Patch 2.5 Part 1 release date Jan 20 2015

[Eurell]

Not sure I can really quantify it as I just kinda auto-piloted through most of them, but the parts leading up to Snowcloak/Shiva were pretty fetchy. I guess in this case it was more of go to location A > talk to person > go to B > talk to person. Might have been important for all I know but in my mind it was just a grueling march until I got to the fun stuff of Snowcloak and Shiva.

Yeah mainly all I remember is getting alphinaud to come out and set up a deal before e went of to hunt down iceheart. But even the bullshitty CSs of them just talking gave us lots of lore and set up future plot lines. That let us know something was going to go down at keeper of the lake, they let us know that there are at least a few people in high positions that don't agree with how Ishgard is being run, which is important, because in the patch before that we learned Asians were pulling all the strings over there. I honestly can't remember any Kill x of this mob, or deliver this to x people quests in this last patch. And running back and forth across zones is a non issue since we can all teleport 5 feet away from the scions front door now.

[Niiro]

I specifically meant the amnesia plot device in FF8 lol

Using GFs causes memory loss, Balamb garden's SeeDs were the only group that used them.

It's why Irvine remembers everyone somewhat, he was from Galbadia garden and never used GFs till he joins the party.

[Lucavi]

Still not Ivalice Online.
Still can't roll a Bangaa.
4/10 this game won't make it past Heavensward.
Buried my copy when Yoshida sold out to cash shop.

Are people really that hungry for a game where the main character isn't front and center in the storyline? Cause Guild Wars did that twice and people hated it. Yay, a bland NPC named Trahearne steals all your credit as the hero while being voiced by a guy who showed up to work groggy. And before that Kormir yoinks all your glory and ascends to godhood. To some extent we all play these MMOs to be all up in the spotlight and Final Fantasy heroes have always been the 'chosen one' types, complete with crystal blessings. Nothing new here. We could use someone as iconic as Shantotto but Hildibrand seems poised to take that title. Minfillia isn't quite on the Prishe tier yet.

FFXII tried to the pedestrian approach to being the hero and got slammed. You don't even meet the primary antagonist face to face until the last hour of the game.

Be careful what you wish for.

You fucking nailed it. We played second fiddle a shit ton in GW2 and it felt pretty dry as a result. I personally didn't like it because the NPCs we were supposed to be following into glorious battle had shitty AI scripting. If you're going to trump up a NPC to be tough as nails and a leader of men, its best to not have them simply auto attack in a fight.

Balance is everything. Find balance in everything. ARR is doing pretty well in it, and I do hope they improve in 3.0, but I believe they will.

[Lucavi]

Not sure I can really quantify it as I just kinda auto-piloted through most of them, but the parts leading up to Snowcloak/Shiva were pretty fetchy. I guess in this case it was more of go to location A > talk to person > go to B > talk to person. Might have been important for all I know but in my mind it was just a grueling march until I got to the fun stuff of Snowcloak and Shiva.

And again, name a MMO that doesn't do that. XI sure as shit did. That's pretty much why Rift put itself on the map with its titular Rifts. Finally some "quest" shit that didn't involve running from X to Y to Z to talk to a single person, and quests that were more meat than bread. They just became pretty repetitive because you really can't spice them up past 2-3 branching pass/fail paths.

Fates were ripped directly from Rifts and to decent effect.

Edit: Double, because why not?

[Destinye]

This thread is full of so much nostalgia regarding 1.0, it's silly. "Could have been a better game than ARR"

Okay.

Then you remember ARR only truly succeeded because it had 1.0/1.23 to build off of - Do you truly believe ARR would have been as well received as it was if it was missing most of the content and concepts from 1.x? Remember: A lot of launch elements in ARR were directly from the previous version. A lot of assets were from the original that made a lot of this possible.

We don't know what would have become of 1.x, because it was never finished. During development it could have shifted to its own engine (which didn't help ARR much because it's lacking features other MMOs had since the late 90s/early 2000s.)

I don't care either way, I just always find it funny that it gets easily forgotten that ARR would have suffered the same fate of many newly released MMOs if it didn't have a foundation to build on. Personally, I liked 1.0/1.x more because it was them taking a risk, it could have been amazing if it was actually finished and polished and ARR just feels it took strides forward then tripped and ended up suffering with amnesia so it decided to mimic what the first thing it seen to fit in.

[Elcura]

In what way was BRD more necessary in 1.0 than they are now? TP starvation was not a factor in that game (as it acted more like traditional TP, and not a glorified stamina bar).

IIRC BRD had no damage reduction for singing songs so it's not like BRD DPS was obviously worse than melee DPS (I think it was though) and it was certainly more useful since doing combos as a BRD or BLM was brainless.

ARR a BRD is nice but certainly not necessary, like most jobs. You don't need a BRD for anything, but it's nice to have one. In 1.0 you need a BRD for every setup. No matter what.

Then you remember ARR only truly succeeded because it had 1.0/1.23 to build off of - Do you truly believe ARR would have been as well received as it was if it was missing most of the content and concepts from 1.x? Remember: A lot of launch elements in ARR were directly from the previous version. A lot of assets were from the original that made a lot of this possible.

We don't know what would have become of 1.x, because it was never finished. During development it could have shifted to its own engine (which didn't help ARR much because it's lacking features other MMOs had since the late 90s/early 2000s.)

I don't care either way, I just always find it funny that it gets easily forgotten that ARR would have suffered the same fate of many newly released MMOs if it didn't have a foundation to build on. Personally, I liked 1.0/1.x more because it was them taking a risk, it could have been amazing if it was actually finished and polished and ARR just feels it took strides forward then tripped and ended up suffering with amnesia so it decided to mimic what the first thing it seen to fit in.

Ignoring that 1.0 had like...years to be developed into such a sorry state. Considering what ARR was in half the time I would think given equal opportunity it would've been even better than what we have now. It's not like developing a game while running a different game is easy. It's certainly not as easy as developing a game for x amount of time and it failing horribly.

[Akiyama]

I dunno. Considering ARR is still succeeding on a subscription based service like it is, in comparison to some "next WoWs" that have literally failed in less than a year.. I'd like to think it'd still be doing pretty well even without 1.0/1.23 to build off of. I get people liked 1.0 and enjoyed it despite it's flaws, but.. it was legitimately a bad game. :/ It is what it is, though. There was just too much to fix with the previous iteration.

[Kyte]

FFXIV: Constantly evolving world story with you "The warrior of light" at its center. The story constantly evolves and the world evolves with you, and how you interact with the world evolves. But you don't have the guise of a wandering adventurer but a full blown hero so you get the pros and cons of this guise where as the FFXI version could have you constantly restarting your game from a story perspective after each expansion.

I think I've said this before, but one of the biggest pet peeves I have with XIV is despite the fact that many aspects of the story do evolve, when you go back to your guild leader NPCs after beating their last quest, they no longer acknowledge you. How hard would it have been to insert a couple lines of text that basically said "Hey [PC], good to see you again" instead of "hey, we're swinging axes tenderfoot- watch yourself"?

[Lucavi]

I dunno. Considering ARR is still succeeding on a subscription based service like it is, in comparison to some "next WoWs" that have literally failed in less than a year.. I'd like to think it'd still be doing pretty well even without 1.0/1.23 to build off of. I get people liked 1.0 and enjoyed it despite it's flaws, but.. it was legitimately a bad game. :/ It is what it is, though. There was just too much to fix with the previous iteration.

So the real secret to success is to build a horribly shitty game as a base, have that fail, then spend a shit ton more money to "fix it". You'll lose a ton of goodwill with the player-base in the beginning, but you've gotta look at the long term, man! Goals beyond the trees, man!

...Goals beyond the trees...

Edit: Kyte. Uhh. I'm not sure how much text you read, but you're incorrect there. Guild leaders absolutely knowledge you; both crafting and fighting ones. The leatherworker NPC gets pissed at you if you're on any job that isn't your leathercrafter if you talk to her, and greets you warmly when you are one. All guild leaders also provide both an update of how they're currently doing, AND reference that you should be the one explaining to them when you ask them what it is the actual class/job/craft is all about.

Nobody treats you like a stranger once you hit 30/50 and wrap up the quest, especially when you're on that same class/job. That's precisely the kind of thing that makes lore-whores happy; acknowledgement of previous deeds. Its why lore-whores came buckets when garrisons were added; having your own private command center where NPCs salute and kneel before you as you pass is fucking badass.

In that regard, there's a LONG way for ARR to go, but I have a feeling we'll get there sooner than later, especially if our custom airships have NPC-manned crews.

Shit, if you want more examples, go back and talk to your starting town's barkeep/quest giver. Talk to NPCs in the original waking sands, when they speak of how much of a hero you are. Go back and re-do the MSQ where you wind up sparring with with one of the NPCs in Mor Dhona while tons of NPCs cheer you on and basically trump up how much of a badass fighter you've been over the last few years.

The game has plenty of legitimate gripes; lets not start making up issues that don't exist.

[Rocl]

Yes, as of like 2.1 or earlier even the guild leaders/job trainers acknowledge your progress in their respective quests. There's even minor NPCs who reference your accomplishments. The blind sommelier (or w/e he is) from the Titan fetch quests in Wineport will acknowledge your various accomplishments, be it felling Titan, felling Titan (Hard) and even killing Twintania. After you clear Twintania he says something like "So I've heard that the Castrum near Wineport was actually an Imperial research facility and that some brave adventurer braved the depths and fought off the beasties inside and live to tell the tale. But you wouldn't know anything about that would you?" iirc there's a NPC in Fallgourd who appeared after 2.4 and references how Fallgourd has seen a great influx of adventurer traffic recently and wondering if it had anything to do with the ones who explored the Allagan ruins neabry

[Kyte]

Edit: Kyte. Uhh. I'm not sure how much text you read, but you're incorrect there. Guild leaders absolutely knowledge you; both crafting and fighting ones. The leatherworker NPC gets pissed at you if you're on any job that isn't your leathercrafter if you talk to her, and greets you warmly when you are one. All guild leaders also provide both an update of how they're currently doing, AND reference that you should be the one explaining to them when you ask them what it is the actual class/job/craft is all about.

Nobody treats you like a stranger once you hit 30/50 and wrap up the quest, especially when you're on that same class/job. That's precisely the kind of thing that makes lore-whores happy; acknowledgement of previous deeds. Its why lore-whores came buckets when garrisons were added; having your own private command center where NPCs salute and kneel before you as you pass is fucking badass.

I read literally everything (I never spam enter even on the idiot random fetch quests in town), so I must not have checked back after 2.1 or 2.2 or whenever it was that they changed it.

[Lucavi]

Its a nice touch. Some say more than others, but everyone says something.

[Kaisha]

i don't think any MMO will ever have all NPCs continiously acknowledge your every latest and greatest acheivement. suspension of disbelief, and all that.

I liked the part in XI where I was a hero because I gave an old man 40 some stacks of millioncorn. God that fame system was pretty dumb and expoitable. Too much effort to hand-craft lines for a bunch of NPCs for actual acknowledgements though. And I wouldn't want word spreading about of my doings anyhow.

Re: 1.0 Animations. Looked cool, sounded cool, but fuck animation locks with a rake. There's a reason people used JA0Wait in XI, and the locks in that weren't even as bad.

[Adajer]

I liked in ffxi how I could randomly go interact with people on my server and help people do things. Help with AF quests, PL, camp stuff, level cap stuff.

should have remade XI in HD and tweaked combat. now we got this turd, /uninstall

[Shenrien]

XI is great yeah, when I stopped playing I had third party programs triggering weapon skills for me when I hit 100+ TP and another plugin to swap all my gear for me, with another program to detect if songs were up to replay them whenever while I stay on whm to remove specific debuffs while it automaticly healed me when I was ~800hp or lower from my maximum so no overhealing would be done. Fucking great game, and I used this same thing when doing events with my LS and still performed better than half the braindead fucktards I had come across.

[Lucavi]

I liked the part in XI where I was a hero because I gave an old man 40 some stacks of millioncorn. God that fame system was pretty dumb and expoitable. Too much effort to hand-craft lines for a bunch of NPCs for actual acknowledgements though. And I wouldn't want word spreading about of my doings anyhow.

Re: 1.0 Animations. Looked cool, sounded cool, but fuck animation locks with a rake. There's a reason people used JA0Wait in XI, and the locks in that weren't even as bad.

I look at the animations for many classes via old youtube vids and laugh. Anyone who can look at 1.0's monk animations vs. 2.0's and honestly say that 1.0's were superior are hilarious. Some classes were pretty groovy, but I'll never forget the 1.0 Nael vids of a bunch of mages standing still in a tight group barely moving to cast spells.

[vrumpt]

famitsuuuu!!

http://s.famitsu.com/news/201501/20069775.html

something something, weekly quest to do CT, ST, and WoD.

Odin drops armor in individual pieces for glamour

zodiac resumes or is totally new in 3.1, hard to say with google translate.

[Qeomash]

If Odin doesn't at least drop weapons, there will be hell to pay.

[Slycer]

famitsuuuu!!

http://s.famitsu.com/news/201501/20069775.html

something something, weekly quest to do CT, ST, and WoD.

Odin drops armor in individual pieces for glamour

zodiac resumes or is totally new in 3.1, hard to say with google translate.

fml and I wanted to play some dragon age tonight finally...

[Prothescar]

it looks like carboncoat/twine/tomestone comes from the weekly, unless I'm reading the description of the weekly quest wrong.