TGLT posted:Although it was painfully obvious the moment Y'shtola did her thing that none of them were gonna die. Doubly so when I noticed G'raha's crystal bridge wasn't on the map. End of MSQ (as is the quote above) Yeah when it was just Thancred and Estinien I thought "oh, , maybe" but once Y'shtola stepped up (and straight up says "btw you could totally bring us back") any tension went away. There's no way they'd off all the Scions in one swoop like that. Didn't stop me from tearing up a bit after G'raha was gone, the full song comes in, and it's just the WoL and the twins. ...or actually crying when Alphinaud says "I have an idea" and all the the WoL gets to say to them is three variations of "no, don't " That leads into probably one of my biggest problems with EW. For a story that uses "nothing left unsaid" as a leitmotif, the WoL leaves a lot unsaid. The major NPCs generally don't, (especially if you unending journal every possible nighttime visitor) but the WoL doesn't have much to say back. Which I guess is consistent with how the character has always been, but still. Theris fucked around with this message at 03:45 on Dec 13, 2021 |
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# ? Dec 13, 2021 03:42 |
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# ? May 27, 2024 03:40 |
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YoshiOfYellow posted:For those that have finished the MSQ I have a couple of questions I'd love to pose. Dungeon: The Aitiascope, I love the design of it, and I'm a sucker for characters coming back in different forms. Especially the fight with Rhitatyn, not only is it cool to see him finally get a proper fight, but it has really neat mechanics! Also the way Shiva comes in to save you with a pillar of ice in the final fight is just really fantastic, great way to send off these characters one final time. Area: Garlemald. They really nailed the design of this place, I love the decrepit train stations and buildings, though I kind of wish the city were a little less destroyed, as it was in the benchmark. It has a lot of nice little touches that I love, like the cute little cars and the way the buildings are all twisted together. Reminds me a lot of Da'at in SMTV.
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# ? Dec 13, 2021 03:46 |
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Regalingualius posted:What’s something good to spend white crafters scrip on if you already have all of the level 3-8 master recipes and 500 gear from ShB? in lieu of anything else probably just get materia
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# ? Dec 13, 2021 04:03 |
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Man, the more I think about the finale, the more I like Meteion as a final boss. Etheirys as is and Meteion are both products of Amaurot and it's fall, and both embody its people's philosophical divergence when it died.Theris posted:End of MSQ (as is the quote above) Yeah when it was just Thancred and Estinien I thought "oh, , maybe" but once Y'shtola stepped up (and straight up says "btw you could totally bring us back") any tension went away. There's no way they'd off all the Scions in one swoop like that. Yeah even knowing they were all gonna come back, I still felt some anxiety when Alphinaud and Alisaie stepped up to the plate. I was also a little annoyed when my character was shocked at the suggestion they could use Azem's crystal to bring them back, because it was my first thought the moment when Thancred disappeared. I figured we'd use it to bring back the nasty boy for one more rodeo then he'd peace out, what with his extreme "I'm about to die" energy before we got on the ship. As for WoL leaving stuff unsaid, I think it's just a consequence of MMO design. They can't account for enough different motivations to do it total justice so it's probably better to stick with the more universal/obvious stuff. It's a shame though. Bigger shame was not letting us hug Meteion before the last dungeon.
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# ? Dec 13, 2021 04:12 |
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Welp. That would have been a nice chunk of cash to start the expansion with. The ex trials are both cool but the spinning map mechanic still breaks my brain even when I know exactly what it's going to do. And I forget if it was this way in ShB too, but gatherer leves boost you *insanely* fast. Like three to four leves will level you up, and since there aren't even HQ gathers any more they're even easier than they used to be.
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# ? Dec 13, 2021 04:33 |
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Yeah, that's how gatherer/crafter leves worked since at least I've been playing. They just weren't as good as power leveling with the Firmament or just periodically leveling with the tribes.
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# ? Dec 13, 2021 04:46 |
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Spoiler for the absolute end I thought I was just going to drop an LB4 on Zenos, but I must admit I really like what I got instead
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# ? Dec 13, 2021 05:16 |
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YoshiOfYellow posted:For those that have finished the MSQ I have a couple of questions I'd love to pose. Dungeon: I think the 83 dungeon because I like trains, I like the Azim Steppe people, and I like Anima. Map: Pure map wise, Thavnair because it is very pretty.
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# ? Dec 13, 2021 05:32 |
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YoshiOfYellow posted:For those that have finished the MSQ I have a couple of questions I'd love to pose. Dungo: Vanaspati from a pure cinematic perspective. The Aitiascope and the Dead Ends are also incredible but I think Vanaspati does a perfect job of hyping up the Final Days as an existential threat. And yeah, honorable mention to the Ktisis trusts. Emet uses Shadowbringer if he's a tank Map: Probably Fallout: New Garlemald, with Mare Lamentorum being a close second. I think I would've liked it more if there were more weird alien underground caves and if Bestways Burrow took up less of the zone real estate. They're pretty much all winners though.
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# ? Dec 13, 2021 05:41 |
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I like Vrtra. He's a cool dude.
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# ? Dec 13, 2021 05:41 |
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The 87 dungeon was great, especially with trusts. And the cutscenes after it... they were great, too, I just think I'm going to need to process them
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# ? Dec 13, 2021 05:52 |
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YoshiOfYellow posted:For those that have finished the MSQ I have a couple of questions I'd love to pose. Honestly, the dungeons and maps were all pretty evenly solid for me, so it’s hard to pick a favorite per se. What really got me were the cutscenes, story, solo duties, and evil evil emotional manipulation . With that said: Dungeon: The Dead Ends. What an emotionally exhausting and hosed up, nearly cosmicist duty. That one’s going to stick with me for a long time. Plus, the third part is unreasonably pretty. Map: Tossup between Elpis and Ultima Thule. Ultima Thule because of the “what the gently caress” factor, Elpis because of the “holy poo poo” factor. And for completion’s sake, Trial: 89. Just… 💔
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# ? Dec 13, 2021 06:00 |
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Loaded up nuSummoner, I think I've got the buttons sorted out (after figuring out that if a spell still exists but cannot be assigned to a hotbar, it won't take it OFF your hotbar), but I have one question: Physick has a potency of 400 and heals for ~550. Rekindle has a potency of 400 and heals for ~12000. Are they operating under different rules or am I missing something?
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# ? Dec 13, 2021 06:07 |
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Bruceski posted:Loaded up nuSummoner, I think I've got the buttons sorted out (after figuring out that if a spell still exists but cannot be assigned to a hotbar, it won't take it OFF your hotbar), but I have one question: Physick scales off of the mind instead of intelligence.
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# ? Dec 13, 2021 06:10 |
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Gruckles posted:Physick scales off of the mind instead of intelligence. In other words it's worthless after about level 15 or so and you can take it off your hotbars as an arcanist/summoner, it's strictly A Weird Artifact and easily the most useless button in th game.
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# ? Dec 13, 2021 06:11 |
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Meeko posted:In other words it's worthless after about level 15 or so and you can take it off your hotbars as an arcanist/summoner, it's strictly A Weird Artifact and easily the most useless button in th game. Probably more like 49 (or maybe 30) since early equipment has identical mind and int?
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# ? Dec 13, 2021 06:19 |
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Nvm, late to the poo poo show
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# ? Dec 13, 2021 06:22 |
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Gruckles posted:Physick scales off of the mind instead of intelligence. Figured it was something like that, thanks. Also, this is a very shiny job now and I might need to turn down my own effects when playing it.
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# ? Dec 13, 2021 06:34 |
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For favorite dungeon: It's hard to choose between the 87 and the 90 ones. I like the "extra lore" dungeons though, so maybe The Dead Ends pulls ahead, cause not only does it show you what all these alien civilizations were up to (and that meant lots of new assets) but you get to read even more about them and there's lots of weird cool hidden details if you look deeper at it all. For general area: Probably a bit trite but Ultima Thule just for that music. If not that, then Thavnair for its vibe. I didn't really look up much about this expansion before it came out so I wasn't expecting to go to fantasy India but I'm very glad I did.
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# ? Dec 13, 2021 06:43 |
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By the way, if you're new to Extreme raiding or haven't done it much in the past there's no better time to do it than now. The accessory trial can be done by just following the group while you're learning the mechanics, and while the weapon trial is a little spicier it mainly revolves around pairs of mechanics that are a decent toe dip into what to expect from future extremes /doing old extremes synced. Not to mention the first extreme fights of an expansion are usually under tuned to account for players learning new rotations and job mechanics. Give it a shot!
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# ? Dec 13, 2021 07:04 |
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wish the vocals in ultima thule weren't always playing.
Zeruel fucked around with this message at 07:16 on Dec 13, 2021 |
# ? Dec 13, 2021 07:08 |
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Zeruel posted:wish the vocals in ultima thule weren't always playing. mods?????????
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# ? Dec 13, 2021 07:14 |
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Zone 6's theme is good, but not as a field theme.
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# ? Dec 13, 2021 07:28 |
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I set EW zone 6 as my home point so everytime I revive after dying on fate/hunt trains I hear that song and it feels...really nice. It's a good song.
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# ? Dec 13, 2021 07:35 |
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Zeruel posted:wish the vocals in ultima thule weren't always playing. its incredibly insane that it does lol
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# ? Dec 13, 2021 07:43 |
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also I gotta say after looking at my odder otter/abroader otter minion for extended periods of time while fishing it's loving embarrassing how awful the whiskers on the loporrits are. like seriously bad. laughable.
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# ? Dec 13, 2021 07:51 |
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Countblanc posted:its incredibly insane that it does lol Rak'tika did it. Almost every persona game has done it, I don't mind.
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# ? Dec 13, 2021 08:21 |
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I've walked to the end. Game owns.
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# ? Dec 13, 2021 08:26 |
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YoshiOfYellow posted:For those that have finished the MSQ I have a couple of questions I'd love to pose. Dungeon: Dead ends was fun finisher. Most dungeons were undertuned, while trials were overtuned. This one didn't take no prisoners. My first group wiped 5 times to the boss. Just too many dead timers for our healer to dispel. She asked for disband after the first one, because "This dungeon is too hard". My 2nd group finished this without casualties. Map: Elpis is the winner. Such a beautiful and magical place with floating isles. Thavnair is really great place too in more 'natural' way. I love how colorful that place is. Outside Moon is great too. I've always loved IRL shots from the moon and the pale blue
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# ? Dec 13, 2021 09:33 |
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So I just finished the MSQ yesterday and some pondering about it in the spoilers, but first the official rankings of the expansions: 1. Shadowbringers 2. Heavensward 3. Endwalker 4. Stormblood 5. A Realm Reborn FULL SCALE SPOILERS Well that was a fun ride. I think the Endwalker suffer from the same problem as the Stormblood. It is 2 different expansions contents glued together as one. Everything up to the Zodiark-fight would have made a fine expansion. First 2 zones were good, basic FFXIV zones. I preferred the Thavnair's colourful buildings and different looks, but Labyrinthos was fine too. the Garlemald-part was too short and you didn't really get to see the main city. Just the ruined outskirts. The zone and its story ended up being a disappointment after a promising start. The Moon was both excellent and a disappointment. The early crater part was simply stunning and the fight with Zodiark was hard and great. the Bunny-part was big meh. Just WoW-scale building with semi-annoying bunnies. At least they weren't Namazu-level atrocities! The end times sequence was between ok and meh. Important part of the story, but didn't feel it. 5th zone was a real upturn for the expansion. I didn't even realize I wanted this, until I got it. My boy Emet-Selch and his 'Good friend' were such delightful companions, while exploring the story. All the main characters of this zone were exceptional and the unfolding of the story... Between the new zones phase had great character moments and build up to the finale that was the 6th zone. 6th zones dragon area was bit meh, but next 2 phases were great and was a such buildup for the final confrontation. The final-final fight with Zenos was bit eh. Don't tease me with an option to not to fight and then not let me pick it. Yoshi-P Just let me walk away. All and all, I wanted a better 1:st half as an expansion, but ended up enjoying the 2nd half more, even if that is not generally my cup of tea. I really hope we don't ever see another Ascian ever again.
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# ? Dec 13, 2021 10:02 |
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i have never used ACT but i just installed it, i think it'll be helpful. Do I need to manually run ACT before i open xiv or will it automatically open? I'm using xivlauncher so idk if that will somehow help
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# ? Dec 13, 2021 12:01 |
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TGLT posted:Man, the more I think about the finale, the more I like Meteion as a final boss. Etheirys as is and Meteion are both products of Amaurot and it's fall, and both embody its people's philosophical divergence when it died. Like, I sort of feel like I'm having a stroke when most folks don't talk about how the whole thing with the Ancients and how they treated all life they "created" set Meteion up to have even more trouble processing what she found, since she had already internalized her life wasn't worth as much as "real" life (and her status in society is a big part of Hermes' underlying anxiety, since he's freaking out over his Daughter In Fact having the legal and moral rights of a pet goldfish), and thus the Ancients set up their apocalypse without even knowing they were doing so - which is one of THE underlying themes of the entire loving game and is hammered home in Thule and the Dead Ends. Allag, the War of the Magi states, Garlemald, the First, Ishgard and Dravania, even Doma and Ala Mhigo and the core Eorzean states; all of them were shaped by choices people made that had consequences they never entirely foresaw, and the entire story - basically from the time you step off the carriage/boat - keeps asking you and the world around you "what is your purpose, in the face of these problems"? Meteion and Ultima Thule are the final, logical endpoint for the themes of the entire game and journey and when people talk about it being "random" and "11th hour" I end up half feeling like I'm somehow the only human being in the world who can process thematic consistency and build-up. Anyway, Endwalker super good, best dungo Dead Ends for the sheer scope of it and the sheer number of new assets created for ONE DUNGEON WHAT THE gently caress, best zone Ultima Thule for the scope once again and the perfect use of that JC Miller song. SpaceDrake fucked around with this message at 12:22 on Dec 13, 2021 |
# ? Dec 13, 2021 12:11 |
adhuin posted:FULL SCALE SPOILERS This is the first time I've seen this opinion in the wild, but I mostly agree. I'm not sure that investigating and figuring out how to deal with the towers and addressing the collapse of Garlemald ending with killing Zodiark could have been expanded to a whole expack on its own, but it probably could have, and feels rushed as the intro to Endwalker. Dealing with the Final Days definitely could be its own expack. But then you wouldn't have everyone stoked about what a baller move it was to have killing Zodiark be an x3 trial, so, it;s impossible to say if its bad or not, adhuin posted:I really hope we don't ever see another Ascian ever again. You aren't going to like the EW normal raid series then. But, I'm pretty sure it's a tying up loose ends kind of thing and we aren't going to be dealing with them in the MSQ ever again. Theris fucked around with this message at 12:56 on Dec 13, 2021 |
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# ? Dec 13, 2021 12:53 |
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IMHO everyone is posting the WRONG screenshot as the "screenshot of the expansion", this one is the correct one, and if you don't have this one, you picked the wrong dialog option, objectively:
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# ? Dec 13, 2021 12:59 |
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Thumbtacks posted:i have never used ACT but i just installed it, i think it'll be helpful. Do I need to manually run ACT before i open xiv or will it automatically open? I'm using xivlauncher so idk if that will somehow help You can configure XIVLauncher to open ACT alongside the game.
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# ? Dec 13, 2021 13:01 |
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Yeah I agree with the whole it should be two different expansions Zodiarc being completely reduced to fanta dans trial is a bit of a let down though still a fun trial. I really didn't like how the final days didn't kill off anyone we previously knew it's like the apocalypse but nothing happened except to India and Russia. There were bigger stakes in heavens ward when stopping the pope from becoming god king. 5th Zone was not for me it was that boy everyone loved, Emet here to talk, hang and be your friend for an entire expansion. Way too fanservicy for me. The whole melon and Hermes deal I felt like didn't have enough time to cook. Just introducing timetravel so late just hurts my eyes. 6th zone was ok the different civilizations that were despaired showing up to explain some of their systems was alright but that's it and a nice skybox. It building up to gurren lagan was the saving grace for the second half. Overall an OK expansion, Ast is fun. Waterfall Watcher fucked around with this message at 13:22 on Dec 13, 2021 |
# ? Dec 13, 2021 13:10 |
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I can see how Garlemald feels a little rushed since it's just one tiny zone and everything important happened offscreen, but I feel like the solution there isn't to drag this out over two expansions (which would be awful) but instead to cut out Labyrinthos and have 2 Garlemald zones instead, maybe the outskirts and the capital or something. Stretching it out forever just sounds bad though. Edit: Come to think of it, As cool as it is to visit the moon, you don't actually do anything there but listen to exposition and fight Zodiark. It would've worked fine as a city rather than a combat zone, imo. Clarste fucked around with this message at 13:20 on Dec 13, 2021 |
# ? Dec 13, 2021 13:16 |
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I might sort of have agreed with some of these takes if it wasn't for Ultima Thule tying it all together. The thing is, Garlemald is basically What Meteion Is Talking About in miniature; across two timelines, now, the Garleans have ended up eating poo poo over, ultimately, their own designs. Either they gas themselves to death because they don't truly understand the implications of Black Rose, or because they are so over-extended and have so many power-hungry legati, they don't have a way of stopping a revived crown prince and his evil wizard "buddy" from turning the capital into a hellscape that has nothing to do with the empire, leaves all command and control in chaos, and kicks down the entire house of cards. No matter what changes, there is no future in which Garlemald does not collapse and cause its people unimaginable amounts of suffering (as so often happens with fascism), with the only release seeming to be death at first. It isn't planetary in scale, but it's still the exact same kind of thing we see on display in the Dead Ends and the like. As a result of this, thematically Garlemald as a zone story leads pretty well into the second half of Endwalker, once you realize what Ishikawa & co. are actually doing. If anything I wish they hammered on the commonality a bit more openly. I definitely think it wouldn't have worked quite as well if they were two discreet expansions. That said, I can definitely level with the moon feeling a bit under-utilized; I loving love the loporrits, don't get me wrong, and they're a precision-guided strike on my FF4-brain fuzzies, but a lot of Mare Lamentorum is super duper ill-used outside of the initial wow factor. You don't even go back there; you're basically there for a single level and you're done. It exists more as a plot device than a fully-realized zone, and in XIV that's odd.
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# ? Dec 13, 2021 13:42 |
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To all the people clamoring EW should have been 2 expansions: Do you really want an expansion of nothing but Fandaniel and Zenos? Even the people who liked them found their appearances in the 5.X patches boring, streching Garlemald to an entire expansion would mean 10 entire levels of that poo poo. IMO Fandaniel and Zenos only worked because their importance to the plot ended early, with Fandaniel getting an extra development through Hermes. The next problem is the areas. We'd need double for 2 expansions. The Garlemald one would have Thavnair, the moon as the final zone and then what? 4 Garlemald zones? Which would all have prob the same plot or be filler as in, liberating them and that's all? Do you guys want a repeat of Ala Mhigo but Worse? The second expansion wouldn't be so bad since they'd have Labyrinthos/Elpis/Ultima Thule, but I can't think of more zones to fit. And finally, there's the time lapse cause people forget we get an expansion every 2-3 years. Lv 85 already dragged long enough, now imagine 5 patches of the Final Days, all just misery and such. And what could you do in them besides "Thavnair but worse"? Cause solving the Final Days in 6.X patches would suck and waste all the non-Garlemald zones. Also killing characters just to raise the stakes is bad even if the character had more development than Moenbryda. The only thing I agree is that the Apocalypse weather should have spread to more zones beyond Thavnair and Garlemald. The scene where Krile sees an echo of the red skye should have just been... the sky turning red on Sharlayan. Not sure why they didn't do that, if people complain about not having weather for hunts/fishing just, finish the MSQ.
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# ? Dec 13, 2021 13:45 |
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# ? May 27, 2024 03:40 |
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Imagine being annoyed that they put too much good poo poo in one game and didn't pad it out over two expansions and another two years
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# ? Dec 13, 2021 13:49 |