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Yeah, if you're not inclined to grind for Firmament scrip, you should definitely pick up the karakul this time. It's great. Meanwhile, I've got the Falcon on both characters now. It's got some Scooty Puff Jr. energy, but I can't complain about a mechanical mount that isn't Garlean- or Allagan-flavored.
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Dec 22, 2022 00:37
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Qwertycoatl posted:Power levels have always been a bit fake. We killed our first god at level 20, even random bandits are way stronger than that these days That at least is explained by the fact that the strength of the primal is dependent on how much aether they can pump into it, that's why the tribes were always ransacking shipments of crystals. Plus the primals didn't need to be crazy strong because their Tempering ability turned any battle against them into a suicide mission, unless you happened to be an Echo haver. GilliamYaeger posted:Nobody may have been obligated to give us an exposition dump, but that's fine. Like Zen said, we didn't need it. We already know that Ran'jit oversaw a conga line of dead blonde girls. We didn't need a montage of them being fed into the woodchipper to understand his deal.
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Dec 22, 2022 00:40
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Character level has no bearing whatsoever on narrative combat ability, and never has. No a random level 89 overworld monster could not solo ARR Ifrit in a cutscene. It being a thing with the Zenos solo duties in Stormblood is a meta joke, not proof of Mechanics Are Physics.
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Dec 22, 2022 00:47
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Ran’jit can see WoL through Vanish and invisible pixies because he’s a Kung-Fu Master and sensing invisible things is a Kung-Fu Master trope. It’s not that deep. It’s fine that he’s just some dude.
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Dec 22, 2022 00:51
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Final Fantasy XIV's Failure To Adhere To Gygaxian Naturalism (1/329)
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Dec 22, 2022 01:01
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Cleretic posted:Realistically we haven't gotten stronger in a 'power level' sense since about the Heavensward patches or maybe Stormblood, we just get into more and more extraneous circumstances that allow us to punch bigger things. Stormblood's main plot thrust for the Warrior of Light is literally that we grow strong enough to fight Zenos over the course of the adventure. That's maybe not a 'power level' thing but like, that's literally the deal with Zenos. We start off at a place where he sees some potential and end up meeting it gloriously. We absolutely have been growing stronger and more skilled narratively, the abilities we learn in our jobs during Shadowbringers and Endwalker are in theory from us developing new techniques for our jobs instead of simply learning old ones as an example. hopeandjoy posted:Ran’jit can see WoL through Vanish and invisible pixies because he’s a Kung-Fu Master and sensing invisible things is a Kung-Fu Master trope. Rather the point is that he's not just some dude, he's the strongest fighter on the First, a master of an ancient forbidden combat art, with the knowledge and experience to back it up. He should be powerful, he's been doing what we do for much longer. We're not meant to be an untouchable god, but we are growing stronger and our (narrative, MSQ) foes are growing to match. Lord_Magmar fucked around with this message at 01:06 on Dec 22, 2022 |
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Dec 22, 2022 01:02
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Lord_Magmar posted:Rather the point is that he's not just some dude, he's the strongest fighter on the First, a master of an ancient forbidden combat art, with the knowledge and experience to back it up. He should be powerful, he's been doing what we do for much longer. Yeah that’s what I meant, I just phrased it badly. Ran’jit isn’t supernaturally strong, it’s just that he’s a Kung-Fu Master and the WoL is, in fact, not invincible. The fantastical things he can do aren’t plot holes, they’re just related to the trope.
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Dec 22, 2022 01:07
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The big problem is that it doesn't feel satisfying as a loss. He just oneshots you out of the blue with an untelegraphed tankbuster after you spend an entire fight dancing around everything he throws at you with no problem. It feels cheap, especially after you just came off beating the poo poo out of Elidibus in Zenos's body and only "lost" that fight because of outside interference almost ripping the soul out of your body. Compare and contrast the reworked Lahabrea fight at the end of 2.0, where you die because you fail a mechanic that's physically impossible to clear, and it feels that you lost fair and square.
GilliamYaeger fucked around with this message at 01:22 on Dec 22, 2022 |
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Dec 22, 2022 01:20
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GilliamYaeger posted:Compare and contrast the reworked Lahabrea fight at the end of 2.0, where you die because you fail a mechanic that's physically impossible to clear, and it feels that you lost fair and square. I just finished 2.0 on my alt recently, and boy, that was a fun one. "Oh, they're teaching 'kill adds to stop the progress bar' again, that's a good idea. Let's just WHOA THAT BAR'S GOING UP QUICKLY"
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Dec 22, 2022 01:24
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Pyp posted:i agree with zenmaster that shb is already stacked with antagonists and ran'jit having more than what he gets is unnecessary but mostly i think that the attitude people get where they think the wol being (momentarily) beaten in a fight is terrible writing is kinda silly. if the wol was as untouchable as people sometimes insist they should be and won every fight they engage in on a first try then thats like seriously limiting what the writers can do with their villains (unless they go down the route of powercreep and making every single new villain increasingly more powerful, which imo is just as boring in the opposite direction). like idk i think if we want stakes and tension in the story without always having a world ending event then we need to just accept that sometimes the wol will be challenged by Just Some Guy Because every moment he's onscreen he's chewing the scenery, his VA is chewing and spitting rocks, the camera is selling him like he's a horror movie villain. Ranjit is so... not that? Like, he's cool, but he's not the kind of 'What the gently caress is THAT supposed to be' that Zenos was, that I'd expect from someone who can clown on me at this point in my story. Me being able to Dancer around him like an rear end in a top hat and work him down to 60% during the fight should feel better, but actually felt worse than Zenos's plot armor, because when the cutscene rolls around and he finishes strolling through my entire running crew it feels less earned than when Zenos does it. I don't know, I kind of feel like I'm being a whiny baby about this, but Ranjit seriously bothered me when Zenos never did.
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Dec 22, 2022 01:28
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GilliamYaeger posted:Compare and contrast the reworked Lahabrea fight at the end of 2.0, where you die because you fail a mechanic that's physically impossible to clear, and it feels that you lost fair and square. How much of that feeling 'fair' is because you ended up winning, though? Let's be honest, that fight is a 'lose by plot bullshit' moment that happens to be flipped the other way around.
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Dec 22, 2022 01:30
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Cleretic posted:How much of that feeling 'fair' is because you ended up winning, though? It's the same feeling as when I'm trying to solo an Extreme and get nuked by a mechanic I failed to handle correctly that fired off weirdly because I'm the only person in the instance. Forced mechanic failure is how plot losses in XIV should be handled rather than just instantly losing because the plot says so. GilliamYaeger fucked around with this message at 01:37 on Dec 22, 2022 |
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Dec 22, 2022 01:34
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A loss can be written well or not. Executed well or not. This is not a difficult concept to grasp. Treating everyone that takes issue with the writing or execution of a WoL loss as just big babies that can't handle losing is really lazy.
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Dec 22, 2022 01:55
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dyslexicfaser posted:Look, I honestly really enjoyed Zenos beating my rear end black and blue like it was Saturday night. i mean im not saying there's no reason to dislike the way they implement ran'jit (like i said in terms of game mechanics/design the forced defeat is annoying and could be done better e.g. making it happen faster instead of having you spend time chipping away his hp, or like someone else in the thread said having a mechanic that plays around with the fact that your allies are down and you need to protect them or something), its more just.....from what ive seen a lot of the umbrage with ran'jit is the simple fact that he wins. a lot of the criticism ive seen of him isnt even that he couldve been implemented better (true) but that he shouldn't have been a threat in the first place because the wol is supposedly too jacked to be beaten, and thats the part i think is silly for what its worth the kind of attitude/criticism im referring to is usually coming from people who also hated zenos purely because he beat the wol, like i dont think disliking ran'jit on its own is whiny baby territory
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Dec 22, 2022 01:57
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There are surely people out there that will never accept any WoL loss no matter how well justified or executed, but they should be ignored for obvious reasons. I don't think anyone in the last few pages has expressed that sentiment however
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Dec 22, 2022 02:08
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GloomMouse posted:There are surely people out there that will never accept any WoL loss no matter how well justified or executed, but they should be ignored for obvious reasons. I don't think anyone in the last few pages has expressed that sentiment however Yeah, the only loss I've had any issues with has been Ranjit. I just never bought into him at any point. I understood what he was supposed to be but I disagreed with it. Eat my fist, grandpa
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Dec 22, 2022 02:24
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Shinjobi posted:Yeah, the only loss I've had any issues with has been Ranjit. I just never bought into him at any point. I understood what he was supposed to be but I disagreed with it. Eat my fist, grandpa As I said, I'd have loved to see an Echo flashback so I could have seen what he used to be like when he, y'know, still had a personality and gave a poo poo about something other than locking his supposed daughter in a room.
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Dec 22, 2022 02:34
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GloomMouse posted:There are surely people out there that will never accept any WoL loss no matter how well justified or executed, but they should be ignored for obvious reasons. I don't think anyone in the last few pages has expressed that sentiment however The scene that really gets those people to come out is the one Bozja scene where we watch Misija temper someone from behind a wall. The Parting Glass gets people early, but I feel like more people give it a pass for a few reasons, including a general acceptance that the WoL isn't Superman. But the Bozja scene gets SO MANY PEOPLE ignoring all context to declare that we should've just won right there; maybe because it's much later and so the people who think the WoL is basically Superman think they have a lot more evidence, I dunno. It's always kind of interesting to see where exactly those people start complaining, because they're always ignoring context, but it's always entirely different context. The most surprising one I saw was for an Endwalker scene, that the WoL should've just flexed all over Quintus and co. because they can just beat everyone's rear end. That one requires SPECTACULAR levels of failing to read the room, and I'm still surprised someone unironically said it.
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Dec 22, 2022 02:42
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GilliamYaeger posted:I always just felt like the game never really managed to sell me on him at any point. His tragic backstory is only briefly glossed over and he barely acts like a father figure to Ryne (and barely interacts with her in general now that I think about it), his fights are uninteresting and easy so he never feels like a threat outside of when the game decides he just wins a given fight (which is made even sillier when Thancred somehow manages to do better against him than the Warrior of Light), and he has the personality and menace of a cardboard cutout. Thancred nearly loving dies against Ran'jit and does measurably WORSE then we ever do. Ran'jit stuns us and leaves, he nearly kills Thancred and Thancred in turn has to nearly kill himself to surprise the dude enough to stop him. Ran'jit is a skilled opponent who we have long fights with and then he pulls something surprising or the fight ends.
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Dec 22, 2022 02:46
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Lord_Magmar posted:Thancred nearly loving dies against Ran'jit and does measurably WORSE then we ever do. Ran'jit stuns us and leaves, he nearly kills Thancred and Thancred in turn has to nearly kill himself to surprise the dude enough to stop him.
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Dec 22, 2022 02:54
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The most impactful version of Ranjit is E11 because we actually get a glimpse of how Ryne perceived him.
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Dec 22, 2022 02:56
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GilliamYaeger posted:I don't know about you, but in my book "nearly died" is a better result than "would have died if Thancred hadn't shown up to bail us out." Everytime we directly fight Ran'jit we do better than Thancred, and I'm actually struggling to remember which time we meet Ran'jit that we need Thancred to bail us out. If it is the actual Thancred duty that's not him bailing us out that's him sending the stronger fighter with Ryne and sacrificing himself to slow Ran'jit down. Because getting Ryne/Minfilia to where she needs to go is more important at the time than fighting Ran'jit.
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Dec 22, 2022 03:02
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Cleretic posted:It's always kind of interesting to see where exactly those people start complaining, because they're always ignoring context, but it's always entirely different context. The most surprising one I saw was for an Endwalker scene, that the WoL should've just flexed all over Quintus and co. because they can just beat everyone's rear end. That one requires SPECTACULAR levels of failing to read the room, and I'm still surprised someone unironically said it. lmao. Well. At that point I just have to assume they're playing a completely different game that just happens to have characters named the same. I hope you take breaks between visits to whatever nightmare you find those people, or else you're going to need a void corrupted nero av next
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Dec 22, 2022 03:07
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Lord_Magmar posted:Everytime we directly fight Ran'jit we do better than Thancred, and I'm actually struggling to remember which time we meet Ran'jit that we need Thancred to bail us out. First fight against him. We get bailed out by Thancred pulling a sneak attack, followed by the Exarch lending a hand. The way I generally look at Ran'jit is that he'd probably beat us in a straight fight (until the last fight where we've seen all his tricks), but we kept not making it a straight fight.
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Dec 22, 2022 03:07
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Cleretic posted:First fight against him. We get bailed out by Thancred pulling a sneak attack, followed by the Exarch lending a hand. I guess I just don't remember that first fight as implying we'd die or lose to what he was doing. If anything the implication I always felt is that we are more powerful than Ran'jit, but he's got enough experience and skill and tricks to make up the difference until he runs out of tricks. I thought they did a pretty good job with Ran'jit as the most powerful fighter on the First, but not because of raw fighting power like Zenos, instead he's powerful because he's spent 80+ years living a life of constant training and combat. Once we know him well enough, he's no longer able to overcome our greater strength via his greater technique and skill. Since we do, in fact, beat him in the only straight fight where we are intending to do so. Every other time we're distracting him, caught off guard, or get interrupted. The only fully serious both sides trying to kill eachother fight we have with him is one where we not only win, we do so with far less effort than Thancred did to slow him down and escape with his (nearly lost) life. Lord_Magmar fucked around with this message at 03:13 on Dec 22, 2022 |
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Dec 22, 2022 03:11
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Cleretic posted:First fight against him. We get bailed out by Thancred pulling a sneak attack, followed by the Exarch lending a hand.
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Dec 22, 2022 03:15
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Yeah, the first time you fight him you weren't expecting it and aren't prepared for what he busts out, after fighting your way through plenty of Eulmoran soldiers anyway. He manages to get us down but Thancred interrupts before we might have continued to fight back after he monologues a bit. He does something that basically paralyses/stuns/debilitates us because he's trying to capture us. Every other time we're not looking to fight him, we have other more important things to do and he's a distraction. A strong one mind you. We generally don't lose to him, other circumstances arise that disrupt the fight. Then we see just why the Warrior of Light is usually the one fighting him because in a straight fight Thancred has to nearly kill himself, and almost is killed, to slow Ran'jit down the way we do. The only time we directly intend to fight Ran'jit we win, every other time we're not looking for a fight, and have people with us we need to protect or keep safe from him. He likely could kill the Warrior of Light if he surprised us with a technique, but he also isn't trying to do that. To me he comes across as like, not our equal but close enough behind us that we need to be fully focused on stopping him without distractions. Lord_Magmar fucked around with this message at 03:23 on Dec 22, 2022 |
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Dec 22, 2022 03:20
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I really encourage anyone following along to watch the cutscene after our first run in with him. It's ShB MSQ, The Oracle of Light, Cutscene #2. It's easy to forget the details after all this time, but on a rewatch I think it's more clear why some folks take issue with the presentation of the loss
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Dec 22, 2022 03:21
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GloomMouse posted:I really encourage anyone following along to watch the cutscene after our first run in with him. It's ShB MSQ, The Oracle of Light, Cutscene #2. It's easy to forget the details after all this time, but on a rewatch I think it's more clear why some folks take issue with the presentation of the loss For contrast, this is how he looked after fighting Thancred, who forced him to use his super form.
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Dec 22, 2022 03:23
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GilliamYaeger posted:The scene in question. Yeah, Ran'jit surprised us when we were not looking to fight him, and maybe winded us a little. We're perfectly fine moments later (since we're able to start full tilt sprinting for the fairy kingdom). If Thancred hadn't interrupted I fully believe we would have gotten back up for another round in that first cutscene. Contrast how we look after the first Zenos fight to see what I mean, when they present a foe stronger than us we don't just kneel and breathe hard, we get rocked and crushed and beaten nearly to death whilst our catgirl gets stabbed through the stomach. Meanwhile, in the second one Thancred, when we were able to run after our "loss" (momentary weakness), collapses in a way that suggests he might be dead. Yes Thancred left Ran'jit winded, because Thancred nearly killed himself to try and kill Ran'jit, when previously we have been trying to avoid fighting him because we have more pressing goals. Freeing Minfilia (Ryne), reaching the Lightwardens, and so on. The next time we meet Ran'jit we kick his poo poo in without breaking a sweat because we're stronger than Thancred and are fighting Ran'jit with zero distractions, disruptions, or alternative goals. If anything, we should struggle more against him in Eulmore because at that point narratively the Lightwardens Light is loving with our body. Lord_Magmar fucked around with this message at 03:44 on Dec 22, 2022 |
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Dec 22, 2022 03:31
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I feel like everyone is forgetting that you ae functionally numerically stronger during the final ran'jit fight too
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Dec 22, 2022 03:45
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I too have Faith that our WoL would be victorious... somehow. But the actual cutscene has us beat down, and then he effortlessly beats down our boy Thancred, and then is 100% ready to do it all over again after kungfu flying to us. The cutscene does not depict him as "not our equal but close enough behind us that we need to be fully focused on stopping him without distractions" but in fact hilariously stronger than our team. Your headcanon of the fight is better than what we got.
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Dec 22, 2022 03:46
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GloomMouse posted:I too have Faith that our WoL would be victorious... somehow. But the actual cutscene has us beat down, and then he effortlessly beats down our boy Thancred, and then is 100% ready to do it all over again after kungfu flying to us. The cutscene does not depict him as "not our equal but close enough behind us that we need to be fully focused on stopping him without distractions" but in fact hilariously stronger than our team. Your headcanon of the fight is better than what we got. We're able to literally run away from that fight, when against Zenos we nearly die, and Thancred later does nearly die. Yes maybe I'm being a bit generous in my cutscene interpretation. But compared directly to two other examples of post "tough guy" solo encountere yeah, we look pretty much untouched beyond taking a knee. Plus it helps that I like the Ran'jit fights except for the one you play as Thancred, they feel like a fun challenge against a worthy foe who manages to surprise us in the first fight with a technique that we easily counter the next time we fight him. He also never manages to get us on our knee again as I recall. So taking every Ran'jit fight into account, and the story as a whole. It is clear to me that we would beat him were we to take him on directly, but the story never requires that until we do, in fact, beat him and then easily keep going. On the other hand, if the dungeon he's supposed to be the final boss of made it into the game, I wonder how many people would have issues with that first cutscene. Because then we wouldn't easily beat him solo, we would have the Scions with us and beat him (still because he's now our focus, instead of a distraction from our actual mission at the time).
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Dec 22, 2022 03:53
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Lord_Magmar posted:On the other hand, if the dungeon he's supposed to be the final boss of made it into the game, I wonder how many people would have issues with that first cutscene. Because then we wouldn't easily beat him solo, we would have the Scions with us and beat him (still because he's now our focus, instead of a distraction from our actual mission at the time). Well, then he'd have literally a 100% identical pacing and structure to Zenos, so you don't really have to wonder that.
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Dec 22, 2022 03:58
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Cleretic posted:Well, then he'd have literally a 100% identical pacing and structure to Zenos, so you don't really have to wonder that. Not really, there's pretty big differences in the pacing and structure of our losses and interactions with Zenos (also narratively we solo Zenos and Shinryu still). Zenos nearly kills us the first time we meet and we live only because he spares us to grow stronger and fight him again, Ran'jit is never even close to that dangerous.
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Dec 22, 2022 04:04
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Different, yes. He would have gone from Ran'jit "Cutscene Slayer" Stormblood to the lowliest creature of all: 50/60/70/80 Dungeon Boss. Zenos at least was blessed to become a Minstrel's Ballad. VVV EDIT: ah well then at least he wouldn't have been completely forgotten. RIP Kungfu man, I hope MNK gets your dragon buddy someday VVV GloomMouse fucked around with this message at 04:36 on Dec 22, 2022 |
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Dec 22, 2022 04:29
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GloomMouse posted:Different, yes. He would have gone from Ran'jit "Cutscene Slayer" Stormblood to the lowliest creature of all: 50/60/70/80 Dungeon Boss. Zenos at least was blessed to become a Minstrel's Ballad. He'd be level 78 not 80. The choice was between Mt Gulg as a dungeon or Eulmore as a dungeon. With Innocence as the trial boss either way.
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Dec 22, 2022 04:31
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GloomMouse posted:the lowliest creature of all: 50/60/70/80 Dungeon Boss Don't let the Mist Dragon hear you say that Or the fierce beast I fought last night, Last Boss of Hullbreaker and Your Healer Just Left and You're On Dynamis. I think we waited ten, fifteen minutes for a fill before I asked my partner to DC-hop and jump in.
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Dec 22, 2022 04:35
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Antivehicular posted:Dirge of Dynamis Is it total pop still low or just they're moving through the msq as a clump and if you miss the boat you're sol also please don't tell Mist Dragon I was talking poo poo, I can't handle it
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Dec 22, 2022 04:53
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I was once stuck in an instance of The Burn where I was the highest dps as a SCH, Mist Dragon was a loving nightmare.
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Dec 22, 2022 06:52
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