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#1 Jun 19 2015 at 11:13 PM Rating: Excellent
So far, it's really good.

All I've been doing so far are story missions, quests and FATEs, and already I'm close to level 52.

The story already has several big moving parts, but the devs have done a great job of weaving everything together. I feel that getting out of Eorzea and taking on some new lore is really good for the game.

About the only thing I'm not crazy about is the new voice acting. It's actually pretty good... but it's a bit jarring that certain character's voices have totally changed.

Thoughts?
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#2 Jun 19 2015 at 11:36 PM Rating: Good
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As someone that follows a fair number of NA VAs on Twitter to, in general, better support the game/animation industry, occasionally you'll have times where scheduling conflicts result in someone being unable to reprise their roles. On the other hand, given the mixed reviews I've seen from some, it's possible some people were intentionally recast. Might be interesting to revisit old CS to see if they redid those or if the discrepancies remain. Otherwise, I don't think I've heard anyone initially related getting sick, hurt, or worse. NDAs can be pesky things, though, some might not be able to talk about things until now.
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#3 Jun 20 2015 at 4:58 AM Rating: Decent
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I play this game in Japanese and haven't really noticed any huge shift in VA, I can say the only voice I'm not fond of is the Vanu's/Vanu Chief voice.
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#4 Jun 22 2015 at 10:38 AM Rating: Decent
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Story line is awsume and much more engaging than the first half. It has far more feeling, I actually care about the characters now.

I wall admit flying is way cooler than I thought it would be too. But with the maps you need to fly because they are really a pain to get around.

Only did one dungeon but it was same-o same-o and so are the fates. After the main story if the dungeons are all the same again I doubt there will be much replay value for me. The story is great though...
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#5 Jun 22 2015 at 1:41 PM Rating: Decent
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Storyline isnt too bad. Only made it to 54, but i still dont understand the whole Shiva thing in Dravania... She reluctantly proposes to take you and the SLAYER OF DRAGONS to a dragon even though she wishes for all ishgardians to die after all she had been put through for years (gods know why she'd help...), but then suddenly fights on your side and aids you in every little thing from gathering stuff to killing stuff, and even sightseeing as well...

I like it, it's just not very realistic.
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#6 Jun 22 2015 at 1:45 PM Rating: Decent
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its final fantasy.... what exactly do you mean by not "realistic" are any of the FF games/stories?
#7 Jun 22 2015 at 1:56 PM Rating: Decent
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DuoMaxwellxx wrote:
its final fantasy.... what exactly do you mean by not "realistic" are any of the FF games/stories?

To put things into perspective...

Bowser doesnt help Mario when he's looking for help. At most he teams up with him so he can capture the princess again.

Doctor Eggman doesnt lead Sonic through a maze. He makes sure it's filled with robots that want to kill Sonic instead.

Or perhaps a bit more themed. If Cloud would walk up to Sephiroth and asks him how to get to the city of the ancients. Sephiroth doesnt take Cloud there, no, he stabs his friends so badly that even Phoenix Downs wont do much good.

Why would she help you and the person who slays dragons in their quest, even if they propose peace? She doesnt want peace. She wants revenge and makes this VERY clear. That is what's not realistic. They could have come up with someone else.
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#8 Jun 22 2015 at 3:02 PM Rating: Excellent
Hmmm..

I don't think she wants revenge anymore. She did at a point, but now she just wants to help end the conflict. She's learned you can't quell rage with more rage. I think she also greatly respects the Warrior of Light.
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#9 Jun 22 2015 at 3:04 PM Rating: Good
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Why would she help you and the person who slays dragons in their quest, even if they propose peace? She doesnt want peace. She wants revenge and makes this VERY clear. That is what's not realistic. They could have come up with someone else.


Well...

Apparently it wasn't made clear enough... She really wants PEACE above all else, not war. If you listen to what she says, she doesn't want men and dragons to fight each other.

You've said you're only level 54 so you don't have all the information you need. Without spoiling any more story, you'll get there. Just pay attention to what people are saying.
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#10 Jun 22 2015 at 7:23 PM Rating: Decent
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It was fun seeing my character having his Oberyn Martell moment with the "I'll be your champion!" scene. My story had a better ending than his though.
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#11 Jun 22 2015 at 8:56 PM Rating: Decent
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In my opinion: the story line is generally good (I am level 51, and I will let you guess how far I am in), but there are some bits that are resolved too conveniently:

Bits I liked:


  • The lore in Ishigard is very detailed, and the world view around Ishigard is well introduced - I especially like the back story of the ruined West Highlands, and the Sea of Clouds beast tribe (an interesting combination of humour and big flying fish!)
  • The new jobs quests are good
  • It is quite clear the devs are going to continue its use of intrigue and betrayal: the Ishigard Pope is clearly not someone to be trusted easily; why would he intentionally let the hero knows the bad guys are trying to negotiate with him? Lolorito shows how good he is at manipulating Raubahn, Teledji Adeledji, Crystal Braves, and Scions to destroy each other, so he comes out on top; why is he intentionally to letting Raubahn to flee while keeping Nanamo alive? What is his next plot? Also can the hero really trust the Ice Princess to be on her side to negotiate with the dragons? To be frank, it is not clear who is really a friend or a foe.



Bits that are somewhat dodgy:

  • Cid rescue of the hero on the first appearance of Bismark is a Deus Ex Machina
  • Some of the actions of the heroes a bit... unrealistic. I prefer my hero to be more flawed than doing things out of heroism
  • I was hoping the Raubahn/Nanamo plot to not get resolve easily and quickly; well... who knows what Lolorito is thinking?



Edited, Jun 22nd 2015 10:58pm by scchan

Edited, Jun 22nd 2015 11:00pm by scchan

Edited, Jun 22nd 2015 11:00pm by scchan
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#12 Jun 22 2015 at 9:12 PM Rating: Good
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I've had one major complaint with character actions so far

Really? Raubahn just pours whatever Lolorito hands him into Nanamo's unconscious body? Seriously? That flask could have had ANYTHING in it. He didn't even want to take it to the alchemist's guild or something to get it checked out? The stupid guild is RIGHT THERE.

And one complaint about a plot point that I thought was resolved way faster than it should have been:

During my initial conversation with Hraesvelgr I remember seeing that he was missing an eye and I thought this was curious. At the time I was thinking that maybe he'd just lost it in battle... he's pretty old, wasn't that much of a stretch. And then the scene after Nidhogg is killed shows the azure dragoon whose name escapes me right now holding two eyes. Well this is odd isn't it? Nidhogg clearly had an eye when I just fought him not seventeen seconds ago... curious.

I remember thinking about this for a while before continuing on with my cutscenes because I wanted to puzzle it out. And then I remembered Hraesvelgr's missing eye and wanted to go back and check to see what color his eyes were.

And then the game just slaps me upside the head with the giant trout of exposition where he straight up tells you "yep that one's mine." It's seriously like the next cutscene when this happens. That was pretty disappointing. I think they could have and should have dragged that mystery on a bit.
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#13 Jun 22 2015 at 11:31 PM Rating: Decent
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Archmage Callinon wrote:
I've had one major complaint with character actions so far

Really? Raubahn just pours whatever Lolorito hands him into Nanamo's unconscious body? Seriously? That flask could have had ANYTHING in it. He didn't even want to take it to the alchemist's guild or something to get it checked out? The stupid guild is RIGHT THERE.


Why not? If Lolorito wanted Nanamo dead he would have just let her drink the original poison in the first place.
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#14 Jun 23 2015 at 2:58 AM Rating: Decent
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So far, it's really good.

All I've been doing so far are story missions, quests and FATEs, and already I'm close to level 52.

The story already has several big moving parts, but the devs have done a great job of weaving everything together. I feel that getting out of Eorzea and taking on some new lore is really good for the game.

About the only thing I'm not crazy about is the new voice acting. It's actually pretty good... but it's a bit jarring that certain character's voices have totally changed.

Thoughts?


The voice acting does feel a lot better, feels less rushed and perhaps better actors behind the voices. Pre 3.0 felt a bit like Advent Children where there was a few hiccups.

As for the story I don't know how they could have made it better, I've only just hit 55 and just about to start my fourth zone of HW and it's been great. It's been very tedious in the running around but that's an MMO. The story quality I have to say does feel great, each zone story brings it's own story while still keeping with the "bigger" picture. I wont say anything for spoilers but I have to say yet again SE has proved they can do a great job and I feel like my Sub is worth every penny.

Only issue is I don't have enough hours in the day to stick to it!!!
#15 Jun 23 2015 at 4:32 AM Rating: Default
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So after finishing the story, it definitely feels there could have been a bit more explained but it definitely had a better quality than 2.0. Heck it actually reminded me of 1.x's storytelling but still had that forced fetch quests thrown into it.

The one thing i don't get is how they rushed into the primals this go around. There were no true build up to them and quite honestly, we felt more powerful AFTER losing the light than we did when we had it. Either way though i can't talk about the english story much as I play in Japanese but the quality felt the same VA wise but the writing is definitely a lot better.

Hopefully for 3.1 and beyond they move past the "oh, go fetch and do kill quests for 6 quests, then I'll give you the quests you were looking for" setup.
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#16 Jun 23 2015 at 4:41 AM Rating: Decent
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One thing I don't like is the over saturation of cutscenes. I end up skipping everything except the voice acted ones and have no issues following the story. They just aren't that interesting. Lots of filler.
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#17 Jun 23 2015 at 5:27 AM Rating: Default
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Another thing I wanted to mention:

I like references as much as the next girl, but at the same time, Matoya being a thing here felt kinda..thrown in for nostalgia sake. It was fitting but it's like they could have went with someone else, even FuSoYA.

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#18 Jun 24 2015 at 9:32 AM Rating: Decent
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#19 Jun 27 2015 at 12:56 AM Rating: Good
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So, I'm slowing going on in the main story (just reached the point where you free Rahuban) and can people tell me when "it gets good" as they say? Because right now I'm seeing all the issues that plague the original game up to 2.55 minus the trekking around with sidequests:

1 - The player is still considered a demigod;
2 - Certain issues are closed with a couple lines of dialogue ( Merliwb's "explanation" that she was doing everything behind the scenes was horrible, especially since neither the player character nor anyone else pointed out she just went away earlier - at least a couple lines of apologies would have made more sense;
3 - Most characters still act like idiots despite seeing the truth in front of them:
4 - The Priesstess of Ice/Iceheart's motivations when you rencounter her (and I know from the trailer she'll join) are incredibly far fetched and also conveniently come out of the blue (oh hey, by the way I have the power of the Echo! And I'm so sorry to have murdered thousands in Ishgard, despite showing no doubts in the 2.55 cutscenes)
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#20 Jun 27 2015 at 4:25 AM Rating: Good
xizro wrote:
So, I'm slowing going on in the main story (just reached the point where you free Rahuban) and can people tell me when "it gets good" as they say? Because right now I'm seeing all the issues that plague the original game up to 2.55 minus the trekking around with sidequests:

1 - The player is still considered a demigod;
2 - Certain issues are closed with a couple lines of dialogue ( Merliwb's "explanation" that she was doing everything behind the scenes was horrible, especially since neither the player character nor anyone else pointed out she just went away earlier - at least a couple lines of apologies would have made more sense;
3 - Most characters still act like idiots despite seeing the truth in front of them:
4 - The Priesstess of Ice/Iceheart's motivations when you rencounter her (and I know from the trailer she'll join) are incredibly far fetched and also conveniently come out of the blue (oh hey, by the way I have the power of the Echo! And I'm so sorry to have murdered thousands in Ishgard, despite showing no doubts in the 2.55 cutscenes)


2 - Merlwyb gives her (quite lengthy in fact) "lines of apology" to you if you talk to her after the cutscene. Instead of having massive amounts of (largely optional) dialogue in the mandatory main story cutscenes, players can choose to receive extra dialogue about the ongoing issues by talking to the various NPCs in the vicinity of any given story point. This begs the question that if you want more dialogue why aren't you talking to these NPCs then? Why do you want all of the flavor dialogue forced on every player? The devs have constantly added a massive amount of extra dialogue related to the main story which you choose to ignore and then complain there isn't more dialogue. It makes zero sense. The related NPCs have not always interesting things to say, but they very often do. SE isn't going above and beyond to have even these NPCs with dialogue for no reason.

4 - Iceheart's motivations were different from the dragons', which she did not see coming beforehand. This is touched upon later in the story too. She does not have absolute control over the dragons, and, while her motivations might be sincere, her actions have had consequences she herself did not intend to cause.

That you are "seeing" all the issues that plagued the original game is unfortunate, but also partly self-inflicted. How you choose to interpret the story is how you end up seeing it, whether it is actually true or not.

Edited, Jun 27th 2015 10:28am by Hyanmen
#21 Jun 27 2015 at 4:48 AM Rating: Decent
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Hyanmen wrote:


2 - Merlwyb gives her (quite lengthy in fact) "lines of apology" to you if you talk to her after the cutscene. Instead of having massive amounts of (largely optional) dialogue in the mandatory main story cutscenes, players can choose to receive extra dialogue about the ongoing issues by talking to the various NPCs in the vicinity of any given story point. This begs the question that if you want more dialogue why aren't you talking to these NPCs then? Why do you want all of the flavor dialogue forced on every player? The devs have constantly added a massive amount of extra dialogue related to the main story which you choose to ignore and then complain there isn't more dialogue. It makes zero sense. The related NPCs have not always interesting things to say, but they very often do. SE isn't going above and beyond to have even these NPCs with dialogue for no reason.


That's fine and dandy, but this part should have been mandatory, not optional. It's a matter of internal logic. None of the characters actually say something, which is just incredibly stupid (especially since it's not the main character that should be more ticked off about it, but the others). Blaming the player isn't just the answer.


Quote:
That you are "seeing" all the issues that plagued the original game is unfortunate, but also partly self-inflicted. How you choose to interpret the story is how you end up seeing it, whether it is actually true or not.


They are not self-inflicted, it's just that the writing (up to now) isn't that great. I was able to guess the entire DRK questline (till 50) conclusion just by the second quest, as well as some "shocking" revelations in the 2.55 questline or now for example it was painfully obvious Nanamo wasn't dead.

Also, the character is still being considered a god, as I said. It's really annoying. I much prefer XI's take on the player character, instead of the people constantly reminding you you're great.


Edited, Jun 27th 2015 12:50pm by xizro
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#22 Jun 27 2015 at 6:23 AM Rating: Default
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That is a good point actually - It's assumed the player will talk to them after the actual cutscene or initial important dialogue, rather than it being in said cutscene/dialogue. If this was any other game or even any other Final Fantasy, people would say it was bad design to do as such. Hell wasn't XIII's storytelling criticized as well for having to find "optional" info?

So while the writing has improved (I didn't check the MSQ on english client, a bit scared to) at least SE became more honest in when you're doing filler quests in the main story, rather than trying to mask it and make it seem like something uber important to the game's storyline like during 2.x.

As for iceheart though, it's a tad bit convoluted..but the, and I'm sure it'll upset someone that I type this, cliched revelation really explains everyting, then further on into the story it explains it even more, but just be prepared for the "I seen this coming ever since the cutscenes before and after Fenrir" moment.

Overall, better story telling, still full of fetch quests but at least they do a better job separating side quests for the most part and a lot more self aware that players do indeed mock certain aspect of the storyline since they poke fun at it in many of the later MSQ.

Edited, Jun 27th 2015 5:43am by Theonehio
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#23 Jun 27 2015 at 7:36 AM Rating: Excellent
In XI, you had to talk to everybody because quest NPCs did not have a convenient ! over their heads telling you as such.

Basically, if you see a cluster of NPCs standing around and only one has the quest continuation mark above their heads, talk to the rest of them. They'll each add a little twist.

Spoilers past Sohm Al: Like Ysayle's sudden obsession with moogles. "SO FLUFFY! What, did you think my heart really was made of ice?" Estinien has the opposite reaction, wanting to strangle them and get the heck away.
#24 Jun 27 2015 at 8:22 AM Rating: Good
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My point is a bit different though: while optional, it should have been in the actual cutscene, because, as far as internal logic estabilished by the 2.55 timeline, all the Scions (including the player character) should be quite upset with what happened. And that should have been the first topic to come out when meeting the character in the cutscene, not to relegate it in the end.
There's still a lot of filler quests though, even in the main scenario.


Edited, Jun 27th 2015 4:22pm by xizro
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#25 Jun 27 2015 at 10:32 AM Rating: Decent
xizro wrote:
That's fine and dandy, but this part should have been mandatory, not optional. It's a matter of internal logic. None of the characters actually say something, which is just incredibly stupid (especially since it's not the main character that should be more ticked off about it, but the others). Blaming the player isn't just the answer.


There are plenty of reasons why none of the characters would state anything out loud. How often do you accuse the leader of a nation of something he did poorly, especially with no authority over him? Not to mention that the topic of the conversation is to save Raubahn, not to demand an apology. There should be an apology, but it should be clear that it is up to Merlwyb to apologize out of her own volition, instead of being pressured to do so. Which she does, if you had actually talked to her again instead of assuming she won't apologize.

Quote:
My point is a bit different though: while optional, it should have been in the actual cutscene, because, as far as internal logic estabilished by the 2.55 timeline, all the Scions (including the player character) should be quite upset with what happened. And that should have been the first topic to come out when meeting the character in the cutscene, not to relegate it in the end.


Just because they would be upset doesn't mean it should automatically follow that the topic is brought up in conversation (especially in a conversation where said people need help from the person they are upset about).

Quote:
They are not self-inflicted, it's just that the writing (up to now) isn't that great.


I'm not saying the writing is perfect. I am saying your own logic as to what the characters "should" do or say simply is not always so logical either. It's not all about the game.

Edited, Jun 27th 2015 4:40pm by Hyanmen
#26 Jun 29 2015 at 3:01 AM Rating: Good
Catwho wrote:
In XI, you had to talk to everybody because quest NPCs did not have a convenient ! over their heads telling you as such.
Basically, if you see a cluster of NPCs standing around and only one has the quest continuation mark above their heads, talk to the rest of them. They'll each add a little twist.


Ah yes.. good old XI. Little to no information on who starts the quest, sometimes told to go to a zone (no info on location) and at times not told where to go at all just look for <insert npc name>. Cue the "Let me ask LS, check internet for information".... half an hour later I know the basics to access to the new content.

Probably why I feel XIV is miles away from "Grind" when compared to XI, although XI has improved a lot it all came too late in MY view for the rest of us to really enjoy the content.

I will also add it's great to get through the story while it's fresh in my mind, instead of waiting 1-3 Years, updates, spending ages gathering people for runs or the silly "Wait 1 day"..........
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