'm gonna be honest, I understood where Papalymo was coming from a lot better after doing some of the 6.0 content in Sharlayan. "Ah, that's why he's like that." They never even mention his name but his personality is the most Sharlayan of the whole Scion crew, as it turned out....

honestly it appears as though that kind of stuff is pretty common over there unfortunately. There's multiple stories of manga artists receiving death threats over even the perception of a beloved character dying, so...

Hope he sees this one, or someone passes it on to him.

It's easy to miss the details when you are streaming. Especially if the story isn't catching your attention.

@@surge4025 then it leads to situations just like this, where there is a complaint made that is demonstrably addressed and it makes preach seem like an ex-WoW player who is here simply to ride the success of other WoW content creators who jumped ship.

@@awildserah Now, now. Let's not start acting silly. He's very clearly engaging with the story. Missing a few things here or there is no cause to go spewing negative speculation about his intentions.

@@awildserah what a jump in logic just because someone else is playing the game lmao. Stormblood is shit mate

doesn't make them fun or stop them from breaking the pace though. but its kinda funny how the game recognizes that sometimes we are forced to do tasks that are beneath us, there are some lines we can choose that recognize it, and the Dark Knight storyline is all about how everyone seem to use us for their own gain and how we should accept our own needs and desires.

@@danilooliveira6580 I like them. I take them not so much as "gain a reputation with this faction", but rather as "get to know these people". Preach says to go do Scion things and find a big threat, but what happens is usually exactly that. The way the Scions work is through understanding people so they can figure out what troubles them and how best to help them. It's a form of cultural respect I would say that is integral to how they operate as well as helping you as a player connect with the characters on a deeper level. Even the poop quest in Stormblood, to me the point wasn't "tee-hee poop", it was what it taught me about the Mol. They use manure for fuel because wood in the Steppe is scarce and too useful to burn (which is a thing for Mongolian nomads as well). They have children help gather what they can, but they neither overwork them all day nor do they give them difficult tasks such as discerning poisonous plants from edible ones. They are not afraid to use all the Steppe provides them, but they do not hoard as they need to travel. That means a little bit of gathering each day to source what is needed in the here and now. They have communal meals with the entire tribe. There's a lot of worldbuilding and human connection in what can be so easily dismissed as "the poop quest". If you just show up, look for a big scary monster and come back with its head, you're not doing Scion things at all. You're doing Witcher things, and we know how well people like Witchers.

@@danilooliveira6580 the pacing requires downtime, and the better parts of stormblood are made stronger by the inclusion of downtime, the nadaam is so epic cus of all the work getting there. And honestly, I don’t see why those sections need to be fun if that’s not what it’s going for, the game never treats that menial labor like it’s supposed to be absolutely gripping, it’s supposed to feel like work. Art is allowed to not be fun in service of a point, and for those quests the point is to have you have to experience the grounded, sometimes tedious lives of normal people so that the step doesn’t come away looking like a planet of hats where every person only cares about fighting. It’s as the op said, a method of providing that grounding and understanding of the locale that isn’t trying to be fun, but is trying to make your conclusion in the final battle feel all the more satisfying. You can debate whether or not it works, but you do have to recognize when art is deliberately trying to not be fun for a reason

The menial quests are what gives you the inside look into how the little guy is dealing with the situation. If you need to get them water? They're thirsty. The bad guys are driving them to starvation and dehydration to where they have to ask for a drop of water.

I wouldn't have agreed with you as much before EW, but yeah this is a great point

I liked Sadu so much that my WoL is now a blue xaela au ra and I honestly can't imagine her being anything else anymore.

@@Mir_Teiwaz same here! Though kine was male. XD I like them dergen bois

It's especially amusing too when you consider that as far as death works for people with the Echo, they are absolutely 100% right about pretty much everything. Preach was Greg the whole time!

But it's a game you should have fun. Not do boring stuff. More so when you pay for the product. You can for example just tell the WOL helped to herd some sheep and move on instead of clicking on each sheep one by one. The clicking aspect slow down the story and is not fun.

@@Squallcloud95 Agree, it shouldn't be part of MSQ, it should be a sidequest that you can do optionally to just help out the village with smaller tasks and perhaps get a little more understanding of what the villagers are like.

@@Squallcloud95 I have a different perspective on these matters. I have finished the endwalker MSQ and through out the game there are small sections that make you do that. In my opinion it really shows the adventurer and hero side of our WoL meaning it doesn't really matter how mundane the task is, the WoL is willing to help. He/she is not thinking about fame and glory and that such tasks are beneath them. At their heart they want to help people. I like Ffxiv blends such parts in between epic moments unlike some games where you keep on getting stronger and doing massive things and eventually the actions begin to loose their impact and grandeur.

Personally I see these mundane tasks as a important reminder that yes, you're a hero in Eorzea, but in this new area/continent, you're basically just some no-name adventurer again. Yes, power-wise you're immensely strong, but you're here to ask for help and not make enemies. It gives a level of humility to the character and keeps them grounded while also giving a window to the lives of the people you're interacting with.

@@coolcharminguy I would argue that you can do that with fun gameplay. I'm not against being humble but why not help herding sheep while playing/directing a dog for example. Deliver some letters while driving a chocobo, mix ingredients to do some cooking,... Just adding some small gameplay elements would make those parts so much more fun.

Agreed fully. I really like through our the story the WoL is no issues "stooping" to such "menial" tasks. At the end of the day you are an adventurer with "motifs of a hero true" and you help people where you can.

True, i mean u can just safe the world so often until it gets exhausting and after slaying Primal NO.1837 picking some apples sounds like a nice change. Also i personally see my character as someone that does what needs to be done. Be it slaying gods or finding cats. In the end those are all jobs i get paid for in one way or another - with loot, money or the smile of a NPC that i really grew to like over the course of the quest. Even in Endwalker people tell me to finally go on with the story because its so good, and i will do that but before i will finish this Aethercurrent-Questline because it is really sweet and i wanna make sure this child finds his parents (intentionally not naming zones or NPCs for no-spoiler-reasons here).

you started out as a normal joe, just like wow. you clearly arent a normal adventurer having dinner with head of states and having royalty hand deliver messages. you are clearly, very special, to the majority of antagonists in the story. you're absolutely delusional if you think the wol is an average joe at this point. sure, the wol is going to get it done, but it's just game writing that you got to clean up the pig sty at every village before they help you. it's not really a great representation of how down to earth the wol is. when you get options to respond in dialogue about not wanting to do chores, clearly it's represented that these are menial tasks designed to add time. just like wow, you're saving every place you go to through with basically violence. shb has people kind of be like, we need to do this ourselves, because you won't be around forever! exactly, wol is literally just solving everyone's problems. it's silly. it's like avatar universe fully dependent on the avatar to maintain order. it's really weird writing to have ALL the problems known to man need to be resolved by the same person who is shifting the shit. we have long past the point of things happen in the story without the wol involvement. we are the center of the universe at this point, even more special than azeroth's champion. even the ascians who are immortal and could have noped out of a fight and waited for old age to hit our wol, decided they were going to make their grand stand now.

To further illustrate the point. 10 minutes into endwalker, you've been requested to head to thavnair, requested as you've got the protection of light and fight the primal, while also simultaneously tasked with figuring out what the sharlayans are up to. Krile's literal sentence following this is "You are indeed our Champion.".

The difference being that outside of Eorzea and even to a degree within Eorzea the common person does not really know about us. Even Garlean soldiers do not recognize us as the Eikon Slayer even if Garlean leadership does. We may hob nob with royalty but that is treated as private affairs, our exploits overblown by minstrels so the expectation of the people is vastly different when it comes to our appearance. This is why in areas where we are well known NPCs who give us tasks and then find out who we are quickly turn to apologizing to us for having us do such menial tasks. This is also why in areas where we are completely unknown we do those menial tasks to obtain rapport with the local populace so they are more inclined to trust us and help us with bigger issues which gets reflected in numerous main story quests, and in turn when they need help with bigger things they know they can trust us to help them.

It's not just that. Have to keep in mind new traits, skills and potency changes.

The Fight wasn't that hard but I was fighting him as a Bard. So all his Movements and AoEs didn't bothered me that much. It was at the same Level as the Raubahn fight in Heavenswsrd.

They weren't hard but they did feel quite climactic. That being said the "I win" contracivity ability was still very noticeable

I fought him as a warrior it was a ton more forgiving having double the normal health pool

@@miatomi i'm a casual Player who never even tried Savage or extreme Trials, past ARR, because I struggled with the Alliance Raids. And I basically destroyed him back in 4.0. And then he One hitted me in the Cut Scene.

Zenos is literally just there to remind us that we are playing a video game rather than being a part of an actual consistent world or sensible story.

@@Skyblade12 I really do not like Zenos, but I also think that's a stretch tbh. He feels fine / part of the world.. just a bad part of it, IMO. Also, about the original comment, yea, definitely agree. If we call getting our ass beat 5 feet into the ground and 1 foot into our rgave... then I guess he let us win? but nah, he just let us _live_

@@Skyblade12 That's not accurate really. I can understand why people don't like him, but the WoL doesn't (and shouldn't) have a monopoly on being powerful. Zenos is there to teach you that you're not omnipotent, after everything you've done, there are still people as strong as or stronger (at that point). He has been training and fighting and killing far longer than you have, he's monstrously strong just like you are. The difference is, your potential outstrips his, so you grow above him.

@@ShimaYin What is experience? It's exactly what the word is. You gain power through experiences. Through trials. Zenos has never faced a trial. He has never struggled. A character who does not struggle cannot grow. A character who cannot grow cannot match us. Zenos is a random nobody given a ton of power. He's a character who bought a boost. Able to gank noobs at the beginning, then pitifully outclassed once we catch up to him in level because we actually know how to play our class. He should be completely forgotten after that because, again, as a character incapable of struggling, he can never grow past that point. No human who has not been through the trials we have should be able to match our strength. It goes against the fundamentals of what an RPG is. Omega isn't a human, so when he grabs us from the scruff of the neck and is about to delete us, that's fine. Ardbert we see suffer similar trials, and learn of more. He's struggled, he's grown. He can be a challenge. Zenos has never faced a challenge, never gained any experience, and thus he cannot match us. He never earns anything, but it given everything, and he sours the story at so many points.

The Warriror of Lights exact power level is questionable Primals are only really dangerous because they can Temper anyone take that away and they are just powerful monsters as we see during the end of Shadowbringers, Endwalker confirmed that we took a team to stop the Ultima Weapon and we took another larger team to handle the Crystal Tower. Niddnogs power level was all over the place so it is hard to judge him.

the problem is that while the fights are amazing, the story is still kinda bad. the story of the raids is whatever, its just random anime tourney, the story of the ali raids is not bad, but its way too long and you need to have played tactics/FFXII for it to make sense or affect you in any way. but at least the story of the trials is awesome, and probably easily my favorite of the 3 we've seem so far, and I actually like the story of the weapons trials.

@@masterpain7742 idk main shit can get hard in ninja gaiden and dark souls and that's pve

@@danilooliveira6580 ivalice is great but the story fucking sucks. 4 Lord's is where it's at.

@@masterpain7742 arenas... Bwahahhaha, you know youre funny 😂

@@Plasmacat1 The Ivalice story is an improvement of the story of the original FFT. It's fantastic. Pacing may be a little off for some people, but the story is fantastic. Also, while we're complementing the dungeons and raids, let's not forget the duties. The Nadaam was an absolute blast.

@Raphael S The confederacy only attack people who try to cross their waters illegally.

this is so true, a lot of people overlook this and just conclude "hEaVenSWarD is BettER tHaN sToRMBLood" i mean seriously? in my opinion the only thing heavensward was better at is the story.

Cap

@@monspeet4287 Four Lords is such a fun romp. I did the series at 80 because I wanted the Dark Knight weapon from the final boss and even unsynced the fights were really fun.

@@monspeet4287 Not to mention for every "CLASS DESIGN PEAKED AT HEAVENSWARD" there's always another "a class design so garbage it's straight up unplayable". They praise HW's class design and conveniently forget the atrocity that was AST at launch, PLD, MNK and BRD.

Stormblood has the best trials/allience raid imo

And in areas where the NPCs wont know about you in the first place due to how information spreads it also allows you to build rapport with the locals so that when you finally do start doing heroics they are already on your side and willing to help.

I'm the type to read all the flavor text in a town when I get there, so I don't mind them either and kinda look forward to them unless they are placed somewhere that doesn't make sense. Like if stuff is really taking off, I don't bother with fetch sidequests.

I agree with this. My character is a good person who doesn't think of themselves as being above menial tasks just because they're powerful and important.

thats exactly how i feel. those kind of quests are handled in this game by often being directly related to the culture/life of the people you are helping, letting you gain an insight into the worldbuilding of the zone. i think that's a big reason why I enjoyed stormblood a lot more than most people seem to. Even in WoW I really enjoyed the little side quests that give insights into tidbits of lore like that, like the quest in WoTLK where you help the taunka join the horde etc

I don't understand the complaint either, people will happily grind a raid 50 times but complain that a quest character had you go pick up three flowers or some shit. They're fun and interesting character moments. They only get tedious if you're planning to do multiple playthroughs.

Why not just making the Fight harder an remove the mandatory Win. You lose anyway and also a different Cut Scene when you actually manage to defeat him.

@@sorleytarrys8501 Wether you win or lose it is mandatory that you win systematically. Some arbitrary number of bytes must be met. Basically what you propose is the exact same thing they are doing lol.

Sorry to hear that, man. If you're religious, God Bless.🙏 If not, just take care of yourself.👊

yep, as an avid fan of the game okami when i saw the treasures being a sword and a mirror i even was going on about the three treasures. its funny how often that pops up in games.

@@ryanweible9090 It's part of the Shinto creation myth. I'm hardly an expert on Japanese mythology and culture but from my understanding it's about on par with Noah and the Ark in terms of mythological significance and recognizability. And they show up in games from Japan frequently enough due to differing cultural attitudes on depicting religious symbols and such; Nintendo infamously censored all references to Christianity in game releases in the North American market for years.

In battle you dodge all his shit and deplete his HP bar. Mechanically, that's winning. Until he just pushes the I Win. That's the complaint, the disconnect between what you do as a player and what you get on screen.

@@Faerindel That's true, mechanically. But, we can employ context clues to realize that we actually have no chance. Perhaps they shoulda given him a million more hp, and stopped the fights at 90%/75%.

@@RockR277 I mean, that's usually how "unwinnable" boss fights go in RPGs. The enemy is either fully immune/has defense so high that you're hitting for single digits, or a hugely inflated health bar that barely budges. That and they often unleash their "I win" move without waiting for their HP to drop too low.

@@Faerindel You don't deplete his hp bar, you do damage cause he lets you. Also, in the first battle you don't go below 90% of his hp so you don't deplete anything. In the 2nd battle you do a bit more till he draws his sword an then you once again don't hit him below 90%. So i don't get this argument where "you winning" Also the whole "iwin button" is such a strange argument. At that point the man is a monster, it shows 1 attack of a bit more force to strike you down. He actually does the same attack the whole fight long but never with some of his actual power.

@@TheAssirra But at no point does he push you, as the player, into losing. Sekiro (very different game, i know) does it great in that the first boss will throw a bunch of moves and mechanics at you that you don't know so you are very likely to lose. You feel defeated as a player because you failed the mechanics, you failed a fight that is actually winnable. In the zenos fights, you can take 0 damage the entire fight and then you get forcibly hit by an undodgable mechanic / win button which just makes it feel like you could easily beat this guy but the game just isn't letting you. The better way of doing it would be to have him throw his mechanics out at increasing speeds and intensity as he gets more serious so you actually get a feel for "oh shit, i can't do this"

First: Major Stormblood Spoiler. I have to disagree. Its just awfull Story writing and terrible Game Design. If he where that much stronger,SE could just show the Cut Scene.But having you to defeat him, just to lose in Cut Scene doesn't make any Sense. Also there would be no Way that he gets defeated at the End of 4.0. Zenos gets so much stronger with that Magic Sword, the Artficial Echo and the Fusion with Shinryu. Meanwhile, the WoL just gets the Ability to Breath Underwater.

@@sorleytarrys8501 it's a video about Stormblood, I don't think it's unreasonable to assume almost everyone here has already played it--though, it is my bad for not putting spoiler tags on my post. As for the rest, it's ok to disagree. I'm only here to watch Preach's video and give my take on the Zenos aspect of the story. That's worth about as much as a tic-tac, but the opinion is mine. I'm very aware some people didn't and still don't like Zenos, or how he was introduced and executed. I just found that when I viewed the character through the prism of ancient warrior cultures, he made more sense to me. It all started with Stormblood being a heavy samurai expansion, then went from there.

@@sorleytarrys8501 Nah It's the opposite... Zenos gets weaker when he start to rely on Ame-no-Hakabiri, he also become weaker when he later on fuses with Shinryu. He comes to this conclusion during post patches and later on during ShB cutscenes. That's why he tries to switch weapons since his flaws in his techniques became clear as day, flaws he didn't have prior to the events of Stormblood if you read the side-stories. Relying on the weapon and later on the primals powers are his greatest weaknesses but Zenos are way to drunk with power to realise this, before he lost to the WoL.

@@sorleytarrys8501 Did we play the same game? You don't defeat him, at all. He doesn't drop below 90% in both battles although you manage to make him draw his sword in the 2nd, big win right there.

The thing about characters like Zenos is I would like to know how. According to story you solo Primals, defeated several Garlean generals, and conquered both dragons and Allagan horrors. What did Zenos do? I don't mind stronger characters. We need them. But Ascians make sense. Allegan horrors and Omega make sense. Zenos? He is basically a sadistic Saitama.

It could also be seen as something that needs to be obtained yet nothing fundamentally changes when it is. Say the good guy is very good at punching, but the bad guy has a hat of unpunchability. If all the story does with that is make the good guy take a detour, then the amulet and the hat still count as a McGuffin, since it basically doesn't matter what the items actually do, they're just a distraction until the same thing that would have happened without them happens anyway.

That's also a very Japanese approach. Remember the west has the phrase "the squeaky wheel gets the grease" but the Japanese equivalent is "The nail that stands up gets hammered down." They have a very community first mindset. The cultural mentality is to do what's best for the group over the individual and the Warrior of Light kind of represents that in their willingness to help with whatever. I also find it a bit amusing to hear this "I'm the Warrior of Light, I'm above this" but in a new land detached from all you've done, the response would simply be "Who?"

any ff14 complaint FF14 fanboys: NO THIS GAME IS PERFECT

@@Freestyle80 Never said the game was perfect, I was just disagreeing with an opinion on one specific aspect of the game on a discussion video, and talking about part of the narrative that I care a lot about to support my opinion. Grow the fuck up.

@@Freestyle80 Have you considered that, when speaking about one specific thing, people might just feel differently from you, or Preach, or whoever is doing the criticism? Like, I know there are people who have absolutely made FFXIV their religion, and I can see how in aggregate it would seem that the community as a whole defends every little thing, but that's because everyone feels differently, what one might hate, the other might enjoy or be unbothered by, and vice versa.

Agree, then don't do fake out deaths, the story should have made clear that is not the scions directly that are in danger, or what they are about to loose its not they physical well being. You don't need them to die for the story to have tension but for the love of god stop with the fake outs, it cheapens the story so much that it takes me out of it.

@@Tibi93 and what fake out deaths are there for scions in sb? yshtola gets fucked up, but its never said shes dead - just that she gets messed up pretty hard. tsuyu and gosetsu i could agree but you know how that ends

@@Tibi93 There was a single fakeout in SB lol

100%

I leveled Kurenai collectables post Endwalker MSQ and i was mind blown learning more about those NPC i didn't think about for years! It's crazy the story you can learn leveling crafters!

This is a question I've been asking myself for a long while and I noticed that Y'shtola didn't get much screen time in both Heavensward or Stormblood, do you have a citation on this claim? I've been trying to find an answer to this for a while, so I'm very interested if you do.

Honestly, out of all the Scions, Y'shtola has the least amount of character growth in the game. Her character never changes, well she becomes a lot more sassy after HW, but that's really it. She goes 'blind', but it doesn't actually affect her in any meaningful way. We have a good grasp of the nature of her character, but she really isn't put into story arcs were she changes as a character. Even Urianger changes over course of the story.

@@SuperRamos619 People also tend to forget that Y'shtola is one of the oldest Scions, not someone I'd wager that needs to "change" character-wise. She isn't like most of the others, her story was already told in a lot of ways, however we don't have as much context for that. I've done the calculations previously and she's 31 prior to Shadowbringers (not counting the timeskip), she saw the fall of Sharlayan, saw the battle of Carteneau, and many other events that we aren't even aware of. Y'shtola has generally served a singular purpose, to have an answer about a particular subject, that no one else could possibly know due to her ridiculous amount of knowledge. She's a scholar, she's constantly buried in books, and primarily focuses her time where her expertise is needed. Yeah, there is very little we actually know about her, that partly gives her this "mysterious" air about her, like the fact that she doesn't like telling people her true age. I think out of all the characters, she probably has more secrets, and knows far more than she's ever let on. I haven't finished the post-patches to ShB nor have I finished Endwalker so I can't tell you what I think of her portrayal there. What I can say from what I've been given and the plethora of information at my disposal, it's safe to say, Y'shtola never NEEDED changing or growing, she isn't a child, she already knows who she is, and even went through difficulties with it in the ShB MSQ as she questioned if she started to become too much like her master.

Oh and here's the calculations on Y'shtola's Age: - 15 years ago the Sharlayan Colony was abandoned. - 5 years ago the 7th Umbral Calamity occurred. - Y'shtola was 16 when Sharlayan was abandoned. (Alphinaud is currently 16, she said she was HIS age when it happened) - Add those 15 years to her age at the time which was 16 and the long unanswered question has an answer. She's 31. (I can go into further detail about this but that'd be a fair amount more information and context that I'd have to give. I already have a full breakdown if that's needed. My main citation is the Final Fantasy Fandom page on Y'shtola, cross referencing various events, and one little nugget that confirms everything which was something she herself mentioned, hence her being Alphinaud's Age when Sharlayan was abandoned.)

@@mitrikgaduk347 she is fucking 23 dude lol. It's on her official character page.

ofcourse its your own choice, but personally i'd advise not to watch these video's and enjoy the story on your own instead of spoiling yourself. As a recent wow refugee myself the meme is totally true you either quit in ARR or you become a walking advertisement

Then why are u watching SB review? :P

Supporting Preach!

ARR is pretty slow at times, post patch especially, but this buildup is needed for the story to take off. If you finish HW and still arent sold then the game might not your style, but I was personally hooked by ARR; its different for everyone, but dont force yourself if you arent having fun :)

kô

Not true. They just stop. They give characters straight up death scenes. And they still don't kill em. It doesn't mean anything anymore.

I'm pretty certain Y'shtola has it in her contract that she needs to have at least one "fake death" per expansion.

@@VaSoapman Endwalker spoilers. Even worse than that, when they have the chance to gracefully disband the Scions, the writers chicken out. You damn well know they're going to be back by 7.0.

Slowed down is putting it lightly, we still don't have a major death.

@@cassiusbright1062 except they aren't, they pretty much gave you hints in the whole final pitch of Ultima Thule that there are so many places that we haven't explored and the final scene before the Finish is literally the Scions saying that they are going to be going to some of those places specifically. Alphinaud literally says there will come a day something something and we will fight it together as we always have. The story behind Endwalker has a lot of stupidity running rampant and the death scenes in Ultima Thule were insanely stupid, but I don't know how many more hints they could have given that they aren't bringing the Scions back together for a while they could have dropped.

Well I think (despite the fanservice reasons) that at the rate they were killing off characters, no one would be here to finish EW. I can understand it can feel dull not kill anybody but the opposite is not much more clever either.

Agreed. Really hope he does a video.

To be fair this gets addressed but this are active piratees versus retiring pirates lol

The Limsan pirates work under a code. The Rogues shank them if they break it. The slavers for example aren't a part of Limsa those are people like Serpent Reavers who are Leviathan's thralls and such. The Limsa pirates focus on fucking with the empire ships as "privateers". The rest are criminals in Limsa too.

@@nahuel3433 And the confederates protect the common folk. So what's your point again?

It's power creep, because the first fight when it was released. You had players in maxed ilvl and even raid gear. Second fight was slightly difficult because your gear was now on par or outdated. So in effect of how SE is handing out levels so quickly, it's not too uncommon to head into these fights in the 63-68 range with having HQ gear off the MB.

I definitely feel this. I remember when it was current I remember feeling pushed to my limits. Now doing it on a second character it felt completely undertuned comparatively

The second fight feels easy because his health bar doesn't represent his health, it represents the threshold for him to bother using his new sword. He's playing around until you clean it out. The moving slow in the initial fight is intended to terrify you. He doesn't feel the need to take you seriously. He hurt in the initial release, it was hard to actually win on melee characters, ranged characters can do their thing for a long time unfortunately thanks to his slowness.

@@everyonethinksyoureadeathm5773 On second playthrough I realized this issue and deliberately used a fresh level 61 with leveling gear and it's a totally different experience, even with the Shadowbringers job changes

mate, if someone says they can kill a god, i'm not going to have them pooper scoop the yard to test them on their legitimacy.

Precisely

cool reason still boring gameplay, at the end of the day if what makes sense is boring, you change it

Yeah, and putting :D makes you kind and not toxic at all for ff14 fan.

@@scarymonsterdiego66 How was that comment toxic at all?