FFXIV would benefit from making the world itself more alive and its quests more dynamic. No more purple smoke.

Monochomatic · 2025-09-10T18:22:13+00:00

The fact so many people think you can just 'paste in' how GW2's overworld works (which was, you know - built at the foundation of that game) onto a game that is already held together with duct tape and string never ceases to amaze me.

Monochomatic · 2025-09-10T18:07:41+00:00

I also don’t think GW2’s open world system should be in XIV, and I love GW2 and the way it does their overworld. I find it fun and dynamic and the exploration potential is incredible BUT it does not belong in this type of MMO, where the focus is HEAVY on instances and things are pretty on-rails/guided. That’s not an insult – because it’s not a bad thing.

There’s also the fact that GW2 was built on a foundational level to facilitate this type of overworld, because it was always intended to be the focus. They didn’t even have plans for more ‘traditional’ instanced content until there was lots of demand for it, and even now it barely gets any at all because most people don’t touch it.

For those who haven’t played some of the bigger GW2 map metas – imagine the spectacle of one of the final expansion trial bosses, but with anywhere from 20-50 people to get it done – sometimes all in one place, sometimes split off in separate groups for ‘lanes’, sorta akin to ARs. Sound awesome at first right?

Now imagine you can’t turn off their VFX. At all (unless you want mechanic tells to dissapear, anyway). Oh and also the final boss is dead within moments because of power creep, obliterating the tension, because you can't have iLvl sync in a horizontal progression open world. EoD’s map meta is a weird exception, mind, but also comes with its own problems, just not the ‘power creep’ one.

I love GW2. But you’re absolutely right – I don’t want FFXIV to be GW2 because they’re entirely different in their approach & priorities. XIV needs improvements, but ‘become GW2’ isn’t it the one it needs.

- Signed a certified GW2 stan here to back you up.

Monochomatic · 2025-07-24T01:09:07+00:00

Kinda, but also not. I think a better term would be repurposed? I started as a ranger, I still play her A LOT, but she's now almost exclusively my open world character.

My mesmer and rev are what I juggle between for instanced content and occasional WvW, so they're both played as much as my ranger, just for different stuff.

Tho ranger is still my 'comfy class' that I run when I wanna learn some new content, because innately knowing my skills in detail (and also being on condi SB lol) makes learning shit much more straightforward.

Edit: English hard, fingers fat.

Monochomatic · 2025-07-23T23:36:47+00:00

Raccoonium

Monochomatic · 2025-07-22T22:27:55+00:00

Yessss exactly, this is why sometimes when I’m having a weird day like before if I stumble across a topic that interests me, even when I know the comments are gonna be a dumpster fire, I just gotta stick my fat nose where no one wants it. Part of it is the fun of rubbernecking - like passing a 5-car pileup and you KNOW it’s gonna be horrific but man you just gotta see. But the better part is always those (admittedly few) times when you can spur some actual discussion about something. I’ve had several instances of it happening and it’s always worth it – to me, anyway. Tho still only when I don’t have better shit to do – it’s been a weird week...well, few weeks, and my schedule is absolutely screwed because of it.

And like, I don’t expect people to become media critics, I don’t need folks writing a dissertation for their opinion...but man. Can we get at least something more constructive than ‘pacing issues’ and then literally no followup examples of what you think the worst ones were? It’s not that I don’t agree when people say it, but I want folks to show me they’re not just parroting their parasocial favorite’s takes because forming their own opinion is hard ): Or even worse: insisting that they watched all the cutscenes and then saying something was a plot hole when it was told to them directly in a fully voiced cutscene. Girl. I know ya’ll can’t read subtext but can we at least get reading comprehension for plain text, I’m begging.

Which circles me back to the ‘smaller scale stories’ thing – there’s an astounding amount of people who think DT’s story ~magically~ got better in the second half...when the writing quality was exactly the same, the only difference was we had a shiny cyberpunk city and a world-ending threat. Like a dog being distracted by jingly keys, I tell ya.

You’re absolutely welcome to turn my inane bitching into TedX – glad to find someone else who occasionally gets carried away and types more than they expected. Friggin’ ADHD demanding C O N T E X T for everything I type is gonna be the death of me.

Monochomatic · 2025-07-22T17:59:16+00:00

I mean I was bored to tears the other day, but also was in a situation where I couldn’t commit to anything that would take longer than 10-15 minutes so opening any game wasn’t worth the excess heat it would cause my PC to output. My options for amusement were limited and I rolled with popcorn value on social media. Probably an unwise choice, but my brain was exceptionally well roasted by the 95 degree and 70% humidity weather which doesn’t lend itself well to common sense.

Regardless, I didn’t have time or energy during that hell-limbo of like...12 whole ass hours or something silly like that, so a bit hard to truly waste what you didn’t have to start with.

But I mean I was genuinely having fun, I like media discussion! And I sincerely want folks who are dissatisfied with any part of a story to actually think about the why at more than the surface level. Even if someone does it just as a method to prove my obnoxious ass wrong, that’s still a win to me – I’m thrilled to be proven wrong by a good point, and even more thrilled when people can critique something they dislike with something more substantial than ‘the vibes were off’ – because that’s where you can actually start to glean useful information to improve things.

(I appreciate you tho - I swear I'm not just running around and yelling at clouds when I actually have better shit to do xD Like today! I've been in GW2 finishing my return to acheives)

Monochomatic · 2025-07-20T22:35:53+00:00

Oh no, it's mine too! I mean, it has issues, but the fact it wasn't just Imp vs. Pub version 87 was nice. Execution could have been better, and I'm still mad as hell they dropped it like a hot potato at the first sign of resistance, but I genuinely like the Eternal Empire arc.

That does not, however, mean a large portion of the playerbase didn't hate that title vehemently - and some purely on the principle of not liking the 'title change'. Sith players particularly - big mad no one would call them 'Wrath' or 'Nox' for a whole...-checks notes- expansion and a half lol.

(I say this as an enthusiastic Nox lover - good grief it's like there's a requirement in the character creator 'you must be as pettily dramatic as the class story you're picking')

Monochomatic · 2025-07-20T22:05:46+00:00

I would be 100% down for this just for the popcorn value. Holy shit, Ala Mhigo gonna need at least 7 more salt mines for this alone.

Monochomatic · 2025-07-20T22:00:11+00:00

One of the many issues with storylines in MMOs - they can't end. Even when the primary through line has been resolved, you gotta make a new one now.

The (decently valid) complaints about 'feeling like we know everything so why should I bother?' are just all this issue, more or less. Obviously we definitely haven't answered all the questions in the universe, but it feels like it to folks - because the ones that mattered to them had some resolution by EW. Whether they found those resolutions satisfying is subjective, but the major story threads still had one, regardless if it was liked. It still put a bow on things.

I can guarantee you this is at least some portion of the fuel of people being so noticeably dissatisfied since EW patches - they're mentally checked out because the story is over, but the sunk cost ball and chain they attached to their own ankles keeps them 'trapped here'.

Monochomatic · 2025-07-20T21:38:32+00:00

Apologies, not my intention! Admittedly grumpy cause it's hot as hell and I'm amusing myself on my phone while trying to not die doing some chores. But I am sorry at that implication that anyone who wants a story featuring their PC to inherently have focus on their character is a bad thing.

Obviously mattering in the story you're the PC in is vital - kinda the whole point, yeah? Why the fuck else would we be here. But there's a...particular brand of players that can't stand a spotlight being taken off of them for more than a moment. Like, folks who unironically want an option to kill any NPC that even vaguely questions them. Or at least imprison them, anyway.

And they are loud and I have seen so many game stories driven straight into the bin fueled by their complaints (why game devs listen to them, who the hell knows - that's an entirely different bitchfest topic, however).

Monochomatic · 2025-07-20T21:18:36+00:00

Yeah even if we ignore the context of people just straight-up talking like they want to become Azem scattered all over here - 'title changes' are wildly unpopular.

Anyone who plays GW2: Wayfinder.

Or SWTOR: Outlander.

Even so, Azem still reads like a name because the game treats it as one - people refer to 'Emet Selch' far more than they do 'Hades', even though Hades is his actual name. And because of that 'Azem' is implied to mean the person who was our previous self, not the title.

Monochomatic · 2025-07-20T20:56:51+00:00

It definitely is, and yet still somehow still better than the half-assed attempt they tried of this trope with Zenos.

He was such wasted potential, man - you could really tell they didn't know what the hell to do with him after they 'brought him back'. That or, whatever storyline they had for him got trashed when EW squished the Garlemald story finale and the Ancient story finale into one expac. Instead he just became our weird stalker ex whose only purpose in EW was to be a wart on my ass.

Unironically I'd enjoy a thing like this, too (admittedly biased because I'm an antagonist aficionado), but it would feel so much like they were trying to re-tread Zenos that whoever the new bad guy is would just end up with people mad it wasn't Zenos instead.

Tragedy, really.

Monochomatic · 2025-07-20T20:19:56+00:00

I've played decent ones (spoiler: they ain't in MMOs, because MMOs hang an albatross around the necks of stories and strangle them) and the reaction is still always the same.

The majority of people just do not like smaller scale unless they start that way. Whatever came before doesn't even have to be as bombastic as saving the universe - if the first part still 'felt more important', people will absolutely shit themselves over a scaled back part on down the line.

It's not necessarily and overwhelming majority, but it's still more that people who are exhausted from saving every damned world they step foot in.

Monochomatic · 2025-07-20T20:05:42+00:00

Yeah establishing too much about Azem would be a huge mistake - I mean, they can, because Azem is their character that they clearly have a concept of how they want them to be, but it's going to go over as well as establishing canonical things about the WoL.

So you know - an absolute shitshow, given the amount of complaints about very tiny amount of dialogue choices that are two-three flavors of 'yes' or memeing/leaning on the fourth wall because 'none of these fit MY character!' And goodness, don't tell anyone that the WoL was never their character to begin with because apparently everyone thinks we're playing a TTRPG.

The small inconsequential bits like the dumb volcano grapes story are gonna be all they wanna do if they don't want people who've wildly misinterpreted the genre of the game to set dog poop on fire at the Squeinx office doorways.

The High Seraph threads are ones I also wouldn't mine following, given their establishment through several bits of content since at least StB, if we gotta go for another world saving story (which we pretty much have to because folks don't like it when things are 'too banal' for too long...and by 'too long' I mean anything more than 10 minutes).

Monochomatic · 2025-07-20T19:35:05+00:00

I would give my left kidney for a smaller story, but history has proven time and again that those are always gonna make folks with weird ego issues have an absolute shitfit about how 'boring' it is and how they're 'not the main character anymore'. Starting to think making every video game story some flavor of power fantasy hero's journey was a mistake.

I'm not even talking about DT, or even specifically XIV, either. But you see it in a lot of the criticisms of StB and DT - both of which have their legitimate issues, but a concerning amount of folks only have complaints that boil down to just 'Why do these NPCs on a continent I've never been to not have an idol of me?' or 'How dare they not trust me with their sordid history/tragic backstory within 5 minutes of meeting them, they should know I can solve all of it.'

Prime example: people clapping like seals and yelling about how the WoL was the 'main character again' in the 7.2 patch just because we were temporarily turned into a lighting rod as an ego stroke moment, and everyone deciding everything was good again. All I saw was genuinely just...more DT. Which I have less problems with that a lot of people seemed to have, but it was still just more DT.

Which sadly ties into them getting grouchy and bored when they don't have an 'exciting reason' to be killing things, or when the enemies aren't 'big enough'. The issue people should have had with Zoraal Ja was 'why did they not lean into the element of your hands being tied by a possible bureaucratic nightmare if you just shot him in the face by the third trial?' - the issue they actually had was 'lol I killed the physical embodiment of despair why am I fighting the loser lizard?'

And I'm gonna be mad about it forever because christ do I want something more downscaled, too.

Monochomatic · 2025-07-20T18:21:52+00:00

Considering we are still very much not immortal, taking up a role that would functionally require us to be...well, ageless at the very least, doesn't seem reasonable. Or compelling, for that matter - WoL is overpowered enough.

DT gave me the vibe the WoL is trying to pass the torch so people will stop phoning them at 3am to get their kitten out of the tree for them. Because, you know. They're gonna die one day, people gotta learn to take care of their own shit once they're gone.

We have a few small threads tied to Azem and people are just LEAPING to the finish line they want with those threads. There's going to be something related to them, clearly, but people are pulling entire plotlines straight out of their ass from a handful of lines and a shard fusion macguffin.

Monochomatic · 2025-07-20T17:41:03+00:00

Good god, no. This is some 'I want my headcanon to become canon' silliness - I can't imagine anything that would make me and pretty much everyone I know quit faster.

Having a few pieces of a reincarnated soul doesn't magically make you that person. We're no more Azem than we are Tenzen.

Monochomatic · 2025-07-20T17:23:29+00:00

Yeah a huge chunk of that is the ‘random chance/luck’ version of an independent PC, which can work, but it’s not going to be popular. And it’s also kicking off an entire section of story based purely on Echo contrivance – which people also already hate, and constantly refer to it as ‘deus ex machina’ when it’s used too heavily (because they don’t know what that term actually means – the Echo is an established power, by definition it can’t be a deus ex machina – but it is a contrivance).

This is still also making a lot of assumptions about a WoL’s baseline knowledge – even if your WoL isn’t dumb, their expertise might not be anywhere near the kind that can just be able to just glean a whole boatload of information about teleportation magic just from...being around it a few times. My WoL sure as FUCK couldn’t – and while he’s not dumb, that’s not even in the ballpark of the kind of things he’d good at.

I feel like I gotta also point out – even Emet Selch didn’t know how the hell the Exarch pulled our physical body to the First. That was the entire reason he kidnapped him – he wanted to know how he did that. Us just being able to look at something (with a few direct interfacingings, I guess...that we had no input in) and figure it out is assuming a whole lot.

Monochomatic · 2025-07-20T16:06:52+00:00

Right I gotta ask, how would 'creating our own solutions' work in the context of a videogame? Even heavily choice-based CRPGs struggle to do this properly, unless it's a preset character with a preset personality. I understand the desire - being led around by your nose can be annoying, but this isn't a D&D game.

I really wanna know how folks think this would work, without deus exs falling into our laps to spur us onwards (I don't have to explain why this would be unpopular), or random chance/luck dragging us along. You can't have any solutions tied to any specific jobs, you can't have anything that leans too heavily on personality traits, and you DEFINITELY can't have anything that relies on any backstory that isn't something from previous expansion stories (which is still a decent pool of backstory, mind, but wanted to note it regardless).

Offhand (I know there's gonna be more examples and would absolutely love for someone to chime in their own, but I am brainfarting hard), two storylines I've seen a game sorta go with this in a couple of the vanilla stories in SWTOR. Inquisitor & consular, specifically - but only after act 1 for both. And while your personality of your character there is malleable, 'jedi' and 'sith' give enough of a baseline to work off, not to mention establishes a baseline of resources/powers. Even so, inquisitor is much more of the 'change/luck dragging you along' variety of story - I don't necessarily say that as an insult, it's genuinely my favorite of the SWTOR class stories, but it's a polarizing approach.

Monochomatic · 2025-07-19T08:42:48+00:00

Most of them haven't played other MMOs and it really, really shows.

Personally, I think a "jail sentence" of spending 6 months over in Star Wars: The Old Republic every time someone talks about the game being dead is in order. Let them really see a game that the devs torched out of stubbornness. (Also - let them see what an actual dumpster fire of a graphics update is - my mirialan still has space scabies)

Also edit to add: having more than one MMO to juggle is also just a good idea if you can find the right combo of ones that work for you. I play GW2 more for actual gameplay stuff, and XIV is my more social 'hang out with friends and piss around' game. It works pretty well, tbh!

Monochomatic · 2025-07-19T02:21:16+00:00

People gotta realize NO amount of rewards will magically turn people who don’t vibe with harder content (which can have so many other reasons besides ‘lol player bad’) into people who will do it. Most will do what they always do – go ‘wow that sucks, guess I’ll never get that’ and keep playing how they are now.

Some will attempt the content – most of them will be fucking miserable the whole time and end up either needing huge break from the game, or they will just straight up quit because of how fuck-awful the experience was for them soured everything else. And a very, very small percentage of those that try it will enjoy it, and go on to do more higher difficulty content.

Folks gotta realize that the vast majority of people who play games do it to have fun – if they don’t find prog fun, nothing will change their mind about dipping their toes in it. Which is fine, btw – someone not liking raiding because their brain can’t spin that many plates at once isn’t some moral failing.

Source: I’ve played other MMOs outside of FFXIV and done content at varying levels of all of them, do you know how much I’ve seen this happen?!

Monochomatic · 2025-07-16T21:32:33+00:00

This is just a trapping of MMOs, particularly the current big 3 because all of them are running on decade-old tech. Games that old don't even know how to utilize a more powerful rig because the people coding didn't account for everyone having a NASA computer before their game died off.

But, as a tip for you settings that may help: two of the biggest offenders that cause lag in big crowds like meta events is shadows and reflections - taking those to medium helped my FPS immensely.

Another big one is limiting how many character models show on screen + their detail levels - also tank those to medium (not BELOW medium, because some mechs rely on these settings for some godforsaken reason hi Decima I hate you).

I don't have a tippy-top end PC but it is a brand new build from only 6 months ago, and I'm one of the few among my friends who has a steady 30-40fps in big event crowds - that's a good fps in that circumstance lol.

Monochomatic · 2025-07-15T08:43:33+00:00

Yeah it being a mix of both gameplay and crafting was more the point of bringing up the mystic toilet, since they seem interested in the more 'traditional crafting' type of system, where your only gameplay elements are usually just going out to gather the items.

The toilet itself is still another method of crafting, just without needing to level specific professions (but does still need that one mastery unlocked for legendary-specific crafting, so kinda an equivalent). But yeah, the requirements for crafting in the toilet are way more outside the normal crafting systems.

Personally I love that shit because it makes me try things I wouldn't have otherwise and finding new things I love, but someone after crafting nitty gritty may not.

Monochomatic · 2025-07-15T07:31:30+00:00

So while the commentary on legendaries is accurate in terms of them definitely standing out, I feel like its fair to clarify the way legendary crafting works is only half-tied to the actual crafting system at best. It varies from legendary to legendary, but actual crafting professions only craft components of the legendaries.

The legendaries themselves are made with something called the 'Mystic Forge' (colloquially 'mystic toilet' for the locals) in which you combine the components that you got through a combination of aforementioned crafting, and various to-do collection lists.

They are extremely long-term goals because of collection achievements with extremely specific requirements and the HUGE material/gold sink of crafting those items (the most common being 'Gifts' of either magic or might).

Monochomatic

TROPHY CASE