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Zandar posted:They've already made STR/DEX do absolutely nothing if you're not a job that uses them for attack power, so they wouldn't even need to deactivate one. In late ARR they had monks and ninjas sharing gear and they just put both STR and DEX on it. Nothing stopping them from doing that again aside from an insistence on making melee dps always look different from each other. And yeah substats seem to be almost randomly assigned right now and you already have to mix and match. Hell if you want to do both monk and sam and prefer sks on your sam you almost literally have to have one of every piece of Omega and Skaevan gear to suit both builds. Solution: wipe substats from the gear, increase materia slots, allow different materia melds by gearset 
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Mar 26, 2019 15:53
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IcePhoenix posted:Also part of the reason I initially picked DRG was the aesthetic which just goes away if you make all str classes share gear. 
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Mar 26, 2019 16:03
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MechaX posted:Just beat the MSQs and... eh. Gotta agree. I know they're trying to keep it all mysterious, but there needed to be more of a lead-in to why going to the First is so important that it nearly gets us killed. HW and SB both established very good reasons for doing what you're doing (you've been branded a traitor and have nowhere else to go to seek sanctuary; the Empire is going to pour through Baelsar's Wall for another war if you don't take initiative), but ShB hasn't beyond, "Your friends are there, possibly." Estinien showing up last minute with zero foreshadowing is lazy writing; the last we saw him was back in loving 4.0. If you're gonna do that, just put a single scene in 4.4 or 4.5a where he's on a cliff watching you walk away and looking concerned. Still, I think there's ways they could have dramatically improved the ending. You could change the Elidibus-Zenos fight so that you don't just momentarily knock him over but start bowling him over hard, putting him on the brink of death. It's such an overpowering moment of victory that the balance shifts enough for a tear to appear, causing Sin Eaters to show up and start loving everyone up. You get the psychic telephone call from Tia and Elidibus-Zenos goes for the throat, but Elf-Zenos shows up and sends him flying. He doesn't kill him (because he needs that body to reclaim his throne), and he doesn't kill you (because you're helpless, and he wants a fair fight), instead silently dragging you back to the chirurgeons and then leaving to resume his ambitions for the throne. Tia tells you very briefly why the Sin Eaters showed up and explains that the answer for how to stop it lies in the First, so you have a genuine motivation to go there to figure out how you can both stop the Empire and not gently caress up the entire world while doing so. Elidibus-Zenos retreats back to Garlemald, now aware that Zenos survived via the Echo, but he doesn't tell Varis, instead plotting to find and kill Zenos before he can return and become a genuine threat. As it stands, I'm excited for ShB, but that's because I watched the Fanfest coverage and like its overall appearance. Story-wise, I think this is the weakest lead-in to an expansion they've done yet, which is disappointing.
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Mar 26, 2019 16:05
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So I just did the Yojimbo trial. IT'S ME, AUSTIN! IT WAS ME ALL ALONG, AUSTIN! 
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Mar 26, 2019 16:12
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Minrad posted:Man I was hoping that finale would hype me up for Shadowbringers... This sums up my feelings pretty well. Was very disappointed. Elidibus-Zenos doesn't even fight any differently from any other time we've fought Zenos. We've done slight variations of this fight half a dozen times now, and we've never actually beaten him - he always declares victory when cutscene powers kick in at 0, and I just sighed when he showed up because I knew that's what was going to happen. It's exactly what's happened every drat time we've had a boss fight with the guy. And is it just me, or has 4.X been incredibly short? Each .X patch cycle seems to have a lot less in it than the ARR and HW interludes.
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Mar 26, 2019 16:16
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Zenos does fight different. In addition to Zenos moves he uses Ascian magic attacks like Triple and Lightless Spark. He is a combo of AM Zenos and The Chrysalis
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Mar 26, 2019 16:22
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ImpAtom posted:Zenos does fight different. In addition to Zenos moves he uses Ascian magic attacks like Triple and Lightless Spark. He is a combo of AM Zenos and The Chrysalis Zenos has Lightless Spark throughout the expansion, it's his cone aoe.
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Mar 26, 2019 16:23
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Cythereal posted:This sums up my feelings pretty well. Was very disappointed. Hien mentions that he's got both garlean beefiness and magic, but all that really seems to manifest as is he'll do some black smoke around the arena and exaflares later in the fight. A wet noodle of an ending, for sure.
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Mar 26, 2019 16:24
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Cythereal posted:Zenos has Lightless Spark throughout the expansion, it's his cone aoe. I probably got the names mixed up whatever the Ascian death ball attack is
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Mar 26, 2019 16:30
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Yeah, this patch was pretty disappointing considering it's the final MSQ and lead in to the next expansion. Maybe they just had to rush it out because they didn't have enough time. I don't know if that's better or worse than making it boring on purpose.
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Mar 26, 2019 16:43
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Part of it seems to be the massive cutscenes that capped off 2.0 and 3.0 - we didn't get one of those this go-around, and part of me wonders if the Hien part is suppose to be a substitute for it. Too bad it's so boring.
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Mar 26, 2019 16:57
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ImpAtom posted:I probably got the names mixed up whatever the Ascian death ball attack is Yeah, the ability you're thinking of is called Shadow Flare IIRC.
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Mar 26, 2019 17:06
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Vitamean posted:part of me wonders if the Hien part is suppose to be a substitute for it. Too bad it's so boring. e: can you not spoiler embedded youtube videos or something https://youtu.be/cJRyEyLBMqI Rainuwastaken fucked around with this message at 17:15 on Mar 26, 2019 |
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Mar 26, 2019 17:12
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I was really hoping I'd be wrong about how the story would end after everything else in Stormblood was so good, but by comparison the lead-in to Shadowbringers feels more like a collection of lazy afterthoughts. -Did we stop the invasion? Only temporarily, and Varis is very clearly ready for Round Two with his Black Rose poison ready to go. This is exactly what I was afraid of: Garlemald is ready to take the lead out, but we've been told "gently caress off to somewhere else." with no resolution whatsoever. Mr. Throw Wide The Gates doesn't even tell us what's going on, just to stop fighting Garlemald and possibly let everything we've been protecting get irreparably hosed up. -Estinien's involvement in our rescue when Mr. Throw Wide The Gates tries to YEET us in the middle of fighting Elidibus was ridiculous. He made no appearance since 4.0 and was not hinted to be on the battlefield at all. He didn't even appear. -Even the lead-in to the Crystal Tower was disappointing: we don't even go there. We just get told by Tataru to sit the gently caress down for four months. This is Asura's Wrath "you can't beat the game until you buy this DLC" levels of bad. -As Vermain said, it would've been easy and a lot cleaner to write in Zenos as our savior from Elidibus, wanting his position as Prince back and not wanting to kill us until we're in top form. Instead he just sort of shows up right at the end without ceremony, as if the writers forgot what happened in the 4.3 stinger, panicked because they didn't want to rewrite anything, and threw him in at the end. So in the end, Stormblood came in like a freight train but went out like a wet fart. I understand that the writers want us to have some mystery going into Shadowbringers, but we needed closure to the previous arc and a concrete reason to move onto the next, and as far as I'm aware we got neither. SL the Pyro fucked around with this message at 17:27 on Mar 26, 2019 |
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Mar 26, 2019 17:12
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Mar 26, 2019 18:02
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Dr. S.O. Feelgood posted:Yeah, this patch was pretty disappointing considering it's the final MSQ and lead in to the next expansion. Maybe they just had to rush it out because they didn't have enough time. I don't know if that's better or worse than making it boring on purpose. I'm pretty sure it is the way it is on purpose. They're not trying to maintain "mystery" or whatever. This is just the best stopping point they can do without the new areas. Stormbloods greatest weakness is that it's a middle part of a bigger story. It sets up a lot, and the payoff will be good, but on its own it's not as exciting. That said personally I don't feel like every expansion needs to end on the most dramatic note ever. The plot threads are where they need to be to move forward logically 
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Mar 26, 2019 18:08
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Should I just buy the expansions when I get to their content level? Not sure how it works.
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Mar 26, 2019 18:16
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Over There posted:Should I just buy the expansions when I get to their content level? Not sure how it works. The only reason to buy expansions early is if you want access to their respective races and jobs. So if you have a desperate hunger to be a Samurai or Red Mage as soon as you hit 50, you'll want to get Stormblood. The Heavensward jobs are a little weird since they're unlocked in Ishgard, which is MSQ gated. When Shadowbringers comes out, you'll need that in order to be a bunny girl or cat man.
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Mar 26, 2019 18:20
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Rainuwastaken posted:The only reason to buy expansions early is if you want access to their respective races and jobs. So if you have a desperate hunger to be a Samurai or Red Mage as soon as you hit 50, you'll want to get Stormblood. The Heavensward jobs are a little weird since they're unlocked in Ishgard, which is MSQ gated. Oh okay. I think I'm fine then.
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Mar 26, 2019 18:21
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Over There posted:Should I just buy the expansions when I get to their content level? Not sure how it works. If you buy one expansion you get all the previous ones included so the only question should be whether to buy Stormblood now to have all current content available to you for the next three months before needing to spend another $40 on Shadowbringers, or if you can just deal without any expansion stuff until Shadowbringers comes out because that will give you Stormblood and Heavensward. Depending on where you are, there's an awful lot to do in ARR so if you don't play the game hours per day then you can probably get away with the latter, especially if you want to level all the jobs.
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Mar 26, 2019 18:25
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Captain Oblivious posted:I'm pretty sure it is the way it is on purpose. I appreciate them not going for a super dramatic cliffhanger and then backtracking on most of it, but I would've like a little preview or a "meanwhile in the First...". I understand why they're waiting until the expansion to actually go there, but a little something would have been nice. As it is, it's just "well, I guess I'll check back in three months then."
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Mar 26, 2019 18:26
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ImpAtom posted:Zenos does fight different. In addition to Zenos moves he uses Ascian magic attacks like Triple and Lightless Spark. He is a combo of AM Zenos and The Chrysalis He still went down like a sack of potatoes. 
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Mar 26, 2019 18:27
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SB the lesser was always a disjointed fill space expansion that lacked the punch of Heavensward, there wasn't a lot of ways to wrap up something that was never really a cohesive idea to begin with. So of course they really don't even bother, and just go "We are done with this now, the end". It was meant to move us down the road to bigger conflicts, and it certainly did that.
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Mar 26, 2019 18:31
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Over There posted:Should I just buy the expansions when I get to their content level? Not sure how it works. You won't gain any experience during the post-game quests leading up expansions if you don't own the next one. For example, if you complete ARR but don't own HW you won't get any xp for the hundred or so quests that come between them. It's not necessarily a problem, after all the start of expansions are balanced for the level-cap of the previous content, but things might be a little bit smoother if you've been gaining xp in the run-up to the next expansion.
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Mar 26, 2019 18:52
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Veotax posted:You won't gain any experience during the post-game quests leading up expansions if you don't own the next one. Does the complete edition go on sale ever? I might just get that then pick up the new expansion in July.
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Mar 26, 2019 18:58
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Over There posted:Does the complete edition go on sale ever? I might just get that then pick up the new expansion in July. what do you mean by "complete edition"
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Mar 26, 2019 19:01
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IcePhoenix posted:what do you mean by "complete edition" guess they mean the game + all expansions so far
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Mar 26, 2019 19:03
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If you're already playing with a sub, you have no real reason to buy the Complete Edition of Stormblood.IcePhoenix posted:what do you mean by "complete edition" There's a version of Stormblood that includes the base game and Heavensward, labeled the Complete Edition. The other versions don't include the base game.
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Mar 26, 2019 19:05
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as for skipping cut scenes I did a lot of that 😒 I'm not really interested in seeing each cutscene where as most is just dialogue. I read the summary in most cases and then watched the ones that were in main parts of the MSQ. but I was to lazy to watch everything also I want to play a game more than watch a movie
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Mar 26, 2019 19:07
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Schubalts posted:There's a version of Stormblood that includes the base game and Heavensward, labeled the Complete Edition. The other versions don't include the base game. Ah, interesting. I assumed it was something like that but figured they were already playing the game so was confused why they would want it.
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Mar 26, 2019 19:08
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Monathin posted:Speaking as someone who is part of the melee dps problem , if they cut scouting/maiming it would honestly be a loving trainwreck because the four dps want moderately different stat setps based on their job. Ninja is the obvious outlier, here, but even DRG wants a kind of different setup then SAM/MNK (who akready chafe a bit having to share a gearset). like, yes, generally all the classes want Crit+DH but cutting the gearsets down isn't going to solve that. They could also just fix the problem of increasing substats (specifically skill/spell speed) making some classes worse.
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Mar 26, 2019 19:09
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This wasn't exactly a bad patch, but like most of Stormblood it seems like they barely have anything to say. We're pretty much in the same place narratively that we were 3 months ago except now we get to stare menacingly at the Crystal Tower in the post-credits. I don't really want to compare it to 2.55 and 3.56 cause not every story needs to end in an incredibly climactic and exciting plot twist, its okay for stories to end quietly, but those patches actually advanced the plot in interesting ways and set us up for the next expansion and this one just... doesn't advance or resolve anything. And well I've played this game for long enough to know how much they like super-long-term storytelling, but it is a little frustrating how much stuff they bring up in SB and never mention again even in what should be the denouement. Cutscenes were good though, and yet another excellent solo duty I especially like how they take the now extremely familiar Zenos mechanics and mesh it up with what we've seen of Ascian abilities, while also throwing in some other stuff we've seen over the SB arc like a huge emphasis on bullet hell orb dodging and exaflares. If we're not getting a narrative denouement at least this fight feels like a mechanical one.
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Mar 26, 2019 19:16
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After that Allied Beast Tribe Quest, I can't help but wonder how Nhaza'a Jaab will end up on the First.
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Mar 26, 2019 19:22
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There is one big thing missing that makes the kick off into shadowbringers underwhelming. Or rather, one big person
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Mar 26, 2019 19:24
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My favourite part of this bookend patch is: Pretty much everyone we know is either in a coma or on the front line, even bit characters like Artoirel Fortemps, and Varis is looking forward to covering the whole area with Black Rose. I'm gonna guess that's the calamity they talk about in the trailer.
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Mar 26, 2019 19:26
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 Truly the real Stormblood was the /dab emote we unlocked along the way. homeless snail posted:Cutscenes were good though, and yet another excellent solo duty I especially like how [spoiler]they take the now extremely familiar Zenos mechanics and mesh it up with what we've seen of Ascian abilities, while also throwing in some other stuff we've seen over the SB arc like a huge emphasis on bullet hell orb dodging and exaflares. If we're not getting a narrative denouement at least this fight feels like a mechanical one. He does Exaflares?
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Mar 26, 2019 19:34
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Hobgoblin2099 posted:He does Exaflares? Yeah. When he does his lightning aoe sword skill, it does the 4-directional exaflare pattern.
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Mar 26, 2019 19:37
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Hobgoblin2099 posted:He does Exaflares?
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Mar 26, 2019 19:37
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Hobgoblin2099 posted:He does Exaflares? He does the Byakko move which is mechanically the same thing, yes. So are we supposed to assume that Hien, Yugiri, and Lyse are all dead, or all fine, or that Yugiri sacrificed herself heroically,, or what? I thought it was weird that when we wake up we can ask about Alisaie or the Scions in general but not them, and then Lyse isn't in her usual spot in the Reach. Guess that's what happens when you send three melee DPS and no tanks or healers to go fight Xenos. The solo duty was rad though, the exact opposite of Tataru's new outfit, which, like her, is terrible. Is she hinting we have bad breath with that helmet? Also, have they just forgotten about F'lhaminn being part of the Scions? She's hung out on the top floor of Rowena's place for like a full expansion now and hasn't even bothered to show up in the moments where everyone else gets together.
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Mar 26, 2019 19:40
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Leal posted:There is one big thing missing that makes the kick off into shadowbringers underwhelming. Or rather, one big person he's the guy under the hood
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