I’ve made a video about my first impressions, I’ve made a video about my Honest Review (up to ShB), I’ve made a video about my favourite story trial of all time… but I’ve never made a video about what YOU think of FFXIV. Well, enjoy!
BTW, come find me on Twitch! I stream my FFXIV journey and WoW Dragonflight, since it just launched!
https://www.twitch.tv/kingshiny_66
Do you want to know what a 14yo WoW Veteran thinks of FFXIV? Check out this video: https://youtu.be/Y–F6zwh4Lw
Do you wanna know about THE BEST FFXIV EXPANSION? Click the jebait:
https://youtu.be/fHeyY6UGh2k
If you want random moments as well as cat / kitten videos you can find me on tiktok: @kingshiny_66 or on Instagram: kingshiny66. Ima be honest, tiktok and insta are occasional. I wanna upload more but … yah.
My twitter is where I will post some updates regarding what I feel: @KingShiny_66
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Zenos doesn't want to kill you, at least not at that point. He wants to motivate you and he knows that you're stronger when you're fighting for a noble cause.
Killing your friends would have made you enraged and that makes for a sloppy fighter. Zenos wants to fight you at your best and on the grandest stage possible.
Majority of criticism I've seen boils down to "there's too little content" when the reality is that there's not enough for you, but there's definitely not a shortage of things to do. At all. But people should realize we're better of separating personal taste with what's actually there.
Why? Because it sends the wrong message to new players, they will think there's not enough to do at end game just because of what you told them. That's not good.
I totally agree with what was said in the video. So many people simply still do not understand the concept that FFXIV does not subject you to infinite grinds to force you to log in and play like it is a job every single day. The devs encourage taking breaks between patches, touch grass or go play other games. It is simple and the devs AND veteran players have publicly said/told newer players (within the last 3 years) IF you have run out of things that you want to do in FFXIV, PAUSE your sub and go play/try other games, touch grass, catch up with the family/children/irl friends you've been neglecting. Come back later IF you want to. You don't lose anything in the power curve. The content will still be there and you just pick up where you left off. What is wrong with you people? Wake tf up! You are not locked in to play only one game every single day. Sorry, not sorry. Ask ANY FFXIV players who have been playing longer than 5 years (3 years or less, you have technically probably only been thru one expansion cycle and are the "new" community that came during the Asmongold wave)
Have been playing for almost 10 years now (I started in 2014 after leaving WoW). Pausing your sub and playing other games/doing something else and coming back during new expansion/patches is the routine for most older veteran players between expansions/patch cycles. Ask yourself if you are so brainwashed or addicted that you have no clue what to do with yourself if the game does not tell you what to do with your time every day? Seriously? If you can't see that, you probably have other irl problems you actually need to worry about, but running away from them in the game. Maybe the universe is throwing you a sign?
I mainly want some basic replayability of the general content for people that don't need the basic XP/gil rewards.
I don't do most of the roulettes, I have Omni 90's and have no use for the gil rewards or materia rewards.
There are some things in the game that I WANT to do, such as finishing all my ShB relics, but the systems to obtain those are outdated and jarring to try and do now that the content isn't current. (Delubrum reginae actively solo queues you 9/10 times unless you sit on party finder for 2 hours trying to find people)
But I 100% agree I don't want XIV to become a third job. Grinds should be optional, not required.
I played Ragnarok Online for like 4 years, Final Fantasy XI for at least 8 and FFXIV 9+ years, at this point IRL responsibilities do NOT allow me to BEEG DEEK gaming. Even then I've taken time to play co-op games with friends and get beatdown online on Fighting Games… but like you comment, get a more varied experience with other games, as it will allow you to appreciate the best parts of some games and give better feedback on the stuff that just feels bad/off with others.
"Friends/Communities in MMO's make or break the game"… I've had great experiences meeting in game friends IRL, I would go into details but "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" XD
As an ex hardcore WOW player and definitely feeling that mandatory engagement it requires, going to FFXIV and being at endgame where I am aloud to log off and player other games, if I were to have to choose one of the two extremes I would gladly choose the second.
I always make this comparison when it comes to MMO's. Been playing WoW, GW, and FFXIV for quite a while and I would always compare it to a carnivale or an amusement park. You go into one amusement park with hundreds of attractions, enjoy the rides you like and when you are tired, leave. Try visiting something else. Enjoy it. And when you have the desire to come back, the rides will still be there. The ones you tried and the ones you haven't. I can confidently say FF has been my kind of amusement park that's always there when I find it in me to go back for more.
5:00 – I think there is a difference between there is stuff you can do if you like to and stuff the game *forces you to do*. Or in other words: How much horizontal progression is there at end game, that is not dependent on your power level (character level, item score) and doesn't change that either. Some games are basically purely based on that concept (like GW2), and some games do a decent job at it even though they are still vertical progression at heart. WoW has been very bad at that – at least until the last expansion. Dragonflight is to fresh for a final decision on that in my opinion.
13:00 – No singleplayer game is getting as many hors clocked in as MMOs for me. The only genre that comes close to it are city builders where you can go creative or RPGs that allow user created campaigns.
18:00 – I guess what would help with this type of content is when you basically have small chunks of challenges you can tackle and save progress. So it is even worth just progressing 1 or 2 levels if you don't have much time. Another way to do it would be to use some form of currency, so you can work towards your rewards. Downside of currencies might be that it can get convoluted if every type of content gets is own type of currency (this is something GW2 suffers from), but it also offers having completely different types of content for the same rewards. But then again, people will tend to do the content which is just easier and more effective, even though the other one might be more fun. On the other hand this is something the devs can balance.
22:00 – I recently finished a game called "Per Aspera", which is about terraforming Mars. A lot of references towards real Mars missions in there that got me interested in the actual stories of those, but also some made up stuff. I don't recall another game with as much potential for tangential learning in it in the recent years.
There is a lot to be said about FFXIV story, especially how slow WoL to react to danger (which got proper trashing during HW Hildebrand quests, despite not fixing the problem). But a lot of criticising I heard in this video towards this or that scene of EW misses the point. Any player may interpret any scene as they see fit, but at the same time it's really not objective criticism, it's subjective one. IMO EW story biggest problem comes from it being an ending to the story started back in ARR. It both highly reliant and constricted by events, themes and storylines of previous expansions. It couldn't be much longer, or it could have better structure or or.. many things. As for different scenes there aren't too many for which there it's no in-game or in-lore explanation. And sometimes it's left open ended (for example the very last scene with Zenos in ew has beautiful lore friendly community theory, to which SE basically responded with analogue of twitch smile emote. To the point of "Zenos walks up to scions" – other players derived difference explanations to your timely arrival and his supposed inaction towards your friends, ones, that didn't considered bad writing.
I mean every expansion has good parts and bad parts.
Predictability is not per se a bad thing. It just means the rules of the world are well established.
I do think EW is best expansion storywise, but i also see flaws here and there.
Story is a complex subject and if the story clicks with you is a coinflip.
The pet peeve i have is that its an end to a saga. All loose ends in prev expansions have to lead somewhere here. So anything that needed to be cut in lets say Shadowbringers, any lingering questions not answered (and therefore made the main aspect of this part of the story more conceice), had to be answered now or never at all. Which made the story ultimately a bit packed which resulted in pacing issues imo. Its a debt repaid so to speak.
Regarding the body swap. While under the weaker spots of the story i agree with others, that Zenos not really wanted to kill your friends. First of they arent that weak to be killed easily. Secondly it would ruin his sport which (at this point well established) is not what he wants. Its my interpretation of course, but he wants you at your best. Ragefilled is not your best. Your best is fighting for hope.
All that being said. I do think its a very good end. It doesnt have to be your fav expansion and its certainly not without flaws. In the very least i however DO think playing EW made Shadowbringers (and every other expansion) better, as in you get the emotions and reasoning of the ascians way more now. How their society worked (even if you only got a glimpse).
I only need them to evolve the gearing system because it's absurd that they haven't changed that shit for years and years.
And I'm not a veteran to know that, I only joined before 5.1.
Man I've been watching your videos lately and I tried my best to stay away from commenting as much as possible.. but I guess I should at least leave a comment to address one thing people are saying about the story of FF14. First and for most, I have the upmost respect for people's opinion regarding this game weather I disagree with it or not. Before I share some of the points I want to mention that I have been actively playing this game since day one of the 1.0 beta and still going till this day coming from playing FF11 since the days of the rise of the zilart. I'm only mentioning this to give you a perspective of a long term FF-MMO player. The thing about Final Fantasy in general is that 90% of the writing is whimsical and cheesy. If you gonna look at the core of their stories they are very simple and easy to predict. A warrior going on an adventure with their friends to stop the bad guy from destroying the world. FF stories at its core are silly and very basic, but being whimsical, magical, and silly doesn't mean that when it is done right it can't be very impactful. Endwalker to me is the pinnacle of how a story can conclude and end, and it feels that it is only appreciated if you look at the whole FF14 game and story and how it tides up at the end and for that alone I feel Endwalker is slightly better than Shadowbringers even though the latter is insanely good. If there are plot holes and stuff that didn't make any sense in the writing than give me a better version of the story that ran for 10+ years and concluded with a better writing and had things that totally made sense to finish the story?!. It is okay for an ending chapter of a story to feel rushed or to feel that it had some gaps if it does its job to conclude the story in way that feels satisfying and leaves you wanting for more. That being said I'm aware of the elements in the story that could of been done better or explored better but I'm also not a writer and I do not know if I could of made it better my self. I'm very shocked that there are people who got burnt out of the Endwalker MSQ and their reasoning is that the story/writing felt bad. Endwalker MSQ never stopped for one second to leave me at the edge of my seat even with the slow moments it still kept the pace going. I shed a tear or two in Shadowbringers but I cried like never before in Endwalker and it is not 'cause of the story it is because it reminded me of my journey with this game and I believe they can not to better than how they ended this arc of the FF14 story.
Unrelated to the video alone, but all your last videos as a whole. I noticed that you are clearly trying your best to use inclusive language, while still defaulting to male pronouns. If I recall correctly, just like me, you are not a native english speaker. So, I would like to give you two advices to keep your language more inclusive.
First one is to use "they" as the default third person pronoun instead of "he". Fixing it quickly with "… or she" is fine, but defaulting to they prevent this issue completely.
Second is change "this guy/dude/man" to "this person" or another non gendered subject. Poster, commenter, friend, player, author, etc.
As a brazilian, it made more sense for my thinking process to swap those few words as my new english default.
Hope it helps. And feel free to delete this comment if I overstepped your boundaries.