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I recall my thoughts at the time regarding Lyse tagging along was that she's probably feeling discouraged RE: just how useful her outsider-to-her-homeland perspective is at the moment. I'm interested to see that the text doesn't directly support that, but boy that was the feeling I was seeing in her after the last section of the story in Ala Ghana. This is definitely the spot where you can see a jagged edge of story sticking out, just looking to be tripped over. It all kind of works out in the end, but it's really jarring in the moment! I sometimes get the feeling that Stormblood was designed to not just cover a certain number of plot points, but to meet a certain amount of checkboxes on Cool Places To Go and Neat Things To See, and it was very important to get everyone to Doma ASAP. While I personally was most itching to liberate the heck out of Ala Mhigo since the moment ARR's story established it as a place badly in need of liberating, Final Fantasy Asia was a big selling point of the promo materials for Stormblood.... so here we are.
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Jul 2, 2022 11:32
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I remember feeling like the writers really wanted to tell a story about Doma, and Ala Mhigo had to be there because they had already set it up. Not sure how true it was, but that was the impression I got.
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Jul 2, 2022 12:24
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So to clarify, this is one of the reasons why Stormblood is controversial; the pacing is all over the place with contrivances with pretty stitchy seams if you know where to look. From what I understand, the issue is because Stormblood had two lead writers handling different parts of the expansion, and then they had to staple the expansion back together after they finished each part, due to the scale they were working with. I had also previously said that I wasn't sure if Stormblood would look better or worse with a more completionist view. The thematics are the reason why it might look better; Stormblood's core concepts and some of their core beats riding in their themes are very strong. But more completionism means a more in-depth analysis and that would mean that all the fraying threads are in full display. AncientSpark fucked around with this message at 13:01 on Jul 2, 2022 |
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Jul 2, 2022 12:52
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Doma also got a huge amount of fan interest during ARR/HW and that may have caused them to do Stormblood the way they did.
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Jul 2, 2022 12:53
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Yup, echoing these sentiments that ShB always felt to me like the weakest because, while thenatically it's consistent, it feels like 2 expansion areas trimmed and stapled together, with the resulting issues at the plot level. Also you basically start at Ala Migho for 1 level and then get sent to the Far East almost inmediately.
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Jul 2, 2022 13:00
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Blueberry Pancakes posted:I remember feeling like the writers really wanted to tell a story about Doma, and Ala Mhigo had to be there because they had already set it up. This feeling was at the root of a lot of my reservations about this section, too, I think. I really liked the idea of an Ala Mhigan-centric expansion, so having the focus shift so quickly was a little upsetting. Aside from the LP itself staying excellent and thoughtful, I do really love how it also serves as a vessel for discussion of story beats in a manner that is at least MORE orderly than the main threads. Bobfly fucked around with this message at 15:14 on Jul 2, 2022 |
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Jul 2, 2022 13:51
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I think one of the more fundamental issues is that there's a larger myth arc building towards an all-out confrontation with the Empire in some fashion, and to keep that paced well there's only narrative room for one expansion like this, with this kind of story focus. We already knew about two subjugated regions, Ala Mhigo and Doma, and either could have been the site of an entire expansion. SE chose to try to do both in one go, rather than doing two expansions about wars to liberate conquered nations or dealing with one of the two later in some other fashion. I do see the reasoning here from a narrative perspective, but I think trying to weave together a coherent story about both Ala Mhigo and Doma was a challenge ultimately beyond the ability of SE's writers. Cythereal fucked around with this message at 14:04 on Jul 2, 2022 |
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Jul 2, 2022 14:01
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Just so there's a few dissenting opinions, I really didn't mind the switch to Doma here. I'm pretty passive when it comes to enjoying media, though, so I'll rarely form an opinion about something until a few days after finishing it unless there's something egregious, and I didn't catch up to when FFXIV was current until around 4.55. That said, we haven't even gotten into Doma yet. It's a little early to start talking about potential overarching failures of StB when Sanguinia has only just hit the level 61 MSQs.
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Jul 2, 2022 14:22
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Yeah, this is one of my big problems with Stormblood: You spend like a level and a half there before you get sent over to Doma. Considering how long Ala Mhigo has been foreshadowed in comparison to Doma it feels exceedingly off. I didn't mind Lyse coming along, though. She is the Punch Scion, she would like to punch things, and there will not be many things to punch in Ala Mhigo at the moment.
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Jul 2, 2022 15:52
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Hogama posted:
Now that you mention it, I kind of wonder if having the resistance’s initial base be a totally separate spot from Rhalgr’s Reach was the initial plan. There’s a completely desolated and long-abandoned village just a bit north of the bridge fortress that, for whatever reason, has the map marker for a friendly town despite having absolutely nothing going on in it. So maybe the gist of it would have been that you went to meet up with Conrad’s faction there, do your bit in the MSQ up to this point, and when poo poo hit the fan with the surprise attack in the middle of your surprise attack, only then would they reveal the existence of the Reach as a place that they’ve been successfully keeping hidden from the empire all this time?
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Jul 2, 2022 15:57
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As (most) everyone else is rightly pointing out, this is easily StB's biggest stumbling block for me in sending you off to Othard almost immediately, especially with such flimsy reasoning given considering the resistance's precarious position. As Blueberry said, my impression is heavily that the far east is what they wanted to do, but had to weld on all the Gyr Abania stuff because, well - that's what all the lead-up had mostly been about. As a result, things seem heavily contrived for a while, and it definitely leaves a negative impression on the overall consistency of the expansion. The Far East has some great story beats and content, though, imo. I just think they should've done it in two expansions instead of one, ideally speaking - though that's a lot of narrative space to assign to 'we are fighting the Garlean Empire' now, and the themes of both would've likely been pretty similar, just with different style.
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Jul 2, 2022 16:29
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 The far east parts are my favorite parts of the expansion, so I don't mind that I got sent there fairly early. ymmv
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Jul 2, 2022 16:52
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FuturePastNow posted:
Overall same, TBH, since I mained Samurai all through ARR patches and Heavensward, and was nearly chomping at the bit to go there.
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Jul 2, 2022 17:11
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The stuff in the east is much, much better than the Ala Mhigo material but that speaks more to how hard they drop the ball with AM than anything.
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Jul 2, 2022 18:27
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Rody One Half posted:The stuff in the east is much, much better than the Ala Mhigo material but that speaks more to how hard they drop the ball with AM than anything. I disagree with this incredibly, outside of one specific arc of it, but we'll get to it when we get to it.
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Jul 2, 2022 18:33
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Zanael posted:Oh boy there's a whole lot I didn't remember in StB Stormblood sidequests are definitely very good at seeding the concepts for plots that come in patch content and the next expansion, between the moment where they turn to the camera and ask you, the player, whether you think this war criminal with amnesia is the same person as when they did the crime, and then the whole Azim Steppe... but that's putting the cart way before the horse. Mister Olympus fucked around with this message at 19:49 on Jul 2, 2022 |
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Jul 2, 2022 19:45
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this will be fun in the post MSQ
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I just think the Far East's neat.
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Jul 2, 2022 20:15
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The early and hasty transition from Gyr Abania to Othard sticks out like a sore thumb and is one of the things that made me enjoy Stormblood less than the other expansions. I wonder how it could've been handled more naturally.
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Jul 2, 2022 20:57
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Forsythia posted:The early and hasty transition from Gyr Abania to Othard sticks out like a sore thumb and is one of the things that made me enjoy Stormblood less than the other expansions. I wonder how it could've been handled more naturally. I think the main thing it needs is some form of actual stalemate rather than zenos getting bored and wandering off.
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Jul 2, 2022 21:58
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Qwertycoatl posted:I think the main thing it needs is some form of actual stalemate rather than zenos getting bored and wandering off. I could see something like the attack to capture the bridge actually commences, Zenos shows up and does his thing there, but in the process, the bridge is rendered utterly inoperable for either side… which is a pretty major mutual problem, because Gyr Abania’s terrain basically makes it the only way to move an army on foot from the highlands to the lowlands (and vice versa). Thus the plan to go off to Doma: Zenos won’t be expecting a renewed rebellion from a province on the other side of the world, and will have to divvy up his attention and forces to address it, giving the Eorzean Alliance some breathing room.
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Jul 2, 2022 22:14
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Yeah blowing up the bridge is a good idea. I think they also should have found an excuse to have the first dungeon before then, so the ala mhigo section feels less perfunctory
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Jul 2, 2022 22:34
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The problem with blowing up the bridge as a way to illustrate the war is in a stalemate now and Zenos can't just come crush us at his leisure is that the attack on the Reach came from the Imperial stronghold in the Peaks through the secret tunnels. They were pretty careful to point out that its a big mystery how the Imperials knew about the tunnels, knew about the glamours hiding them, and how to penetrate the latter so they could use the former as a vector for attack. Logic would tell us that the answer to that question has to do with either a traitor among the Resistance or something about Fordola which gave her knowledge other loyal Ala Mhigan's lacked which allowed her to deduce the Reach was still being used despite being ostensibly destroyed by the Mad King and then hidden behind illusion spells. But regardless of which one it is (or if its something else entirely I haven't thought of) it creates the problem that Rhalgr's Reach is in a pincer between the Bridge and the Peaks. They need to deal with BOTH vectors of attack in order to sell the idea that the base is safe to inhabit again, and that comes with a bunch of its own problems, both in terms of narrative and gameplay. If anything, the obvious solution would seem to be for the Scions to somehow learn that Zenos is toying with them and is going to deliberately hold his forces back despite being in a position to crush us, which means they know for certain they'll have time to enact their plan and that going back to the Reach is relatively safe. They went out of their way to have that moment where Raubahn, Alis and Alphi discuss the fact that Zenos walking away from a battle he won makes no sense unless he's a fool, but everything that their intel knows about him says he's a top notch commander. If they'd somehow found a way to come back to that point and get some kind of conclusion on it instead of just letting it hang in the air, that probably could have squared the circle. Maybe have Raubahn have a brainwave based on his time in the blood sands, how sometimes for a Gladiator pleasing the crowd is more important than crushing a weak enemy. Maybe have Cid or Lucia offer some insight based on what they know of the man, either personally or through rumor, and then allow the Smart Scions make the leap based on that.
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Jul 3, 2022 00:27
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Personally, I feel like they should have avoided using Rhalgr's Reach as an early game settlement altogether. Use that empty friendly town for the resistance base that gets destroyed then have the Resistance scatter to the four winds as they go to ground, and Conrad flat out tells the heroes that they probably won't coalesce into a fighting force again until Zenos is gone, instead splintering into independent resistance cells (which are, for some reason, completely ignored by Zenos thus far). Thus the need to get Zenos out of Ala Mhigo so they can reorganize the resistance in his absence - with Raubahn's experience as a gladiator telling him that the reason Zenos attacked when he did and why he ignores the guerilla cells is because he craves a fight.
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Jul 3, 2022 01:24
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GilliamYaeger posted:Personally, I feel like they should have avoided using Rhalgr's Reach as an early game settlement altogether. Use that empty friendly town for the resistance base that gets destroyed then have the Resistance scatter to the four winds as they go to ground, and Conrad flat out tells the heroes that they probably won't coalesce into a fighting force again until Zenos is gone, instead splintering into independent resistance cells (which are, for some reason, completely ignored by Zenos thus far). Thus the need to get Zenos out of Ala Mhigo so they can reorganize the resistance in his absence - with Raubahn's experience as a gladiator telling him that the reason Zenos attacked when he did and why he ignores the guerilla cells is because he craves a fight. There's a small temple cave area in the Fringes, not far from Rhalgr's Reach, that could easily have been used as the base that got crushed by Zenos. That spot is kind of interesting to look at and otherwise isn't used at all. Then they could have had the remnants retreat into the Reach without having had the word get out that it's there, but say the Resistance is too depleted to take any overt actions for now while Garleans are out looking for them so you go on your intercontinental trip to create a bigass distraction for them.
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Jul 3, 2022 01:29
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Yeah, there's not really a reason to visit Rhalgr's Reach, or if you do visit it then there's no reason for Zenos' attack to be there instead of at some other forward Resistance base. It creates a logical problem for no reason, it really lends credence to the idea that this expansion was two separate stories stapled together. Honestly, it would make more sense to split the whole thing right down the middle, instead of having this weird interlude in Ala Mhigo at the start. You don't even do a dungeon there!
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Jul 3, 2022 01:38
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Runa posted:I just think the Far East's neat. Yeah! For all that the split is messy and imperfect, there's a lot of perfectly great stuff ahead.
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Jul 3, 2022 02:37
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It would almost certainly conflict with the depressing reality of the occupation that the story is going for but I wish there was something left of the old Ala Mhigo to make me actually give a poo poo about the place itself. The land itself is a boring wasteland of various types of rocks, there is no architecture left over apart from the cool statue and the palace that Zenos broods in. Their culture doesn't seem to exist anymore. Obviously I want to help the people but I wish their was something to reclaim besides geography. Here are the 3 things I know about Ala Mhigo: 1. Griffins 2. Dreadlocks 3. Sean Bean Voice
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Jul 3, 2022 02:45
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There's actually quite a lot about Ala Mhigan culture and history available before now, the LP just hasn't covered that material yet.
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Jul 3, 2022 02:49
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Yeah there's all sorts of lore locked behind dialogue and side quests and tricks in from the main quest too. Of course you're headed to Doma so you get the Othard lore next instead of things around here.
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Jul 3, 2022 02:56
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Pwnstar posted:It would almost certainly conflict with the depressing reality of the occupation that the story is going for but I wish there was something left of the old Ala Mhigo to make me actually give a poo poo about the place itself. The land itself is a boring wasteland of various types of rocks, there is no architecture left over apart from the cool statue and the palace that Zenos broods in. Their culture doesn't seem to exist anymore. Obviously I want to help the people but I wish their was something to reclaim besides geography. I think a goon once described the landscape of Ala Mhigo as Fantasy Utah, and that seems pretty apt. As others mentioned though, there's quite a bit of in depth lore for Ala Mhigo dating back to ARR, just unexpectedly locked behind some content the LP hasn't covered.
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Jul 3, 2022 03:17
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There's a lot of cool places in Gyr Abania, but the route the msq takes through the zones takes you through the most boring parts of it. Fly around some time, you can find some really cool stuff.
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Jul 3, 2022 03:24
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Thundarr posted:There's a small temple cave area in the Fringes, not far from Rhalgr's Reach, that could easily have been used as the base that got crushed by Zenos. That spot is kind of interesting to look at and otherwise isn't used at all. That actually is used during at least one sidequest. There are a few oddly detailed and minimally utilized places like that in StB, and if you don't do whatever job quest or other piece of side content that sends you there, it does make the world seem kind of underdeveloped. But I think that's probably preferable in the long run to how the HW-era job quests leaned on sending you to a relatively few discrete locations (you'd think the Convictory was Coerthas's main transit hub for all the job quests that send you there).
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Jul 3, 2022 07:49
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Pwnstar posted:It would almost certainly conflict with the depressing reality of the occupation that the story is going for but I wish there was something left of the old Ala Mhigo to make me actually give a poo poo about the place itself. The land itself is a boring wasteland of various types of rocks, there is no architecture left over apart from the cool statue and the palace that Zenos broods in. Their culture doesn't seem to exist anymore. Obviously I want to help the people but I wish their was something to reclaim besides geography. Yeah, that's a problem I ran into too. Of course I want to boot the occupiers out and give the Ala Mhigans their land and freedom back, but in the end, aside from that very general goal I didn't feel any attachment to the land or its people. Usually this game is better at selling me a reason to care.
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Jul 3, 2022 14:47
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Another simple way they could have handled the "Zenos isn't committing to this fight because he wants his prey to squirm" conversation is have it happen as an Echo vision as he's leaving the Reach. Would've given less disconnect between what the players know and what the character knows, as well...
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Jul 4, 2022 04:38
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Chapter 6: Just Axeing Questions At the Limsa docks, our party meets up with Tataru, who’s arranged for our transportation to Doma. Lyse expects we’ll be taking a Maelstrom vessel, but a lone military ship that far from our territory would draw the attention of the Garlean navy and be sunk long before reaching its destination. Instead, we’ll sail with my old pal Carvellain and the Kraken’s Arms because they disguise their privateering as a Far Eastern spice trading operation. Alis is annoyed by the situation, and her lack of tact almost gets us in trouble. She knifes right through Carvellain’s innuendo and double-talk about his profession, and calls him a thief who preys on innocent merchants. He’s ready to leave us twisting in the wind over the insult. Her straight shooting is usually good, but that would have been enough to earn her a smack upside the head like she was her brother in ARR. Thankfully, Tataru prepared for this eventuality. After all, we need a dependable ship and crew on such a long sea voyage, or we might suffer a tragedy. Like, say, that time the heir to House Durendaire was lost at sea and never returned!   Alphi had similarly alluded to the Captain’s true identity earlier in the conversation, but Tataru was so direct and ruthless in her intent to blackmail him that the guy can’t help but laugh out loud even as he bends to her will. Our cute little secretary has grown some teeth since she started hanging around with all those merchant types. For Kheris’ part, she just hopes she doesn’t wake up with a knife between her ribs because Carv thinks she’s the one who spilled the beans. While the ship is provisioned for the voyage, the team splits up to make preparations. Lyse and Kheris are asked to return to the Rising Stones and question our Doman friends (the game off-handedly drops that they’re known as the Nagae Clan) about their homeland. They stayed behind on Yugiri’s orders to keep their new community safe, so they’re both available and glad to give us any information that might help their home. According to them, Doma first fell under Imperial control only 25 years ago. That’s a much smaller number than I expected, especially since Ala Mhigo surrendered only twenty years ago. It seems the Garlean war machine was on a serious tear until Midgardsormr shot down their air force. Their ruler at the time, Lord Kaien, bent the knee and was allowed to maintain some control over his people as a vassal to the Garlean Emperor. Old Man Homei mentions that despite this effort, the Imperials still managed to viciously exploit their conquest. Direct control of the “Moon Gate,” and the “One River,” the nation’s economic heart, made it easy to squeeze the common folk regardless of their leader’s submission. Higiri adds that Lord Kaien was killed during their failed rebellion, meaning she’s either mistaken or the lord Gosetsu came to get help for is his successor. Either way, she notes that the only reason the rebellion happened was the popular will. Kaien was content to endure Garlean oppression, but when those suffering far more than him called for freedom, he was ready and willing to lead them and later die at Zenos’ hand. Commendable behavior from a guy who was probably living a comfortable life as a puppet king. Now, with Zenos in Eorzea, someone else wields authority in Doma Castle, which is purported to be the only significant structure in the nation still standing. They refer to this substitute viceroy only as “the witch.” Lyse is content to take this info (and all she learned about Doman table manners and chopstick techniques) back to Alphi, but Kheris has another source of information to check out: Oboro and her Ninja Dojo. ~*~*~ Unfortunately, Oboro’s a bit too stressed out for a history lesson. After waiting in terror to discover what would happen to him when Princess Yuki told his village elders that he was faking his injury, Kheris’ sensei finally received an official missive from home. The elder’s message was the most devastating one he could have received: instructions to stay right where he is because they have no current need for him. You’d think the guy would be happy they didn’t order him to come home or kill himself for lying to them. Instead, he’s opted for the most negative possible interpretation of their letter and concluded they don’t ever want him to come back.  Before he can do too much wallowing, Oboro remembers that Captain Jacke of the Rogues wanted help with an unusual mission. A Kraken vessel in the East came across an Imperial ship with an all-Doman crew, who offered the entire contents of their hold in exchange for asylum in Eorzea. The other shoe dropped when they arrived at Limsa, only for the Domans to sneak off in the night rather than hand themselves over. Equally strange, they left every bit of the ship’s cargo behind, as promised, not even taking a single coin or a scrap of food… except for an inconspicuous paper scroll. Most folks with an ounce of sense would have shrugged their shoulders over some scrap of paper and just let the refugees go. Carvellain, being the kind of guy he is, assumed that this scroll must be incredibly valuable if it’s the only thing they took. Thus, he contracted the Rogues Guild to retrieve it. Unfortunately for poor Jacke, The Code compels him to recover ANY loot stolen from a pirate. Oboro’s willing to help, although he’s far more interested in what this mysterious scroll could be than chasing down the refugees. Kheris cares more about learning why these people felt the need to run off in the dead of night rather than take the asylum they sailed across the world for. I guess we’ve got all the bases covered! Jacke sends Kheris to pump the same bartender from the 1-30 Rogue questline for info, which is cute. He even trusts you to remember the password (ordering a weak ale) without being reminded. She saw the folks we’re looking after they snuck off their boat. They were having a loud conversation about heading for Wineport and striking it rich once they got there. We follow the trail and discover that they didn’t visit the winery to sell the scroll but rather to steal wine. Jacke makes a bold but sensible leap of logic: if the scroll is worth a fortune, but they came to this town to do crimes that would make unloading their prize more difficult, they’re not going to sell it in Eorzea. They must intend to sail back to Doma! We split up and comb the beach near Costa Del Sol to ensure they can’t reach their ship. Sure enough, Kheris soon finds a bunch of empty bottles and the boozed-up samurai who downed them.  She takes them out, but there’s no scroll, so she doubles back and finds her partners have finished off another squad. Curiously, Oboro says they’re not Doman at all, identifying their garb as native to “Hingashi.” I’d glossed over it in the moment, but Oboro noticing this reminded me that Carvallain said he would take the Scions to “Kugane, in Hingashi,” because making port in Doma was too dangerous. Interesting… Neither group had the scroll, and there’s a good reason for that. They were left behind as a rear guard to ensure the escape of the one who was carrying their prize. That person departed hours before we reached the beach aboard a ship flying the colors of the East Aldernard Trading Company. Lolorito!  How did we learn all this information? A little birdie told us.  Oboro demands to know why Karasu is sticking his beak into this business when he’s supposed to be out of the ninja game, but our old frienemy only taunts us and vanishes behind a smoke bomb. Knowing the guy is watching us, we retreat to the warehouse dojo. With only Karasu’s information to go on and Jacke being a Dagger Paladin who is unwilling to leave the scroll unrecovered, it seems their next step is to sail to Kugane. Kheris may not have any new information about Doma, but at least she’ll have some friends around if things get ugly on her trip to the East. Her resources for information about Doma are exhausted, but that doesn’t mean Kheris’ preparations are complete. There’s one other thing she wants to do, and since getting a ship ready for an intercontinental voyage is an elaborate affair, she’s got time. You see, way back when she was skulking around Limsa to hide from that Regicide accusation, Kheris overheard some locals talking about a fighting style created by sailors and pirates. This technique is especially suited to fighting on a ship's swaying deck. If the Warrior of Light is going to spend weeks on a boat and potentially have to fight battles there, that seems like the kind of thing she ought to look into. Thus, she pays a visit to the vaunted Marauder’s Guild. ~*~*~ The guild receptionist explains that the history of the Marauders is linked to the fact that axes are essential tools for ships at sea. When a vessel is damaged far from port, the ship’s carpenter needs to be able to collect and shape any lumber they can find. Of course, in the savage world of pirates, there’s no such thing as a non-combatant and no tool that isn’t also a weapon. All sorts of sailors got into the habit of using those axes when fights got ugly. It wasn’t long before crews across Eorzea began to see the benefits of this weapon, such as its reach, weight, and the damage it could do in close quarters. Soon the precursors of the modern Guild began to cobble together a coherent school of combat. The current guild leader is Axemaster Wyrnzoen, who lays it on pretty thick, talking about how Marauders are beings of carnage. Those who learn the skills must be mentally prepared for the destruction they bring down around them. Considering that this is a tanking job, I appreciated that he took the time to mention some of the blood that gets spilled will inevitably be your own. The thing that most interested me, however, was the philosophical emphasis on momentum.   The early Gladiator quests emphasize protection. Mylla told you that a key part of the job is commanding attention on the battlefield. Rather than always trusting in your sword, a Gladiator must be prepared to trust in their shield just as readily. A Gladiator must be willing to fight among the ranks and leave the killing blows to others. The greatest glory is found in victory, not personal accomplishments. Wyrnzoen offers an entirely different ideal: the Marauder is an unstoppable force that destroys everything. There’s no talk of taking care of others or even yourself. The lessons tell you that you must remain steadfast and keep moving forward without hesitation, regardless of the pain you suffer or the devastation in your wake. An axe, and the damage it can cause, are heavy things. If you don’t swing it with everything you’ve got, if you don’t keep up that momentum, you won’t last long. A Marauder isn’t a protector. A Marauder is a storm. Of Blood (tm). That’s not to say the Marauder teachings preclude helping others. Nor do they treat comrades as disposable, as we’ll see shortly. But the focus is on your individual mentality and actions. Other people are a tertiary concern compared to that. It’s a very different conceptual tone to almost every other job I’ve taken in the game. After the standard critter slaying, Kheris is sent to break rocks. No, really.  Raw physical strength is considered necessary for the Marauder school, which makes sense. The watchword may be momentum, but that axe is still a big hunk of metal. If you can’t start the thing moving, you’re not going to have any. Dark Knights have Anger Magic to help with that, but a Marauder must rely on good old-fashioned muscle. So Kheris spends some time in the land of sick gains. Before the plot starts in earnest, let’s talk about gameplay. Unlike most roles I’ve taken, there is minimal difference between the three 1-30 Tank jobs. You’ll find distinctions between the healers, melee, ranged, and magical DPS by level 30, but all three tanks I’ve tried have basically the same kit. They have the largest pool of shared role-specific buttons (damage reduction cooldowns and other utility buttons). They have the same three-hit attack combo, same AOE attack, same ranged shot, and very similar damage-boosting buttons. Each one has only one skill that is unique to their job. For Gladiator, it’s the extra stun from Shield Bash. For Dark Knight, their damage boost button is also a Cone AOE attack. For Marauder, the button is what a WoW player would call a “Last Stand,” named for one of the game’s iconic defensive cooldowns, which gives the user temporary hit points. On the one hand, this is a bit boring. On the other, it makes learning Tank Basics extremely easy, which I greatly appreciate as an MMO player. All respect to healers and the fact that they are inevitably targets for toxicity, but I’ve always found Tank to be the most stressful role. Not only are you opening yourself up to a potentially similar level of grief from your fellow players if you make a mistake or fail to progress at the pace they want, but you’re also placing your fate in those other players’ hands. You rely on the healer and DPS to keep you alive while doing your job as much as your efforts, and that’s not always easy mentally when you factor in that potential for an adversarial relationship. Lowering the barrier of entry to Tanking by making the foundational design simple, intuitive, and more universal than any other role was a wise move on Square’s part. As for the aesthetics of Marauder, I love the animations. There’s a strong distinction between the Dark Knight’s sword and the Marauder’s axe. With DRK, every attack feels like a train crash. The visible and tactile weight behind your swings is immense, showcasing both the movement of the weapon and the character swinging it. You look like you’re putting your whole body into every attack. Despite this, the Dark Knight always gave me the impression that it was striking with a degree of precision on top of the raw force. This, in turn, conveys a sense of inhuman skill appropriate to a somewhat mystical job. Marauder, by comparison, seems to strain your character far less. They handle their axe with relative ease regardless of how large or small it is. Yet the Maurader’s swings feel barely contained. The axehead always goes a little beyond where you aimed it and feels a little out of control, an impression enhanced by booming, earthy sound effects that make every blow feel explosive. It’s a dichotomy that fits the concept outlined by those first few NPC conversations. ~*~*~ After working out for a while, Kheris is finally called in for a real mission: a local farmstead is under attack by giant crabs, and we need to kill them!  …Is it wrong that my first thought was how it’s fortunate she’s got that heavy jacket because her newly swole back and arms would have been very distracting?  The actual quest throws an insane number of crabs at you, considering you have not yet been given an AOE attack. This seems to have been an intentional choice. Many of them are more than ten levels stronger than you are. The quest wants you to take on the ones at your level, which are lower HP than usual and nearly die in a single swing. The tougher crabs are handled by your partner Solkwyb and then later by fellow guild member Broenbhar when he shows up to help. Broenbhar is the same Marauder who came to Kheris’ rescue alongside the Rogues during the Astrologian quests. Sadly, he doesn’t have much personality beyond “is friendly and likes fighting.” Solkwyb, on the other hand, is the guildmaster’s sister and has a delightful no-nonsense attitude that contrasts with her brother’s dramatic mannerisms. She’s also a Conjurer, making her eyepatch, leopard-print robes, and general Cool Kid attitude even more compelling for their divergence from the standard. Speaking of Solkwyb being a Conjurer, let’s briefly touch back on that comparison to Gladiator. There’s an early quest in that job line where you team up with a conjurer to fight superior enemies. In that one, the healer NPC is quite fragile. If he even draws aggro, he’ll shout at you that if he dies, you’ll die too. This encourages you to be careful and keep every enemy away from him. It’s a solid little tutorial to help train a fresh Tank player. This quest provides enemies you are not intended to fight and should be left to your healer to kill for you. She never once complains about this and generally acts like she’s a seasoned veteran who’s there to protect you rather than the other way around. If that means taking on a fight you’re not ready to handle, so be it. This makes her even more interesting as a character, but more importantly, it reinforces through gameplay the words of your Marauder trainer. Rather than carefully protecting those who take the field with you, the game encourages you to focus on raining down death on the baddies. You’re taught to trust that those who fight with you can take care of themselves. I don’t know if that’s the best mentality to instill in a low-level tank player, but it still combines text and game in a way that I appreciate. The team finishes off the crabs, then checks on the boy we rescued. His name is Sighard, and he’s thankful, though he laments how it’s become dangerous to spend any amount of time outside in Vylbrand, thanks to the monsters.  The aurochs, known as Kujata, is why the crabs and other beasts are running out of control lately. Wyrnzoen informs Kheris that the beast’s presence drives animals out of their usual feeding grounds and into human territory. Worse, dangerous scavengers travel in large packs around him, looking to feast when he destroys whatever gets in his way. The kid asks Kheris to avenge his parents by slaying the beast. That isn’t really her bag after the Dragonsong War and her post-Haurchefant Vacation of Personal Improvement, but Wyrnzoen unhelpfully encourages her to nurture those feelings. They can be a source of strength for the task ahead. It occurs to me (and Kheris) that if she’d started her journey in Limsa rather than in Ul’dah, her worst instincts might have been nurtured, and she could have walked a very different path. Would the Alliance’s misdeeds toward the Beast Tribes have been as obvious to her in a city where the friendly ones are given a degree of respect and opportunity, but the rest are even more otherized? Would the injustices heaped upon the downtrodden of society have been as evident to her in this hyper-individualist pseudo-democracy as they were in the Ul’dahn plutocracy? Would her self-centered and wrathful sides have been stoked into dominance, leading her to a worldview more like Estinien’s than Ysayle’s? The tale of the Warrior of Light could have been very different if she’d been enamored by axes more than swords. Still, I’ll credit the Mauraders this much: now that they’re telling me to embrace the drive for revenge, their focus on serving and protecting the public comes to the forefront. The next several quests involve taking on beasts that are terrorizing settlements, all linked to Kujata and all for the sake of protecting the otherwise helpless civilians. Each battle is framed as a step toward the day we’ll deal with the root of this problem. Any desire to grant Sighard’s wish for revenge we might harbor is just another source of strength. It’s all about momentum, so our axe will have the force it needs to slay the real menace.  Our path toward that goal is derailed when the guild gets word that Sighard has run away from home. According to his grandpa, he’s chasing rumors of Kujata’s movements because after he saw Kheris destroy those crabs, his desire to emulate her and avenge his parents has grown daily. When word came that the creature was nearby, he vanished in the night with nothing but an old wood-cutting axe. We catch up to him just in time to see the inevitable.  Things become kind of weird from this point. A pack of jackals appears and surrounds the boy. Granted, they set up how scavengers follow the aurochs around looking to pick up scraps. But while we’re fighting them, Kujata just… stands up on that cliff and watches us. After we kill the first few, several more waves of jackals attack us as if he’s directing them. I don’t recall the game ever framing the wildlife as intelligent and malicious on this level before. The closest would be the Boar King from the Lancer quests, and even that was just instinctive cruelty, not observing the beat-down of his minions like a Yakuza boss. It’s kind of jarring. The beasts go down with a bit of help from Wyrnzoen, who appears to retrieve the kid and then leads a retreat so his sister can do some healing.  Solkwyb does what she can, but Sighard took a nasty blow to the head that she can’t mend. He’ll have to wake up on his own. Wyrn is troubled by the kid getting hurt, seemingly because he didn’t trust us to get his revenge for him because it was taking too long. One would think this would be an opportunity for Wyrn to reconsider the merits of vengeful wishes as motivation. Instead, he doubles down, proclaiming that he will ensure Kheris is strong enough to slay the aurochs. He’s betting the guild’s entire reputation on granting the boy’s wish before he comes to harm. Yikes. To achieve that end, the Axemaster arranges an ultimate trial that will supposedly bring out Kheris’ full destructive potential. With Solkwyb in tow, she heads for the coast, where they are met with…  ...  So, Wyrn’s plan was to bring the entire guild out to the middle of nowhere and put on helmets as a ‘disguise’ so Kheris’ll assume they’re a real threat and not a test. Then they fight her in a big group like she’s a Kung Fu Movie protagonist. Brilliant. Solk is understandably annoyed, but she can tell in the first couple of minutes that her brother and the lads aren’t pulling their punches. She warns Kheris to give it everything she’s got, or she’ll get seriously hurt. The Warrior of Light is, as always, happy to oblige someone looking for a beating. She sends the lot of them limping away, much to Big Sis’ bemusement. With the trial out of the way, the Axemaster declares the time is ripe for Kheris to bring down the great aurochs and end his reign of terror. The creature was sighted near young Sighard’s home, and the lad woke from his coma the same day the news came down. To Wyrn, this appears to be the hand of fate guiding events toward their climax. He encourages Kheris to speak to the boy first. Sighard apologizes for not trusting her to slay the beast and putting her in danger through his recklessness. Still, the fact that she returned despite his foolishness gives him hope that he’ll finally see his parents avenged. Nice to know that Sighard also didn’t learn any lessons about the consequences of revenge… Even though Kheris was instructed to do this task on her own for the guild’s honor, Broenbhar and Solkwyb snuck out and are waiting for her. The boss may have put the job on her shoulders, but they’ll watch her back anyway. Awww! With friends by her side, there’s nothing left to do but take down the beast.  The final battle is a complete anti-climax, even by low-level job standards. The boss has adds, but Broenbhar handles them. With Solkwyb there to heal him, you’re not even required to change targets to thin their numbers. Kujata’s only ability of note is a debuff that reduces healing, and it doesn’t come into play until he’s nearly dead. While Solk makes a big deal about her spells not working anymore, he doesn’t hit you hard enough for it to matter, and the fight ends just a few seconds after he starts using the attack. Considering that the entire questline was building up to this fight from level five onward, I was expecting more, especially considering I’ve had some solid Level 30 quest battles on other jobs. It’s not like I out-geared the encounter either; I was actually wearing an unusually low item level because I hadn’t bothered getting pieces for half my slots. It’s just a bad quest. The denouement for the story is about as empty as the actual quest was. Wyrn brings the boy to see his parent’s killer has fallen. Sig cries and then tells Kheris he will train hard and be a hero like she is. Then all her guild friends give her some bland congratulations and say she’s surpassed them all. Experience will be her teacher, and she’ll continue to climb to the heights of martial perfection. There’s no reflection on the desire for revenge and its potential pitfalls. No touching back on the philosophical importance of momentum or how strength should be a tool to serve the weak. None of the themes the story set up (such as they were since the whole thing was kind of incoherent anyway) are paid off in any significant way. The best we get is a generic message that a Marauder must always continue their training because that will keep them moving forward in life and overcoming obstacles. Talk about unsatisfying. There was potential here, but drat did they squander it. So much of this job series was pointless monster fighting with virtually no framing but the build-up toward that final battle. Then the confrontation was one of the least satisfying job quests I’ve ever done. Any opportunity for deeper meaning got discarded. Even that whole bit where the aurochs acted like it was willfully malicious and/or intelligent didn’t get any follow-up. In fact, and I hate to say it, but with only one left for me to see, this may have beaten out Lancer for the title of Worst Low-Level Job Questline. The only real redeeming trait here was Solkwyb, a charming character who even makes her doofus brother better by acting as a foil and strait woman to his antics. I hope I’ll see more of her eventually. Next time, Kheris continues her preparations for the trip to the East with a fateful encounter on the beach… Sanguinia fucked around with this message at 09:44 on Jul 5, 2022 |
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Jul 5, 2022 03:14
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I liked the marauder quests, personally. The questline treats the whole thing like a training montage, which is basically what it is. There's a big monster, you want to fight it, the guildmaster wants you to fight it, but you need to get stronger before you can fight it. So you train and work out and defeat various lesser monsters, then you go and fight the big monster. It's not a complicated or dramatic story, but I think it works for what it is.
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Jul 5, 2022 03:28
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I remember back when I went and did MRD (it was my last tank to 80 in ShB), and my words to others were simply, "Those certainly were some Quests That Happened." They just sort of exist, and are pretty much the most flat of the base class quests, in my opinion.
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Jul 5, 2022 03:28
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Minor thing, the DRK oGCD you're talking about is a line and not a cone.
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Jul 5, 2022 03:31
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Cythereal posted:It's not a complicated or dramatic story, but I think it works for what it is. When every other job quest at least tries to be a complicated or dramatic story as part of the game making the jobs and the fact that you can do as many of them as you want a front-and-center point to its very identity, I found it to be a pretty huge letdown, especially because the framework was there to make something more significant. If I'll take the swing-and-miss of Lancer and Archer over giving up the swing halfway through any day. NachtSieger posted:Minor thing, the DRK oGCD you're talking about is a line and not a cone. Forgive me, in WoW almost every player AOE is either a circle or a cone. I've been trained wrong as a joke.
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Jul 5, 2022 03:32
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Tank is much easier than DPS or Healer I find, especially once you have all your tools at higher levels. Every dungeon a snoozefest.
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Jul 5, 2022 03:34
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