FFXIV: Shadowbringers

[Wintertime]

Does anyone play FFXIV? I'm excited about the Shadowbringers update. What do you think about it?

 

[Westeller]

Everyone I know thinks it's the best thing ever. Personally, I'm not that thrilled with it so far. I haven't gotten very far in the story and won't discuss spoilers here anyway, but so far it hasn't been what I thought it was going to be, based on trailers and that whole "become what you must" slogan. ... Instead, it's just more of the usual WoL doing WoL stuff. Worse, some parts of the story have required a bit of suspension-of-disbelief from me, such as Kholusia's baffling situation. Hopefully, my opinion changes as I get further with it -- it certainly should, if the absolutely rave reviews of it have any basis in reality. Some people are even calling it the best Final Fantasy story thus far, which is some darn stiff competition.

 

[Wintertime]

Everyone I know thinks it's the best thing ever. Personally, I'm not that thrilled with it so far. I haven't gotten very far in the story and won't discuss spoilers here anyway, but so far it hasn't been what I thought it was going to be, based on trailers and that whole "become what you must" slogan. ... Instead, it's just more of the usual WoL doing WoL stuff. Worse, some parts of the story have required a bit of suspension-of-disbelief from me, such as Kholusia's baffling situation. Hopefully, my opinion changes as I get further with it -- it certainly should, if the absolutely rave reviews of it have any basis in reality. Some people are even calling it the best Final Fantasy story thus far, which is some darn stiff competition.

I'm really just in it for the World Prog. Titania's been really fun, especially EX Trials. Storywise, it's certainly good, and I feel like it connects a lot of endpoints, especially in Stormblood and Heavensword; even though suspension-of-disbelief is probably bound to take place. The combat system in Shadowbringers is also really good, and the soundtrack is quite enjoyable for me.

Comparatively, I think the reason Shadowbringers are getting rave reviews is because of the timeframe between expansions. It's been two years between all expansions, and that's quite a long time without any new content.

 

[Rinne]

Honestly, the story isn't bad, but I do agree that I was left rather baffled that it was really just more WoL being WoL...
It'd be a lie to say that I wasn't a slight bit disappointed.
Ignoring that, the story was pretty fun, but certainly not the best story I ever encountered. Some things did annoy me a bit, but they were rather minor, I guess.

Regarding other content, the gameplay changes are nice and the new classes are fun to play. Haven't touched any EX Trials since I prefer playing with friends rather than random people. Except those friends have their own groups so yeah.

What I really like though is the map design and the soundtrack. Though I honestly am slowly fed up with deserts and wastelands and rocky areas, I really liked all others so far. Especially the last map left an impression.
Unfortunately, I do see myself quitting in two to three months again and then not touch the game anymore until the next expansion hits.

 

[Westeller]

Gameplay changes are a mixed bag, imo. I main SMN, and the class changed from a flexible, satisfying DPS experience with understandable rules and a pretty neat system, to an insanely disorganized button mash that overworks you for relatively little reward; Damage wise, current statistics put it as one of the worst performing DPS classes. ... Don't get me wrong, I'm not crying because my favorite class is worse than others. I don't need it to be the best DPS class. But... Some parts of the class are seriously flawed or outright broken at the moment.

As an example, there's literally no reason to use Egi Assault 2 from level 54 to 74, because you just lose DPS. Ruin II was our weave ability, doing a bit less than Ruin III but letting us get in some ogcds. Now the gap between it and Ruin III has widened, decreasing the relative value of ogcds because they need to make up that gap -- and Egi Assault 2 is a far cry from making it up. In fact, Egis just do bizarrely low damage across the board. They used to be a huge part of our damage and now they're just ... almost irrelevant.

I mean, class changes are always a mixed bag, and it's often just a matter of opinion. Even if changes are objectively good, or at least okay, there are always going to be people that preferred the way things were before. But, at least right now, SMN is just in a bad place, and it's unfortunately not a matter of opinion. ... That said, the class is doing well thematically, at least, and there were some QoL improvements that aren't completely drowned out by the class' current problems.

 

[Ace_Arriande]

Also a SMN main and have been since 2.2. I honestly love the changes they made and, while I don't know about how it's faring as far as the "meta" goes, I'm not having any problem out-DPSing pretty much every class both against group and solo targets. It did take me some getting used to since I basically skipped all of Stormblood, but now that I've got the new rotation down, it's: even more fun than before, much more thematic since I feel more like a summoner now instead of a WoW warlock, and way more simple. Not really sure how some people think it's disorganized and button mashy when it's always had, and still has, one of the most simple rotations in the game. Honestly, part of the reason why I love it is because of how easy of a class it is for its excellent DPS. It's basically easy mode. Maybe it's different now in end-game progression raiding and extreme trials farming, but I lost interest in that sort of thing back in Heavensward. I still need to test it out in PvP, though, since I'm one of the few people in the game who actually loves FFXIV's PvP. SMN has always been an insane powerhouse in PvP, so I'm hoping it still is. But yeah, I've been seeing a lot of people online who are talking poorly of SMN when it comes to the meta, yet I've seen nothing but evidence against that in-game. But to be fair, I've never cared enough about meta to get my numbers as high as they could possibly get, so maybe I just don't have the right mentality to see the issues with SMN. All I care about is doing enough DPS while staying alive, and that's even easier than before. Getting to out-DPS everybody else is just a fun bonus.

As far as the story goes, I understand that some people are disappointed that the trailers pushed "becoming what we must" and the whole "warrior of darkness" thing while barely having any actual effect in the game... but that's always been the case with Final Fantasy. Darkness has never exactly been an "evil" thing. It's just the other side of the same coin.
Too much dark = bad. Bring in the warriors of light.
Too much light = bad. Bring in the warriors of darkness.
Both in FFIII and in the previous story patches for FFXIV, the warriors of darkness were never really different from the warriors of light. They started off as warriors of light and then were forced to become warriors of darkness to combat the light. We're doing the exact same thing in Shadowbringer's story. It's just that combating the light means fighting angelic monsters instead of demonic monsters. We still help people, we try not to cause suffering, etc. I don't really know why some people were expecting anything else. Not that anybody here is implying this, but I've seen people elsewhere basically get upset that we're not running around being puppy-kicking murderhobos. But yeah, being the WoL still doing WoL things but against angelic monsters instead of demonic monsters is pretty much the whole point of the traditional WoD. While it might not seem like that much of a difference to us from an outside perspective, I think it is a far larger deal if you place yourself in the shoes of the protagonist since, to them, the light has always been objectively good whereas the darkness was objectively bad. It turns out that's not the case to somebody who has been the strongest warrior for light.

That being said, I think the story is absolutely fantastic this time around. It is not only the best story of FFXIV thus far, but one of my all-time favorite stories in general. It's full of emotion, caught me off guard numerous times, made me laugh plenty of other times, and was just overall excellent. The music is even better than usual, the mechanics are fun, classes changes keep things fresh and new skills are hype, the zones are beautifully designed, the shared FATEs is a nice system (inb4 it's required for upcoming relic weapons), the dungeons and trials are fun, and so on. I haven't had this much fun in an MMO expansion since Burning Crusade (BC > WotLK, don't @ me). Now to hope that PvP gets some more love this time around, but I won't get my hopes up. But yeah, unless the future expansions can somehow one-up this one, this is probably going to be the golden age of FFXIV. Not only are the majority of people extremely happy with this expansion, but it's breaking subscription records and currently has the most people playing it that it has ever had.

 

[Wintertime]

Also a SMN main and have been since 2.2. I honestly love the changes they made and, while I don't know about how it's faring as far as the "meta" goes, I'm not having any problem out-DPSing pretty much every class both against group and solo targets. It did take me some getting used to since I basically skipped all of Stormblood, but now that I've got the new rotation down, it's: even more fun than before, much more thematic since I feel more like a summoner now instead of a WoW warlock, and way more simple. Not really sure how some people think it's disorganized and button mashy when it's always had, and still has, one of the most simple rotations in the game. Honestly, part of the reason why I love it is because of how easy of a class it is for its excellent DPS. It's basically easy mode. Maybe it's different now in end-game progression raiding and extreme trials farming, but I lost interest in that sort of thing back in Heavensward. I still need to test it out in PvP, though, since I'm one of the few people in the game who actually loves FFXIV's PvP. SMN has always been an insane powerhouse in PvP, so I'm hoping it still is. But yeah, I've been seeing a lot of people online who are talking poorly of SMN when it comes to the meta, yet I've seen nothing but the evidence against that in-game. But to be fair, I've never cared enough about meta to get my numbers as high as they could possibly get, so maybe I just don't have the right mentality to see the issues with SMN. All I care about is doing enough DPS while staying alive, and that's even easier than before. Getting to out-DPS everybody else is just a fun bonus.

As far as the story goes, I understand that some people are disappointed that the trailers pushed "becoming what we must" and the whole "warrior of darkness" thing while barely having any actual effect in the game... but that's always been the case with Final Fantasy. Darkness has never exactly been an "evil" thing. It's just the other side of the same coin.
Too much dark = bad. Bring in the warriors of light.
Too much light = bad. Bring in the warriors of darkness.
Both in FFIII and in the previous story patches for FFXIV, the warriors of darkness were never really different from the warriors of light. They started off as warriors of light and then were forced to become warriors of darkness to combat the light. We're doing the exact same thing in Shadowbringer's story. It's just that combating the light means fighting angelic monsters instead of demonic monsters. We still help people, we try not to cause suffering, etc. I don't really know why some people were expecting anything else. Not that anybody here is implying this, but I've seen people elsewhere basically get upset that we're not running around being puppy-kicking murder hobos. But yeah, being the WoL still doing WoL things but against angelic monsters instead of demonic monsters is pretty much the whole point of the traditional WoD. While it might not seem like that much of a difference to us from an outside perspective, I think it is a far larger deal if you place yourself in the shoes of the protagonist since, to them, the light has always been objectively good whereas the darkness was objectively bad. It turns out that's not the case to somebody who has been the strongest warrior for light.

That being said, I think the story is absolutely fantastic this time around. It is not only the best story of FFXIV thus far, but one of my all-time favorite stories in general. It's full of emotion, caught me off guard numerous times, made me laugh plenty of other times, and was just overall excellent. The music is even better than usual, the mechanics are fun, classes changes keep things fresh and new skills are hype, the zones are beautifully designed, the shared FATEs is a nice system (inb4 it's required for upcoming relic weapons), the dungeons and trials are fun, and so on. I haven't had this much fun in an MMO expansion since Burning Crusade (BC > WotLK, don't @ me). Now to hope that PvP gets some more love this time around, but I won't get my hopes up. But yeah, unless the future expansions can somehow one-up this one, this is probably going to be the golden age of FFXIV. Not only are the majority of people extremely happy with this expansion, but it's breaking subscription records and currently has the most people playing it than it has ever had.

Could not agree more!

Unless about that part about Burning Crusade being better than WotLK.

And for PvP, still think it's terrible. Hopefully, they can improve it. Thing is, PvP drives toxicity and competitiveness, and the community of FFXIV is probably one of the nicest I've seen in an MMO genre. So, hopefully, they find a good balance between the two sides of the same coin.

 

[Ace_Arriande]

And for PvP, still think it's terrible. Hopefully, they can improve it. Thing is, PvP drives toxicity and competitiveness, and the community of FFXIV is probably one of the nicest I've seen in an MMO genre. So, hopefully, they find a good balance between the two sides of the same coin.

To be fair, what I love is frontlines. God, I really love frontlines. Most of my game time is probably doing frontlines. Feast is kind of meh. I enjoy it, but I love large-scale PvP much more than arena PvP. I certainly have seen some toxicity in ranked Feast matches, but I've seen no more of it in frontlines than what I'd normally see running duty roulettes. That might have changed since I've last played (I basically played up until the end of Stormblood upon release then stopped until Shadowbringers), but I hope it hasn't. Though, I do recall there being a major botting problem back when I stopped. I'm going to have to hope that was fixed, too. I started getting matches that were more than 60% bots who just sat around doing nothing. Kinda ruined the fun.