Board 8 > Bout to start ff14 stormblood (spoilers as i go)

(+) Yeah! (+)

Fordola sucks but Yotsuyu is great

https://youtu.be/dF6JHT6Is74

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/7/0/8/AAK53VAAEu6E.jpg

Stormblood's boss theme is probably my favorite.

raubahn and nanamo ;-;

(pipin is totally their illegitimate son right?)

Pipins definitely adopted. Also I didnt realize until now, but hes supposed to be older than Nanamo. Nanamos only like 21.

MoogleKupo141 posted...

Also I didnt realize until now, but hes supposed to be older than Nanamo.

this makes no sense

MoogleKupo141 posted...

Nanamos only like 21.

THIS MAKES NO SENSE

Sorry I havent posted in a bit, heres some quick thoughts:

Still working on patch, but honestly i played like ten FF games this year, and Stormblood might be my favorite so far, except for maybe ff5. Might be neck and neck with Heavensward. Which makes me feel like im crazy, because most people seem just kinda meh on Stormblood. My wife called it mid, people throughout the internet seem lukewarm on it, any time I try to talk to one of my friends about it, theyre just like "sure but just wait till shadowbringers"

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/4/9/5/AAK53VAAEvV_.jpg

I am by no means an expert on ff14, so feel free to put me in my place, but i think ff14 fans probably do a disservice to new players by calling everything before shadowbringers mid

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/4/9/6/AAK53VAAEvWA.png

most people were at least 9/10 on stormblood back then. many of them claiming it better than heavensward (which is like the opposite nowadays.) Shadowbringers might be better than 99% of all other games, but I dont think that magically made stormblood worse. I really genuinely enjoy the complete package that stormblood brings - the story, the dungeons, the bosses, the music, the locations. Its hovering around ff5/ff9 tier for me, which is... honestly so refreshing as a long time fan of the series.

Also i think its funny all these characters got death scenes, only to be brought back in patch

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/4/9/7/AAK53VAAEvWB.png

"You get brought back to life, and you get back brought back to life, and you get brought back to life!!!"

I quite liked Stormblood. I just loved Heavensward and loved Shadowbringers so it feels like the middle child.

I like SB better than HW but thats definitely a minority opinion

Thank you my friends for validating me

so how does teleporting in this world even work? Why does the average citizen still take boats from doma to eorzea? Why rent a chocobo or take an airship? My assumption is not everyone has the ability to teleport, but then how come when i get to a new town, someones like dont forget to attune to the crystal! like its something everyone does. Maybe the average person just cant afford the gil to teleport? But if youre like a king, whats stopping you from teleporting your entire army into the heart of your enemys city?

It seems odd considering theres so much lore explanation for stuff like linkshells or aether currents or something. Maybe ive just forgotten something

iirc the lore is something like teleporting takes a lot of aether out of you, so much so that the average person (or even the Scions) can't do it in anything other than an emergency or other extreme circumstances. Meanwhile, the WoL is a special snowflake who can teleport as much as they like with no repercussions whatsoever.

Not_an_Owl posted...

iirc the lore is something like teleporting takes a lot of aether out of you, so much so that the average person (or even the Scions) can't do it in anything other than an emergency or other extreme circumstances. Meanwhile, the WoL is a special snowflake who can teleport as much as they like with no repercussions whatsoever.

Ohhh gotcha

Also the aether crystals do come up early on in Shadowbringers

theres a situation where the party wants to go somewhere, and I think one of them is like Ive been there before, so Im already attuned. So teleporting between them is definitely a thing that people can do in the canon, but also the attunement rules apply, so maybe everyone riding a boat somewhere just isnt attuned yet?

or its a money issue? There is a Gil cost for teleporting, although I dunno if thats a canon thing too or just a gameplay thing.

Attunement is definitely a thing in canon. As for the money, it goes towards maintaining the aetheryte. Precisely what sort of maintenance a giant crystal requires is left deliberately vague, however.

For Stormblood, personally I think it's the story, characters, and area designs for Gyr Abania that hold it back. For stories, I'd rank the games Shadowbringers > Heavensward > Endwalker > Realm Reborn > Stormblood personally, though I don't think that's too common a ranking. I don't care for any of the Doma crew (villains and heroes alike), Zenos is lame, and Lyse is terrible compared to Yda. I enjoyed her much more as comic relief compared to a serious character. The expansion's saving graces are the generally more interesting gameplay design and everything in the Azim Steppe, which is legit top tier.

Also, while the Stormblood cities are solid, particularly Kugane, I really love Ishgard. I think it's maybe the best city in any game. Having four awesome themes to itself rocks.

The ishgard music never gets old. Every time i go back im like OH MAN HERE IT IS AGAIN DUN DUN DUNNNN

also

Gilgamesh: this is my pet chicken who i painted green because i was lonely
Hildebrand: cool story greg

I really think is the dullness of Gyr Abania that sticks out the most.

tsukuyomi down

great scenes for some great characters

gosetsu is THE MAN

also

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/8/3/1/AAK53VAAEvbP.png

i dont fuck with asahi's vibe lol. guess you gotta have at least one irredeemable villain so your other villains can be easier to sympathize with

but now here we go with all this multiple zenos shit that doesnt make sense. starting to feel like its xehanort all over again. please dont go off the deep end with some kingdom hearts shit, ff14, im begging you. ff7r was more than enough of a letdown

Oh shit im playing as alphinaud??

lmao this new guy. The names shadowhunter
got a bunch of ascian masks as trophies. What a boss

I really thought Yotsuyu was going to have a magical girl transformation sequence at the end.

the mist dragon!

thats so cool

TomNook7 posted...

the mist dragon!

thats so cool

bro

when that dungeon was active in expert roulette

you have NO IDEA how many people ate shit on mist dragon week in and week out

NO IDEA

it was great

i bet. My party wiped before we were able to get it lol

man i took off work and played patch for 8 hours straight today and its still not done, whew

Also the capital of dalmasca, rabanastre, has been having trouble with the empire
ohhhhh shit son

Never forget... the red baron.

K-kweh!

To back up a bit on Stormblood overall - I'm one of the ones who said its good but just not quite as good as Heavensward. Lots of great stuff, Zenos is very overwhelming, Yotsuyu is captivating in a lot of different ways, and there's a whole lot of neat adventuring in different places. Plus there was a whole lot of Yugiri who is my second wife and I cannot get enough of.

But I think it's just not quite tonally put together right. The switching between Doma and Ala Mhigo feels odd. They are kind of aligned because of the revolution against the empire stuff but it kinda feels like two completely disconnected stories.

And on top of that A LOT of people hate Lyse. Personally, I liked her, but she didn't quite measure up for being the lead the whole expansion rested on. I wish she was a bit more intelligent and self assured, it felt like she was hand held through the entire revolution before finding her groove at the end. When we met Hien, it really felt like, damn, Lyse does not measure up to the task of taking back her homeland like this guy does.

But overall still really good! Enjoyed Stormblood a lot.

I've seen others complain about Lyse, but I still say she's good. She's the protagonist/leader type so she can come across as boring in a game filled with larger than life characters, but her hero's journey works. She starts out unsure of herself, fails to free her country, goes and learns from Hien (who he himself didn't have it together when we first meet him), and comes back home more confident and wins. Her refusing to sit in the throne, and instead getting all the leaders to sit on the floor and have a blanket party was honestly a pretty good moment

Yeah I don't mind Lyse either (my first sync in Record Keeper being for her helped...!), but she is... not popular

It's also weird that she's Yda (you know what I mean) since Yda felt like an entirely different (and better) character.

I would say the structure of Stormblood is definitely the thing that hurts it the most. FF14 is no stranger to multiple concurrent storyline happening at once, but Stormblood handled it in a really weird way. You start in Ala Mhigo, do some stuff there, then the plot goes "hey, go across the world and do an entirely different rebellion storyline". And it's pretty great! But it also lasts for like 60% of the 4.0 MSQ. Then you return to Ala Mhigo and try to resume that storyline and the momentum just isn't there anymore (plus Doma was better).

I think the post-4.0 Stormblood story content was overall handled better, but I know that's contentious too.

I don't mind Lyse but I hated Yda. Good riddance.

So I got to this quest Will of the Moon

Basically we want to bring the Azim Steppe guys into our Doman alliance, but Sadu wants to 1v1 the WoL before she agrees

So aight, I start the fight. I love Sadu, but in my mind I'm like, it's an easy MSQ fight, let's just beat her up real quick and get it over with. So I beat her, and then she has a second phase. I'm like oh shit this might be interesting. Turns out she's actually got FIVE phases, and her mechanics and adds are super crazy, and for the final phase she casts meteor, and I have 60 seconds to beat her, or I'm dead.

And dude, I got fucking destroyed. Then the game offers to let me do it on easy... but, nah. I respect Sadu too much. I ain't gonna do her dirty like that. And besides, Big Chalupa ain't bitch-made.

So I start thinking like damn... I need to git gud. I've been playing this game super casual up till now. Like I know my basic rotation and my AoE rotation, but I havent given THAT much thought to much else.

So aight. I go out and start getting all my tome gear. I go back and get all my Samurai quests caught up, and unlock a new move. But it still ain't enough.

So Saturday night my boy comes over, and he's like "watch me do a savage fight." And this dude has TWO hotbars stacked on each other, and he's pushing like 9000 buttons a second and moving all around with all these other dudes doing insane mechanics my brain can't even comprehend. It was like watching a pro Smash player wavedash all around and mashing buttons. And here I was pushing like one button at a time and waiting for cooldowns like some chode. Pushing R1 to cycle through hotbar tabs and shit.

So today I set up the extra hotbar, and I just start mashing the fuck out of every button, and doing every move ASAP in-between my rotations, and I'm moving into different positions around the enemy to do flank/rear damage, and I'm eating food to give me buffs, and I'm just going crazy. And I BARELY beat her with like 5 seconds to go, and I only had like 100 hp left. It was honestly incredible, and probably one of my favorite fights so far. And I got a glimpse of the true potential of FF14's combat, and I'm fucking here for it.

And man I just love Sadu. She's becoming one of my favorite characters in the entire game.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/5/8/AAK53VAAEv-C.png

And also Y'shtola and Magnai's exchange was legendary.
Magnai: could you be my new wife?
Yshtola: come back when youre a man, little sun

Im glad the story took a second to check back in with Ga Bu ;-;

First time finally seeing Emet Selch! Hell of an introduction too

at first I was like I dunno about this guy, but he ends up being probably the best antagonist (at least up to this point, still havent gotten through Endwalker)

TomNook7 posted...

So today I set up the extra hotbar, and I just start mashing the fuck out of every button, and doing every move ASAP in-between my rotations, and I'm moving into different positions around the enemy to do flank/rear damage, and I'm eating food to give me buffs, and I'm just going crazy. And I BARELY beat her with like 5 seconds to go, and I only had like 100 hp left. It was honestly incredible, and probably one of my favorite fights so far. And I got a glimpse of the true potential of FF14's combat, and I'm fucking here for it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7jRWvdR5XQ

FF14 combat is extremely fun once you get into it.

^lmao

gaius such devistation balsar getting a mother fucking REDEMPTION ARC LETS GO

Stormblood patch done! Shadowbringers is literally the next quest, but I'm gonna be taking a break from FF14 for a couple months. I'm pretty burned out after playing for like 100 hours straight, and Armored Core 6 and Baldurs Gate 3 are about to drop, and those are gonna be the priority

BUT BEFORE I GO, I'm gonna at least do the Ivalice stuff, because it seems pretty essential to the Stormblood experience, so I'll post my thoughts on that soon, and then finally I'll add Stormblood to my overall FF ranking.

But yeah.

FF14 is a banger for sure.

Aw yee Ivalice raids are peak content

Ivalice raids bad

Ivalice raids are okay

Ivalice raids very good.

Ivalice quests very bad.

It is my legitimate belief that you should skip all cutscenes outside of the in-raid ones themselves, but obviously nobody will listen to that.

Honestly, it's kinda weird how none of the Alliance Raids have great stories.

Speaking of, did you ever go and do the Coil of Bahamut raids? They're pretty solid, storywise.

MacArrowny posted...

Honestly, it's kinda weird how none of the Alliance Raids have great stories.

Unironically The Crystal Tower is still the best narratively.

The Void Ark is my personal bane, it's the first time I ever felt like I was burning out playing the game but I immediately perked back up after.

MacArrowny posted...

Speaking of, did you ever go and do the Coil of Bahamut raids? They're pretty solid, storywise.

Not yet, but I'll make a note of it

cids oven mitt is just so damn silly looking

aight im calling it good for stormblood. i thought the ivalice raids were gonna be about final fantasy tactics, but its just some weird dudes on an airship. cool boss fights tho

im gonna cancel my ff14 subscription for now, because armored core and baldurs gate are right around the corner, but i'll come back to b8 for my shadowbringers playthrough for sure. here's my updated ranking from my previous topics:

#1. FF7 - 10
#2. FF6 - 10
#3. FFT - 10
#4. FFX - 9.5
#5. FF4 - 9.4
#6. FF9 - 9.3
#7. FF14 STB - 9.1
#8. FF5 - 9.0
#9. FF14 HW - 9.0
#10. FF8 - 8.8
#11. FFX-2 - 8.5
#12. FF16 - 8.5
#13. FF3 - 8.4
#14. FF12 - 8.4
#15. FF14 ARR - 8.4
#16. FF11 - 8.4
#17. FF1 - 8.3
#18. FF7R - 8.2
#19. FF15 - 8.0
#20. DoC FF7 - 6.0
#21. FF2 - 5.0
#22. FF13 - 3.0

i think stormblood is a 9.1/10. i like it better than ff5 and heavensward. heavensward made me a believer in the story, and stormblood made me a believer in the gameplay. i can only imagine what comes next lol

the msq fights and dungeons were just cooler in stormblood than heavensward. and all the villains and drama just made them that much cooler. and i think the music might be better too (idk its close)

so yeah, ff14 is creeping up on ff9, which is crazy to me (in a good way.) also ffx-2 is kicked out of my top ten lololol

thanks everyone for keeping me company on this journey! i really valued all of your thoughts and opinions more than you know

This was a fun topic, glad you enjoyed what FF14 has to offer.

Lookin' forward to it, Shadowbringers is a hell of a ride.