Patch 2.55 Notes

[Stef]

Haven't played Lotro or TSW enough to know so I'll take your word on that and assume you don't kill a big baddie to end that chapter of the story, but with GW2 you're dead wrong. Name me one event at the end of 2.0-2.55 (since we're being precise) story arc that equates to defeating the Elder Dragon Zhaitan, cleansing Orr, and marching the Pact to victory. Please. Garlean temporary defeat in Eorzea works, but that was more of a mid story point to open up for the Ul'dah intrigue. The end of 2.0 was certainly a good way to end that arc. But they continued on after that, and really didn't provide anything for the second "half". Again, not a complete ending. Any sort of thing that isn't just a dragonball z episode ending.

@sparthos, I don't necessarily even want a happy ending. Just something that isn't a blatant to be continued screen. Too many threads running and inability to set up in time isn't really indicative of a good story just as not having a good ending isn't indicative of bad storytelling tho.

I think you're all just misinterpreting what I'm trying to say here. I'm not looking for the perfect paragon ending to the entirety of XIV's story, just something better than shit tier trope after trope after trope after trope with a definitive "oomf" that isn't just a giant case of blue balls. I hate shows like Walking Dead for a reason. You like them? Ok cool. Not everyone's like you, and I'm allowed to want things too, and express my desire for them.

Of course people will like what they like, but FFXIV uses plenty of both types of endings. The Coil and Crystal tower story lines both have clear-cut endings, as do most of the Job and Guild quests.

Zhaitan, Orr, and the Pact Fleet are directly comparable to Ultima, Gaius and Lahabrea, the Garleans, and the Eorzean Alliance. You also say the victory of the Pact fleet...

Spoiler: show

The Pact fleet is destroyed over Maguuma, so I assume you're only referring to the base game without Season 2 of the living world? I'm not sure why you would compare GW2's base game to FFXIV with patches. Why not compare like with like? The whole of GW2 Season 2 of the living world is basically a giant lead up to Heart of Thorns with Mordremoth and the Sylvari. The final living world chapter was entitled The Point of No Return and is a clear cliffhanger.

Also, you can scroll down on this page for a list of video games with cliffhanger endings: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Re...hanger_endings
There's a lot listed here, but the list isn't exhaustive.

[Prothescar]

Well gentlemen I've got to go, but it's been a good discussion. I'm glad I did get the coil storyline to enjoy, i really liked it a lot. I just can't personally say the same for the main scenario. Life's made for disappointment I guess. We'll see what happens in HW, I'm sure I'll enjoy it despite what some may think based on my posts here, but the whole 3 month wait and feeling of the base XIV story not having that closure that I'm craving is not fun for me personally. Idk. Just feels cheaper to me.

Spoiler: show

Also I'm sort of comparing base XIV to base GW2, seemed fair. Living world always seemed more like mini expansions like Abyssea/ACP/ASA/etc. to me that are generated for additional revenue. XIV+Patches were just a continuation of the story that already exists with no additional cost. Can find problems with me linking story with money or whatever, but it just seems most logical for me at the moment. A sort of division of chapters... or seasons as they've been called. And I suppose a lot of people got living world story for free and don't have to pay, which would be a fair point. Certainly plenty that didn't though.

Also again let me clarify once more before going out since a lot of games on that list end with cliffhangers preceded by conclusions (i.e., what I wish this ended with): I'm talking about a partial conclusion. I'm not talking about a full resolution to the events of the 2.0-2.55 story arc. If you beat a big boss, solve some world conflict, etc. before everything goes to shit, there was an end to at least some of the events that you spent the last several hours being a part of. I really don't feel like that happened here at all.

Spoiler: show

Closest thing I can equate to it is Teledji getting merced, but I don't count that as any sort of closure as much as the removal of an annoying pest who was having his strings pulled in the grander scheme.

[Kelenae]

Spoiler: show

I think it boils down to we got played. There was nothing we could of done to fix it at the time because we fell right into their hands. We could of fought them and won, but what would that of solved? Nothing, we would of made more enemies and made things even worse. Its plain and simple. We just lost. That's what I got from the ending.

Forgot the spoiler

[Ophannus]

Happy endings are boring. Ffxi had close cliffhangers where you thought shit maybe this time someone important is gonna get their shit ruined. And then bam, hopes dashed; everything returned to status quo. SoA was a great oppurtunity to tell a mature story, in regards to two characters in the last few cutscenes who are brutally killed, and another who was brutally axed earlier on. FFXIV's story is a lot more mature thankfully in that they mention a lot of death, references to executions and other things which I like. So far even though 14 story has flaws at least it's a bit more grown up than the thundercats-esque XI storyline that no matter who dies or what happens, good prevails, and nobody dies. Actually even villains dont die in XI all the time! Raogrimm lives on in Dynamis, Promathia is a god, pretty sure lady lillith becomes absorbed into Lillisette, Nashmeira's brother is saved, Hades is saved. Only villains who stay dead are the Zilart brothers.

[Niiro]

Regardless of how many "mature" elements are present in XIV's story the delivery ruins most all of it.

Script, pacing, voice acting, cutscene quality, fetch quests, etc.

References to death and executions and political intrigue fall flat when Minfilia looks at the player character utters something along lines of "good thing our Warrior of Light is here to blahblahblah" before the game then makes you deliver a package across a zone and rewards you with some pocket change and a triumphant musical cue for completing a quest despite not having done a fucking thing.

You can say what you will about XI's storyline but I never felt so absurdly patronized by the game and distanced from a serious narrative.

[Elcura]

I think people take their in-game MMO stories a little too seriously. It's not the greatest story ever told but you'd think lives depended on its quality. It's a fun story that leads you to a bunch of places to fight a bunch of shit, it's not SE's magnum opus when it comes to story telling.

[Niiro]

I dread doing the MSQ every update because I know it's going to be 90% filler fetch garbage, it's a chore, it's not fun.

This update, not even the token dungeon/trial was fun, but they actually sprung for decent cutscenes since it was the big finale at least.

To pass it off as not important is to forget the amount of effort and detail they put into the 1.0 cutscenes, which were excellent, they actually storyboarded that shit, no fixed camera angles and jerky, awkward, uncanny valley NPCs.

[Elcura]

I dread doing the MSQ every update because I know it's going to be 90% filler fetch garbage, it's a chore, it's not fun.

This update, not even the token dungeon/trial was fun, but they actually sprung for decent cutscenes since it was the big finale at least.

To pass it off as not important is to forget the amount of effort and detail they put into the 1.0 cutscenes, which were excellent, they actually storyboarded that shit, no fixed camera angles and jerky, awkward, uncanny valley NPCs.

Do you know what the uncanny valley is? Because this game isn't exactly it.

Aside from that as nice as 1.0's cut scenes were I don't actually remember shit about them because shit was so boring and lifeless. I don't care much about the story but that's not because of what 2.0 is doing but what 1.0 started. I don't think the story is more interesting than it was, just presented in a simple way which seems to be the worst thing in the world. I can think of worse ways to tell a story than attempting to have nice cut scenes (which take time and money, but I guess ignore that).

[Seha]

I think this relates also to what Prothescar was saying earlier. If they didn't force all those sidequests inside the main missions the storytelling would have gained a lot and they could have focused on pushing the story further too since there wouldn't be any filler. Not the Ishgard plot of course, as that's HW's material, but maybe the Ul'dah and Ascian paths could have been moved a bit further, maybe even close on Ul'dah(obviously that depends on the plans, we don't know how far it stretches yet).

Then again when authors use fillers it's usually to gain time cause they haven't actually finished the main thing yet. Who knows.

[Sho]

I think the worst thing they've done so far is force people to progress missions to unlock dungeon/trial content (Primals, Keeper of the Lake, Snowcloak). Especially when they are tied to Hard/Expert Roulette. Gating almost all of the dungeons behind 2.0 completion made sense however; if you aren't even level 50 on a job, you shouldn't be worried about higher ilevel content in the first place.

[Sho]

Happy endings are boring.

No they aren't. Everyone expects either one of two tropes:

1) Happy Ending (with or without struggle).
2) Bad Ending (with or without struggle).

There's really no middle ground with the viewers expectations, and both tropes have been equally played right the hell out over the years. Both types of stories can be crafted well however, it doesn't always have to be bad guys win, everyone dies, or good guys win, everyone's happy.

There can be some middle ground (contrary to my above paragraph), but lets not act like anyone will be un-expecting of the ultimate end, be it for good or for bad. Now what makes a story these days is when stories are laced with intrigue, "got-cha" moments that make you say "holy shit, I didn't expect that to happen." We already know what going to happen, we the Warrior or Light, will always win regardless of the circumstance, because we are the Warrior of Light, champion of Hydaelyn. This is why the cutscenes post 2.0 begin to shift the emphasis off of you, the hero, onto the secondary and tertiary characters and their struggle.

Spoiler: show

From there, what really matters is pacing, pacing, pacing. The abrupt end of the Scions belies the fact that there may or may not be a lot more story on the way before we even get into Ishgard (within the expansion at least). I'm honestly expecting 1-5 hours of bullshit before we are able to reach those lands because of how suddenly the Scions were removed for the story and you are ousted as a "villain." Those loose ends have to be tied up unless SE is really going for the "you, who has lost absolutely everything, have been cast out of of your home to start anew in a strange and foreign land." angle, which also works, but is a hard sell after the fact that they made us endear ourselves to a group (Scions) for almost 2 years now.

Also, death doesn't always have to be a means to an end either, but is necessary to tell a story that is closer to reality than fiction (people die, everybody dies).

[Michaera]

I thought the ending was pretty cool, I enjoyed the "camera"/lighting work in some of the scenes, reminded me of the end of Tam Tara Hard.

What I didn't like was...

Spoiler: show

...When Yugiri's all like "i lost my mask oops lol." All this suspense I had (built up for myself only I guess) for the dramatic reveal, the unmasking, and instead they just cheap out on it! Ugh!

I was kind of expecting her to betray the Scions and have been a part of orchestrating it because *dramatic unmask* she's kind of a dargon!

Oh well.

"Isn't she pretty? n___n"

[Seha]

Wild guess but maybe the anticlimactic Yugiri reveal is cause potentially after HW you might become Au Ra yourself and do the missions afterwards. So "OH MY GOD WHAT ARE YOU" isn't an intelligent reaction if you were an au ra yourself all along.

[Sho]

It's pretty obvious that you'll be able to glamour yourself into Au Ra immediately after expansion release, which is why they are specifically releasing the new benchmark this month with the function to create your Au Ra character in advance to port to the main game. The Yugiri reveal is more or less a low-key teaser to show players how their female [Au Ra] character could potentially look and feel like in game -- a close up, in-game shot.

No one should have expected an epic reveal of Yugiri after the fact that the Au Ra race has been in the media so much since Fan Fest.

[Destinye]

I think people take their in-game MMO stories a little too seriously. It's not the greatest story ever told but you'd think lives depended on its quality. It's a fun story that leads you to a bunch of places to fight a bunch of shit, it's not SE's magnum opus when it comes to story telling.

Well, it's a Final Fantasy game. Of course people will take the story seriously..MMO or not. While legacy wise stories in MMOs are almost always shit, XI kind of changed the game then later WoW built off of all the WC stuff and such.

It's also an RPG...something normally defined by its story as well (you're better off playing PSO2 if you care PURELY for the gameplay.)

But yeah as said..my main issue is just the forced filler bull into the main story. I don't mind sidequests or fetch quests or even making me bang your daughter to persuade her suitor to reconsider, I'm all for it but it should not be inbetween me, saving the world, some epic shit going down and killing FF icons like Omega weapon.

So help me if I have to pass out brownies to children in Ishgard while I'm supposed to be taking out Shinryu because we destroyed Omega Weapon after fetching Lucy's laundry.

[Gokulo]

So help me if I have to pass out brownies to children in Ishgard while I'm supposed to be taking out Shinryu because we destroyed Omega Weapon after fetching Lucy's laundry.

Well, you better start getting mentally ready or something, because this is how it will be.

[Kaisha]

No one should have expected an epic reveal of Yugiri after the fact that the Au Ra race has been in the media so much since Fan Fest.

And now masked Yugiri's going to look all the more awkward in all the cutscenes for new players when Au Ra will be running all over the continent as if they always belonged.

Unless they're going to retcon all of that.

[Sho]

And now masked Yugiri's going to look all the more awkward in all the cutscenes for new players when Au Ra will be running all over the continent as if they always belonged.

Unless they're going to retcon all of that.

Well, essentially being Au Ra has no bearing on the start of the story at all -- essentially you are just a nameless, ambiguous-raced adventurer who came looking for none other than adventure. Your origins are never talked about unless you are a legacy player. So it would make no difference if you are a Wildwood Elezen, a Dunesfolk Lalafell or an Au Ra.

Holes in the story do form just after the Titan storyline when the Scions speak of you as if you were the original Warrior of Light who fought before Dalamuds fall and again when Cid is regaining his memory just before and after the bout with Garuda -- he literally "remembers" as one and the same Warrior of Light who saved him and gave him his googles. One could always say that Au Ra always existed everywhere, however. A poormans retcon, really.

[Gilgameshx]

I wish they would've had quests about the different races of eorzea and go more in depth about the twelve, etc. Something to make me care about the world more.

While it's a vast improvement over 1.0, I'm missing traveling and saying "oh that statue must be from the fall of blah blah", or something like that. The closest I felt they got was the hildebrand quest about uldah being split in two and warring. Would like more lore.

[Korialstrasz]

I too dislike all of the filler quests (even if they do serve a purpose), but come on now, we all know how Heavensward is going to be.

"Welcome to Ishgard, Warrior of Light. We have been expecting your arrival! We were recently attacked by dragons, and our fortifications are in dire need of repair to hold back the horde. If you would be so kind, please go gather 10 pieces of conveniently placed wood 10 feet away and report back to me."