The Warnings Were True – Stormblood FFXIV



Everything you’ve heard about Stormblood, it’s all true. Garrett and Kyle take sides. Stormblood through Bereft of Hearth and Home.

Live Stream Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-Rjvm_NJMInJTwXKToWBLUmY_T375XkW

0:00 – Welcome to Stormblood
6:09 – Debate
11:30 – War
13:35 – Lyse
15:30 – Zenos
19:35 – Still In It

#GrindingGear #FFXIV

Follow Garrett & Kyle!
https://twitter.com/garrettart
https://twitter.com/kylefergusson

source

23 thoughts on “The Warnings Were True – Stormblood FFXIV”

  1. 100%. This game brought about an amazing set of gameplay reworks (e.g. Job Gauges) and the boss quality shot up tenfold. The raids are superb and set a new standard!

    Reply
  2. The biggest issue with Stormblood is that it has to follow Heavensward. However, the entire expansion really aged liked fine wine in terms of what it laid groundwork for. Its very similar to ARR in that way.

    The content is great though.

    Reply
  3. Always fine to share any criticisms- it's good to see how they fair after you reach major milestones! E.g. Base credits and try a Optional Extreme Trial

    Reply
  4. ARR – Building World [bc 1.0 was fail in all aspects]
    HW – Make progress in Story [to nice level]
    SB – Make new level of Dungeons, Trials and Raids [Thats why they doped PS3 support there]
    ShB – players was cry the story in SB was lazy weak? OK we Overkill everybody with much more story! xD
    EW – We was get all so we will try to make again Mechanics ans story much more unforgettable! [to level where u feel its uncomfortable]
    7.0? – New Story New Mechanics and New [old] World xD

    Its Crazy when u look back and see how much that game was progressed by this all years 🙂

    Reply
  5. This was the first time they had to deal with completely new worldbuilding. Even 3.0 (HW) was foreshadowed in the failed 1.0 version, Ishgard was also visible then. Fortunately, the devs learned from this and got way better at it for future expansions.

    Reply
  6. 4.0 first half was a bit boring as this was the setup for Ala Mhigo rebuilding, so there's no real direction for the first half of 4.0 besides a lot of fetch quests. 4.0 2nd half once you get into Kugane and the Ruby Sea area and get more lore of Garlemald gets a whole lot better. 4.1 ~ 4.5 storywise was way better for Stormblood. Any of the story arcs written by Ishikawa is awesome. You can kinda tell who wrote which parts between Oda and Ishikawa.

    Reply
  7. Sometimes you have to bite the bullet and just…..do some awkward pacing. Do it, get it done, and make room for the things that put better breathe into the story. You guys spent a chunk of time on monday talking about the pacing, and everyone watching you knew you were a quest away from Gyodo, where the shit finally picks up. Stormblood is a long and winding road, and the story they presented unfortunately did need some heavy foundational support along the way to get to the ending, but it is what it is.

    Reply
  8. About Zenos and his golf bag, someone pointed this out to me and I thought it was interesting. He is a samurai and has a sword for each style and "flower" a samurai would normally empower in their rotation.

    Reply
  9. I think the problem with Lyse is that it feels like a part of her character arc is missing.
    Alphinaud at the beginning of ARR is naive and arraogant, and then his hubris comes back to bite him with the whole Crystal Braves fiasco. Then he has to go into exile in Ishgard for awhile and suffer for his failings, he takes responsibility for his part in what happened and reflects on how he could do better. Then we get the older, wiser, more savvy, 'Kingmaker' Alphinaud who's suffered through failure and learned from it. Alphinaud has grown up, and the growth feels earned.
    Lyse on the other hand kind of skips the middle part. We see her being naive and imagining that she's just going to stride into Ala Mhigo like a big damn hero, the resistance will rally around her at once, and they'll all send the Empire packing just like that. We see the hubris all predictably going wrong. But they never really give us the 'suffering in exile' part. The whole Doma arc should have been Lyse's chance to self-reflect and reinvent herself the way Alphinaud did in Ishgard, but they don't really sell us on that. She tags along and makes a few offhand comment here and that feel like the beginnings of a lesson learned, but the Lyse that goes back to Gyr Abania afterwards feels very similar to the Lyse that left it after being humbled by Zenos at Rhalgr's Reach. So instead of feeling like she earns her wisdom like Alphinaud, Lyse feels like she just kind of lucked into it. She gets to have the character growth without having to undergo any meaningful change to her character, which by FFXIV standards is kind of of weak storytelling.
    And I won't spoil anything, but it also didn't help that we didn't really get to see Lyse's improvement on full display until the patch content months after the expansion dropped, so by that time she'd already cemented herself as being the anti-Alphinaud in a lot of players' minds.

    Reply
  10. There were definitely some slumps in the story for me, but I overall had fun and the dungeons/raids blew Heavensward out of the water. Post-Stormblood patch story is also much much better.

    Reply
  11. The main problem is that Ishgard is built up in ARR already. Starting with Coerthas at lvl 30+.
    And with a certain Lord you already have a benefactor and helping hand in there. So at least some people know already about you.

    Whereas neither Eastern people nor the Resistence know anything bout you.
    They only have a word from people who basically abandoned their home which makes them close to traitors most likely.

    Also besides some knowledge bout Ala Migho beeing under Garlean rule we know nothing bout it.
    Neither did we know anything bout the east so pacing is back to worldbuilding.

    What also makes it slower is the fact that in comparison to HW having only Ishgard stuff with all zones kinda working towards the same mostly (dragons), SB is split up between East and West.

    If they made one expac for only West and then the next for only East but with 2 Garlean armies instead of one it would have felt smoother for one part but also the story would have dragged out longer needlessly so it could have easily backlashed.

    Same goes for the Lyse hate.
    Some People don't like her cause she feels not fully fleshed out…. but unlike Alphi who had a whole expac with us babysitting him all the time (and me hoping that he would just fall off a cliff and disappear till halfway through HW) she only gets half the time.
    The split makes it harder cause you have less to work with to let the character grow.

    Reply
  12. I think you guys are in the long stretch. I thought it was slow until about level 65, and then it picks up from 65-70. And then the patch content is *chef's kiss*.

    Reply
  13. I think they needed about another 2 hours in AM at the start. Actually sit in on a meeting or two with other resistance cells. Show their hesitation and concerns then show that Rhalgar,s Reach was a call to action. Perhaps also throw in some problems mobilizing the Erozian Alliance.

    As it stands, You go into AM, you tour a bit, the cell you are in contact with almost gets destroyed out of left field then you run off to Doma. When you return, the Resistance is back up into full swing and the Alliance marches through the zones incredibly quickly.

    I mean Ysayle actually has very, very little screen time in both ARR and HW, but every second is counted and has Estinien as a foil.

    That said, the post patch is so much better and really saves some characters from being one note.

    Reply
  14. how long you have to explain "a thing" to everybody in the story until its clear?. Because some ppl get it instantly in 2 or 3 cutscenes/dialogues but others dont. I think thats part of the problem. dont get me wrong the start of sb is still long.
    In my case sb patch content is where things grow bigger than hw

    Reply
  15. You have Isolated a lot of the issues I have with the Dialog all through FFXIV. It takes 70 sentences to tell me one thing and my gosh does it do it's best to keep me as uninterested in the game as possible. The cutscenes, and things that are shown are fantastic, but dialog… not fun to slog through.

    Reply
  16. Yep, it's sort of like ARR. It almost made me want to take a break from the game, lol. It hits a point when it starts to improve and then gets consistently better until it skyrockets back to great in the patch content. Then it stays solid after that.

    Lyse has plusses and minuses that I won't elaborate on because I think you'll understand why there is an argument by the end of the base game. But by the end of the patch content she gets much better! If anything, I think that is what's so great about FFXIV! If you stick with it, it tends to be worth it!

    Zenos is a fun antagonist for me. His is basically a more evil Zaraki Kenpachi from Bleach with a Darth Vader aesthetic that is just super fun.

    Reply
  17. A very good catch on the anthem/Rhalgr's Reach theme! The expansion story is very concerned with themes of occupation and imperialism, and does so in ways both obvious and subtle. If those themes are at all interesting to you (general you), then I think that can carry you past the weaker pacing of Stormblood. It's still a great expansion and part of an overall great game… but it's an 8 out of 10 when everything around it is generally regarded better.

    Reply

Leave a Comment