I think Zepla has no idea what makes a story good lol "I spent 2 hours with a completely brand new cast of characters and it brought me to my knees". Only reason you cared about those characters had more than likely to do with other stories you already experienced in G.I. You can't care about characters if you don't first care about the world they are in, in most cases. Now, I can get emotional over a 20 second video of an animal being funny or other things, does it mean the STORY of that animal was good? no, it means I have experiences that relate me to something that had to do with that video. When it comes to a game story, you are very unlikely to have any relevance to the characters in that world unless you already have connection to that world. The Seto thing was emotional not because of Seto, but because of The Warrior of Darkness that accompanied us, as we experienced his century of suffering of everyone blaming him, all the people who knew him dying out and him being forgotten, having Seto there to be the last remaining character that not only remembers him but appreciates what he went through was the emotional strike. TBH, you could have thrown any random character in the end of the game that still remembers and loves the warrior of darkness and it would still hit pretty well, only reason Seto probably hit even better is because he is an animal companion and that strikes more chords.
she did far better before trying to be "so in depth". Back when she did like all mounts and where to get them and similar. Shes way in over her head trying to analyze story, raids, or gameplay.
I think the Seto story was as powerful and emotionally resonant as it was because of the time we spent not with Seto, but with Ardbert. I don't think that story would have landed as strongly as it did had we not spent the whole expansion (and prior) with Ardbert and the Warriors of Darkness.
I think it goes even beyond that, since they didn't just spend time to let you know Ardbert, but connecting him very intimately with the WoL. Therefore making Seto's story, in a way, linked much more directly to the WoL story. If there wasn't that connection between our WoL and Ardbert, I don't think the impact would have been that strong either. It's all of these different stories building on top of eachother that create such an emotional tapestry.
I don't know how she can compare all of shadowbringers to just the endwalker post patch. Maybe post patch to post patch but even then that is hard cause all the post post patch with the exception of endwalker were pushing the story forward. Endwalker post patch was a full new story and to be honest they killed. New zones, new experiences, new people and challenges.
"to be honest they killed" - yeah, killed the quality of writing down to having an ancient dragon older than humanity irl not know what a trade agreement is despite running a merchant/trade nation for 1000+ years and also having the worst antagonist since Asahi. Heck at least they didn't try to make you feel bad for Asahi.
I think Preach has made the best video so far, it's not at all just outright shitting on Endwalker it's actually extremely accurate and very very balanced and fair review. I absolutely love that Preach actually pays attention to story and understanding it, because so many don't and never get things for example not understanding post MSQ, yes it's a tribute to FFIV, I don't think there's anything wrong with the game making you want to play other Final Fantasy titles to understand references. Really love his video.
yea like they should stop shoving their marketing bs down my throat to make me buy their other games as MSQ contents, leave it for events like 15 or 13. what about making more original contents for xiv instead?
Zepla, I think the reason you got a lot of flack for trying to criticize Endwalker whereas Preach didn't is because he organized and presented his thoughts well. Your 'Endwalker is the worst expansion I've played' video was kind of all over the place and your frustration came across. Organizing/storyboarding a bit might help you Zep.
Not to mention Zepla's gross use of clickbait title. Preach made it seems like a question, and his video is structured to be more for discussion. His video is just way better.
I thought this was a pretty fair and balanced overview of EW. Side note on what Zepla said about Zenos…I do think they did a good job of fleshing him out more. Without spoiling 6.0, dialogue choice #1 is where it’s at. IYKYK.
No matter what Zep says trying to compare base endwalker to the post msq story is totally unfair. 10 years of building blocks went into EW and they wrapped it up pretty damn well. For the post msq you have NO clue how relevant or irrelevant it will be, and 14's track record shows they use every piece of the story buffalo eventually and not much goes to waste.
As long as they keep trying to make a game for people that don't play it, we'll keep having tons of story in a nebulous grey area that goes nowhere, just like the shb role quests and the bozja story, because how dare players have to play the game more than 2 days every 4 months to actually unlock the story Hopefully the latest statements about taking risks again also applies to the writing
Zepla... Mike chose the path to Dawntrail going 'Uphill' not downhill! That symbolism of the game still going up, not down. I think that was Mike's point.
"I also don't agree, I also don't think you need to invest a lot of time in the story for it to be good." I will say look at A Realm Reborn and how it is widely said to be the part you have to stomach through when you join XIV so that the story gets good. ARR is very well known as the barrier to entry, where people will quit the game before completing... Now look at ARR when you move into Endwalker and the vague plotpoints if ARR are now connected. The Heart of Sabik wasn't explained until the Endwalker Raids series but nobody really cared for it back in ARR/HW, only later on people started to go like ''oh remember that thing? Maybe it'll be important".
I'm definitely a "mid-core" player also and Endwalker was absolutely NOT a failure... I've been playing since early HW and the game has never been in better shape. The only thing that really needs a substantial improvement is the MSQ questing mechanics, for the most part. Less "take this over here, talk to this person, come back" repeat, etc. The EW dungeons were amazing. The first expansion from first to last where not a single one missed. And the Alliance raid was fantastic. I didn't think EW could hold a candle to what Shadowbringers did, but for a great portion of it, it was even better. A few lowers lows, but the highs were higher than anything else. Honestly stumped what everyone's complaints are about.
EW was a huge win for me also. 10/10. Especially the Alliance raid being tied to the story of Eorzea this time. I also loved the new solo options in Deep Dungeon and Variant. The Variant especially had gorgeous design, great story, and even if it was tuned a bit on the easy side for a solo player, it was still visually surprising and fun. I don't even mind the fetch quest thing 14's MSQ does - for me it helps with the world-building as well as slowing down the pace so that the big events seem more important when they do arrive. It gives the illusion of time passing the way it does even in war time: "hurry up and wait" so to speak. And it keeps the WoL grounded to be hauling around doodads ;).
I like preach's video. It had a balanced take. Zepla's video felt more like a hate rant without even awknowledging the good that makes Endwalker special. Hope her emo meteion phase is over
Post EW is 100% a setup for the future, it was never meant to be a standalone story, it's a foundation for the future story just like Warriors of Darkness. And it does great job at being a setup. The only problem with it is that Reaper's avatar is a char in the game (since Zero was Zenos' avatar) so if there is going to be any void fixing in the future that avatar thing has to be addressed.
@@cheesemuffin8129 You clearly missed the point Pandemonium is still closing threads of the past story while post-EW is setting up for the future, just like Warriors of Darkness arc was setting up for the Shadowbringers. We won't be seeing Zero or Goblin'deez in Dawntrail but the Void will will eventually play a huge role in the future, prob directly tied to ability to travel to other reflections that Emet mentioned in his monologue. It's either going to be Dawntrail-Meracydia-Reflections or Dawntrail-Reflections-Meracydia for the next expansions. The real question is if they will make Eden raid series mandatory just like they've done to lvl50 alli raids since Gaia is quite an important character being Oracle of Dankness tied to the void. Normal raids are not much different in difficulty than MSQ trials so it's not out of the question.
Ok, but outside of it being setup do you actually consider the post MSQ patches to be good in terms of writing tho? Because I feel that part of the discourse is like completely ignored everywhere I go.
@@ridleyroid9060 Well each Archfiend has pretty interesting, albeit short backstory. Goblin'dezz or actually Durante is a classic villain seeing what he does is for the greater good even if is going to be short term catastrophe. Zero i think greatly represents the only alternative one can become in the void, you either become insane or devoid of purpose. You might think Zero is dull but Void itself is pretty fking dull place almost as dull as the Empty in the First. Zero is a real great-grandma and is a symbol of last remaining sanity in that miserable place, the sanity was protected by throwing away all emotions and attachments. The biggest problem with Zero is that she was Zenos' avatar which puts Reaper in questionable spot if void is ever fixed since Reaper's avatar is a char in the world. I didn't like Goblin'deez changing sides, someone as committed as him would not give up on his grand plan so easily. I think entire post-EW is leagues better than Warriors of Darkness in Source. WoD come out of nowhere, Uri fake out betrays you, WoD get manipulated by ascian while we know their world got blasted by one so why would they trust another. Bert from WoD along with his companions is completely pathetic while Bert in Shadowbringers is a great character. Since post-EW starts at way better place already i have no reason to think expansion, the payoff later will be worse (now Shadowbringers is way more than just Bert and friends so it still would need Emet-like villain which would be difficult)
21:30 Disagreed - time spent with a character absolutely increases the amount of attachment. Have a look at other games: Let's take the Mass Effect trilogy for example. All three games introduce great characters - but the ones people care the most about (on average) are the squadmates from ME1: Garrus, Wrex, Tali and Liara (Ash and Kaidan not as much for several reasons). There are of course many nuances, but all in all I'd absolutely say that the more time you spend with a character and a story the more attached you are - that's just a natural process.
I think for me personally, Endwalker wasn't a failure. I enjoyed the game well enough, and I don't regret spending my time and money on it like I did in the last 3 WoW expansions. It was just a letdown after Shadowbringers, and as someone who started in Stormblood, it felt like the game was on a constant upward trajectory. Endwalker was the reality check that helped temper my expectations for the future of this franchise. I look forward to Dawntrail, but I'm not attaching the same degree of expectations and excitement that I had ahead of Endwalker.
Preach's video included what a lot of the community has been voicing that I don't agree with. However, there are things that were brought up about the Bozja being a leveling zone and being tied to the ShB relic. I've heard this bit and want to bring up a few points. First, as someone that plays the games regularly, leveling every job to max level isn't actually that time consuming. I understand that it's a lot for casual players, but I got every job 80-90 within a month or 100 hours when trying. If I were to use this reason to play whatever content that they are asking for, it means that this content is dead to me after a month at most, which isn't significantly better than the Island and Criterion that people criticize for. Second, when someone talk about relic weapons and grinding as "achievements", I don't think they are talking about overcoming hardship and challenges or the effort and time spent. I think what we actually are talking about are how someone went through shit and boring content or at least content that one wouldn't normally be interested in doing. ARR relics are more revered because of how brain killing and annoying the books are to complete. I had fun going through Bozja the first time, but when ShB relic forced me to repeat Bozja FATES and DR, I didn't think of them as meaningful content; I thought of them as grinding through this mindless thing to get me the reward. I had to deal with the boredom by switching jobs, but even then it was making me fall asleep. To me, it's a very weird thing to intentionally ask for boring, mind-killing, or shit content. I'd rather they keep making content like Criterion and Island. I had fun the first time going through Island and figuring out how to optimize. I had fun learning and clearing Criterion. It's ok for these content to die just like how Savage raids and Ultimates "died" when I cleared them enough times.
You raise some excellent points. I find the Relic this time so much better - I can get Relics doing almost any normal activity I would be doing anyway for fun, rather than being forced into some grindy mass-zerging zone where I am half asleep in 10 minutes. I didn't do Criterion, but I did do Variant, and I really enjoyed those dungeons. The Island isn't really for me, but not everything has to be for me. People I know loved it, and that's great - it was *truly* optional. I have a similar outlook on content - I do things a few times - then I do them again maybe on alts - and I don't need it to last forever. I hated Bozja so much in fact that I actually went into PotD with its miserable drop rates instead - and then found out how much fun PotD can be on a solo class. So at least it drove me towards something interesting even if not intended. I want great content that will seem fresh until I've seen it a few times and FF14 rarely fails me.
11:05 Also Zepla, it was in the MAIN SCENARIO and not hidden in an optional or side content. It's cool to see them explore dark twists and craziness in side content like, for instance, Baelsar's kids. But to put it in the main scenario means everyone has to see it.
I don't really think you can consider yourself a "midcore player" if you play the game as a full-time job. Or infamously to a break from the game from fulltime progging ultimate raids.
I could see Zero in a similar role for the 13th as Crystal Exarch was for the 1st (or maybe even for all the remaining reflections.) Probably not for Dawntrail, but the next expansion or even the next one after that where Y'shtola and the alchemy crew have finally cracked the code to safely travel between the shards.
Yeah, the plot threads for a couple expansions are already set up after dawntrail. Confirmed by the devs and Yoshi himself. Zero is definitely making a comeback, more people loved than hated her as a character.
Note for the Preach video. At the end he is taking the high road as opposed the low road. It really needs to be restated a lot for this community. Bozja and Eureka is awesome content, but most of the community doesn't engage with it. You guys keep saying they need to cater to their fans and the truth is they are and those of us who like grindy content are getting as much content as those major casual fans are. I guess all I can say is go back and look at the community response. Eureka took years to gain major popularity and it still isn't, and bozja still has the second zone lacking in complete overall content. I mean you can go look at the achievement records for a reality check as well. First clear of BA is at 24% globally then 7% for 5 clears, first clear CLL is at 67% globally at ten clears it's 31% globally, DR is at 64% globally and at ten clears it's 43% globally, Dalrida first clear is at 49% globally and for ten it is 22% . You can actually see how the grind drops off for the community at large and yet you want to pretend that the community wants these places? You can look at the skirmishes as well and the relic weapons counts. Furthermore, relics aren't even representative above 50% across all relic achievements. For context: I am using the lalachievements as my primary examples and cross-referenced against ffxivcollect. What I found is that ffxivcollect has lower percentages overall or the same for certain achievements so I am sticking with lala to A) Give the higher points B) This isn't 100% accurate but I'd rather give higher points and be wrong then give lower points and be wrong. I probably agreed with most of Zelphas criticisms, but because it became more about "You have to either agree on everything I say or you're wrong" there was no point in giving consideration beyond a bad faith argument where she clearly felt burnt out. I can't tell someone how to feel and that isn't worth arguing about. If you don't agree with anything I've said here that is fine. If you think you know how many people do this content then show me. I would love to shown that I am wrong here, but idk what this community thinks is reality. You can continue to cry that you wanted this grindy content, but the if the overall community isn't playing it then it just isn't worth the time for the devs. Additionally I would love someone to point to me where relic grinds were not complained about for their grinds. I ask because people now like those old ones, but god help if you weren't also whining when they released. I agree that totem grinding is lame for a relic, but unless you have some constructive feedback that applies for the ff14 playerbase then you're just pissing in the wind.
It’s arbitrary. I, for one, am happy it was tome only. Relics have always been FOMO. When in actuality the difficulty of the grind is child’s play at the end of the expansion. It’s artificially bloated to start to keep people online for them, but there has always been sections of dungeons and Fates. Everyone hated the Fate parts, and now we miss them. Dungeon grind sections (Aetheric Light) is basically a tome grind. I for one see no difference, it’s just simplified.
@@crowevil4658 There's a clear difference between a currency grind and an actual quest. My argument is the Manderville Relic is just a Tomestone Weapon with some cutscenes. And that isn't bad. We should have uncapped Tomestone weapons in the future. Many people like them. Might be a good idea to continue. But it really isn't the same as other Relics. We can't deny the loss of an exploration zone/relic specific content, and some people want to actually have a long term goal that isn't just a currency. Even Yoshi P has admitted that, even though the Relic has a high participation rate, it was seen as "sloppy" by some who want something more involved. They seem to know a better balance can be found in DT.
@@yanipheonu all I’m saying is, since the days of yore, like ARR, we had Gerolt quests, a few instances, fates, and journals (complete dungeons and more fates). Heavensward, we had fates, more fates, aetheric light quests (dungeon and raid grind). Shadowbringers there it was tied to Eureka. Most players bitched about it because it was a new map with fates. Shadowbringers had Bozja, which faced similar fate complaints initially, but DR and the other dungeon crawl were fairly well received along with the 12/tactics lore expansion within 14. When you isolate BA and DR, those are the teams really playing with the formula and having some fun. But I refuse to ignore that, other than that, it’s fates, bro. And each had their level of requiring dungeon grinds. And no matter what, the grind is severely nerfed near the end of the expansion to make the ordeal that more trivial. All I’m saying is having tome grind is just the same as ARR and HW grind as before without the wrapper. That and people seem to hate on Hilde quests more than anything else. I for one had no complaints this round, I’ve been playing since 1.0. I welcome them cutting out the Bs. I also am super happy to see Manderville story continue. I didn’t need a journal, or pretty RNG stones from fates, or channeling Aether to make it feel rewarding. And at the end of the day, they gave us the same breadth of content that they always do, it hasn’t really changed (outside of cuts during Covid) they just spent effort on a deep dungeon that died quickly and criterion that most people hate. They even spent a crap ton of time creating and tuning Omega.
@@yanipheonu also, I’d hardly call Eureka or Bozja “exploration.” It’s linear, they are fate grinds. It loses its magic quickly when you have to bounce from one fate to another. The devs just packaged it in a way that makes players want to drink that poison - even though it failed with Diadem back in the day. They kept tweaking the formula until it stuck. I think the community just has mass memory loss because of the simplification of getting a relic with a Hilde pay wall.
@@crowevil4658 The biggest issue with the Hilde quests is they were required to get the weapon. If you hadn't done them either because you just didnt or started later like I did then it was really annoying being forced to do this massive quest chain. It was entertaining but me and probably many other people only did it because we were forced to which for some completely took away the potential fun or entertainment factor. They cant really win with relic weapons. There's no clear solution to make everyone happy. According to zepla its not casual content so they don't even do it. That kind of confuses me because there's no reason not to except out of pure laziness in which case I would argue they should be ignored. You cant choose to not partake in something and then complain about it being unobtainable for you. You chose not to do it, hence why you dont have it. A solution they could have is give maybe keep the tomestone relic weapon system but if you do specific difficulties of raids or trials then you get more appearances outside of the ones from tomestones. That way it rewards casuals by giving them a cool weapon that is BiS and people who do harder content by not just rewarding them with BiS weapons but also really cool and unique appearances. The issue with my idea is we're back to the same problem where people who choose not to do that content will then bitch about the fact that they cant get the appearances.
The FFXIV devs don't leave things to coincidence. There is a reason why we did all that stuff in the Void, and it's more than just rescuing Azdaja and foiling Golbez's plans. Just like how the Warriors of Darkness arc in post-HW eventually led up to Shadowbringers, I'm looking forward to seeing where this particular story goes.
I'm tired of the WoD comparison because that arc was: 1. Resolved in a grand total of 2 patches all put together while other stuff was happening 2. Written far better than post MSQ of 6.X. It not only made you understand why the WoD are the way they are, what they are trying to do, it also resolved Uriangers by then long ongoing traitor arc, it also brought Minfilia back shortly and overall it was a good setup to the saga as a whole. Also was used as a good way of explaining how the eyes were picked up from the aether abyss (which could have been accomplished in many ways but tying the WOD into that makes them seem less filler-y than people claim for that arc in its contemporary form). The Post MSQ patch of 6.X was way too long, way too contrived, again thrust us into a world ending threat of mass proportion where we killed an ancient evil god to prevent a calamity (after all sources claimd the stakes would be down from 6.0) and not to mention it did severe damage to the character of Vritra. It also did nothing with the whole "scions are dissolved" bs, when we are back together immediately. I mean sure that's to be expected but could they have pretended to try? I could go on, but I seriously hope that people learn to look at FF14 with a bit more scrutiny, whether its post MSQ or main MSQ. Bad writing is bad writing, doesn't matter if it's in a smaller story or in a bigger one.
I don't think endwalker was a failure...But post endwalker made me quit, I only returned every 3 major patches to see what'sup. I know They say "go play another game meanwhile" but what IF this is the game I want to play? Just frustration, I hope I don't get bored on Dawntrail...I did NOT like how the story of 24man raid ended because of how the story developed, I didn't care at all about pandemonium's story...So much I had to watch a summary and even then it's meh. I play for playing in party and story, but my party is in many games and this post patches, nah man. Playing endwalker on release was magical until the main story ended...Then basically my whole gameplay was criterion...Some savages because what's the point of getting that equipment other than to clear the same savages. Crystaline Conflict was the highlight of the expansion, 1st season was amazing and damn did I had to fight to reach Crystal rank back then...But after a while of just playing that, I got tired of it, not because of CC being bad (it's not, at all) but because that was mostly what I could do
Regarding Shadowbringers vs, post-EW, I think Shadowbringers was only so good because it was building off of a bunch of story threads that had been placed years earlier, often in patches that were considered pointless filler at the time. post-EW had none of that, rather I feel pretty strongly that it was more setup like the 3.2 and 3.4 story was before shadowbringers. I don't think it was bad at all. I also remember talking in discord groups straight after EW released about how obviously the community was going to hate the msq over 6.x because we've all become so accustomed since 5.0 to stories that were achieving greatness by burning through open plot threads, and we were almost out of plot threads to use. 6.x was what we absolutely needed in order to create more threads for the future of the game.
EW spoilers: Imho it was perhaps a mistake as well to focus purely on the next saga after main EW. Some earlier plot points could have been talked about for 1-2 patches atleast, specifically regarding Hydaelyns controversial role, add maybe some tension into the scions, debates about the Ascians destiny etc. Then you could intertwine it with the lead up to Dawntrail and whatever comes with 8.0. But just some ideas, overall I am good. I am glad that we got so much focus on the void tho, so a big role in a future expansion is basically set in stone.
It's almost impossible to end a long story and having it feel like the best thing ever. You see the struggle with so many longer novel series. I think for me it's less important if an ending is perfect, because I'm one of those that love the middle book, game or movie. I love world and character building. I think overall EW was not my fave story, but it gave me the most tears. It also forced me to look at my life a little bit, it was if I cried over myself and my fate there towards the end.
Stromblood Zenos felt like a Saturday morning cartoon villain to me, except maybe a bit darker. Endwalker did wonders for making him not necessarily relatable, but more understandable at least.
I think because Endwalker didn't have a relic zone series, it was one of the best expansions to catch up on Eureka and Bozja. So, for people like me who wanted to collect all that stuff, it was not only easier to do because more people were doing it, but I think it would've been very overwhelming if EW did have something like that. I absolutely didn't mind EW not having relic zones because Eureka and Bozja are still there. I completely understand someone's dissatisfaction to those who have already fully completed Bozja and Eureka, though.
Warriors of darkness were patch content for HW, but didn't become relevant until ShB. I have no doubt she will return in a big and relavent way. Not liking a character is completely fair, but I agree with preach that claiming them to be irrelevant to the story is doing the writing team of this 11 year story a disservice.
I will die on this hill that Zeno after Stormblood is THE WORST written character i have seen in not only FF 14 but in any RPG i have played. He could have been replaced by some no name character for the same effect. As for the story unless you call the first episode of a new show or the first few chapters of a new book/manga etc filler then dont call the patch msq filler because its the same thing. Seriously after how every small story thing has come back as something important in some way its stupid to call it filler.
I wonder. Is it because I played FF2 (FF4) back on the SNES in the day, and that experience, with that knowledge of the story, made 6.1 onwards more enjoyable. I know I was geeking the heck out when... Well. At the end of 6.5.
The eurka relics are my favorite. You progress them as you progress in the zones. And if you want to go back and farm more you are actively helping others with that content.
I love Eureka. I did it recently and it really gave me that old school MMO feeling. It was the first time I really made some friends in this game. And some of the shout chat conversations were so unhinged in the best way. I already got what I needed out of it, but I still go there to farm poetics, just because it's fun. Plus, you can make some extra gil sometimes.
There is a difference between setting up a story for a character and setting up an overarching story for several expansions ahead. Its apples and oranges.
I get where Zepla is coming from but there is a limit to what a short, unrelated story can achieve. After the events of the MSQ, you would need to go REAL heavy REAL fast to leave any sort of impact. Seto is a bad example, because yes it's impactul, but it's so impactful especially because it's so deeply embedded in the story. A story that, after the Endwalker MSQ is OVER. If you tell a happy-go-lucky Story, you kind of disrespect all the stuff the Character has just gone thorugh by doing a complete 180 on the overal tone. At the same time, if you do go heavy fast, players won't care. Because they are used to a completely different tempo. Nobody is emotionally going to invest in some side character they met 5 hours ago. They could just be an extra with a few voice lines for all they know. Genshin can do that because in all honesty, it's Story is immensely shallow. Sure, it has it's moments but can anyone point at a single friendly NPC that dies? As in actually dead and stays gone? Does anyone in Genshin truly suffer and is not miraculously ok 5 minutes after the big bad is gone? It's the most plain and cookie cutter of anime stories that there is. Taking 2 hours to focus on a single Character's backstory is deeply invested by their standards but also pointlessly shallow by FFXIV's.
As someone who played Genshin at launch and then quit less than a year later I never understood the stance that its story is good for those reasons and the other being that a good portion of story content is missing from the game due to their method of making entire sections temporary content for the FOMO if you are a caught up player.
I mentioned this elsewhere but I honestly think the discourse of whether or not MSQ post patch story was good has really boiled down to "is it filler" or "well it didn't shock me as much as main MSQ did" and I feel both perspectives I feel just don't broach the actual issue of quality within the MSQ post patch writing, which, I firmly believe is some of the worst we've had in the MSQ. What I am talking about is pure writing quality, be it dialogue, internal consistency, character consistency, plot contrivance, etc. The post MSQ patch story has so much, just, bad bad writing that it hurt my brain playing through it like no other story in FF did. I feel like it does major damage to Vrtra as a character, neutring him to the point where this old ancient dragon who has run a trade nation for the last 1000+ years doesn't know what a trade agreement is. Like seriously? Also the way characters would recite life lessons they learnt 5 minutes ago from you while staring at you "oh man a great friend of mine once told me X" just got painfully cringe after the 99th time it happened. Like, for me that level of quality being acceptable by the dev team as MSQ is really concerning, it is some tumblr tier fanfic writing that happened with the post match MSQ of 6.0.
@@ridleyroid9060 The problem with questioning if 6.x post msq, is filler or not is we dont' know at this time. That's a question that can only be answered with 7.x and beyond. Ever since arr, all post msq has been about driving the story forward in a way so it connects to the next expansion. Endwalker is the first that starts a new story here, one that has no strong connections to the previous. Zodiark and hydalyn are gone, the acians are gone, and the strife/conflict that was between the alliance and garlian empire is also gone. There can be a few things here and there like the emet leaks.Doc, but nothing that can drive an expansion really. Now visiting the other reflections well... that's a ton of content just waiting to burst open. There is still TONS of content from the other final fantasy games for them to use. Be it places, plots, characters etc. I don't think we'll know how important or there lack of Zero and the 13th reflection will be until we got more from dawntrail and w/e follows that. we didn't know how important Ardbert was to be as an example. Then in shadowbringers, he was literally the hero we needed.
@@LuminateTheWorld The thing I've noticed about FF14's storytelling is that they use a fairly scattershot approach for setup and foreshadowing. They clearly go in with a plan and don't just wing it but they also set up tons of things they CAN return to later but nobody's gonna be mad if they don't, Zero being one of those setups. The System works only with vast stories and deep lore but the idea works like this: You get to a point in the Story where you need something specific to happen. It barely matters what it is, you just need some outside influence to get the story to the next beat. So you go to the flowchart that has all the current loose ends on it and pick one that roughly fits. It doesn't need to check every box, as long as the themes and motivations fit. Take that loose thread, add a bit of talented Storywriting into it (Something we all know they are very capable of) and suddenly you have foreshadowed something years ago without ever planning out the specifics.
Im a midcore player. to me Hardcore starts at Endsinger Aria. I can can clear Minstrels Ballad Hydaelyn and Zodiark easy but just today spent two hours wiping on Endsinger.
savage is midcore content. As a midcore player myself, I also could clear Ucob UwU and TEA, it's not that hard, stop gatekeeping yourself just because you heard som rando on the internet said that it's hard.
@@pastaboy1338 Savage is the hardest difficulty for most raids so yes, it is hardcore, just because you don't find it hard doesn't change it being the highest difficulty. Ultimates are only a couple raids per expansion. Key part of midcore is the mid as in meaning middle difficulty.
@@pastaboy1338 It works both ways. People dont have to hear some random on the internet like yourself, saying it is easy, or some Ultimates being not that hard. Everyone has a different gauge on what is easy or difficult for them. My personal opinion, Savage is hardcore, while Ultimates, those being DSR and TOP, being Super Hardcore, unless you take a more casual approach to learning it over a longer period of time. But the point is, some Savage fights for me, were easy to learn, yet it was far more difficult for another, and vice versa.
Casual, midcore and hardcore, to me, is less about what you do but how you do it. Are you a hardcore player because you raid savage once every few weeks when your friends happen to be online? Not in my opinion. A hardcore player sets specific times to do specific things, often planning real life schedules around it, and really focuses on that specific thing. Midcore players to me, is someone who plays the game alot and want alot of stuff to do. My opinion is that EW patches lacked any long term content that justified paying a sub 😕
I for one would welcome it if we get more jobs and more new races each expansion, but that might be just me On the other hand, I don't mind the relics being easy to obtain, they're just catch-up content anyway... although I would probably shift them to their own currencies like in HW, where you could do specific quests each week for them, since tome grinding is very tedious. Where I do agree is that we really, really need a whole lot of midcore content, I have a similar feeling where the casual content is too easy breezy and ultimates are too sweaty for me. A nice middle ground would be very much appreciated
The relic problem was not a relic problem, it was Field Operation problem. All the relics are easy to get, you just do really boring things like fates or dungeons, for EW relic's currency you also did dungeons or raids. What was a problem was lack of alternative in form of Field Operation. If there was a new FO and you could get EW relic items from that it all would be fine. Lack of FO was the core of the issue. 6k of tomestones per weapon is a lot of tomestones, no one cared enough to actively grind them so it did not feel like a lot, but it's 40 Thaleia runs or 75 expert dungeons runs per weapon. The problem was not being able to jump in to Field Operation to grind the relic items. Lack of FO is the core issue.
idk why these ppl shitting on the game when they only played the game for 1 expansion and just went with the bandwagon when their game was getting roasted left and right 🤣🤣
I enjoyed Endwalker a lot, for me the story, and the world it takes place in is most important. I see that a lot of people put most weight on combat stuff, raiding, dungeons and big bosses, all that stuff means nothing to me, in fact combat is usually just a boring obstacle between point A and B, its a chore i do for something i want, but i have never felt the "accomplishment" in winning a fight.
Very sorry that you didn't enjoy the combat but it's a big part of the game and you're entitled to your opinions. You didn't enjoy it doesn't mean you should downplay what others enjoy so it's your loss, not our problem.
@@pastaboy1338At no point in my comment do i refer to anyone but myself. This is my opinion and i am entitled to it, if you don't like my thought on the game that IS your problem.
@Taron83 Ardbert said the same thing about himself so you are in good company there :). It was the calm after the storm, the memories shared with friends, and the adventuring he loved. Personally I also like a flashy boss fight, especially in 14 which ties our enemies into the story so perfectly, but to each their own!
The endwalker relic weapons were a joke. Past relic weapons also had steps that were basically tomestone grinds but it was literally 1500 tomes a level.
Zepla projecting herself on Mike for the same reactions/backlash, because she thinks Mike would say the same take is just ego...... Zepla's Title not clickbait at all and is an expression and not a question like Mike, big difference.
Mike also has a team who helps edit and organize his thoughts, while Zepla sort of does it live, stream-of-consciousness style. Now this isn't inherently a problem as each presenter has a different style and approach that they shine in. Mike is great at structured organized content in his videos and being great at impromptu sessions while live. However, when your points are organized, well-presented, and structured even the most critical will respect or at least acknowledge your side, while significantly unattuned in a stream-of-consciousness style of presentation and argumentation.
i don't get the complaint about leveling all the jobs only getting a ribbon. I mean you got a mount from going all the way to 80, now you only go 10 more levels and you want another mount? its gotta build up to it.
Also you got a mount from doing the Endwalker MSQ, like with every expansion except Shadowbringers (Maggie ARR, Midgarsormr HW, Yol StB, Argos EW). The Amaro mount was just shuffling off the most logical choice for an MSQ mount to a levelling reward.
The thing I don't get with relics is why aren't people looking for a system where the first relic involves a significant grind in a Bozja-style scenario, perhaps even a longer grind than those old zones, and then a much simpler grind for subsequent jobs. That seems like it would satisfy both ends of the spectrum - A still-significant but achievable grind for those people who main one or two jobs but aren't completionist, and still a bunch of extra stuff for the people who do want to be completionist, without making that feel impossible as the number of jobs grow.
We don't yet understand the implications of this post MSQ adventure yet. My *hope*, is that, like ARR, there's a lot of world-building going on that's going to pay off later.
I think the void stuff would have been more interesting if the side quest exploring the past of the 4 fiends was properly integrated in the MSQ- we explored the void more- and they committed harder to the idea of connecting the first and the thirteenth. Do it in a tangible way, not this kinda weak "oh we have this tech" way. Zero's intro was amazing and if we got more of that mystery and exploration, I think it would have been more compelling.
I think it was Mr Happy who said it but i like his take on relics where you have the alternate content to get the relics and those that dont do said content can get them from tomestones but it would take longer due to the caps. Basically why not both?
*other mmos* Players - "hey, it's been like three expansions can we get a new class please? " Dev - "No =)" *Ff14* YoshiP - "we are adding two new jobs come hell or high water! " Players - "dude chill' we're good!"
i'm sorry, there is zero shot that endwalker post-MSQ could have come close to SHB, with zero backstory to draw upon - to say anyting else is an affront to SHB and storytelling in general. you expect something on the level of SHB with no pre planning and setup at all? that's insane
i agree, it'll end up being something we look back on in 5 or 6 years with fondness of remembrance because we see how the warriors of darkness culminated in shadowbringers - they'll do it justice, just not yet.
I disagree, you can get something on the level of ShB in terms of writing with a brand new game or story. Just to clarify, when I say "on the level of ShB" I mean with the same writing quality. The quality dropped of a cliff for post MSQ of 6.X and it didn't need to, people are just willing to accept dogshit and make the discourse be "well you can't expect it to be like ShB because X Y Z". It makes me wonder: do people even understand what made ShB good?
"Did I have fun'' is honestly not the best question to ask to determine if it was a failure. I have a lot of fun raiding in Endwalker, I did it every week and even a week before DT I'm still running things for fun. Now the content outside of the raiding was pretty much dead on arrival to me. I hated the island, I didn't care for the variants (I loved the Criterions though), Eureka Orthos was good but not engaging enough to last.... So I pretty much did not have fun outside of raiding. "Did I have fun?" Gives two very different answers now depending on what you look at. Would honestly say that the existence of content is far more important than someone's personal enjoyment of the content. Some people hate raiding and won't even account for them. Some people loved the island and that made Endwalker for them.
Tbf I’m not mad with ffxiv for the patch content. I’m just enjoying playing other games and am just as hyped for Dawntrail as I was with Endwalker. What I am annoyed about is having to maintain the sub for a house whilst not caring heavily for the content in between patches.
They left way to many stuff out, i play different games as well as many other people do but that doesn't mean they can get a pass on this. No way, Endwalker felt so rushed with content and MSQ it was very very dissapointing.
@@alchemi8085 ordinarily I’d agree with you. However, I’ve invested months into maxing out my submarines in the workshop and if you leave your house and get a new one at any point you have to start again from scratch unlocking all the submarine routes and workshop recipes again. It’s a whole grind
I think I joined FF about the same time as Zep. It was literally the last few days of the first little ladies day, but I couldn't participate because I didn't have a high enough chara at the time. (also did not understand about events at that point) ended up having to buy the outdoor set for 1.2m on the marketboard.
from what i gathered from your end walker video is you have no idea what makes a story good and was just all over the place with preach he ended up making a well thought out video not also yeah liking a character is one thing claiming them to be irrelevant to the story is doing the writing team of this almost 11 year story now a disservice and just feels like an extremely out of touch opinion
The end of EW was a perfect opportunity to retire the scions so we can adventure with new people and put the old ones on Island Sanctuary for a dating sim
As someone who was doing the Savage content for most of Endwalker I would consider myself as high Midcore or lower Hardcore as a player and I STILL think the tomestone relics are a godsend. The old relic farms were way too mundane, boring, and took too long and even Bozja got old after 4 relics because the stupid RNG crystal drops from FATEs where you could grind FATEs for an entire day and barely have a quarter of the items you needed for just one step of your relic weapon due to terrible RNG, and I just don't agree with locking players out of literally every glowy and cool armor/weapon glamours. I would like to be able to have really cool armor and weapon glams for multiple job classes without having to sink 99% of my playtime into terrible RNG mechanics. I literally wouldn't have minded the Bozja grind at all, if it wasn't for the RNG FATE items, which completely killed that relic farm for me because it felt like I wasted an entire day of playing FFXIV doing FATEs and making very minimal progress, so if the item drops were guaranteed, it would still take a decent amount of time to get them, but not literally a whole day.
Why Zepla praise Genshin story so much? When i tried it out it was mid at best, it did nothing to me and said nothing, it was as shallow and empty as 4kidz era saturday morning cartoons.
The 2 min window may be boring but you have to think of the outcome on pf if its not there. Right now any job can be played without it you wont find a group as your fav job if it doesn't fall into the meta.
I disagree. Endwalker was the first time in a long time I've actually seen jobs being LOCKED OUT in PF in FF14 because they just didn't do enough damage. Redmage, Paladin, Bard, all of them struggle even to this day unfairly, and you are punished far more for death than before. Dying now, especially during the 2 minute window, means that you basically more than half your damage for the rest and as we saw very explicitly that made DPS checks feel unfairly difficult for some fights week 1. And that's even if you get everything done cleanly with no deaths or damage downs. In ShB this was rarely if ever the case. Titan, Shiva and Promise were all "get mech done clean, you get the clear". Back then a death was far more recoverable as well because of the varying burst windows. The skill floor may be higher, but ultimately this also had a positive effect on the job balance overall (despite how shaky summoner and ninja were at 5.0 launch).
@@ridleyroid9060 HW was significantly worse with locking out jobs and there are some who clamour for those days. In ARR sometimes WAR was excluded, SB and ShB you had jobs excluded because they didn't fit the 6-minute timer (when all the individual skills lined up). The devs are in a losing fight trying to fight toxicity, proper balance, and engaging balance right now.
I loved Endwalker. It's sad to hear people didnt enjoy it but annoying when people try to conflate their personal experience with the whole community. There is no reason to do that, just speak for yourself. I don't really know if I'm casual with the number of hours I play but I don't do savage or extreme because most people doing that contest seem to hate the game for one reason or another and don't seem happy, so why jump into it if I'm happy with the roulettes and solo activities I'm doing now? I liked Shadowbringers too but didn't really engage a whole lot with Bozja besides completing the story there. For me the gameplay is basically running around to a bunch of FATEs while waiting for critical engagement, which are mainly wipefests. At the time I remember endless complaints about it so it's interesting to hear so many people who enjoyed it now beyond a fast way to level up alt jobs.
Imagine going through all of the Marvel Movies just to get to End Game, and realizing Thanos wasn't the main villain. Just some random girl added in End Game after an hour into the movie is the real "big bad". Such a disappointment to me. I know I am in the minority though. I do really like the rest of the FFXIV story though.
Making relics casual friendly is just bad feels. Casual players don't need relics. And like OP stated when everyone has it from just grinding dailies makes it all mundane
Relics have always been for casuals as just another catch-up mechanism. HC players got their raid weapons, and got them always before the relic upgrades.
@@markup6394relic was never for casuals, especially the extremely toxic casuals who always cried they only play 2 hours a week but want all the cool looking stuffs spoonfeed up all the way to their ass. It's supposed to be time consuming. You want this cool glowy shit ? Put in some effort or stick to your tome/crafted weapons and fuck off.
lol. Relics are casual content. Always have been. They are there for glamour and for fun. They are useless as raid weapons because they are only good way after everyone who raids is done.
I played casually from open/closed beta Realm Reborn to the end of Endwalker. I played hardcore for a few months during Shadowbringers and never really cared about running the hardest dungeons or raids. I quit playing after Endwalker; for me, winning was max-levering every class, which I did. So i quit. I don't know what it would take to bring me back, honestly. Now, what I want out of an MMO is decent gameplay, and to be honest, MMO gameplay started to become a drag. So I guess if they made a whole new MMO because what I want out of the game isn't possible in the current game structure. What I want is to have fewer instances, and better action-based combat, along with their current storytelling. Simply, I got super bored of the game, and it hurts to admit this since I am such a huge fan of the game.
yes because there are many people who knew more than a 'mega casual' and want to deep dive into something which is more interesting rather than praising everything thrown on the plate. Glad you enjoyed the story.
i feel exactly the same way about endwalker as a midcore player. i like to push myself a little bit, try to do the best dps in the group and learn the fights and get stronger and stronger, but i also have a spontaneous lifestyle and it's hard to do the time commitment to be a hardcore player. world of warcraft's legion expansion was perfect for me, mythic keystone was actually fun back then and it was an activity i could just login and do for as long or as little as i want. i honestly think one of the biggest problems with wow and ffxiv is the lack of midcore content. mythic keys are so tedious now and hard to get into as a new character with no "score". i feel like, in terms of players who will play the game regularly, midcore players are the majority. midcore content and midcore players bridge the gap between casual and hardcore. in wow especially, the gap is absolutely massive. i tried to get into dragonflight but it's honestly so empty and devoid of anything for me to do specifically.
the thumbnail and title were because the videos didnt get enough views and the production value was high, so he had to change it afterwards 🤣🤣 he said so on stream haha
If you watch any Shonen Jump anime ever, you'll understand that post endwalker MSQ is filler between arcs. It's still a story, but it's not your main course.
It does seem funny to me that the people who are upset that the relic weapon for EW isn't a "grind" are usually the same people who didn't bother doing or hate the Hilde questline and complain about how it takes forever to get through it all. You know what else takes forever? All the other relic grinds, just a different box and bow.
where did you get the 'are usually the same people who didn't bother bla bla blah...' or you just assume it yourself? EW relic lacked a journey which was supposed to be there. HW or Eureka relic took like a week max for a job, not forever and they had a better and interesting journey.
@@pastaboy1338 in your opinion, sure... i hated Bosja and Eureka, i completed a weapon in each one and will hopefully never enter those zones ever again.
I completely respect zeplas critique of the patch content, but I do have to say it is unfair to compare the 6.0 story that had the emotional catharsis of a decade of buildup to what is essentially mini arc designed to setup story that likely won't come into play until at least 8.0 and then expect that mini arc to have the same impact 6.0 did. It's more fair to compare the 6.X story to A Realm Reborn.
obviously they can't do more midcore contents because the casuals will be crying, a lot. Need more casual contents to spoonfeed those babies because they help SE pay the bills.
@@pastaboy1338 There is a recent Square shareholder release in which they lay out a strategy in connecting all the games together. Say for example FFXIV grabs non-FF players to play FF games and then other Square Enix games, it isn't completely out of the question that this initiative is to grab as many people as possible into the series then to buy merchandise, games, etc.
I think the end of the story up through 6.0 is simply too good and too emotionally deep and connected. The new story had initially some potential but didn’t get going on a level enough to catch my interest in comparison. But it’s more that the prior overall story set the bar impossibly high.
I mostly only play for MSQ, side story content, and RP, to that end, 6.0 was amazing for me, brought me to tears numerous times, had me fully engaged, etc. I enjoyed the beginning of the patch story, felt like Zero was getting fleshed out. However, at the same time I felt like Vrtra's story fell short and the ending of Golbez was... awful. The whole Void and Fiends was great, but when it came to just Golbez, I felt like they knew he was going to be redeemed at the end, but struggled getting there.
I gotta say i wish we had the ability to unlearn jobs. I’ve leveled almost all combat jobs to 90 with 3 remaining at 80 and i’m actually kind of unhappy because i really dislike some of them, but i’ve started them and now feel compelled to finish leveling them and get decent gear on them just so that they can sit there completely untouched because I can’t stand see them on my job list at below max level.
Endwalker was always going to struggle with is post patch content, they have literally eaten up all their lore and now have to set up and entire new arc, every other expac was a continuation of the story so was more hype. Personally my issue with endwalker was that tanks are terrible to play, 90% of content you do as a warrior or you're just sufferring, then when you do extreme's you go Drk, Gnb, but all other content War only, tanks have been so miss managed and it makes the whole game suffer imo.
"Blue Mage was brought back" It never went anywhere though? It is like saying "Alliance raids were brought back!" Yeah no shit. I much preferred your video as you have actual experience with the game prior to the boom that brought all these Shadowbringer babies in. Back when expert roulette wasn't a coinflip. When we would get a Deep Dungeon AND Exploratory Zones AND limited job introductions AND a trial series AND 2 ultimates. But now we get Island Sanctuary where you run to a node and click it, and then you run to another node and click it, and then you go to the spreadsheet and set it up and call it "amazing" casual content.
the point of the expansion being more casual is the same reason WOW has become more casual. These games have become overly bloated with old systems old raids old dungeons old gear, etc. The best thing both franchises can do is clean the slate, simplify certain classes/diversify certain classes (example tanks shouldnt need multiple damage negating skills just make 1 maybe 2 skills for damage negating, this problem exists with dps, samuria/monk, need i say more?) People have been calling for just a fresh slate for wow for years. Get it back to players in all one place doing the same things otherwise it just feels like a single player experience, expanding the world is all well and good but not if you feel like youre the only one in it. Both franchises have tried making it more casual however they have only succeeded in making it boring for all players new and old.
yeah i kind adisagree with preach to when he said "they will go back an and it will be relevant again" simply because of how long we have been waiting for them to pay off the Gaia part of "this will be relevant again" and the only thing they actually did was a cutscene of her showing up and essentially saying "HEYA IM STILL HERE IN CASE YOU FORGOT"
The problem with Gaia is because she is part of a raid series, not the MSQ. People can't skip the MSQ like they can a raid series from previous expansions, so that is why they didn't have to include Gaia cause it would be awkward for those who didn't do EDEN. Like WTF is this goth chick???
@@pedromoreira6218 Probably the reason why they retroactively made Crystal Tower mandatory because people were getting confused about who Graha was and it sort of killed certain moments. Now they could go back and make the raid series mandatory, but I feel like it adds on to FFXIV's existing problem of that huge barrier to entry via MSQ.
Endwalker was NOT a failure. DO you know how many players play FF14? A lot. Its always busy, 24 hours a day seven days a week. There are bad spots and good spots like everything. People will love one thing and some may hate it. Overall I think it was a major success by every known measurable gaming metric that measures success. Have you been to a train lately? Jammed full of people max capacity! Its so busy even now. Yes its a major success.
21:30 l see now. I remember talking to seto and how he was able to meet aldbert again. I felt nothing. I guess the story is just not for me. But it is not the story that led to play this game to start with
I watched his vid & I agree with him! I no longer Raid but I do everything else in game especially the newest thing! I am hopeful for Dawntrail being an awesome Prologue to the next 10+ years of FFXIV! I left right before the end of 1.0 because I thought that the game was ending forever! I came back after hearing FFXIV was way better with Heavenward! I love all of FFXIV! I understand Endwalker & why we needed it! Shadowbringers is still my fav expansion! I cried allot during it but also did the same in Endwalker! I will always miss Hydaelyn, Emet, Hythlodaeus, Meteion, & yes Zenos too! It will be the journey & story that carry me forward on the Final Fantasy Road into Dawntrail & beyond! Thaliak wills I walk the land learning & growing! Here is to the Dawntrail Journey!!!
I think Zepla has no idea what makes a story good lol
"I spent 2 hours with a completely brand new cast of characters and it brought me to my knees". Only reason you cared about those characters had more than likely to do with other stories you already experienced in G.I. You can't care about characters if you don't first care about the world they are in, in most cases. Now, I can get emotional over a 20 second video of an animal being funny or other things, does it mean the STORY of that animal was good? no, it means I have experiences that relate me to something that had to do with that video. When it comes to a game story, you are very unlikely to have any relevance to the characters in that world unless you already have connection to that world.
The Seto thing was emotional not because of Seto, but because of The Warrior of Darkness that accompanied us, as we experienced his century of suffering of everyone blaming him, all the people who knew him dying out and him being forgotten, having Seto there to be the last remaining character that not only remembers him but appreciates what he went through was the emotional strike. TBH, you could have thrown any random character in the end of the game that still remembers and loves the warrior of darkness and it would still hit pretty well, only reason Seto probably hit even better is because he is an animal companion and that strikes more chords.
she did far better before trying to be "so in depth". Back when she did like all mounts and where to get them and similar. Shes way in over her head trying to analyze story, raids, or gameplay.
I think the Seto story was as powerful and emotionally resonant as it was because of the time we spent not with Seto, but with Ardbert. I don't think that story would have landed as strongly as it did had we not spent the whole expansion (and prior) with Ardbert and the Warriors of Darkness.
I think it goes even beyond that, since they didn't just spend time to let you know Ardbert, but connecting him very intimately with the WoL. Therefore making Seto's story, in a way, linked much more directly to the WoL story. If there wasn't that connection between our WoL and Ardbert, I don't think the impact would have been that strong either. It's all of these different stories building on top of eachother that create such an emotional tapestry.
I don't know how she can compare all of shadowbringers to just the endwalker post patch. Maybe post patch to post patch but even then that is hard cause all the post post patch with the exception of endwalker were pushing the story forward. Endwalker post patch was a full new story and to be honest they killed. New zones, new experiences, new people and challenges.
"to be honest they killed" - yeah, killed the quality of writing down to having an ancient dragon older than humanity irl not know what a trade agreement is despite running a merchant/trade nation for 1000+ years and also having the worst antagonist since Asahi. Heck at least they didn't try to make you feel bad for Asahi.
I think Preach has made the best video so far, it's not at all just outright shitting on Endwalker it's actually extremely accurate and very very balanced and fair review.
I absolutely love that Preach actually pays attention to story and understanding it, because so many don't and never get things for example not understanding post MSQ, yes it's a tribute to FFIV, I don't think there's anything wrong with the game making you want to play other Final Fantasy titles to understand references.
Really love his video.
yea like they should stop shoving their marketing bs down my throat to make me buy their other games as MSQ contents, leave it for events like 15 or 13. what about making more original contents for xiv instead?
You should quit the game then at this point
Zepla, I think the reason you got a lot of flack for trying to criticize Endwalker whereas Preach didn't is because he organized and presented his thoughts well. Your 'Endwalker is the worst expansion I've played' video was kind of all over the place and your frustration came across. Organizing/storyboarding a bit might help you Zep.
preach is just a better content creator overall.
Not to mention Zepla's gross use of clickbait title.
Preach made it seems like a question, and his video is structured to be more for discussion. His video is just way better.
I thought this was a pretty fair and balanced overview of EW. Side note on what Zepla said about Zenos…I do think they did a good job of fleshing him out more. Without spoiling 6.0, dialogue choice #1 is where it’s at. IYKYK.
They might as well have put that one and nothing else.
AHA! ACCEPTANCE AT LONG LAST!
No matter what Zep says trying to compare base endwalker to the post msq story is totally unfair. 10 years of building blocks went into EW and they wrapped it up pretty damn well. For the post msq you have NO clue how relevant or irrelevant it will be, and 14's track record shows they use every piece of the story buffalo eventually and not much goes to waste.
As long as they keep trying to make a game for people that don't play it, we'll keep having tons of story in a nebulous grey area that goes nowhere, just like the shb role quests and the bozja story, because how dare players have to play the game more than 2 days every 4 months to actually unlock the story
Hopefully the latest statements about taking risks again also applies to the writing
Zepla... Mike chose the path to Dawntrail going 'Uphill' not downhill! That symbolism of the game still going up, not down. I think that was Mike's point.
"I also don't agree, I also don't think you need to invest a lot of time in the story for it to be good."
I will say look at A Realm Reborn and how it is widely said to be the part you have to stomach through when you join XIV so that the story gets good. ARR is very well known as the barrier to entry, where people will quit the game before completing... Now look at ARR when you move into Endwalker and the vague plotpoints if ARR are now connected. The Heart of Sabik wasn't explained until the Endwalker Raids series but nobody really cared for it back in ARR/HW, only later on people started to go like ''oh remember that thing? Maybe it'll be important".
I'm definitely a "mid-core" player also and Endwalker was absolutely NOT a failure... I've been playing since early HW and the game has never been in better shape. The only thing that really needs a substantial improvement is the MSQ questing mechanics, for the most part. Less "take this over here, talk to this person, come back" repeat, etc.
The EW dungeons were amazing. The first expansion from first to last where not a single one missed. And the Alliance raid was fantastic. I didn't think EW could hold a candle to what Shadowbringers did, but for a great portion of it, it was even better. A few lowers lows, but the highs were higher than anything else. Honestly stumped what everyone's complaints are about.
EW was a huge win for me also. 10/10. Especially the Alliance raid being tied to the story of Eorzea this time. I also loved the new solo options in Deep Dungeon and Variant. The Variant especially had gorgeous design, great story, and even if it was tuned a bit on the easy side for a solo player, it was still visually surprising and fun. I don't even mind the fetch quest thing 14's MSQ does - for me it helps with the world-building as well as slowing down the pace so that the big events seem more important when they do arrive. It gives the illusion of time passing the way it does even in war time: "hurry up and wait" so to speak. And it keeps the WoL grounded to be hauling around doodads ;).
I like preach's video. It had a balanced take. Zepla's video felt more like a hate rant without even awknowledging the good that makes Endwalker special. Hope her emo meteion phase is over
Zepla like EW has really fallen off
Post EW is 100% a setup for the future, it was never meant to be a standalone story, it's a foundation for the future story just like Warriors of Darkness. And it does great job at being a setup.
The only problem with it is that Reaper's avatar is a char in the game (since Zero was Zenos' avatar) so if there is going to be any void fixing in the future that avatar thing has to be addressed.
Lmfao post endwalker is basically a trial story they stretched out. The pandemonium quests blew the msq out the water and you all know it.
@@cheesemuffin8129 You clearly missed the point Pandemonium is still closing threads of the past story while post-EW is setting up for the future, just like Warriors of Darkness arc was setting up for the Shadowbringers. We won't be seeing Zero or Goblin'deez in Dawntrail but the Void will will eventually play a huge role in the future, prob directly tied to ability to travel to other reflections that Emet mentioned in his monologue. It's either going to be Dawntrail-Meracydia-Reflections or Dawntrail-Reflections-Meracydia for the next expansions. The real question is if they will make Eden raid series mandatory just like they've done to lvl50 alli raids since Gaia is quite an important character being Oracle of Dankness tied to the void. Normal raids are not much different in difficulty than MSQ trials so it's not out of the question.
8.0 or 9.0 will be void expansion.
Ok, but outside of it being setup do you actually consider the post MSQ patches to be good in terms of writing tho? Because I feel that part of the discourse is like completely ignored everywhere I go.
@@ridleyroid9060 Well each Archfiend has pretty interesting, albeit short backstory. Goblin'dezz or actually Durante is a classic villain seeing what he does is for the greater good even if is going to be short term catastrophe.
Zero i think greatly represents the only alternative one can become in the void, you either become insane or devoid of purpose. You might think Zero is dull but Void itself is pretty fking dull place almost as dull as the Empty in the First. Zero is a real great-grandma and is a symbol of last remaining sanity in that miserable place, the sanity was protected by throwing away all emotions and attachments. The biggest problem with Zero is that she was Zenos' avatar which puts Reaper in questionable spot if void is ever fixed since Reaper's avatar is a char in the world.
I didn't like Goblin'deez changing sides, someone as committed as him would not give up on his grand plan so easily.
I think entire post-EW is leagues better than Warriors of Darkness in Source. WoD come out of nowhere, Uri fake out betrays you, WoD get manipulated by ascian while we know their world got blasted by one so why would they trust another. Bert from WoD along with his companions is completely pathetic while Bert in Shadowbringers is a great character. Since post-EW starts at way better place already i have no reason to think expansion, the payoff later will be worse (now Shadowbringers is way more than just Bert and friends so it still would need Emet-like villain which would be difficult)
Who would say playing game 8h a day like a job would be boring and repetitive
21:30 Disagreed - time spent with a character absolutely increases the amount of attachment. Have a look at other games: Let's take the Mass Effect trilogy for example. All three games introduce great characters - but the ones people care the most about (on average) are the squadmates from ME1: Garrus, Wrex, Tali and Liara (Ash and Kaidan not as much for several reasons).
There are of course many nuances, but all in all I'd absolutely say that the more time you spend with a character and a story the more attached you are - that's just a natural process.
I think for me personally, Endwalker wasn't a failure. I enjoyed the game well enough, and I don't regret spending my time and money on it like I did in the last 3 WoW expansions. It was just a letdown after Shadowbringers, and as someone who started in Stormblood, it felt like the game was on a constant upward trajectory. Endwalker was the reality check that helped temper my expectations for the future of this franchise. I look forward to Dawntrail, but I'm not attaching the same degree of expectations and excitement that I had ahead of Endwalker.
Preach's video included what a lot of the community has been voicing that I don't agree with. However, there are things that were brought up about the Bozja being a leveling zone and being tied to the ShB relic. I've heard this bit and want to bring up a few points. First, as someone that plays the games regularly, leveling every job to max level isn't actually that time consuming. I understand that it's a lot for casual players, but I got every job 80-90 within a month or 100 hours when trying. If I were to use this reason to play whatever content that they are asking for, it means that this content is dead to me after a month at most, which isn't significantly better than the Island and Criterion that people criticize for. Second, when someone talk about relic weapons and grinding as "achievements", I don't think they are talking about overcoming hardship and challenges or the effort and time spent. I think what we actually are talking about are how someone went through shit and boring content or at least content that one wouldn't normally be interested in doing. ARR relics are more revered because of how brain killing and annoying the books are to complete. I had fun going through Bozja the first time, but when ShB relic forced me to repeat Bozja FATES and DR, I didn't think of them as meaningful content; I thought of them as grinding through this mindless thing to get me the reward. I had to deal with the boredom by switching jobs, but even then it was making me fall asleep. To me, it's a very weird thing to intentionally ask for boring, mind-killing, or shit content. I'd rather they keep making content like Criterion and Island. I had fun the first time going through Island and figuring out how to optimize. I had fun learning and clearing Criterion. It's ok for these content to die just like how Savage raids and Ultimates "died" when I cleared them enough times.
You raise some excellent points. I find the Relic this time so much better - I can get Relics doing almost any normal activity I would be doing anyway for fun, rather than being forced into some grindy mass-zerging zone where I am half asleep in 10 minutes. I didn't do Criterion, but I did do Variant, and I really enjoyed those dungeons. The Island isn't really for me, but not everything has to be for me. People I know loved it, and that's great - it was *truly* optional. I have a similar outlook on content - I do things a few times - then I do them again maybe on alts - and I don't need it to last forever. I hated Bozja so much in fact that I actually went into PotD with its miserable drop rates instead - and then found out how much fun PotD can be on a solo class. So at least it drove me towards something interesting even if not intended. I want great content that will seem fresh until I've seen it a few times and FF14 rarely fails me.
11:05 Also Zepla, it was in the MAIN SCENARIO and not hidden in an optional or side content. It's cool to see them explore dark twists and craziness in side content like, for instance, Baelsar's kids. But to put it in the main scenario means everyone has to see it.
I don't really think you can consider yourself a "midcore player" if you play the game as a full-time job. Or infamously to a break from the game from fulltime progging ultimate raids.
I could see Zero in a similar role for the 13th as Crystal Exarch was for the 1st (or maybe even for all the remaining reflections.) Probably not for Dawntrail, but the next expansion or even the next one after that where Y'shtola and the alchemy crew have finally cracked the code to safely travel between the shards.
Yeah, the plot threads for a couple expansions are already set up after dawntrail. Confirmed by the devs and Yoshi himself. Zero is definitely making a comeback, more people loved than hated her as a character.
Note for the Preach video. At the end he is taking the high road as opposed the low road.
It really needs to be restated a lot for this community. Bozja and Eureka is awesome content, but most of the community doesn't engage with it. You guys keep saying they need to cater to their fans and the truth is they are and those of us who like grindy content are getting as much content as those major casual fans are.
I guess all I can say is go back and look at the community response. Eureka took years to gain major popularity and it still isn't, and bozja still has the second zone lacking in complete overall content.
I mean you can go look at the achievement records for a reality check as well. First clear of BA is at 24% globally then 7% for 5 clears, first clear CLL is at 67% globally at ten clears it's 31% globally, DR is at 64% globally and at ten clears it's 43% globally, Dalrida first clear is at 49% globally and for ten it is 22% . You can actually see how the grind drops off for the community at large and yet you want to pretend that the community wants these places? You can look at the skirmishes as well and the relic weapons counts. Furthermore, relics aren't even representative above 50% across all relic achievements.
For context: I am using the lalachievements as my primary examples and cross-referenced against ffxivcollect. What I found is that ffxivcollect has lower percentages overall or the same for certain achievements so I am sticking with lala to A) Give the higher points B) This isn't 100% accurate but I'd rather give higher points and be wrong then give lower points and be wrong. I probably agreed with most of Zelphas criticisms, but because it became more about "You have to either agree on everything I say or you're wrong" there was no point in giving consideration beyond a bad faith argument where she clearly felt burnt out. I can't tell someone how to feel and that isn't worth arguing about.
If you don't agree with anything I've said here that is fine. If you think you know how many people do this content then show me. I would love to shown that I am wrong here, but idk what this community thinks is reality.
You can continue to cry that you wanted this grindy content, but the if the overall community isn't playing it then it just isn't worth the time for the devs. Additionally I would love someone to point to me where relic grinds were not complained about for their grinds. I ask because people now like those old ones, but god help if you weren't also whining when they released. I agree that totem grinding is lame for a relic, but unless you have some constructive feedback that applies for the ff14 playerbase then you're just pissing in the wind.
Thank you!
This is so true!
“Sometimes it’s more easier to tell a compelling story when you’re limited by time”example Majoras Mask
😊😊😊 Oh, re: relics…the compromise is to have the first couple of weapon steps/phases be the tomestones, then let it get grindier from there.
It’s arbitrary. I, for one, am happy it was tome only.
Relics have always been FOMO. When in actuality the difficulty of the grind is child’s play at the end of the expansion. It’s artificially bloated to start to keep people online for them, but there has always been sections of dungeons and Fates. Everyone hated the Fate parts, and now we miss them. Dungeon grind sections (Aetheric Light) is basically a tome grind.
I for one see no difference, it’s just simplified.
@@crowevil4658
There's a clear difference between a currency grind and an actual quest.
My argument is the Manderville Relic is just a Tomestone Weapon with some cutscenes.
And that isn't bad. We should have uncapped Tomestone weapons in the future. Many people like them. Might be a good idea to continue.
But it really isn't the same as other Relics. We can't deny the loss of an exploration zone/relic specific content, and some people want to actually have a long term goal that isn't just a currency.
Even Yoshi P has admitted that, even though the Relic has a high participation rate, it was seen as "sloppy" by some who want something more involved. They seem to know a better balance can be found in DT.
@@yanipheonu all I’m saying is, since the days of yore, like ARR, we had Gerolt quests, a few instances, fates, and journals (complete dungeons and more fates).
Heavensward, we had fates, more fates, aetheric light quests (dungeon and raid grind).
Shadowbringers there it was tied to Eureka. Most players bitched about it because it was a new map with fates.
Shadowbringers had Bozja, which faced similar fate complaints initially, but DR and the other dungeon crawl were fairly well received along with the 12/tactics lore expansion within 14.
When you isolate BA and DR, those are the teams really playing with the formula and having some fun.
But I refuse to ignore that, other than that, it’s fates, bro. And each had their level of requiring dungeon grinds. And no matter what, the grind is severely nerfed near the end of the expansion to make the ordeal that more trivial.
All I’m saying is having tome grind is just the same as ARR and HW grind as before without the wrapper. That and people seem to hate on Hilde quests more than anything else. I for one had no complaints this round, I’ve been playing since 1.0. I welcome them cutting out the Bs. I also am super happy to see Manderville story continue. I didn’t need a journal, or pretty RNG stones from fates, or channeling Aether to make it feel rewarding. And at the end of the day, they gave us the same breadth of content that they always do, it hasn’t really changed (outside of cuts during Covid) they just spent effort on a deep dungeon that died quickly and criterion that most people hate. They even spent a crap ton of time creating and tuning Omega.
@@yanipheonu also, I’d hardly call Eureka or Bozja “exploration.” It’s linear, they are fate grinds. It loses its magic quickly when you have to bounce from one fate to another. The devs just packaged it in a way that makes players want to drink that poison - even though it failed with Diadem back in the day. They kept tweaking the formula until it stuck. I think the community just has mass memory loss because of the simplification of getting a relic with a Hilde pay wall.
@@crowevil4658 The biggest issue with the Hilde quests is they were required to get the weapon. If you hadn't done them either because you just didnt or started later like I did then it was really annoying being forced to do this massive quest chain. It was entertaining but me and probably many other people only did it because we were forced to which for some completely took away the potential fun or entertainment factor.
They cant really win with relic weapons. There's no clear solution to make everyone happy. According to zepla its not casual content so they don't even do it. That kind of confuses me because there's no reason not to except out of pure laziness in which case I would argue they should be ignored. You cant choose to not partake in something and then complain about it being unobtainable for you. You chose not to do it, hence why you dont have it.
A solution they could have is give maybe keep the tomestone relic weapon system but if you do specific difficulties of raids or trials then you get more appearances outside of the ones from tomestones. That way it rewards casuals by giving them a cool weapon that is BiS and people who do harder content by not just rewarding them with BiS weapons but also really cool and unique appearances.
The issue with my idea is we're back to the same problem where people who choose not to do that content will then bitch about the fact that they cant get the appearances.
The FFXIV devs don't leave things to coincidence. There is a reason why we did all that stuff in the Void, and it's more than just rescuing Azdaja and foiling Golbez's plans.
Just like how the Warriors of Darkness arc in post-HW eventually led up to Shadowbringers, I'm looking forward to seeing where this particular story goes.
lol.
I'm tired of the WoD comparison because that arc was:
1. Resolved in a grand total of 2 patches all put together while other stuff was happening
2. Written far better than post MSQ of 6.X. It not only made you understand why the WoD are the way they are, what they are trying to do, it also resolved Uriangers by then long ongoing traitor arc, it also brought Minfilia back shortly and overall it was a good setup to the saga as a whole. Also was used as a good way of explaining how the eyes were picked up from the aether abyss (which could have been accomplished in many ways but tying the WOD into that makes them seem less filler-y than people claim for that arc in its contemporary form).
The Post MSQ patch of 6.X was way too long, way too contrived, again thrust us into a world ending threat of mass proportion where we killed an ancient evil god to prevent a calamity (after all sources claimd the stakes would be down from 6.0) and not to mention it did severe damage to the character of Vritra. It also did nothing with the whole "scions are dissolved" bs, when we are back together immediately. I mean sure that's to be expected but could they have pretended to try?
I could go on, but I seriously hope that people learn to look at FF14 with a bit more scrutiny, whether its post MSQ or main MSQ. Bad writing is bad writing, doesn't matter if it's in a smaller story or in a bigger one.
I don't think endwalker was a failure...But post endwalker made me quit, I only returned every 3 major patches to see what'sup.
I know They say "go play another game meanwhile" but what IF this is the game I want to play? Just frustration, I hope I don't get bored on Dawntrail...I did NOT like how the story of 24man raid ended because of how the story developed, I didn't care at all about pandemonium's story...So much I had to watch a summary and even then it's meh.
I play for playing in party and story, but my party is in many games and this post patches, nah man. Playing endwalker on release was magical until the main story ended...Then basically my whole gameplay was criterion...Some savages because what's the point of getting that equipment other than to clear the same savages.
Crystaline Conflict was the highlight of the expansion, 1st season was amazing and damn did I had to fight to reach Crystal rank back then...But after a while of just playing that, I got tired of it, not because of CC being bad (it's not, at all) but because that was mostly what I could do
Regarding Shadowbringers vs, post-EW, I think Shadowbringers was only so good because it was building off of a bunch of story threads that had been placed years earlier, often in patches that were considered pointless filler at the time. post-EW had none of that, rather I feel pretty strongly that it was more setup like the 3.2 and 3.4 story was before shadowbringers.
I don't think it was bad at all. I also remember talking in discord groups straight after EW released about how obviously the community was going to hate the msq over 6.x because we've all become so accustomed since 5.0 to stories that were achieving greatness by burning through open plot threads, and we were almost out of plot threads to use. 6.x was what we absolutely needed in order to create more threads for the future of the game.
EW spoilers:
Imho it was perhaps a mistake as well to focus purely on the next saga after main EW. Some earlier plot points could have been talked about for 1-2 patches atleast, specifically regarding Hydaelyns controversial role, add maybe some tension into the scions, debates about the Ascians destiny etc. Then you could intertwine it with the lead up to Dawntrail and whatever comes with 8.0. But just some ideas, overall I am good. I am glad that we got so much focus on the void tho, so a big role in a future expansion is basically set in stone.
Endwalker was great, not the same level of Shadowbringer. But it was a satisfyingly great end to the Story.
It's almost impossible to end a long story and having it feel like the best thing ever. You see the struggle with so many longer novel series. I think for me it's less important if an ending is perfect, because I'm one of those that love the middle book, game or movie. I love world and character building.
I think overall EW was not my fave story, but it gave me the most tears. It also forced me to look at my life a little bit, it was if I cried over myself and my fate there towards the end.
Stromblood Zenos felt like a Saturday morning cartoon villain to me, except maybe a bit darker. Endwalker did wonders for making him not necessarily relatable, but more understandable at least.
I think because Endwalker didn't have a relic zone series, it was one of the best expansions to catch up on Eureka and Bozja. So, for people like me who wanted to collect all that stuff, it was not only easier to do because more people were doing it, but I think it would've been very overwhelming if EW did have something like that. I absolutely didn't mind EW not having relic zones because Eureka and Bozja are still there. I completely understand someone's dissatisfaction to those who have already fully completed Bozja and Eureka, though.
Job quests died for the addition of new jobs, so the death of relics as we knew them isn't that unexpected to me.
How casual would you need to be for the tomestones for the relics to feel like a challenge? Are you using the game as a chat program? 😵💫
I'm pretty sure this is Zepla HQ and not ZepLIVE
RUclips needs to clear this up
Maybe it's an A.I
pretty sure this is her vod channel
@@marslara *Panicked* There's just too many!
The "burn out the bad" part was even darker than Garlemald imo. That was horrifying to me.
Warriors of darkness were patch content for HW, but didn't become relevant until ShB. I have no doubt she will return in a big and relavent way.
Not liking a character is completely fair, but I agree with preach that claiming them to be irrelevant to the story is doing the writing team of this 11 year story a disservice.
I will die on this hill that Zeno after Stormblood is THE WORST written character i have seen in not only FF 14 but in any RPG i have played. He could have been replaced by some no name character for the same effect. As for the story unless you call the first episode of a new show or the first few chapters of a new book/manga etc filler then dont call the patch msq filler because its the same thing. Seriously after how every small story thing has come back as something important in some way its stupid to call it filler.
I didn’t think Meteion would have been the main antagonist
I wonder. Is it because I played FF2 (FF4) back on the SNES in the day, and that experience, with that knowledge of the story, made 6.1 onwards more enjoyable. I know I was geeking the heck out when... Well. At the end of 6.5.
The eurka relics are my favorite. You progress them as you progress in the zones. And if you want to go back and farm more you are actively helping others with that content.
I love Eureka. I did it recently and it really gave me that old school MMO feeling. It was the first time I really made some friends in this game. And some of the shout chat conversations were so unhinged in the best way. I already got what I needed out of it, but I still go there to farm poetics, just because it's fun. Plus, you can make some extra gil sometimes.
There is a difference between setting up a story for a character and setting up an overarching story for several expansions ahead. Its apples and oranges.
I get where Zepla is coming from but there is a limit to what a short, unrelated story can achieve. After the events of the MSQ, you would need to go REAL heavy REAL fast to leave any sort of impact. Seto is a bad example, because yes it's impactul, but it's so impactful especially because it's so deeply embedded in the story. A story that, after the Endwalker MSQ is OVER.
If you tell a happy-go-lucky Story, you kind of disrespect all the stuff the Character has just gone thorugh by doing a complete 180 on the overal tone. At the same time, if you do go heavy fast, players won't care. Because they are used to a completely different tempo. Nobody is emotionally going to invest in some side character they met 5 hours ago. They could just be an extra with a few voice lines for all they know.
Genshin can do that because in all honesty, it's Story is immensely shallow. Sure, it has it's moments but can anyone point at a single friendly NPC that dies? As in actually dead and stays gone? Does anyone in Genshin truly suffer and is not miraculously ok 5 minutes after the big bad is gone? It's the most plain and cookie cutter of anime stories that there is. Taking 2 hours to focus on a single Character's backstory is deeply invested by their standards but also pointlessly shallow by FFXIV's.
As someone who played Genshin at launch and then quit less than a year later I never understood the stance that its story is good for those reasons and the other being that a good portion of story content is missing from the game due to their method of making entire sections temporary content for the FOMO if you are a caught up player.
I mentioned this elsewhere but I honestly think the discourse of whether or not MSQ post patch story was good has really boiled down to "is it filler" or "well it didn't shock me as much as main MSQ did" and I feel both perspectives I feel just don't broach the actual issue of quality within the MSQ post patch writing, which, I firmly believe is some of the worst we've had in the MSQ.
What I am talking about is pure writing quality, be it dialogue, internal consistency, character consistency, plot contrivance, etc. The post MSQ patch story has so much, just, bad bad writing that it hurt my brain playing through it like no other story in FF did. I feel like it does major damage to Vrtra as a character, neutring him to the point where this old ancient dragon who has run a trade nation for the last 1000+ years doesn't know what a trade agreement is. Like seriously? Also the way characters would recite life lessons they learnt 5 minutes ago from you while staring at you "oh man a great friend of mine once told me X" just got painfully cringe after the 99th time it happened.
Like, for me that level of quality being acceptable by the dev team as MSQ is really concerning, it is some tumblr tier fanfic writing that happened with the post match MSQ of 6.0.
@@ridleyroid9060 The problem with questioning if 6.x post msq, is filler or not is we dont' know at this time. That's a question that can only be answered with 7.x and beyond. Ever since arr, all post msq has been about driving the story forward in a way so it connects to the next expansion. Endwalker is the first that starts a new story here, one that has no strong connections to the previous. Zodiark and hydalyn are gone, the acians are gone, and the strife/conflict that was between the alliance and garlian empire is also gone. There can be a few things here and there like the emet leaks.Doc, but nothing that can drive an expansion really. Now visiting the other reflections well... that's a ton of content just waiting to burst open. There is still TONS of content from the other final fantasy games for them to use. Be it places, plots, characters etc.
I don't think we'll know how important or there lack of Zero and the 13th reflection will be until we got more from dawntrail and w/e follows that. we didn't know how important Ardbert was to be as an example. Then in shadowbringers, he was literally the hero we needed.
@@LuminateTheWorld The thing I've noticed about FF14's storytelling is that they use a fairly scattershot approach for setup and foreshadowing.
They clearly go in with a plan and don't just wing it but they also set up tons of things they CAN return to later but nobody's gonna be mad if they don't, Zero being one of those setups.
The System works only with vast stories and deep lore but the idea works like this:
You get to a point in the Story where you need something specific to happen. It barely matters what it is, you just need some outside influence to get the story to the next beat. So you go to the flowchart that has all the current loose ends on it and pick one that roughly fits. It doesn't need to check every box, as long as the themes and motivations fit.
Take that loose thread, add a bit of talented Storywriting into it (Something we all know they are very capable of) and suddenly you have foreshadowed something years ago without ever planning out the specifics.
Zep if you call yourself “a midcore player” when you do savage and ultimate raids, wtf is hardcore??
Im a midcore player. to me Hardcore starts at Endsinger Aria. I can can clear Minstrels Ballad Hydaelyn and Zodiark easy but just today spent two hours wiping on Endsinger.
savage is midcore content. As a midcore player myself, I also could clear Ucob UwU and TEA, it's not that hard, stop gatekeeping yourself just because you heard som rando on the internet said that it's hard.
@@pastaboy1338 Savage is the hardest difficulty for most raids so yes, it is hardcore, just because you don't find it hard doesn't change it being the highest difficulty. Ultimates are only a couple raids per expansion. Key part of midcore is the mid as in meaning middle difficulty.
@@pastaboy1338 It works both ways. People dont have to hear some random on the internet like yourself, saying it is easy, or some Ultimates being not that hard. Everyone has a different gauge on what is easy or difficult for them. My personal opinion, Savage is hardcore, while Ultimates, those being DSR and TOP, being Super Hardcore, unless you take a more casual approach to learning it over a longer period of time.
But the point is, some Savage fights for me, were easy to learn, yet it was far more difficult for another, and vice versa.
Casual, midcore and hardcore, to me, is less about what you do but how you do it. Are you a hardcore player because you raid savage once every few weeks when your friends happen to be online? Not in my opinion. A hardcore player sets specific times to do specific things, often planning real life schedules around it, and really focuses on that specific thing. Midcore players to me, is someone who plays the game alot and want alot of stuff to do. My opinion is that EW patches lacked any long term content that justified paying a sub 😕
Preach is an international treasure
I for one would welcome it if we get more jobs and more new races each expansion, but that might be just me
On the other hand, I don't mind the relics being easy to obtain, they're just catch-up content anyway... although I would probably shift them to their own currencies like in HW, where you could do specific quests each week for them, since tome grinding is very tedious. Where I do agree is that we really, really need a whole lot of midcore content, I have a similar feeling where the casual content is too easy breezy and ultimates are too sweaty for me. A nice middle ground would be very much appreciated
The relic problem was not a relic problem, it was Field Operation problem. All the relics are easy to get, you just do really boring things like fates or dungeons, for EW relic's currency you also did dungeons or raids. What was a problem was lack of alternative in form of Field Operation. If there was a new FO and you could get EW relic items from that it all would be fine. Lack of FO was the core of the issue.
6k of tomestones per weapon is a lot of tomestones, no one cared enough to actively grind them so it did not feel like a lot, but it's 40 Thaleia runs or 75 expert dungeons runs per weapon. The problem was not being able to jump in to Field Operation to grind the relic items. Lack of FO is the core issue.
How I feel about Endwalker: imagine if you just got done seeing LoTR Return of the King and then someone says “wait but there’s more”
idk why these ppl shitting on the game when they only played the game for 1 expansion and just went with the bandwagon when their game was getting roasted left and right 🤣🤣
I enjoyed Endwalker a lot, for me the story, and the world it takes place in is most important. I see that a lot of people put most weight on combat stuff, raiding, dungeons and big bosses, all that stuff means nothing to me, in fact combat is usually just a boring obstacle between point A and B, its a chore i do for something i want, but i have never felt the "accomplishment" in winning a fight.
Very sorry that you didn't enjoy the combat but it's a big part of the game and you're entitled to your opinions. You didn't enjoy it doesn't mean you should downplay what others enjoy so it's your loss, not our problem.
@@pastaboy1338At no point in my comment do i refer to anyone but myself. This is my opinion and i am entitled to it, if you don't like my thought on the game that IS your problem.
@Taron83 Ardbert said the same thing about himself so you are in good company there :). It was the calm after the storm, the memories shared with friends, and the adventuring he loved. Personally I also like a flashy boss fight, especially in 14 which ties our enemies into the story so perfectly, but to each their own!
The endwalker relic weapons were a joke. Past relic weapons also had steps that were basically tomestone grinds but it was literally 1500 tomes a level.
sorry Yoshi P needed to please the casual crowd to help SE pay for their failed projects. We'll see more of that shit in the future.
Zepla projecting herself on Mike for the same reactions/backlash, because she thinks Mike would say the same take is just ego......
Zepla's Title not clickbait at all and is an expression and not a question like Mike, big difference.
Mike also has a team who helps edit and organize his thoughts, while Zepla sort of does it live, stream-of-consciousness style. Now this isn't inherently a problem as each presenter has a different style and approach that they shine in. Mike is great at structured organized content in his videos and being great at impromptu sessions while live. However, when your points are organized, well-presented, and structured even the most critical will respect or at least acknowledge your side, while significantly unattuned in a stream-of-consciousness style of presentation and argumentation.
i don't get the complaint about leveling all the jobs only getting a ribbon. I mean you got a mount from going all the way to 80, now you only go 10 more levels and you want another mount? its gotta build up to it.
Also you got a mount from doing the Endwalker MSQ, like with every expansion except Shadowbringers (Maggie ARR, Midgarsormr HW, Yol StB, Argos EW).
The Amaro mount was just shuffling off the most logical choice for an MSQ mount to a levelling reward.
The thing I don't get with relics is why aren't people looking for a system where the first relic involves a significant grind in a Bozja-style scenario, perhaps even a longer grind than those old zones, and then a much simpler grind for subsequent jobs. That seems like it would satisfy both ends of the spectrum - A still-significant but achievable grind for those people who main one or two jobs but aren't completionist, and still a bunch of extra stuff for the people who do want to be completionist, without making that feel impossible as the number of jobs grow.
We don't yet understand the implications of this post MSQ adventure yet. My *hope*, is that, like ARR, there's a lot of world-building going on that's going to pay off later.
I think the void stuff would have been more interesting if the side quest exploring the past of the 4 fiends was properly integrated in the MSQ- we explored the void more- and they committed harder to the idea of connecting the first and the thirteenth. Do it in a tangible way, not this kinda weak "oh we have this tech" way. Zero's intro was amazing and if we got more of that mystery and exploration, I think it would have been more compelling.
I'm surprised Zepla, the heart of the community, feels so out of touch for me. I guess I've outgrown her silly opinions
I think it was Mr Happy who said it but i like his take on relics where you have the alternate content to get the relics and those that dont do said content can get them from tomestones but it would take longer due to the caps. Basically why not both?
*other mmos*
Players - "hey, it's been like three expansions can we get a new class please? "
Dev - "No =)"
*Ff14*
YoshiP - "we are adding two new jobs come hell or high water! "
Players - "dude chill' we're good!"
i'm sorry, there is zero shot that endwalker post-MSQ could have come close to SHB, with zero backstory to draw upon - to say anyting else is an affront to SHB and storytelling in general. you expect something on the level of SHB with no pre planning and setup at all? that's insane
i agree, it'll end up being something we look back on in 5 or 6 years with fondness of remembrance because we see how the warriors of darkness culminated in shadowbringers - they'll do it justice, just not yet.
I disagree, you can get something on the level of ShB in terms of writing with a brand new game or story. Just to clarify, when I say "on the level of ShB" I mean with the same writing quality. The quality dropped of a cliff for post MSQ of 6.X and it didn't need to, people are just willing to accept dogshit and make the discourse be "well you can't expect it to be like ShB because X Y Z".
It makes me wonder: do people even understand what made ShB good?
"Did I have fun'' is honestly not the best question to ask to determine if it was a failure. I have a lot of fun raiding in Endwalker, I did it every week and even a week before DT I'm still running things for fun. Now the content outside of the raiding was pretty much dead on arrival to me. I hated the island, I didn't care for the variants (I loved the Criterions though), Eureka Orthos was good but not engaging enough to last.... So I pretty much did not have fun outside of raiding. "Did I have fun?" Gives two very different answers now depending on what you look at. Would honestly say that the existence of content is far more important than someone's personal enjoyment of the content. Some people hate raiding and won't even account for them. Some people loved the island and that made Endwalker for them.
Tbf I’m not mad with ffxiv for the patch content. I’m just enjoying playing other games and am just as hyped for Dawntrail as I was with Endwalker. What I am annoyed about is having to maintain the sub for a house whilst not caring heavily for the content in between patches.
I understand that, but thats really to help cull the number of alt, shell free companies houses designed to farm Gil for people.
They left way to many stuff out, i play different games as well as many other people do but that doesn't mean they can get a pass on this. No way, Endwalker felt so rushed with content and MSQ it was very very dissapointing.
Just unsub. Having a house is no big deal.
@@alchemi8085 ordinarily I’d agree with you. However, I’ve invested months into maxing out my submarines in the workshop and if you leave your house and get a new one at any point you have to start again from scratch unlocking all the submarine routes and workshop recipes again. It’s a whole grind
Garlemald reminded me of what happened midgame FF VI, I am not sure which is darker but FF VI reminded me of a Thanos snap.
I just finished EW and loved it
I think I joined FF about the same time as Zep.
It was literally the last few days of the first little ladies day, but I couldn't participate because I didn't have
a high enough chara at the time. (also did not understand about events at that point)
ended up having to buy the outdoor set for 1.2m on the marketboard.
from what i gathered from your end walker video is you have no idea what makes a story good and was just all over the place with preach he ended up making a well thought out video not also yeah liking a character is one thing claiming them to be irrelevant to the story is doing the writing team of this almost 11 year story now a disservice and just feels like an extremely out of touch opinion
The end of EW was a perfect opportunity to retire the scions so we can adventure with new people and put the old ones on Island Sanctuary for a dating sim
Would be nice to even things out as Gridanians already lost both their starter scions from the main crew.
As someone who was doing the Savage content for most of Endwalker I would consider myself as high Midcore or lower Hardcore as a player and I STILL think the tomestone relics are a godsend. The old relic farms were way too mundane, boring, and took too long and even Bozja got old after 4 relics because the stupid RNG crystal drops from FATEs where you could grind FATEs for an entire day and barely have a quarter of the items you needed for just one step of your relic weapon due to terrible RNG, and I just don't agree with locking players out of literally every glowy and cool armor/weapon glamours. I would like to be able to have really cool armor and weapon glams for multiple job classes without having to sink 99% of my playtime into terrible RNG mechanics. I literally wouldn't have minded the Bozja grind at all, if it wasn't for the RNG FATE items, which completely killed that relic farm for me because it felt like I wasted an entire day of playing FFXIV doing FATEs and making very minimal progress, so if the item drops were guaranteed, it would still take a decent amount of time to get them, but not literally a whole day.
Why Zepla praise Genshin story so much? When i tried it out it was mid at best, it did nothing to me and said nothing, it was as shallow and empty as 4kidz era saturday morning cartoons.
The 2 min window may be boring but you have to think of the outcome on pf if its not there. Right now any job can be played without it you wont find a group as your fav job if it doesn't fall into the meta.
I disagree. Endwalker was the first time in a long time I've actually seen jobs being LOCKED OUT in PF in FF14 because they just didn't do enough damage. Redmage, Paladin, Bard, all of them struggle even to this day unfairly, and you are punished far more for death than before. Dying now, especially during the 2 minute window, means that you basically more than half your damage for the rest and as we saw very explicitly that made DPS checks feel unfairly difficult for some fights week 1. And that's even if you get everything done cleanly with no deaths or damage downs.
In ShB this was rarely if ever the case. Titan, Shiva and Promise were all "get mech done clean, you get the clear". Back then a death was far more recoverable as well because of the varying burst windows. The skill floor may be higher, but ultimately this also had a positive effect on the job balance overall (despite how shaky summoner and ninja were at 5.0 launch).
@@ridleyroid9060 HW was significantly worse with locking out jobs and there are some who clamour for those days. In ARR sometimes WAR was excluded, SB and ShB you had jobs excluded because they didn't fit the 6-minute timer (when all the individual skills lined up). The devs are in a losing fight trying to fight toxicity, proper balance, and engaging balance right now.
Zepla still hasn't recovered from the backlash of her meltdown lmfao.
I loved Endwalker. It's sad to hear people didnt enjoy it but annoying when people try to conflate their personal experience with the whole community. There is no reason to do that, just speak for yourself.
I don't really know if I'm casual with the number of hours I play but I don't do savage or extreme because most people doing that contest seem to hate the game for one reason or another and don't seem happy, so why jump into it if I'm happy with the roulettes and solo activities I'm doing now?
I liked Shadowbringers too but didn't really engage a whole lot with Bozja besides completing the story there. For me the gameplay is basically running around to a bunch of FATEs while waiting for critical engagement, which are mainly wipefests. At the time I remember endless complaints about it so it's interesting to hear so many people who enjoyed it now beyond a fast way to level up alt jobs.
EW was fun! Added bonus: No mind-numbing Bozja :)
Imagine going through all of the Marvel Movies just to get to End Game, and realizing Thanos wasn't the main villain. Just some random girl added in End Game after an hour into the movie is the real "big bad". Such a disappointment to me. I know I am in the minority though. I do really like the rest of the FFXIV story though.
Making relics casual friendly is just bad feels. Casual players don't need relics. And like OP stated when everyone has it from just grinding dailies makes it all mundane
Relics have always been for casuals as just another catch-up mechanism. HC players got their raid weapons, and got them always before the relic upgrades.
@@markup6394relic was never for casuals, especially the extremely toxic casuals who always cried they only play 2 hours a week but want all the cool looking stuffs spoonfeed up all the way to their ass. It's supposed to be time consuming. You want this cool glowy shit ? Put in some effort or stick to your tome/crafted weapons and fuck off.
lol. Relics are casual content. Always have been. They are there for glamour and for fun. They are useless as raid weapons because they are only good way after everyone who raids is done.
I played casually from open/closed beta Realm Reborn to the end of Endwalker. I played hardcore for a few months during Shadowbringers and never really cared about running the hardest dungeons or raids. I quit playing after Endwalker; for me, winning was max-levering every class, which I did. So i quit. I don't know what it would take to bring me back, honestly. Now, what I want out of an MMO is decent gameplay, and to be honest, MMO gameplay started to become a drag. So I guess if they made a whole new MMO because what I want out of the game isn't possible in the current game structure. What I want is to have fewer instances, and better action-based combat, along with their current storytelling. Simply, I got super bored of the game, and it hurts to admit this since I am such a huge fan of the game.
Mega story casual. Absolutly love endwalker. Like i was so surprised ppl where evenn having this disscusion.
yes because there are many people who knew more than a 'mega casual' and want to deep dive into something which is more interesting rather than praising everything thrown on the plate. Glad you enjoyed the story.
i feel exactly the same way about endwalker as a midcore player. i like to push myself a little bit, try to do the best dps in the group and learn the fights and get stronger and stronger, but i also have a spontaneous lifestyle and it's hard to do the time commitment to be a hardcore player. world of warcraft's legion expansion was perfect for me, mythic keystone was actually fun back then and it was an activity i could just login and do for as long or as little as i want. i honestly think one of the biggest problems with wow and ffxiv is the lack of midcore content. mythic keys are so tedious now and hard to get into as a new character with no "score". i feel like, in terms of players who will play the game regularly, midcore players are the majority. midcore content and midcore players bridge the gap between casual and hardcore. in wow especially, the gap is absolutely massive. i tried to get into dragonflight but it's honestly so empty and devoid of anything for me to do specifically.
the thumbnail and title were because the videos didnt get enough views and the production value was high, so he had to change it afterwards 🤣🤣 he said so on stream haha
They were trying to appease the Eve Online players with all those spreadsheets.
That wasn't you up on the balcony was it ...... I couldn't hear her "phriend"
If you watch any Shonen Jump anime ever, you'll understand that post endwalker MSQ is filler between arcs. It's still a story, but it's not your main course.
It does seem funny to me that the people who are upset that the relic weapon for EW isn't a "grind" are usually the same people who didn't bother doing or hate the Hilde questline and complain about how it takes forever to get through it all. You know what else takes forever? All the other relic grinds, just a different box and bow.
where did you get the 'are usually the same people who didn't bother bla bla blah...' or you just assume it yourself? EW relic lacked a journey which was supposed to be there. HW or Eureka relic took like a week max for a job, not forever and they had a better and interesting journey.
@@pastaboy1338 in your opinion, sure... i hated Bosja and Eureka, i completed a weapon in each one and will hopefully never enter those zones ever again.
hahaha I was there at the end of 1.0! I have a back tat in game and everything!
I completely respect zeplas critique of the patch content, but I do have to say it is unfair to compare the 6.0 story that had the emotional catharsis of a decade of buildup to what is essentially mini arc designed to setup story that likely won't come into play until at least 8.0 and then expect that mini arc to have the same impact 6.0 did.
It's more fair to compare the 6.X story to A Realm Reborn.
There is no such thing as midcore, or you're a casual player or you''re a hardcore player. People who say they're midcore are probably casuals.
They should look at GW2 for midcore content. You never run out of shit to do in that one.
obviously they can't do more midcore contents because the casuals will be crying, a lot. Need more casual contents to spoonfeed those babies because they help SE pay the bills.
@@pastaboy1338 There is a recent Square shareholder release in which they lay out a strategy in connecting all the games together. Say for example FFXIV grabs non-FF players to play FF games and then other Square Enix games, it isn't completely out of the question that this initiative is to grab as many people as possible into the series then to buy merchandise, games, etc.
@@pastaboy1338 You okay, bro?
I think the end of the story up through 6.0 is simply too good and too emotionally deep and connected. The new story had initially some potential but didn’t get going on a level enough to catch my interest in comparison. But it’s more that the prior overall story set the bar impossibly high.
I mostly only play for MSQ, side story content, and RP, to that end, 6.0 was amazing for me, brought me to tears numerous times, had me fully engaged, etc. I enjoyed the beginning of the patch story, felt like Zero was getting fleshed out. However, at the same time I felt like Vrtra's story fell short and the ending of Golbez was... awful. The whole Void and Fiends was great, but when it came to just Golbez, I felt like they knew he was going to be redeemed at the end, but struggled getting there.
I gotta say i wish we had the ability to unlearn jobs. I’ve leveled almost all combat jobs to 90 with 3 remaining at 80 and i’m actually kind of unhappy because i really dislike some of them, but i’ve started them and now feel compelled to finish leveling them and get decent gear on them just so that they can sit there completely untouched because I can’t stand see them on my job list at below max level.
Hummmm.....what?
I can't believe fake Zepla IS AT IT AGAIN!
A relic grind for classes you desire is a much better grind than "maxing everyone job" I have zero interest in going full.max jobs
Endwalker was always going to struggle with is post patch content, they have literally eaten up all their lore and now have to set up and entire new arc, every other expac was a continuation of the story so was more hype. Personally my issue with endwalker was that tanks are terrible to play, 90% of content you do as a warrior or you're just sufferring, then when you do extreme's you go Drk, Gnb, but all other content War only, tanks have been so miss managed and it makes the whole game suffer imo.
and by people you mean you right? ego much
Asmongold approves that damage chart.
"Blue Mage was brought back" It never went anywhere though? It is like saying "Alliance raids were brought back!" Yeah no shit. I much preferred your video as you have actual experience with the game prior to the boom that brought all these Shadowbringer babies in. Back when expert roulette wasn't a coinflip. When we would get a Deep Dungeon AND Exploratory Zones AND limited job introductions AND a trial series AND 2 ultimates. But now we get Island Sanctuary where you run to a node and click it, and then you run to another node and click it, and then you go to the spreadsheet and set it up and call it "amazing" casual content.
the point of the expansion being more casual is the same reason WOW has become more casual. These games have become overly bloated with old systems old raids old dungeons old gear, etc. The best thing both franchises can do is clean the slate, simplify certain classes/diversify certain classes (example tanks shouldnt need multiple damage negating skills just make 1 maybe 2 skills for damage negating, this problem exists with dps, samuria/monk, need i say more?) People have been calling for just a fresh slate for wow for years. Get it back to players in all one place doing the same things otherwise it just feels like a single player experience, expanding the world is all well and good but not if you feel like youre the only one in it. Both franchises have tried making it more casual however they have only succeeded in making it boring for all players new and old.
yeah i kind adisagree with preach to when he said "they will go back an and it will be relevant again" simply because of how long we have been waiting for them to pay off the Gaia part of "this will be relevant again" and the only thing they actually did was a cutscene of her showing up and essentially saying "HEYA IM STILL HERE IN CASE YOU FORGOT"
The problem with Gaia is because she is part of a raid series, not the MSQ. People can't skip the MSQ like they can a raid series from previous expansions, so that is why they didn't have to include Gaia cause it would be awkward for those who didn't do EDEN. Like WTF is this goth chick???
@@steven700 *looks at Graha* sure like he was art of the Alliance raids to that you could skip before they made them mandatory
@@pedromoreira6218 Probably the reason why they retroactively made Crystal Tower mandatory because people were getting confused about who Graha was and it sort of killed certain moments. Now they could go back and make the raid series mandatory, but I feel like it adds on to FFXIV's existing problem of that huge barrier to entry via MSQ.
We haven't waited very long at all for Gaia to be relevant again.
Endwalker was NOT a failure. DO you know how many players play FF14? A lot. Its always busy, 24 hours a day seven days a week. There are bad spots and good spots like everything. People will love one thing and some may hate it. Overall I think it was a major success by every known measurable gaming metric that measures success. Have you been to a train lately? Jammed full of people max capacity! Its so busy even now. Yes its a major success.
The game lost a lot of players from the exodus during late shadowbringers. It did fail to retain these fresh players along some long timers aswell.
maybe for relics they make a boring tome version with no glow, then the old school grind for the glow. then casuals can keep all their tome weapons.
21:30 l see now. I remember talking to seto and how he was able to meet aldbert again. I felt nothing. I guess the story is just not for me. But it is not the story that led to play this game to start with
I watched his vid & I agree with him! I no longer Raid but I do everything else in game especially the newest thing! I am hopeful for Dawntrail being an awesome Prologue to the next 10+ years of FFXIV! I left right before the end of 1.0 because I thought that the game was ending forever! I came back after hearing FFXIV was way better with Heavenward! I love all of FFXIV! I understand Endwalker & why we needed it! Shadowbringers is still my fav expansion! I cried allot during it but also did the same in Endwalker! I will always miss Hydaelyn, Emet, Hythlodaeus, Meteion, & yes Zenos too! It will be the journey & story that carry me forward on the Final Fantasy Road into Dawntrail & beyond! Thaliak wills I walk the land learning & growing! Here is to the Dawntrail Journey!!!
Girl you done made a video saying Endwalker was the worst FFXIV expansion.
Who is yhis girl? Where is Zeplive?