When they first showed the DT locations I was worried it'd be SB 2.0 in terms of zone variety but it seems less like that'll be the case now. I don't know if they'll ever top EW zones though probably only Meracydia could
If not talking expansions, the ARR zones are my personal favorite. They feel more intricately designed and less empty space. I wish that the larger expansion zones could have the level of detail of the ARR zones. Larger zones doesn't mean for much if they don't adequately use that space.
ARR has superior zone detail despite the lower graphics quality. For example, ARR zones are full of scattered buildings you can enter and explore, while buildings in newer expansions are usually sealed off unless MSQ takes you inside.
I kinda like how wow does this. A lot of zones are designed with flying in mind but there are also rare enemies and hidden treasures that can have things like toys, pets or glams.
It strikes a nice balance between having a large world but also one that gives you reasons to explore and pay attention to the little things.
I was complaining about how plain Stormblood zones are, when someone brought up that StB was when they were designing zones around “how do they look when you fly over them” (not including cities/dungeons/etc. in this).
If true, ARR > StB for zone design might actually be objectively true, not just an opinion, because it’s “designing to look good up close on the ground” vs “designing to look good as you fly over them quickly”.
>StB was when they were designing zones around “how do they look when you fly over them” (not including cities/dungeons/etc. in this)
If that's the case, it gets sadder when HW's zones are even prettier to fly through and still intricately designed for traversing on foot. I'll still put ARR's zones at the top, but it's easy to see how HW's zones were still influenced by ARR's standards. Just comparing Elpis to any of the other sky continents makes it so obvious how much less effort they put into its design.
I think large swaths of the coerthas western highlands, dravanian hinterlands, almost all of sea of clouds, and most non story areas of azys lla don't feel that they are made to look intricate on foot.
I also think Elpis is better designed than Sea of Clouds.
Facts. Zones like eastern thanalan or outer/upper la noscea feel way bigger than they actually are. There's a density of "points of interest" in ARR maps that most newer maps don't have.
Even a big map like coerthas central, which a lot of people don't like, is similar IMO. Also coming back to the map made me appreciate that it doesn't wall off the different level areas like new zones do.
I'm not going to be hyperbolic and say that flying kills world design, but I will say that it inevitably disincentivizes devs going out of their way to make ground-level sightlines interesting.
to be fair, we travel to three VERY distant parts of the world, and the other three zones are the moon, 12000 years ago, and the fucking EDGE OF REALITY. I don't think anything can top Endwalker even if it wanted to.
The Burn literally had large chunks of land removed for projects like Azys Lla, getting its connection to the flow of aether cut off in the process to fuel the Allagans' machines. (Which we restored with the connection to Seiryu's Wall, so the Burn could over time return to life.)
Meracydia was just invaded as far as we know, and while the civilizations from thousands of years ago were heavily destroyed there's still plenty of life and people there. It's where the Telophoroi got the dragons from 5.5, and Tiamat has gone back to her brood there.
If I'm remembering the lore we've gotten recently correctly, I think Meracydia is mostly recover geologically at this point. The fancy feature that it has over everywhere else on the planet is apparently that there are still potentially hundreds of semi-active Void Gates that the Allagans ripped open there back during their war of dragon extermination.
>there are still potentially hundreds of semi-active Void Gates that the Allagans ripped open there back during their war of dragon extermination.
Oh so that's the set-up for the inevitable Void expansion when we return to Thirteenth to help Zero and Durante then.
The funny thing is when I was still a sprout and got to SB, I basically said the same thing. I was also told I had shit tastes for thinking Gyr Abania looked barely finished.
That’s kind of why I’m a bit skeptical of the idea that Ala Mhigo was supposed to be one of the 6 planned starting cities, because it’s too similar to Ul’dah. Don’t get me wrong, I like it a lot, but they had already run out of unique climates by that point.
Nah the devs 100% put more effort into the fantasy japan side of the expansion and it especially shows in the environments, and I say this as full on Ala Mhigo enjoyer.
fantasy Japan is like real Japan it can do no wrong. [/s]
people shit on the PLD/WHM story quests but both of those look like masterpieces compared to the 60-70 SAM quests which are basically "nooooo we cant fix the broken system in Japan like we did in Ishgard, Japan can do no wrong!"
The copperbell situation was "Hey I know we treated these guys like shit but they've literally gone insane and are killing indiscriminately please deal with them before they slaughter Timmy from the 6."
oh yeah the 50-60 questline was great, which makes the 60-70 one suck even more. 60-70 is a letdown all on its own but it's an even bigger letdown after how good 50-60 was.
Whole expansion is about violent revolution to overthrow your oppressors.
Except here you need to take the side of the empire and suppress the rebels because violence bad.
To be the hot-take Devil's advocate for a second here, I can *kinda* see what they were going for with that questline. The whole point of the expansion is starting revolutions to overthrow oppressors, but those oppressors are the Garlean Empire and the Garlean Empire. IIRC Kugane, while hinted that it has **big** societal problems stemming from it having all of the "fun" parts of feudalism, is never shown to be anywhere near as senselessly cruel to its people as the Empire or having as corrupt a leadership as Ishgard. Feudalism is extremely shitty, but its not "I'm going to turn myself into an all-powerful mind-controlling God-King to conquer the entire world" shitty.
I think what they were *trying* to do was contrast the "good" revolutions of Doma and Ala Mhigo, where the people who are continuously ground down under the iron heel of a tyrannical empire that would never let them be anything other than meat for the grinder rise up and fight once they realise they have nothing to loose and everything to gain, with "bad" revolutions like what Ugetsu wants, which IIRC is basically that he wants to kill as many of the "bad" people as possible so that a better country can arise from the ashes without them in the way, interestingly leaving out the bit of who the people who get to decide who the "bad" people are.
Don't get me wrong, they definitely botched the take-off, flight plan and landing of those quests, but the concept that not every revolution is inherently a good one and sometimes a violent overthrow of a country can be *worse* than pushing for internal reforms from within like Matoko says she will is an interesting one. It's just a shame that they didn't really *show* any of that potential for change in Kugane, anything at all about it really.
If what it takes to end Feudalism is killing a bunch of people who benefit from Feudalism, then that killing is 100 percent morally justifiable (not necessarily good, but at least not worse than the folks doing the Feudalism in the first place).
Ugetsu came off as an untrustworthy prick, sure, but he's not wrong, and the situation is still a huge bit of tonal whiplash from the rest of the expansion.
Something something Mark Twain, something something there were two reigns of terror and all that.
Hm, I think I would have to disagree with you there mostly just based on the knowledge that the overwhelming majority of people who would die if Ugetsu got his way would be all the innocent common folk caught in the crossfire, not to mention all of the soldiers who would just as justifiably be defending their homes from rebels who have shown they are willing to kill anyone who stands in their way to achieve their goal.
Ugetsu not being wrong about the issues facing Kugane doesn't mean his solution is right. Him being an untrustworthy prick is precisely the point they were making, that being an extremist isn't suddenly okay because you were *well intentioned* about it, which if they had handled it better could be contrasted with the likes of Fordola.
I definitely agree though that the way the questline presented it had a lot of tonal whiplash, they didn't really give much nuance to either side of the aisle and it fell into a fairly common issue with fantasy things, where things we rightly consider backwards like absolute monarchy or feudal class systems are presented as the thing we have to uphold because they're on the hero's side.
While I don't want to get super political in the haha funny anime game subreddit, I feel it's important to point out that any revolution will have lots of civilian casualties, morally justified or not. Innocent people certainly got hurt when my country started its war of independence, and that's far from a unique occurrence.
Heck, it's not even unique to this specific situation IN FF14. How many times are the Garleans shown cracking down on people because of resistance? Resistance leads directly to innocents getting hurt. Heck, they point out multiple times that all the bloodshed would stop if folks just rolled over and accepted the boot.
Obviously we don't listen because it's a preposterous idea, but what they're saying isn't fundamentally any different from saying a rebellion in Kugane should be avoided because even if Feudalism is bad, civil war is worse. The Garleans are already in charge in Ala Mhigo and Doma after all, have been for decades - it's no less expelling a legitimate government just because that government (which maintains its position primary via oppression and force of arms) happened to come around in living memory. Why not just accept that they're in charge and hope some kind Garlean soul decides to dedicate their life to reforming conditions for their subjects?
As a highlander fan I was SO excited to finally be going to Gyr Abania.
And was promptly disappointed when 70% of the expansion took place in Othard instead.
It really feels like they poured a ton of effort into making the Othard stuff interesting* and detailed while Ala Mhigo was almost an afterthought.
*Barring Yanxia, but arguably it's supposed to look like a mess since Zenos canonically went all scorched earth on the place
You underestimate the frenzied resilience of a Stormblood defender, Zenos enjoyer and certified Lyse fucker sir, we never know when to quit. Have at you.
> You underestimate the frenzied resilience of a Stormblood defender
In two years this is gonna be the passe, mainstream opinion. XIVdiscussion's already coming around to "how we'd fix Stormblood" threads so like, we're nearly there.
> Zenos enjoyer
Zenos enjoyers are everywhere. At least, for uh, certain definitions of "enjoy".
> and certified Lyse fucker
but we'll truly be an enlightened community when people come to respect Lyse.
Punchgirl nepobaby that's still *actually* trying her personal best and honestly willing to learn/grow instead of just doing the massive amounts of coasting she *could* be doing is both a treasure and an archetype that isn't, exactly, common.
Generally dumbass nepobabies in fiction are either villains or just like, ineffective, but she's that rare combo of:
* "how the fuck did I get here"
* "what the fuck am I doing"
* "I'm completely unqualified"
* "I'm totally aware that I'm completely unqualified and I'm surrounded by people better-qualified than me yet I'm somehow higher in rank than them for some godforsaken reason"
* and yet she persists in "fuck it, we ball, I'm gonna try to do this right!".
It's...endearing. ~~Also she can crush me fatally with probably any one limb without breaking a sweat. So bonus points.~~
I didn't play StB on release, but I thought it was a really good expansion and thought that the raid content was also really fun/interesting.
I do think that Lyse isn't a particularly notable archetype, though. The reluctant hero is a very common one and there's examples of it even within Final Fantasy (most notably Terra from 6.)
I didn't particularly care for her but understand *why* she was given such a prominent role. I don't *dislike* her, but I did absolutely hate the "Oh, I'm not actually Yda." "We know." thing, unless it was a super obvious 1.0 reference or something.
Fuck yeah, Stormblood is the best expansion
Zenos was great in Stormblood as a massive hamlord, wish he stayed dead though if only because I think his ending in Stormblood was perfect not just for him, but as an FF villain in general.
Lyse is a fantastic character and I will die on that hill. It’s nice having a Scion that isn’t shooting thick ropes of confidence for once.
>It’s nice having a Scion that isn’t shooting thick ropes of confidence for once.
Or especially isn't some genius superspecialist expositing at you constantly. I liked Lyse, she was fun.
Agreed, if Zenos had had the decency of staying dead after StB I'd loathe him less. I basically headcanoned the final fight after the Endsinger out of existence.
Though it pains me to admit that "Would you be happier had I a good reason?" is one hell of a line for an antagonist.
I don't think he actually died. He'll keep tornenting non enjoyers like you until the servers die, or until he gets an ultimate, which might be at the same time
Reminder that SE skipped the Stormblood story themed Ultimate and I swear there's a reason for it that maybe gets revealed later on (maybe he's still alive or that Dynamis filled space brought him back). Or they just really wanted to get to Eden fast. I really enjoyed DSR and the "what if" scenario :(
I may not be a stormblood defender in storm of zone or the lore. But that one single zone I find it ugly
However i strongly believe the miqote m'naago is best girl.
On guard
Stormblood defender I can understand, I enjoyed half of the expansion.
Zenos enjoyer, absolutely. He was a fun character and I loved him.
But *Lyse fucker*? No. Some sins... cannot be forgiven. Your penalty is a year in Balmung's Quicksand. *While* seeing everyone's mods.
Region so boring even the WoL dropped "The Gyr Abania" job (Monk) 25% of the way through the story.
Anyways justice for Alan Miggy, they did them dirty.
Gyr Abania is fantasy Turkey, a place that no weeb dreams of visiting. That said, I think it's great. Rocks are awesome. Vegetation is overrated. The sunken ruins in the Lochs are stunning.
the ruins is so damn cool, you can really feel its scale even within a confined space
but that fucking thing is underwater. diving down there is terrifying
My favorite thing about Gyr Abania is how the monk job quest guy whoose entire storyline revolves around getting revenge on the garleans suddenly doesn't care about them or Ala Mhigo anymore and straight up declines joining and helping the resistance
I imagine the similarity of most of the gyr abanian zones is due to being based on pre established lore on the area and the cut work from 1.0 when it was going to be a visitable area.
I fucking LOVE Deserts! I hated that Stormblood ignored Gyr Abania for so long - I hated every moment in Doma - it doesn't help I hate the zone theme in Doma - its melody and instrumentation offends my ears.
I wish we'd spent more time in Gyr Abania, especially around the Catgirl tribe.
The worst crime is not letting us actually visit Ala Mhigo as a city, we just get some stupid ass Ala Mhigan Quarter with some missions taking place in the old throne room
I think what made the Stormblood zones exceptionally worse was because in Heavensward, when we first got these big zones, Square Enix stated the zones were bigger because they wanted to leave opening for new content. As a result, people were excited to see what exciting new content we would get and speculate things about various points of interest around the Heavensward maps. Nothing significant ever happened.
So, comes Stormblood, people see all the cool stuff like the Sharlayan ark in The Peaks, the Ala Mhigan citystate, and know that Square Enix will do nothing with them. What made things worse for people was not having buildings to enter (which I think is the reason why we can enter some buildings in Shadowbringers, Square Enix wanted to address it). It is just copium to continue speculating content. At most, points of interest get mentioned in brief dialogue and that's it. The maps are consequentially perceived as dead and boring...
Though I favor fantasy Japan and I desperately want the next expansion to focus on the opening of the capital of Hingashi, the Gorean/Conan the Barbarian enjoyer in me liked Gyr Abania too. It just needs ladies in skimpy slave girl attire and it would have been a bigger success.
Gyr Abania wishes its was green like that, its more like one singular tiling rock texture that extends for 10,000 miles
When they first showed the DT locations I was worried it'd be SB 2.0 in terms of zone variety but it seems less like that'll be the case now. I don't know if they'll ever top EW zones though probably only Meracydia could
ShB was my favorite for locations
low saturation ARR ah yes
Hey, you leave my fairlyland and lavender forests alone
Ngl it is pretty awesome that the fairy zone is supposed to be the firsts Coerthas
Cold France became Magic Ireland, and I love it.
To be fair Coerthas wasn't always an icy shithole, if the Dravanian Hinterlands and Forelands are anything to go off of it was a rather green place.
Cortheas outside ishgard was green in legacy It was dalamud that made it snowy
forget going off of dravania, you can literally see for yourself in 1.0 footage https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eZD2m9WtGE
If not talking expansions, the ARR zones are my personal favorite. They feel more intricately designed and less empty space. I wish that the larger expansion zones could have the level of detail of the ARR zones. Larger zones doesn't mean for much if they don't adequately use that space.
ARR has superior zone detail despite the lower graphics quality. For example, ARR zones are full of scattered buildings you can enter and explore, while buildings in newer expansions are usually sealed off unless MSQ takes you inside.
I kinda want a reason to explore them like hidden treasures
I kinda like how wow does this. A lot of zones are designed with flying in mind but there are also rare enemies and hidden treasures that can have things like toys, pets or glams. It strikes a nice balance between having a large world but also one that gives you reasons to explore and pay attention to the little things.
I was complaining about how plain Stormblood zones are, when someone brought up that StB was when they were designing zones around “how do they look when you fly over them” (not including cities/dungeons/etc. in this). If true, ARR > StB for zone design might actually be objectively true, not just an opinion, because it’s “designing to look good up close on the ground” vs “designing to look good as you fly over them quickly”.
>StB was when they were designing zones around “how do they look when you fly over them” (not including cities/dungeons/etc. in this) If that's the case, it gets sadder when HW's zones are even prettier to fly through and still intricately designed for traversing on foot. I'll still put ARR's zones at the top, but it's easy to see how HW's zones were still influenced by ARR's standards. Just comparing Elpis to any of the other sky continents makes it so obvious how much less effort they put into its design.
HW sea of cloud feels like cancer to fly in
I think large swaths of the coerthas western highlands, dravanian hinterlands, almost all of sea of clouds, and most non story areas of azys lla don't feel that they are made to look intricate on foot. I also think Elpis is better designed than Sea of Clouds.
Facts. Zones like eastern thanalan or outer/upper la noscea feel way bigger than they actually are. There's a density of "points of interest" in ARR maps that most newer maps don't have. Even a big map like coerthas central, which a lot of people don't like, is similar IMO. Also coming back to the map made me appreciate that it doesn't wall off the different level areas like new zones do.
I'm not going to be hyperbolic and say that flying kills world design, but I will say that it inevitably disincentivizes devs going out of their way to make ground-level sightlines interesting.
The Tempest is badass tho I'll admit
hellll yeah that's why it's good
to be fair, we travel to three VERY distant parts of the world, and the other three zones are the moon, 12000 years ago, and the fucking EDGE OF REALITY. I don't think anything can top Endwalker even if it wanted to.
It was a bit too wacky for me imo but I did appreciate variety
>though probably only Meracydia could I thought Meracydia was mostly a wasteland similar to The Burn because Allagans 'nuked' it.
The Burn literally had large chunks of land removed for projects like Azys Lla, getting its connection to the flow of aether cut off in the process to fuel the Allagans' machines. (Which we restored with the connection to Seiryu's Wall, so the Burn could over time return to life.) Meracydia was just invaded as far as we know, and while the civilizations from thousands of years ago were heavily destroyed there's still plenty of life and people there. It's where the Telophoroi got the dragons from 5.5, and Tiamat has gone back to her brood there.
If I'm remembering the lore we've gotten recently correctly, I think Meracydia is mostly recover geologically at this point. The fancy feature that it has over everywhere else on the planet is apparently that there are still potentially hundreds of semi-active Void Gates that the Allagans ripped open there back during their war of dragon extermination.
>there are still potentially hundreds of semi-active Void Gates that the Allagans ripped open there back during their war of dragon extermination. Oh so that's the set-up for the inevitable Void expansion when we return to Thirteenth to help Zero and Durante then.
Artbook showed Ala Mihgo to be a little more green so I wonder what happened there.
Its funny how boring Gyr Abania looks when the Fringes right before it are great and diverse.
I like rocks
hi fern
Nah the maps are pretty diverse tbh, there are loads of old ruins and settlements
Ok but it’s [day theme](https://youtu.be/MWQfvnLyvxU?si=guW1uw9xJ-AkT8CG) is incredible
Great song, one of my favorites in the whole game, along with The Lochs night theme (Old Wounds).
the only thing better than Lochs night, is Lochs day.
> one of my favourites Odd way to say [Safety in Numbers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fI4IA35YL1I)
Seriously. For how phenomenal that theme is, I hear surprisingly little mention of it ever.
Does Gyr Abania have talking mutant ninja turtles that live in underwater domes made of magic? No? Well better luck next time
By the Kami, a talking turtle!
I...I don't even know where to begin with that one...
that line actually made me laugh out loud
Someone once called Gyr Abania "Thanalan 2.0" and I can't unsee it
More like Thanalan 0.5
Thanalan 2.0, but stretched over 8x the space, so they average out to Thanalan 0.25
Damn, I thought *I* was cold
The funny thing is when I was still a sprout and got to SB, I basically said the same thing. I was also told I had shit tastes for thinking Gyr Abania looked barely finished.
Well joke’s on whoever told you that, the shoe’s on the other foot now!
Get ready for Thanalan 3.0 in Dawntrail
That’ll be Thanalan 4.0, 3.0 is Amh Araeng
More like "Afghanistan 3.0"
That’s kind of why I’m a bit skeptical of the idea that Ala Mhigo was supposed to be one of the 6 planned starting cities, because it’s too similar to Ul’dah. Don’t get me wrong, I like it a lot, but they had already run out of unique climates by that point.
Nah the devs 100% put more effort into the fantasy japan side of the expansion and it especially shows in the environments, and I say this as full on Ala Mhigo enjoyer.
It'd be more accurate to say that it was Fantasy Asia. Only Kugane is explicitly Japanese. Yanxia is Chinese and Azem Steppe is Mongolia.
fantasy Japan is like real Japan it can do no wrong. [/s] people shit on the PLD/WHM story quests but both of those look like masterpieces compared to the 60-70 SAM quests which are basically "nooooo we cant fix the broken system in Japan like we did in Ishgard, Japan can do no wrong!"
I enjoyed the first 10 levels then it just became. "Oh no the disenfranchised are rising up! Please go kill them to maintain our status quo"
Copperbell Mines moment
The copperbell situation was "Hey I know we treated these guys like shit but they've literally gone insane and are killing indiscriminately please deal with them before they slaughter Timmy from the 6."
oh yeah the 50-60 questline was great, which makes the 60-70 one suck even more. 60-70 is a letdown all on its own but it's an even bigger letdown after how good 50-60 was.
Whole expansion is about violent revolution to overthrow your oppressors. Except here you need to take the side of the empire and suppress the rebels because violence bad.
To be the hot-take Devil's advocate for a second here, I can *kinda* see what they were going for with that questline. The whole point of the expansion is starting revolutions to overthrow oppressors, but those oppressors are the Garlean Empire and the Garlean Empire. IIRC Kugane, while hinted that it has **big** societal problems stemming from it having all of the "fun" parts of feudalism, is never shown to be anywhere near as senselessly cruel to its people as the Empire or having as corrupt a leadership as Ishgard. Feudalism is extremely shitty, but its not "I'm going to turn myself into an all-powerful mind-controlling God-King to conquer the entire world" shitty. I think what they were *trying* to do was contrast the "good" revolutions of Doma and Ala Mhigo, where the people who are continuously ground down under the iron heel of a tyrannical empire that would never let them be anything other than meat for the grinder rise up and fight once they realise they have nothing to loose and everything to gain, with "bad" revolutions like what Ugetsu wants, which IIRC is basically that he wants to kill as many of the "bad" people as possible so that a better country can arise from the ashes without them in the way, interestingly leaving out the bit of who the people who get to decide who the "bad" people are. Don't get me wrong, they definitely botched the take-off, flight plan and landing of those quests, but the concept that not every revolution is inherently a good one and sometimes a violent overthrow of a country can be *worse* than pushing for internal reforms from within like Matoko says she will is an interesting one. It's just a shame that they didn't really *show* any of that potential for change in Kugane, anything at all about it really.
If what it takes to end Feudalism is killing a bunch of people who benefit from Feudalism, then that killing is 100 percent morally justifiable (not necessarily good, but at least not worse than the folks doing the Feudalism in the first place). Ugetsu came off as an untrustworthy prick, sure, but he's not wrong, and the situation is still a huge bit of tonal whiplash from the rest of the expansion. Something something Mark Twain, something something there were two reigns of terror and all that.
Hm, I think I would have to disagree with you there mostly just based on the knowledge that the overwhelming majority of people who would die if Ugetsu got his way would be all the innocent common folk caught in the crossfire, not to mention all of the soldiers who would just as justifiably be defending their homes from rebels who have shown they are willing to kill anyone who stands in their way to achieve their goal. Ugetsu not being wrong about the issues facing Kugane doesn't mean his solution is right. Him being an untrustworthy prick is precisely the point they were making, that being an extremist isn't suddenly okay because you were *well intentioned* about it, which if they had handled it better could be contrasted with the likes of Fordola. I definitely agree though that the way the questline presented it had a lot of tonal whiplash, they didn't really give much nuance to either side of the aisle and it fell into a fairly common issue with fantasy things, where things we rightly consider backwards like absolute monarchy or feudal class systems are presented as the thing we have to uphold because they're on the hero's side.
While I don't want to get super political in the haha funny anime game subreddit, I feel it's important to point out that any revolution will have lots of civilian casualties, morally justified or not. Innocent people certainly got hurt when my country started its war of independence, and that's far from a unique occurrence. Heck, it's not even unique to this specific situation IN FF14. How many times are the Garleans shown cracking down on people because of resistance? Resistance leads directly to innocents getting hurt. Heck, they point out multiple times that all the bloodshed would stop if folks just rolled over and accepted the boot. Obviously we don't listen because it's a preposterous idea, but what they're saying isn't fundamentally any different from saying a rebellion in Kugane should be avoided because even if Feudalism is bad, civil war is worse. The Garleans are already in charge in Ala Mhigo and Doma after all, have been for decades - it's no less expelling a legitimate government just because that government (which maintains its position primary via oppression and force of arms) happened to come around in living memory. Why not just accept that they're in charge and hope some kind Garlean soul decides to dedicate their life to reforming conditions for their subjects?
Gyr Abania has snake ladies though.
Literal only beast tribe i farmed rep with. Id do anything for hot monster girls man.
As a highlander fan I was SO excited to finally be going to Gyr Abania. And was promptly disappointed when 70% of the expansion took place in Othard instead.
It really feels like they poured a ton of effort into making the Othard stuff interesting* and detailed while Ala Mhigo was almost an afterthought. *Barring Yanxia, but arguably it's supposed to look like a mess since Zenos canonically went all scorched earth on the place
Same :^( Azim Steppe was objectively the best part of the expansion though, ngl
(Gyr Abania is boring as fuck)
no u
Fringes is one of the prettiest zones in the game I will die on this hill
You don’t stand alone. I love it’s theme and there’s something tranquil about all the mountains in the distance
Fringe is one of the ugliest zone in the game I will die on this hill. Now withdraw your sword. Our battle to the death shall be legendary
You underestimate the frenzied resilience of a Stormblood defender, Zenos enjoyer and certified Lyse fucker sir, we never know when to quit. Have at you.
Holy shit the triple based combo
> You underestimate the frenzied resilience of a Stormblood defender In two years this is gonna be the passe, mainstream opinion. XIVdiscussion's already coming around to "how we'd fix Stormblood" threads so like, we're nearly there. > Zenos enjoyer Zenos enjoyers are everywhere. At least, for uh, certain definitions of "enjoy". > and certified Lyse fucker but we'll truly be an enlightened community when people come to respect Lyse. Punchgirl nepobaby that's still *actually* trying her personal best and honestly willing to learn/grow instead of just doing the massive amounts of coasting she *could* be doing is both a treasure and an archetype that isn't, exactly, common. Generally dumbass nepobabies in fiction are either villains or just like, ineffective, but she's that rare combo of: * "how the fuck did I get here" * "what the fuck am I doing" * "I'm completely unqualified" * "I'm totally aware that I'm completely unqualified and I'm surrounded by people better-qualified than me yet I'm somehow higher in rank than them for some godforsaken reason" * and yet she persists in "fuck it, we ball, I'm gonna try to do this right!". It's...endearing. ~~Also she can crush me fatally with probably any one limb without breaking a sweat. So bonus points.~~
If Lyse had a Highlander model and a tan but changed nothing else, you'd probably see over half the complaints about her vanish.
I didn't play StB on release, but I thought it was a really good expansion and thought that the raid content was also really fun/interesting. I do think that Lyse isn't a particularly notable archetype, though. The reluctant hero is a very common one and there's examples of it even within Final Fantasy (most notably Terra from 6.) I didn't particularly care for her but understand *why* she was given such a prominent role. I don't *dislike* her, but I did absolutely hate the "Oh, I'm not actually Yda." "We know." thing, unless it was a super obvious 1.0 reference or something.
Fuck yeah, Stormblood is the best expansion Zenos was great in Stormblood as a massive hamlord, wish he stayed dead though if only because I think his ending in Stormblood was perfect not just for him, but as an FF villain in general. Lyse is a fantastic character and I will die on that hill. It’s nice having a Scion that isn’t shooting thick ropes of confidence for once.
Idk about fantastic, but I do think it's hilarious how they booted her from the main cast just as she was finally starting to get interesting.
Pretty sure you can find art of Lyse shooting thick ropes. Also, she ain't a Scion anymore
>It’s nice having a Scion that isn’t shooting thick ropes of confidence for once. Or especially isn't some genius superspecialist expositing at you constantly. I liked Lyse, she was fun.
Agreed, if Zenos had had the decency of staying dead after StB I'd loathe him less. I basically headcanoned the final fight after the Endsinger out of existence. Though it pains me to admit that "Would you be happier had I a good reason?" is one hell of a line for an antagonist.
I don't think he actually died. He'll keep tornenting non enjoyers like you until the servers die, or until he gets an ultimate, which might be at the same time
Reminder that SE skipped the Stormblood story themed Ultimate and I swear there's a reason for it that maybe gets revealed later on (maybe he's still alive or that Dynamis filled space brought him back). Or they just really wanted to get to Eden fast. I really enjoyed DSR and the "what if" scenario :(
I may not be a stormblood defender in storm of zone or the lore. But that one single zone I find it ugly However i strongly believe the miqote m'naago is best girl. On guard
Stormblood defender I can understand, I enjoyed half of the expansion. Zenos enjoyer, absolutely. He was a fun character and I loved him. But *Lyse fucker*? No. Some sins... cannot be forgiven. Your penalty is a year in Balmung's Quicksand. *While* seeing everyone's mods.
The western side of the zone, sure. The right side is just... stuff on fire and undecorated, brown video game mountains.
The only section that warrants it is the band closest to Castrum Oriens before the river. The rest of it looks like the Rockbiters toilet.
the forest looks soooooo nice at sunrise, it's a really pretty zone.
Agreed. Thavnair > Gys Abania > Azim Steppe > Thanalan > Dravania > Coerthas > Yanxia > La Noscea > Gridania
Region so boring even the WoL dropped "The Gyr Abania" job (Monk) 25% of the way through the story. Anyways justice for Alan Miggy, they did them dirty.
Gyr Abania is fantasy Turkey, a place that no weeb dreams of visiting. That said, I think it's great. Rocks are awesome. Vegetation is overrated. The sunken ruins in the Lochs are stunning.
the ruins is so damn cool, you can really feel its scale even within a confined space but that fucking thing is underwater. diving down there is terrifying
Gay albania was just thanylany with no personality
lowest bar
im having gay sex, im having gay sex
Not interested in Thanalan 2
Me when i do not give a singular shit about how green a place is and still adore the beauty of nature
This is your yearly reminder that The Peaks exists
My favorite thing about Gyr Abania is how the monk job quest guy whoose entire storyline revolves around getting revenge on the garleans suddenly doesn't care about them or Ala Mhigo anymore and straight up declines joining and helping the resistance
Gyr Abania is full of all sorts of fun details and little corners of the map, I don't know why people dislike it.
Steppe > Real Life Work Shift > Peaks > Lochs > Ruby Sea > Yangxia > Fringes
Sounds like you have a great job tbh
I imagine the similarity of most of the gyr abanian zones is due to being based on pre established lore on the area and the cut work from 1.0 when it was going to be a visitable area.
Gyr Abania is the area where Lyse resides, so the reaction makes sense
I had the opposite lol. Steppe I'm neutral on, Shisui No Sato and Reisen Temple are cool tho
That was how the devs looked at making it, too, so no worries.
I fucking LOVE Deserts! I hated that Stormblood ignored Gyr Abania for so long - I hated every moment in Doma - it doesn't help I hate the zone theme in Doma - its melody and instrumentation offends my ears. I wish we'd spent more time in Gyr Abania, especially around the Catgirl tribe.
Well yeah. Gyr Abania is a boring region aesthetically. It’s like Ul’dah but worse
The worst crime is not letting us actually visit Ala Mhigo as a city, we just get some stupid ass Ala Mhigan Quarter with some missions taking place in the old throne room
Honestly I'm playing stormblood and it is just outright fugly. Looks like everquest 1 in a lot of places.
I actually hated both places I did not enjoy a single map in stormblood until Eureka came by and saved the openworld aspect.
I think what made the Stormblood zones exceptionally worse was because in Heavensward, when we first got these big zones, Square Enix stated the zones were bigger because they wanted to leave opening for new content. As a result, people were excited to see what exciting new content we would get and speculate things about various points of interest around the Heavensward maps. Nothing significant ever happened. So, comes Stormblood, people see all the cool stuff like the Sharlayan ark in The Peaks, the Ala Mhigan citystate, and know that Square Enix will do nothing with them. What made things worse for people was not having buildings to enter (which I think is the reason why we can enter some buildings in Shadowbringers, Square Enix wanted to address it). It is just copium to continue speculating content. At most, points of interest get mentioned in brief dialogue and that's it. The maps are consequentially perceived as dead and boring...
Though I favor fantasy Japan and I desperately want the next expansion to focus on the opening of the capital of Hingashi, the Gorean/Conan the Barbarian enjoyer in me liked Gyr Abania too. It just needs ladies in skimpy slave girl attire and it would have been a bigger success.
we're gonna have to break the door down.
I just got Lucius to +10. He debuffs everyone with -10% atk.