I just recently finished the Stormblood Expansion for FFXIV and I will say, it was pretty good! The expansion had some minor fallings here and there but all in all it was a hell of a good time!
0:00 A Storm Of Blood
1:29 Fer’ Almigo
3:20 Rise and Fall
7:35 Heavensward Vs. Stormblood
10:30 How The Expansion Changed Me
11:57 Overall Rating
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Personally i think that base Stormblood was so much better than base Heavensward. A lot of moments people remember about Heavensward happen in the patch content, such as the end of the dragonsong war, the warriors of darkness, the raid in Baelsar's Wall… The only moment people remember of base Heavensward is The Vault, for obvious of course.
But when i think about base Stormblood, i think it does such a better job in a lot of ways. The oppression of the Empire throughout 2 sides of the world, how every village we arrive we are met by despair and hopelessness. The soundtrack for areas such as the Azim Steppe and Yanxia. And of course, Zenos. I believe we can all agree that Zenos is pretty better than Thordan at everything. Shinryuu as the final fight was so much more hype than Thordan ever was in the normal trial. And i love that we as the player character get more and more moments where we can choose our dialog. And while yes, it doesn't really change the story, but makes us feel so much more immersed as the WoL.
Well that was a lot of text, sorry about that 😅 but those are my feelings on base Stormblood
I love Zenos! I call him Battle Husband
I really like your pronunciations.
Never understood how anyone couldn't like Stormblood. It was excellent in every way. Better even than Heavensward, which feels small and drab by comparison. (Still great, though)
Will be cool to hear you opinion after doing some of the content! Raids/trials/post patch content/eureka/etc. The community views expansions as including everything up to the .3 patch, so keep that in mind when comparing your thoughts to the community's.
Stormblood, for me, gets better with time and distance.
When I first went through stormblood I felt like the expansion didn't really start until the step and then it was a mad dash to the end, but it's strange I feel like looking back on it that the reason I felt like that is because this expansion isn't about the warrior of light it is about the two resistance leaders becoming the people their people need and really you are just helping with that and zenos is the only one that is driving you forward. I think it has its problems but it is overly hated for being sandwiched between two expansions that the fan base loves
3.0 is 7/10, and post 3.0 patches better to 8-9/10. Huge turn of MSQ (with most beautiful trial scene), Eureka, 4 saints beasts, OMEGA, blue mage. Ultimate trial comes in this time as well I supposed? What can u ask more?
Don't forget to do the Dark Knight Stoormblood job quest before you get to Shadowbringers. There's an important ability that you unlock at the end of the quest. Also: the story is very good imo.
Congrats. The next Expansion is my personal favorite. I found Stormblood somewhat entertaining but there were too much characters that weren't "dead".
You survived Stormblood now get ready for Shadowbringers, all I can say is you will cry.
I think Stormblood has superior pacing only because it doesn't grab you by the nosehairs to go back to ul'dah and deal with the fallout there every time something is getting good with the A plot.
Stormblood MSQ really suffered from the 2 seperated Storylines. Post Content MSQ had a way better payoff but the Base Expansion Story wasnt as good as HW. But for the Entire rest SB is way superior not only in Dungeons and Trials but also general Content that was added with Eureka.
Stormblood is flawed but ambitious and a lot of the things it did that were new were refined in later expansions IMO. I think as we move forward people will look back on it more and more fondly.
Being completely honest, factoring in everything, Stormblood is my favorite expansion, and I came in during Shadowbringers. I really liked the mirroring of character (Lyse/Hien, Fordola/Yotsuyu) and that the story went in on the realities of war like how conquering nations like to kill the morale of people in the nations they conquer (Garlemald taking the Ala Mhigo anthem and making it their own). But even beyond that, I felt the fight mechanics were the perfect level of complex while not being too busy, it has the best music of all the expansions, the best Raid series, my personal favorite Alliance Raid series, and is in general the expansion I like watching new people play more than any other.
I love your content but man, you can't pronounce names right 😀
Congrats on wrapping up Stormblood!
One other thing I'd like to commend Stormblood for is job design. I really like a lot of the STB job iterations and even now in DT being synced to lvl 70, the jobs still feel more complete and satisfying to play with compared to lvl 60 or 50
Great and down to earth review
For ALAlgorithm!!!!!
My personal experience with Stormblood was a mixed bag. I just really didn't care about Lyse to begin with – the whole "Actually a younger sister all along" reveal felt like a pointless gotcha moment, which they have foreshadowed at the end of A Realm Reborn's post-patch quests to no payoff at all, and her story throughout all of Stormblood established her as a nothing burger of a character, with scant personality and a penchant for stealing the spotlight – such as when she nicked the finishing blow on Fordola in the Lochs. You'll be seeing more of that, worry not.
The story being split between three separate nations (four if you count Kugane) did it no favours either, as none get the necessary amount of spotlight. While Ala Mhigo is central to the story, we spent next to no time in it, resulting in the land and people both feeling extremely underdeveloped. I know nothing about Ala Mhigo and, honestly, cannot bring myself to care about it beyond the most basic level of "hey, these people need help". Similar with the Steppe – we spend all of two levels in there. For how lore-rich the zone is, it feels criminally underused.
And the story was okay in general, but as you say, disjointed and lacking any higher stakes. Zenos is there, helping with it a little, but with how disinterested he feels with everything other than us, there is no real looming threat. Shinryu and Omega are both absent from the story until the former shows up five minutes to midnight as a tool, while the latter is relegated to a side story (which is quite amazing and I recommend you do it at some point, as it ties with Endwalker lore later, I don't want to spoil it though)
Overall, an alright story, but compared to the haymakers that are Shadowbringers or Heavensward, it's definitely one of the weaker moments of Final Fantasy 14. Okay on it's own merits, but we've, frankly, been spoiled by how good everything else was.
The transition from Heavenward changed how the story was delivered and reflected upon. Much less time was spent on the quest log, much more time was spent giving life to optional NPC dialogue. Talking to everyone as they move around becomes more rewarding, and doubly so in post-Stormblood content. Some unforgettable characters are coming your way.
I just started the Stormblood post-game. Well, I started weeks ago but haven't been logging in as much lately. It really burned me out and I find myself missing a lot of the QoL of other MMO's. Hopefully I just need a break. I like the story so far.
Stormblood has the best trials and raids of the game IMHO. The story is scattered, but I like it anyways, and Zenos is a fantastic villain. He legit scares me more than any other ff villain. Which, given Kefka and my primal fear of clowns, is really saying something.
I absolutely LOVED Heavensward! The story kept getting more interesting as it went and the ending felt very satisfying.
I got to Stormblood and the vibe change was quite jarring. Then the going from Al Amgigo to Doma felt weird. There's a war going but we're gonna leave to another continent because we cant do anything here right now. Then it felt like we spent years in Doma handling conflicts that felt removed from the issues at home. I got burnt out by the story and took a break for a few months. I returned to finish it and felt so relieved when it was over.
Thank goodness Shadowbringers was phenomenal and pulled me right back into the game.
I remember quitting because the first 1/2 of Stormblood was so boring, LONG and bad. The entire war on two fronts, but you're fighting on both fronts was dumb, and the list goes on about this expansion. By comparison, Shadowbringers is great, and has much better pacing.
I'm in the group that considers Stormblood to be alright, but just not as good as the others book-ending it. It does have some great moments, though, and the fights were definitely more fun. I still love coming across Susano in roulettes. And the alliance raids, when you get to them, remain my favorite of the whole game.. mechanically. Didn't care for their story much, but that's just a personal dislike of a couple of the characters in it.
Zenos though… Zenos, when I played through SB, was the one entity that annoyed me the most. I absolutely hated him back then. And it wasn't because he was strong enough to kick our ass, that was fine. Nor his personality about things. In those regards he was a fine villain. It was the terrible fights with him, which have since been retooled and are much better now. That first time you meet him in Ralgar's Reach? That fight USED to feel very very winnable, IF you played well enough, and were willing to put in the time it would take to win. Until Zenos used the exact same manuever he had used mulitple times prior (Concentrativity, I believe it was.) as an "I win" button where it might have hurt a lot, and been annoying but was entirely recoverable every use before. Had I messed up and lost the fight, that'd have been fine. Had it been more obvious that I was intended to lose.. well, those set ups are kind of annoying, but whatever. But when I've chewed through 1/3 of his hps, and he's never even gotten close to dropping me, and just decides it's time to win with a move that cannot and does not drop me anyway… It soured my opinion of him, and a lot of SB for a very long time, I'm sad to say.
And then there's the WoL's penchant for standing around gawking as events unfold, instead of acting in at least some attempt to mitigate the stuff happening before their eyes. (and I don't mean the times when people are getting beat/killed while other npcs are actively saying to not interfere, at least there's a reason for not acting there). That has always annoyed me, and I wish it was the only time it happens, but it is not. There's LESS of it later, mostly, but sadly the hero must apparently be stupid for the story to progress sometimes.
it had ups and downs but post patch stormblood is a never ending uphill of quality and then you get shadowbringers with its also amazing uphill till 5.3
then it slowly slowly slowly keeps going down and down till you reach 6.1 and then you start free falling.
"Welcome to Shadowbringers" moment in 3…2…