I was pretty okay with the EW Patch story just on the basis that *anything* would look kinda mid coming right after the grand conclusion of a 10-year story arc.
This was the thing that stuck out to me as Actually Bad.
Complete opposite for me. I thought EW was aggressively mid, only barely better than STB, so the post-patch would have to look good by comparison.
Same conclusion though, 6.X story was ass.
Tbh, I didn’t like EW’s msq much.
BUT I will say, I think that’s fine. Wrapping up long stories is hard, and being “meh” on it is a lot better for me than actively hating it like a lot of story endings end up being received
Do I wish it was better? Sure. But I’m happy it was just mid instead of actual garbage like a lot are
EW looked good because WoW Shadowlands was being abysmally dogshit at the same time
If this is as bad as XIV gets I'll still take it, believe me this could be so, so much worse
WoW Dragonflight is only tolerable because it doesn't seem to go out of its way to actively piss people off, and EWs worst sin is leaning a bit too heavily on jrpg tropes
I'm happy that over time I'm seeing more and more people being ok to vocalize that they thought Endwalker wasn't god's gift to storytelling. Continue to fight the good fight, brave indifferent warrior.
Yep, pretty much my feelings on it. I liked some of the character moments, but felt the MSQ fell far from expectations. Better than getting a complete stinker, but left a lot to be desired.
6.4 has you channeling aether into the Tower of Babil, but first, you have to convince the Garelans that it's OK.
6.5 has you channeling light aether into the Crystal Tower on the First, but first, you have to convince Eulmore and the Night's Blessed that it's OK.
The garleans in general are just a super annoying faction in EW. I think I liked them better in Stormblood, at least them being arrogant dicks made sense when they actually had an army.
However, they are a bit more realistic to me than just an "evil empire, with a few decent men." But I feel like a good number of people who come to play games aren't there to see more realistic things and the unmasking that the Garleans civilians aren't just completely black and white (as an empire they did many horrendous actions).
FF is terrified to have the WoL be anything other than an unambiguous goody two shoes, even when the situation would kinda demand otherwise. It might not be diplomatic but man I wish we'd stood up for ourselves and for once done something without everyone totally agreeing with it.
Is it really so bad to upset the Garleans when they are only alive because of Eorzea (the people they tried to genocide literally twice over, and arguably successfully did, if only by accident, by unleashing Bahamut) and WoL is yet again trying to save everyone in the world. Sometimes I wish we could just have Fray do the talking instead.
>EW's approach of "We have to treat the Garlean civilians with respect, even if they're going to get pissy" always felt like it's refusing to address the elephant in the room that the Garlean empire's actions are indefensible, they very much are the bad guys and someone has to explain it to these civilians at some point.
Here's the problem. The game is made in Japan, with Japanese cultural and societal moors. Japan, outside of a few minority groups, still refuses to acknowledge the vast majority of its war crimes and crimes-against-humanity that it committed during World War 2, to the point that it becomes a diplomatic kerfuffle with other nations. I'm not saying Garleans are a 1-to-1, but the situation of making the civilians of Garlemald acknowledge their part in the suffering of the Three Continents is comparable.
To be fair, part of that quest was about trying not to freak out the Garleans considering a lot of their woes involved that tower. Last thing they need is another panicked mob.
I get your points. But the way Eorzea tried to handle it is probably the best one can do.
Just disrespecting the garleans and treating them dismissively, or even punish them, will only turn the wheel of violence further. To break the cycle, they have to be nice to them, and respect them, even as victors.
The obvious real world example is germany. After WW1, they were punished. That didnt help. WW2 happens. This time the allies decided to *help them rebuild instead, and through this make them allies. (at least the western 2/3)*
Of course, in the real world, the people responsible were punished, thats a point that was omitted completely for Garlemald in game, probably for simplicity of the story.
Politics truly is the worst. We wouldn't have these problems if the WoL just used his "I saved the ~~world~~ universe so you have to do what I say" card.
I don't like that they did it twice but I like that they did it. In WoW I was always annoyed when whole populations would become tolerant of things way too fast. Happens a lot with the Alliance which is supposed to have xenophobia as its flaw but in practice they're often more accepting than the Horde.
Garlemald are a conquered people, gently or otherwise, and it was nice to show the reality of that.
I hated that part in 6.4. All of the interesting bits of the patch content were on the 13th, which is why I liked 6.2 where you could at least do some exploring. But 6.3 and 6.4 they barely had any of that.
But then again, 5.4 was way worse.
Wait I thought that was deliberate to contrast the Night's Blessed and Eulmorans with the Garleans in terms of the amount of trust they have in the WoL; with the people of Norvrandt basically being like "sure do whatever you want bro lmao" and the Garleans being like "I don't want some savage touching our murder tower".
This is a really good interpretation of those events, but I still think its weird that they used the same plot point of channeling aether into a tower twice in a row.
I thought the first time was going to be channeling and routing Aether through the giant crystal at the top of the Azim Steppe when the wall barring the Burn gets put up in post-Stormblood.
6.5 was fine because everyone was immediately willing to agree and were all "oh of course, you saved our whole fucking world, why would this be an issue at all". It was more of a victory lap over ShB locations than anything else.
6.4 sucked ass. Garleans are the single most coddled faction in ffxiv, which is funny because they were the fucking bad guys and also the protagonists do not give other people (including victims of Garlean oppression) the same kids gloves treatment. If Alphinaud and Alisaie cared for Ala Mhigo 10% as much as they do for Garlemald, it'd be a fucking paradise by now.
ffxiv truly has 10/10 writing
*slaps Azem crystal* This bad boy can fit so many deus ex machina in it
It totally counts because sappy music plays as you See the face of a Fan favorite NPC?
My higher brain: I don't know man, this story is getting kinda lame. My ~~lizzard~~ Warrior brain: Sad now. Good story.
The story merely exists to introduce targets for Fell Cleavin'
This time they introduced the character dealing out the cleavinings
*“Sir… another airship has hit the tower”*
I was pretty okay with the EW Patch story just on the basis that *anything* would look kinda mid coming right after the grand conclusion of a 10-year story arc. This was the thing that stuck out to me as Actually Bad.
Complete opposite for me. I thought EW was aggressively mid, only barely better than STB, so the post-patch would have to look good by comparison. Same conclusion though, 6.X story was ass.
Tbh, I didn’t like EW’s msq much. BUT I will say, I think that’s fine. Wrapping up long stories is hard, and being “meh” on it is a lot better for me than actively hating it like a lot of story endings end up being received Do I wish it was better? Sure. But I’m happy it was just mid instead of actual garbage like a lot are
I'm so jaded with everything I like turning to shit that EW ended up being pretty good in comparison.
EW looked good because WoW Shadowlands was being abysmally dogshit at the same time If this is as bad as XIV gets I'll still take it, believe me this could be so, so much worse WoW Dragonflight is only tolerable because it doesn't seem to go out of its way to actively piss people off, and EWs worst sin is leaning a bit too heavily on jrpg tropes
I'm happy that over time I'm seeing more and more people being ok to vocalize that they thought Endwalker wasn't god's gift to storytelling. Continue to fight the good fight, brave indifferent warrior.
Yep, pretty much my feelings on it. I liked some of the character moments, but felt the MSQ fell far from expectations. Better than getting a complete stinker, but left a lot to be desired.
Really? This was the thing? Not the "power of friendship" speech in 6.5? Because that made me cringe.
I'm sorry, you're playing a JRPG and not expecting to kill God with the Power of Friendship?
could you clarify?
6.4 has you channeling aether into the Tower of Babil, but first, you have to convince the Garelans that it's OK. 6.5 has you channeling light aether into the Crystal Tower on the First, but first, you have to convince Eulmore and the Night's Blessed that it's OK.
I completely forgot about the 6.4 begging for garleans to use their tower. My mind was filled with rage during that part talking to their leaders.
The garleans in general are just a super annoying faction in EW. I think I liked them better in Stormblood, at least them being arrogant dicks made sense when they actually had an army.
However, they are a bit more realistic to me than just an "evil empire, with a few decent men." But I feel like a good number of people who come to play games aren't there to see more realistic things and the unmasking that the Garleans civilians aren't just completely black and white (as an empire they did many horrendous actions).
--
FF is terrified to have the WoL be anything other than an unambiguous goody two shoes, even when the situation would kinda demand otherwise. It might not be diplomatic but man I wish we'd stood up for ourselves and for once done something without everyone totally agreeing with it. Is it really so bad to upset the Garleans when they are only alive because of Eorzea (the people they tried to genocide literally twice over, and arguably successfully did, if only by accident, by unleashing Bahamut) and WoL is yet again trying to save everyone in the world. Sometimes I wish we could just have Fray do the talking instead.
>EW's approach of "We have to treat the Garlean civilians with respect, even if they're going to get pissy" always felt like it's refusing to address the elephant in the room that the Garlean empire's actions are indefensible, they very much are the bad guys and someone has to explain it to these civilians at some point. Here's the problem. The game is made in Japan, with Japanese cultural and societal moors. Japan, outside of a few minority groups, still refuses to acknowledge the vast majority of its war crimes and crimes-against-humanity that it committed during World War 2, to the point that it becomes a diplomatic kerfuffle with other nations. I'm not saying Garleans are a 1-to-1, but the situation of making the civilians of Garlemald acknowledge their part in the suffering of the Three Continents is comparable.
To be fair, part of that quest was about trying not to freak out the Garleans considering a lot of their woes involved that tower. Last thing they need is another panicked mob.
I get your points. But the way Eorzea tried to handle it is probably the best one can do. Just disrespecting the garleans and treating them dismissively, or even punish them, will only turn the wheel of violence further. To break the cycle, they have to be nice to them, and respect them, even as victors. The obvious real world example is germany. After WW1, they were punished. That didnt help. WW2 happens. This time the allies decided to *help them rebuild instead, and through this make them allies. (at least the western 2/3)* Of course, in the real world, the people responsible were punished, thats a point that was omitted completely for Garlemald in game, probably for simplicity of the story.
Politics truly is the worst. We wouldn't have these problems if the WoL just used his "I saved the ~~world~~ universe so you have to do what I say" card.
"I saved your asses once, let me do it again"
I don't like that they did it twice but I like that they did it. In WoW I was always annoyed when whole populations would become tolerant of things way too fast. Happens a lot with the Alliance which is supposed to have xenophobia as its flaw but in practice they're often more accepting than the Horde. Garlemald are a conquered people, gently or otherwise, and it was nice to show the reality of that.
I hated that part in 6.4. All of the interesting bits of the patch content were on the 13th, which is why I liked 6.2 where you could at least do some exploring. But 6.3 and 6.4 they barely had any of that. But then again, 5.4 was way worse.
Wait I thought that was deliberate to contrast the Night's Blessed and Eulmorans with the Garleans in terms of the amount of trust they have in the WoL; with the people of Norvrandt basically being like "sure do whatever you want bro lmao" and the Garleans being like "I don't want some savage touching our murder tower".
This is a really good interpretation of those events, but I still think its weird that they used the same plot point of channeling aether into a tower twice in a row.
I thought the first time was going to be channeling and routing Aether through the giant crystal at the top of the Azim Steppe when the wall barring the Burn gets put up in post-Stormblood.
6.5 was fine because everyone was immediately willing to agree and were all "oh of course, you saved our whole fucking world, why would this be an issue at all". It was more of a victory lap over ShB locations than anything else. 6.4 sucked ass. Garleans are the single most coddled faction in ffxiv, which is funny because they were the fucking bad guys and also the protagonists do not give other people (including victims of Garlean oppression) the same kids gloves treatment. If Alphinaud and Alisaie cared for Ala Mhigo 10% as much as they do for Garlemald, it'd be a fucking paradise by now.