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Shadowbringers is better than your favorite FF
- Thread starter Zen
- Start date
So you missed FFXI and Tactics? Not a good look
The original Final Fantasy MMO was better in every way. It was online Final Fantasy, not a FF mod of WoW.
Unless you can point out specific evidence, this seems like a huge and frankly, ridiculous reach.
I've played shadowbringers and i wouldn't even put it in the top half? It feels like a B plot that just treads water. At the end we're going to be in the same place in the same conflict we were when we left minus 1 ascian but we don't even have a firm grasp on how many ascians there are or what exactly it takes to kill them, each time we've done it feels like they cornered themselves and we just happen to be there.
I can understand, I was pretty damn anxious the first time I did a dungeon, but the community of FFXIV is probably the chillest and most forgiving of all. I've only met one toxic dude in what... 600h of gameplay? Just tell the others that it's your first time in x dungeon or trial, and if there's something that's worth sharing they'll probably tell you. Don't let this keep you from playing this amazing game, seriously
Too bad the game it's attached to is mediocre (at best) gameplay wise, and you're forced to rely on others given the nature of MMO's.
... but I do love FFXIV's lore.
... but I do love FFXIV's lore.
You don't need to play with others to do the story missions. The ones that do require people, you can use the dungeon finder for.
I'm just so happy I got to play this game fresh with my friends. Best FF experience. The story and music will stick with me forever, they're that special.
So what do I need to do to go from never playing FFXIV to playing Shadowbringers? What to buy and do to get to it?
Either the Complete Edition ($60), or the Starter Edition ($20) now and Shadowbringers ($40) later. Shadowbringers includes the previous two expansions.
In these types of games I usually like to do endgame stuff if possible, and friend told me they can be pretty long. I need the ability to pause/sleep mode a game pretty often, and I don't want to waste others' time having to wait on me. Going through the story would take long too even if I'm goin' solo, just not possible for me to always play on a console/PC cause of work and other commitments.
Can I immediately play the shadowbringers arc, or do I need to play the the mmo to get there?
I heard this with the last few expansions.. and then I went back and played like 15 hours of the ARR.. and it was standard MMO garbage with FF trappings.
I just don't like the formula.. I get people like the MMO playloop.. but I ain't go no time for that.
I just don't like the formula.. I get people like the MMO playloop.. but I ain't go no time for that.
nobody will ever deny you ARR is a slog, but it really is just the tutorial in the grand scheme of things
ff14 opens up when you 1st reach 50, everything else is tutorial
No lies detected.
I had been playing XIV since Heavensward but X was still my favorite.. until I finished Shadowbingers. XIV is now my favorite.
I had been playing XIV since Heavensward but X was still my favorite.. until I finished Shadowbingers. XIV is now my favorite.
If you've played a classic Final Fantasy game, and WoW, then you know exactly what I mean.
Somehow FFXI has a 1000x more advanced job system that actually allows for people to not be the exact same thing! Multiple different ways of playing endgame and none of them rely on weekly tome capping! People actually being social! It was an amazing time.
Aside from healers literally who is complaining about overall balance?
Right now the biggest problems in the game are the Healers are homogenized and Monk is ridiculously overpowered.
Healers being all the same right now (despite the fixes and tweaks to AST) is probably due to them trying to get them all back to a base drawing board to go off from there I hope.
The Tanks are in the best spots they've ever been and aggro management is piss easy now with only a few minor changes between each.
My MCH normally tops the aggro charts so I'm not really understanding why some people feel ranged DPS is so bad.
And for melee DPS the big problem right now is NIN/SAM/MNK. Monk has insane utility damage and is braindead easy to play, SAM is supposed to be the Melee BLM but is outclassed by MNK and DRG, and NIN got a pretty decent bandaid fix but they have to rework jutsus (supposedly in 5.1).
The story isn't even effected by this "problem" to begin with as aside from Eden Raids none of the classes literally have any problems with any content in the game, ESPECIALLY after the .08 patch. I need to know who aside from healers is complaining about class balance. There are problems yes, but every MMO ever has had those problems and I've never seen anyone get it all right at once. Every expansion something breaks. That's MMOs.
I would quote more people but at this point I'm sure people are annoyed of me filling their mentions today. To point to your post as an example ARR was built upon the shambling horror of a corpse that was FFXIV 1.0 and due to that was heavily restricted and revolved almost entirely on asset reuse as they were working on it simultaneously while patching and fixing FFXIV 1.0.
From Heavensward on the story remains compelling and interesting and the pacing between singleplayer and multiplayer dungeons becomes more and more fine tuned every expac. ShB aside from like 6 dungeons is almost entirely a solo experience, and 9/10 the dungeons give you enough gear to proceed without having to grind for really anything. FFXIV is super friendly to casuals who aren't looking for a "huge" timesink.
Again, some people hate ARR, some people don't mind it, but there's context to explain why it's kinda underwhelming compared to the rest. That context is why people like myself stuck it through and now I can say ShB really is one of my favorite JRPG stories ever.
I'd hate to recommend this as the payoff at the end of ARR is amazing, but if anyone were tempted to get a skip potion and skip straight to Heavensward I'd at least understand that more than writing it off when they literally had to frankenstein the game together (and I say that as someone who bitched and moaned my way through ARR)
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I play FFXIV a ton, and I don't agree, X, VIII and XII are all better. In Shadowbringers The piano theme they play is really good, but some of the old overused ffxiv characters are long past their expiration and my interest. I am a little confused on peoples obsession over the story in this expansion. It's pretty decent, but it sill lacks the production and quality of a mainline series game to me. It's an mmo through and through, albeit a really good one, but not really a FF mainline game. I enjoyed FFXI a lot more back in the day, though it was a massive time sink.
I think for some people, and I can only speak for myself here, the content of the story is more important than the production values and cinematic quality that modern gaming gets a hard on for.
Shadowbringers did FFXV's antagonist but correctly, and gave your voiceless self insert avatar character a more discernible personality alongside fantastic characters and great voice acting (Ardbert and Emet Selch being perfection).
There was a time when the most revolutionary story experience for me was a game called FF7 where everything is in text boxes. For people like me the "production" quality doesn't matter when it feels like a playable book that I can continue to dive into and see new episodes expand on it every year.
If anything the "old overused" characters are better than they've ever been. Characters like urianger I couldn't give a flying shit about before ShB and now he's one of my faves.
You get what you pay for. I get the complaint but with a sub fee not only are there steady, reliable, meaty updates but also a ton of support between each expansions, and can be stopped and started at any time without penalty minus owning a house ingame. Events that continue to come out steadily, always adding things to do, regular changes, etc. A nice and welcome change from say GW2 where I bought the game once and the living story and other content was...not great.
There are several "games as service" that would nickel and dime you for similar prices and provide limited/shallow content drips as a result. I'd say despite having a sub for almost 3 years I've never felt like it was money wasted with how many hours I've been able to sink into the game.
You can have it one of two ways. A game with a ton of post launch content and steady updates and patches that are reliable for a sub fee, or a game that relies on its mtx and grinding loops to keep you playing longer than you need to so they can keep the lights on. It's not usually both.
Found the weeb :P
Aside from the post SB campaign leading into ShB in patches I found at least 70% of SB a terrible chore, with Lyse being one of the least compelling characters in the game since Minfilia and ARR Alphinaud. To each their own though.
All the tactics bosses were soooo good. Definitely the best of the Ivalice raids.
I can't comprehend how anyone can think that, but kudos for having a unique opinion. Can you add anything that explains why you think that way?
I feel like anyone who says this has never played an mmo since 11 and is yelling at the clouds as to why modern MMO's aren't stabbing them in their eye balls every 10 seconds and why other people don't enjoy mmo's stabbing them in their eyeballs.
11 had a lot of charm past the more... painful parts of it. There were the good struggles, too. Stuff you can't really make better through QoL improvements or modern technology. Most people are nostalgic about the fact that it was way more "open world," and basically everything you did had a lot more risk and tougher consequences were you to fail.
That said, XIV is a better, way higher quality experience in its presentation and execution. FF11's leveling time was complete garbage and I agree that anyone nostalgic about that is just kidding themselves to prove some point. 6 hours in the same party to get from 69-70? What the hell is wrong with you.
I love FFXI, but revisiting it revealed that what I really loved were all the friends I made, and the experiences we had.
It does suck that XIV isn't nearly as conducive to forming those relationships, but XIV is also a game that a lot more people are going to be willing to play, lol.
remember to sub RDM on MNK :^)
NGL, I shouted when I realized that was my girl Agrias, lol.
Running with randoms was (is) a crapshoot, but I liked every SB 24 man. Just wish I could run Orbonne without it grinding to a halt on Cid.
Still look fondly back on watching 23 grown adults just suddenly freeze when asked to remember what a prime number is on launch day.
It does suck that XIV isn't nearly as conducive to forming those relationships, but XIV is also a game that a lot more people are going to be willing to play, lol.
NGL, I shouted when I realized that was my girl Agrias, lol.
Running with randoms was (is) a crapshoot, but I liked every SB 24 man. Just wish I could run Orbonne without it grinding to a halt on Cid.
Still look fondly back on watching 23 grown adults just suddenly freeze when asked to remember what a prime number is on launch day.
Story-wise Tactics is probably the best one.
maybe you should play that too :P
Orlandeau was amazing
"I have been called the God of Thunder. You will now know why! Upon my holy blade, the very world lies in balance"
"And now, the scales will tip!"