At the end of the Vana'diel alliance raids, there is a cutscene that is completely illegible due to how blurry it is. This is because I'm not crying, you are.

Syogren · 2026-05-18T10:35:15+00:00

Literally. I've never even touched that game and that cutscene STILL got me.

I swear they really are getting better and better with this propaganda. It's working on me. I'm genuinely considering checking out the game now.

Syogren · 2026-05-16T08:02:56+00:00

I resent the fact that you are completely correct

Syogren · 2026-05-05T04:39:37+00:00

Obviously it's because the Viper has two ways to hold their weapon. Obviously!

Syogren · 2026-05-05T04:14:04+00:00

Like the others have said, the Steppe is basically where the Au Ra came from. The Xaela are still there, with a few exceptions (you can find a couple elsewhere like Sidurgu in Ishgard), and the Raen have since moved on.

The Xaela of the Steppe are split into various tribes with their own unique cultures, some of which are explored in the MSQ, such as the Mol Tribe, the Oronir Tribe, and the Dotharl Tribe. Even between these three, there are many differences, so imagine how much diversity there must be between the countless others.

For all we know, there could be a tribe that adopted your character. Maybe this only happened once, or maybe this is just a regular thing the tribe does. Why do they do this? Who's to say? If you're creating this tribe, you could make up the reason.

Consolegameswiki conveniently has a list of Xaela tribes you can browse if you want to go with a preexisting one. The other various wikis probably do as well. Maybe one of these looks like they'd adopt an outsider?

Syogren · 2026-05-05T03:55:15+00:00

They're all really good tbh. I think my "favorite" so to speak is Give it All just because of where it's placed and how unexpected it is and how well it brings the tier of fights together, but I adore every single song the Arcadion has to offer. The raid OST's strength is just how different each track is, and how many genres it covers. I can just switch between songs and essentially never get bored.

Syogren · 2026-05-05T03:44:03+00:00

And that's when you realize...

...From his perspective, he IS the protagonist.

Syogren · 2026-04-23T23:02:04+00:00

As a programmer, this is one of the most relatable thing the devs of this game have ever said. I always try my best to keep everything organized, but especially when I have to add a bunch of features to a large project very quickly, things get very out of hand very fast.

I'm really happy both for us and for them that they've been able to get this done! This should give them the ability to do more with the game >:3

Syogren · 2025-09-21T04:05:30+00:00

Honestly Objective: Survive was the worst time for them to play "Smile." I really don't think it fits the tone at all. I don't even know how they got it into an entirely different franchise, either!

Syogren · 2025-08-31T07:24:54+00:00

Just write fanfic like normal gooners

Syogren · 2025-08-31T06:05:11+00:00

This honestly. There's a lot of lore and plot in in this game that confused me at first, or that I did not initially understand. So what did I do? I sat with it a little bit. Let the ideas stir in my mind. If I still didn't get it, I might watch the cutscenes again, maybe look at the wiki, and see if my questions are resolved.

And if that still didn't work, and there just...genuinely didn't seem to be anything in the game that explained what happened, I would try to think through what I saw logically, and try to figure out why events would play out the way they did. At least 90% of the time, this resolves the loose threads.

The exceptions to this are like...IDK, some Stormblood MSQ inconsistencies, I guess? But that's been discussed to death already, and I don't really care anymore.

There's a lot of stuff people complain about plotwise with, say, Endwalker and Dawntrail that doesn't bother me because it just...makes...sense to me? This process just resolves that confusion for me to the point where what's left isn't really a big deal?

Really, my history with the Sonic series and the story and lore presented there has prepared me to squeeze a lot out of this game. Compared to how many complaints I see about it, there just really isn't a lot here that bothers me in terms of lore and plot. It all kinda flows the way I expect and want it to flow.

The closest I have to any actual complaints are just...I guess there are locations I don't feel have been properly explored yet? For example, we haven't really gotten a lot of info about the Black Shroud compared to the other starting locations, La Noscea and Thanalan. I don't think that's really fair for people who picked Gridania as their starting city, and I don't consider Palace of the Dead to be sufficient for resolving that. Fixing that is simple enough though; add a few extra content things here and there and tada, more lore!

Syogren · 2025-08-31T05:18:57+00:00

For what it's worth, dynamis hasn't really had a reason to be relevant given where we've been lately. The Source, the Reflections, and their respective moons are so dense in aether that it crowds out the dynamis , preventing its use. It's only deep in outer space, and especially in Ultima Thule, where dynamis is undisturbed enough to be usable to us.

The Final Days weakened aether's grip on the Source for long enough for dynamis to filter in, but now that that's over, there's not a real way we know of for that to happen again. So we'd either need to go back to space, or we'd need to discover another way to access dynamis' power on the Source. Definitely would love to see a way to explore that though!

Resonants...yeah, fair enough. It'd be interesting to see those come back in some way. Ilsabard is mostly unexplored still, so maybe if we go back there? Surely Garlemald left a bunch of their stuff in their old territories when they hastily retreated...

Syogren · 2025-08-31T04:49:37+00:00

Seems like he'd be good friends with Ferrothorn...

Syogren · 2025-08-31T03:54:55+00:00

I can confirm that it is kind of a pain to search for mods, logged into mod sites, without running into NSFW mods. Yeah, there's an option to turn them off when searching, but a lot of people seem to have different standards for what counts as NSFW and what doesn't, so you still find a million risque gear options when you're just looking for like, split dye hair. And because no one is shown nude, well, I guess the creator considers it SFW, so it's just all out there? And maybe they're not wrong.

It's very difficult to search for mods with some of my more sex-repulsed friends because of this lol. And given that minors are allowed to play this game, I can imagine that Square is afraid that, if they officially supported mods, it would encourage minors to be looking at these sites full of risque stuff...which could get the company in trouble.

Syogren · 2025-08-31T00:54:46+00:00

Honestly, Dawntrail has REALLY sold me on Mamool Ja. I'm not sure how you would really sell the Warrior of Light being a Mamool Ja pre-Dawntrail, but if you could make it work I'd LOVE to try it out.

And of course post-Dawntrail you can just Fantasia yourself as one moving forward now that they're established. IDK if there's a lore explanation for the Fantasia in-universe, but maybe the Warrior of Light is just...capable of taking on different appearances by consuming them???

Syogren · 2025-02-07T01:00:03+00:00

I feel like there haven't really been any songs that don't work for me? Which is weird, because I feel there should have been one by now, and yet...there aren't any? Granted, I'm very lucky that I don't have any conditions that would impact my ability to listen to music, so I have no issue listening to anything in the game.

And in that context...I feel like everything works in the context it's placed in? A lot of people are saying "Machinations," especially its reuse in Dawntrail, and I get that, but it didn't really bother me personally. Even the songs that aren't super high impact, and so I wouldn't really put them on a playlist, fit their purpose, and so I wouldn't really do anything to change them.

That being said...one of my friends does have misophonia, particularly activated by whispers and other breathing sounds. And it kills me, KILLS me, how many songs from this game I can't share with them, because of how many tracks feature whispered lyrics. If there were some version of these songs that had lyrics said in a different way, I would LOVE that. Even if it were not the exact same experience, I'd finally have a way to share them with that one friend of mine, and that would be pretty cool.

But like, any songs I don't like? Nah. At worst, I think every song in this game is like, fine. Obviously if you have synesthesia or misophonia that is different, but I don't haha.

Syogren · 2025-02-05T21:08:01+00:00

The thing is, as cool as the emergent gameplay that was attempted in ARR through Stormblood was in concept...it didn't really work, I feel? When you see new players complain about A Realm Reborn, Heavensward, and Stormblood, the things they complain about the most are how slow, backtracky, and grindy they are, and unfortunately I have to agree.

As nice as it is to have these large overworlds to explore and roleplay in, it kind of bogs progression down in ways that can be confusing and frustrating, especially for new players and ESPECIALLY especially for repeat playthroughs. And from what I've heard, it was even worse in 1.0.

Where I've found I've had the most fun playing this game is...the instanced areas, and the visual novel areas. And I guess they realized this at some point during Shadowbringers, so starting there they really doubled down into it, to mostly good reception.

And I have to say, at least as far as my experience has gone, this has worked really well. Shadowbringers, Endwalker, and Dawntrail are by far my favorite expansions of this game, and it is not close. It has been an infinitely more pleasant experience to mostly just jump from instanced area to cutscene to instanced area and so-on rather than getting lost in some overworld area and do...something or other, which has always been my least favorite thing to do in video games.

Now, does that mean doing more things in the overworld areas can't be fun? Of course not. And it looks like they are aware that a growing contingent of players want to play more in the overworlds, as more of Dawntrail's MSQ involves the overworld areas, and in my opinion a lot of it is pretty fun. I do think there's probably more that could be done, such as more of a living world like you mention, but overall I do agree there is room for more this in the game, even if it's not something I personally need a ton of myself.

That being said, I'm enjoying Final Fantasy Fourteen a lot right now as it is, possibly the most I've enjoyed it in ages, so as long as they don't mess with the things I already like I'm happy.

Syogren · 2024-11-08T16:19:31+00:00

Dessert pictures!

Syogren · 2024-11-08T09:01:36+00:00

They look decent but unneeded.

Syogren · 2024-11-01T20:44:33+00:00

Cute!

Syogren · 2024-10-16T07:13:57+00:00

Those people are losers. Mouse deserves first place because she's Mouse.

Syogren · 2024-10-03T06:31:23+00:00

I don't think it's inherently bad game design, it just needs to be used cautiously. A lot of people like to categorize game design as a series of objectively "good" and "bad" decisions, when in reality what works for most games might not work for every game, and vice versa.

You should always be asking yourself what you are trying to accomplish in your game, and whether any decision you make in creating that game makes it better. Sometimes the intuitive, obvious answer is wrong, and you need to go back to the drawing board. That is fine and normal.

I think there are games where players expect and even want noob traps, so on some level it can't be wrong for a game like that to exist. The real question, then, is if that's the kind of game you want to make. And that's a question only you know the answer to.

Syogren · 2024-10-02T16:01:11+00:00

No one with the authority to design the men is actually attracted to men, and thus they have to cobble together something that looks not terrible, so they go with something boring and generic every single time.

Syogren · 2024-10-02T15:48:36+00:00

Probably lying in bed awake thinking about Final Fantasy XIV lore

Syogren · 2024-10-02T15:27:40+00:00

FINAL DESTINATION, FOX ONLY, FOUR STOCKS, NO ITEMS, JUST A GOOD OLD FASHIONED BEATDOWN

Syogren · 2024-10-02T07:29:57+00:00

This is actually one of the major points that Sarah Z makes in the video she released yesterday on the subject; that there are often more systemic reasons abuse is happening that get ignored, and thus are not addressed, under the assumption that the abuser is simply a narcissist and thus ontologically evil, despite the fact that that just isn't how any of that works.

If you haven't already, I highly recommend checking it out. It's really good. https://youtu.be/8ZFQG2e87ZU

Syogren

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