FF14 First Impressions of Stormblood
I’ve played WoW for over 15 years but given the state of WoW right now and the lack of content, some of my friends convinced me to try FF14. So I’ve been documenting my FF14 first impressions, showing my journey through FF14 and giving my feedback along the way.
Throughout I will be comparing FF14 to WoW and references the differences between the two. Obviously, I do have some bias, but I will try and keep an open mind all the way. This will contain spoilers for Stormblood and anything before.
I’d love to know your thoughts on Stormblood or the beast tribes and the firmament as they are honestly my favourite parts of the game, which may be a little strange to some people!
Catch us live on twitch:
https://www.twitch.tv/medievalmarty
Or join our amazing discord community:
https://discord.gg/a5bU6VsUqy
FF14 First Impressions Playthrough (ARR Complete):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiLzcdV9qec&list=PL-4ToIznvZVSSPynfNHBay0E3W1UuRamr&index=2
FFXIV First Impressions Playthrough (Heavensward Complete):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtdVdp_jV34&list=PL-4ToIznvZVQ_TLkyfynfglpxK-zK3R6-&index=2&t=15s
0:00 Intro
3:40 I Love The Firmament
7:10 Stormblood Begins
13:05 Beasts Tribes Complete
16:55 First Dungeon of Stormblood
19:00 Welcome to Kugane
19:40 Climbing Kugane Tower
21:45 Outro and First Impressions
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Ive honestly never heard anyone say they love a game so much than ive seen this guy play through ffxiv
“I loov it” 😂❤️
firmament was added with shadowbringers and is the easiest way to level crafters currently, potentially also gatherers. Collectables might be faster for gatherers but i'm not sure, however if you level from 20-70ish in firmament for crafters then all gatherers will end up at roughly the same level assuming you weren't buying mats. after that the backlog of class quest from levels blitzed through, the mean, and beast tribe quests from shadowbringers become the best exp until they're done. i think class quests from 20-70 + mean will give 4 or 5 crafters from 70-80 or close to, shadowbringers crafter beast tribe will give half or more of a level per day, and the leveling vendor gear is more than enough to spam level appropriate collectables until you reach 80.
*there is probably a faster way but this is basically how i got every crafter and gatherer (except fisher) to 80 in less than about 2 weeks
"I hope they never change it."
Yeah about that
Stormblood is definitely slower-paced, and has some weaker/slower parts, but man I really enjoy it. It's got some really amazing stuff coming, I hope you'll enjoy it!
I'm sure someone's mentioned it by now, but the stories of Stormblood's launch live on in infamy. Constant disconnects and full instances due to DDOS attacks made for an interesting time, and it lasted for like a month I think. Lines in front of the quest NPC in a vain attempt to form que, the term "Raubahn Savage", "aLl My NaMe DaYs HaVe CoMe At OnCe!"…it was interesting lol.I recommend looking for footage if you can
Stormblood has some of the best content in the whole game imo. Story has dips but my god at the creativity of everything else.
Also should check out crafting macros, can help lessen the grinding feeling and it's kinda fun building you're own macro, feels like 12s gambit system a bit.
Stormblood is the start of SE going all out on superb villains! Its going to be great, and I'm pretty sure you'll enjoy it!
WAH!
Firmament only requires you to finish 3.3 to start it but it was actually implemented in shadowbringers as a crafter gatherer zone. Its easily the most efficient way to level those classes that doesn't involve spending tons of gil cause that's what it's intended for
The history of it is that during the content patches of shb there have been point ranking periods for high end crafters/gatherers and at the end of each ranking period a section of the firmament was rebuilt (when it started the zone was almost entirely rubble!) Next expansion the completed zone will be implemented as a player housing zone which is a super cool payoff for the ongoing crafting events
Oh also if you ever see someone with a "Saint of the Firmament" title they got top 12 of a specific job during one of the ranking periods which takes an EXTREME amount of dedication
Pfffft 45 mins to the top? Took me months of 1 hour tries every other day. But I think my height (male aura highest setting) wasn't helping, I fell so many times from head collision with the beams.
I finally got to the top yesterday. Also, I did it with controller, maybe should've used kbm for this on hindsight LOL
"There's an increase in quality; everything feels more modern in Stormblood"
Well, it was when they dropped PS3 support, so they didn't have to worry about hardware limitations as much 😉
Lyse new look stole my heart and her side custom too, but her character development meh :v.
Strictly speaking the Firmament is Shadowbringers content
I honestly care a lot more about a random dudes problems than if Ishgard burns or not.
IMO the story of Stormblood may be less spectacular that HEavansward but they are much better executed on a technical mechanics basis. I look forward to hear what you think.
Also, I greatly prefer these edited summary videos of your progress over your Twitch reaction videos. You are good at video editing and script writing IMO. =) glad to see you will continue them in Stormblood.
There's actually an explanation for the golfbag full of katanas: Garleans canonically are unable to use magic the way everyone else does, instead they developed the third eye on their forehead which iirc makes them better at aiming (which is why they use bastardized versions of the original gunblades). Zenos can't use magic himself, but all his swords are magic, so the bag is basically a massive charging station.
If you want a continuation for the beast tribe story you got in heavensward…maybe you should do all the beast trive of stormblood.
😛
For me I was a bit dissapointed with Stormblood, as it felt like a constant game of 'when are we getting to the fireworks factory'.
Looking forward to shadowbringers!
I never realised you could climb Kugane tower… well that's an hour of my life I'm about to lose…
Honestly, 45 minutes to get up there is NOT bad. I've done it myself, but it took multiple tries and several hours in total. I'm impressed!
Stormblood can be a bit slow and scattered, but it's great for building up more world lore.
Been trying to climb thw tower for hours and never made it to the top once
Hey Marty, any plans to try Paladin? I have a feeling from a historical view you would appreciate the armour design. Heck the lvl 90 set has a lance rest built in.
Not sure if it was mentioned but there are several jump puzzles that have lookout points in Kugane. My fave is the one at Bokairo Inn. The top is a special treat.
But did you make the Lamppost?
when your on the ship end go back to limsa their is a little funny dialoge when you speak withe the person who got you on the ship in the harpor
I don't know that I personally would describe Stormblood as 'slow,' but glad you're enjoying and welcome. It gets a lot of hate for some reason but I loved Strmblood. You're in for another insane ride 🙂
I feel a lot of the same way with the Firmament, and I find myself going back again and again, partially because it's so chill and partially because I feel like it's probably going away in Endwalker. No point in doing crafting stuff once the housing district is actually housing people. I feel like Endwalker is probably going to have its own Ishgard Restoration equivalent at some point for the crafters and gatherers, because it was a great success, but idk when that would be, and also I want to get the rewards before they go away.
Also… did you stick the landing on the light pole? Inquiring minds want to know! GG on doing the main climb tho!
Great stuff as always Marty, glad to see you continuing through Stormblood! It can be a bit slow at times, but enjoy the journey – Stormblood sets up a lot of the plot for Shadowbringers.
Plus the 8-man and 24-man raids are top tier too!
waiting for him to step foot into The Twinning dungeon. hardest dungeon in game. can't kill well head banging.
Stormblood really starts super slow.. but the second au ri were introduced I was so into it!
Everything to do abt im super biased and love the race tbh 😌
Stormblood is slow, definitely not for everyone but it does make you feel like you're on this shonen-like journey to save the world (or nations in this case) while you help legular people along the way, you know, like a proper hero would.
And maybe it's just me but after Heavensward I did miss smaller stories (that had more importance than Moogle chores… Bleh!) and SB just had right amount of them for me, maybe it's because I'm into shonen journey stories but hey, not everyone's cup of tea.
PS. Lyse is a good character. F*ck you, fight me.
Took me a while to realize that he was saying Kugane wrong. In the english it is pronounced as "Coo-Gah-Neigh."
Firmament is a great way to lvl everything all the way to 80. On that note though. There are crafting beast tribes in all of the expansions and gathering in Stormblood(same as crafting one) and Shadowbringers (there's one beast tribe for crafting and one for gathering). So it's up to you if you wanna lvl everything all the way up in the Firmament, or save a few jobs so you can actually use the exp you get from the beast tribes (when you decide to go for them).
Looking at the comments, I can tell I'm going to be in the minority here, but I absolutely hated almost ALL of Stormblood. I particularly dislike all the villains in the expansion for reasons I will hold back from saying to avoid giving any accidental spoilers. Fortunately when I came back to the game Shadowbringers was already out and receiving exceedingly high praise, so I latched onto that to keep going. Stormblood made me as unhappy to play as the worst of WoW's expansions though, and I likely would have straight up quit if I didn't have that carrot in front of me to keep reaching toward.
The only bright spots in the expansion for me were were the zones written by Natsuko Ishikawa, who went on to write the main scenario for the next expansion, and will be working on Endwalker as well. Based on what you said in the video, I think you hit some of that content already, so be prepared for more at that quality and beyond once you finish up Stormblood. Regardless of my feelings, I hope you continue to enjoy your time playing. Seeing the experiences you and other new players have had to the older content is a lot of fun in its own way.