#also he only actualizes this to this point in endwalker lol he was going off of vibes before

[myrfing]

and (pointing at nothing) gourd isn’t really HEALTHY about his execution of his purpose either in that he is kind of insane about it. like he completely lacks a sense of self-preservation until after post-shb. he fully considers the possibility he will get blown up and die one million times and inflict terrible violence and just accepts that as almost a matter of fact. i think from a surface level outside view he can very much be taken as someone with an almost unnatural religious fanaticism but at the same time he’s like. not. he doesn’t actually ascribe to a divinity or a belief that he specifically will be rewarded or saved. he doesn’t do it out of need for approval or self hatred or insecurity or to prove his loyalty. he just believes that if he dies something stronger will grow in his place because that’s what he sees in the world all the time. if he believes in a heaven or hell it’s not somewhere else but right here.

his weirdness about it if anything comes from a sense of detachment-but-not-alienation that he found in the wake of the spires dying. the human part is is that this is him making sense of their choice to fight and die even though it hurt him. he WAS for a long time lost and empty in the wake of that decision and this is how he found purpose…it’s just that just because it came from troubled waters doesn’t mean it’s untrue or just a cheap justification. he feels like his place in the world is a given just because he was born, because that’s what he thought of his loved ones. he loves the world and his own existence within it but he loves the world just as much without so he sees no point in being defensive about his life. it’s very much like. a cucumber is a cucumber and it’s still a cucumber if you ate it. this is making even more sense as I keep going on

[wlwaerith]

I really think its part of his development especially bc we didnt have much insight of him before endwalker and it's just in 6.0 that we get him like on his peak "wol doesn't love me enough" phase. Maybe I'm extremely biased bc I adore endwalker and it's exactly that expansion that made me go "oh i get him now. I love this guy now. Goddamnit." Idk there's truth in what u said bc I'm pretty sure it's the only time we see him like having just a tiny bit more of emotion and I'm mostly referencing his talk with the Wol on the moon, the whole thing felt like him finally accepting/having something denied to him you know? Like the wol would give him a battle but not like the one he wanted so I like this point of turn for him. Also on the final days at garlemald scene, I don't think stormblood!zenos would ever give a fuck about what alisaie had said. It really starts to show him genuinely hearing what the world has to say to him, even if he doesn't care or not agree etc etc. It just feels like he listens for the first time and therefore he starts to like feel something other than wrath or whatever

But again I did just start liking/understanding him after endwalker so this might be a very specific pov but yeah :) that's how I see it lol (excited for ur zenos content tho hehe)

i get what you’re saying completely, and i don’t disagree, either! i’m having a bit of trouble putting my exact thoughts into words. obviously, some change/development had to occur in order to avoid him feeling stagnant, and i think that was done effectively (like, in your example, how he actually starts listening to people & seems to become a little more self-aware in that regard). it’s difficult to explain, because he still felt like himself when we saw the seeds of this change being sown in the post-shadowbringers patches, but something felt a little off in a way i can’t quite put my finger on by the time we got to endwalker. having said that, i don’t dislike his endwalker iteration by any stretch of the imagination.

though, in all honesty, quite a few characters felt a little bit off to me by this point as well. could just be me being finicky but failing to find the right way to phrase it!

[emoshep]

thoughts on dawntrail thus far

(BIG SPOILER WARNING, BIG OL' LATE GAME SPOILERS BENEATH THE BREAK)

wuk lamat fucking dies.

just kidding.

i'll try my best to sort my thoughts on the expansion into different areas. i'm not a master of the game by any means and i don't often do in-depth stuff on media i like (i'm very much a "enjoy it for what it is" type most of the time) but i'll give the ol' college try. let's rock.

STORY

i like it for the most part. fun stuff. the first arc that focuses on the contest for dawnservant is fun and light-hearted but also has moments of emotion and growth for wuk lamat and koana. some don't like the focus on wuk lamat and koana but i enjoyed it, it kinda felt like the scions and i were guiding some budding heroes on their first grand adventure, one more grounded in a more believable goal, a nice change of pace from the universe-ending emotional climax that was endwalker.

it's great and cute and i love both main characters BUT... the contest. there wasn't much sense of rivalry or real competition between the candidates. this is a point that i think the story kinda missed. i mean, i like that wuk lamat and koana get along well and it makes sense that they'd work well together, but in the days before release we did get some hype about how "the scions would be divided" and yada yada yada. the only real moment i caught that vibe with was in the first dungeon when thancred goes "lol fuck y'all" and cuts off your way forward, forcing you to take a longer path.

like, we know the scions would never actually become foes after all they've been through together but i was hooked on the competitive aspect so... y'know... i was kinda looking forward to the rivalry and maybe a chance of fighting thancred and urianger? like the friendly duel we had with gulool ja ja. that'd be fun, i think. just me though, so maybe it's wishful thinking.

edit: i literally forgot about bakool ja ja while writing this initial post. lol, get rekt scrub. i guess he's fine where he's at in the end but boy howdy he took up ZERO space in my head.

i did like the cowboy stuff up in xak tural, that was fun, though to me it did feel like filler. but i like the characters involved so, it's filler i can live with.

it would've been nice to not have a world ending threat over the horizon to worry about so we could have our little beach episode in peace. nice lil summer vacay, twenty minute adventure morty, in and out. i think the turn toward alexandria would've been better left for later.

for what it was, i did enjoy going through living memory and helping people fulfill hopes they never got a chance for in life. the scenes with cahciua had me feeling all the feels. at the same time, does this content belong in the "beach episode" expansion? why do all this right now and not later when many actually expected a new big story to begin?

that being said, the ending was fun and we got all the payoff we needed. everyone gets along and eats tacos together now, it's nice. however i do feel there is a loose thread with alexandrians' regulators and extra souls. like, we're gonna do something about those, right? like, anything at all? even if it's just a "we'll get to it later," just say anything at all to wrap that point up and move on. maybe that's just a me thing.

overall, it's final fantasy so of course it was a fun story and i liked it anyway. can't wait for the stuff that comes next.

BATTLE CONTENT

fucking nuts, loved it.

doing dungeons with npcs is normal and expected but i was scared that all of the trials would be doable with duty support, which i think would've taken away from the experience for the last trial. i always get nervous in duty finder even after a couple years of playing the game, so i like the first trial being available for support like a nice warmup but i've come to appreciate how playing with others for the final final boss keeps me on my toes. i only went down once on the last story trial, and i would have played much worse had i had the leniency of a party that can't yell at me for sucking at the game.

there was one dungeon boss (i think it was the final boss in vanguard?) that i found disappointing. i'm mega casual so i'm normally not one for high difficulty but that boss was so piss fucking easy it was laughable.

all other battle content though? sick af, really had me on the edge of my seat.

IDK, GEAR?

gear looks cool, not much else to say there. reaper gear looks fuckin GORGEOUS on my bungirl main.

CLOSING

that's about all i got for now. perhaps i'll add more if i think of it later but i'll leave it here for now. thanks for your time if you read through and do remember, these are just my thoughts and it's totally chill to not think the same (if that's the case you're more than welcome to share your thoughts with me). this has been a good expansion, just as we expected it would be.

[djgamek1ng]

My thoughts about the Endwalker/6.0 announcement stream

I had originally posted this on Twitter in a TwitLonger tweet, but I’ll also put it here. This also contains the follow up “thread” about the pure healer/barrier healer balancing (which is at the end, so if you are only interested in that, skip to where it starts with “So... I was”). OKAY, SO I'M REALLY DAMNED HYPED ABOUT THIS EXPANSION. I'm going to go point by point for things they talked about, in as much of the order they talked about things. - The trailer is really freaking cool! Personally, it is arguably my favorite trailer now and we haven't gotten the full version, though depending on the full version the Shadowbringers trailer might still win it out. The music is great, bit less rocking than the Shadowbringers one, but still fantastic. The WoL as a PLD is everything I've ever wanted from this game. It is also a FF4 reference with Cecil going from a Dark Knight to a Paladin. Seeing the twins in CG finally is also amazing. Endwalker, great freaking name ruined by its unfortunate abbreviation: EW. - Okay, so the new jobs. One is a melee DPS. Honestly, didn't expect that. Was expecting a caster, but this does silence the whole "they are going to balance the choices to be 4 each and then we might no longer get any jooooobs!!!!11!" discussion that I've seen happen, so honestly I'm okay with this. The other is our new healer, Sage. Alphinaud also job changed to it, so that is nice. - Specifically, about Sage, they made it a barrier/shield healer and will be shifting over AST to be a "pure" (regen) healer. The actions they showed look cool enough, but it is hard to judge. It is also very very very interesting that they are looking to make the raid finder actually distinguish between barrier healers (so Sage and SCH) and pure healers (WHM and AST). I will get to this point in another post, since I think it is very interesting that they are doing this. - 6.0 being the end of the major Hydaelyn vs Zodiark arc. VERY interesting that it is specifically 6.0 that is going to be the end of that and not 6.3, makes me think that 6.0 is going to be a slightly bigger patch than normal expansion launch patches in terms of story. - Higher level cap! ...I'm only mentioning it because they did. Okay, to be fair, we do see some of the new AFs and DRK's looks great, WHM's looks good, SAM's is awesome and BLM's is nice. - Finally going to Thavnair and Garlemald. Bit of a shame we are only going to Garlemald when it has been entirely destroyed, but it was to be expected I guess lol. Oh, also, new beast tribe. Matanga, the big elephant people. They look pretty cool and I'm honestly intimidated by them as a Lalafell ^-^" - Anima confirmed! Is it going to be a Terminus beast similar to the enemies we saw in the Amaurot dungeon, just as a trial instead? If so, that is really really cool. Regardless, a long overdue enemy to see arrive here! - "Challenging" new dungeons. I'm... sorry to be skeptical, but I'm guessing these are not going to be that challenging. I really hope I'm wrong and that they will provide a decent challenge, but I just doubt it. The art does look pretty though! - New 8 man raids, the Pandaemonium raids. Ascian inspired with Lahabrea of all of them being the one we supposedly see in the art. Very very interesting and I'm glad that they are moving to more FFXIV original stuff, though Pandaemonium isn't a new thing in the FF series for sure. - New 24 man raid series. Not title said, just said that it will be FFXIV original. All I gotta say: thank GOD. Sorry to all Nier fans, but I just could not care about Yorha: Dark Apocalypse. It very much feels like it is the continuation of NieR: Automata in FFXIV with little to no relevance for the FFXIV side of things (such as world building as such). Hoping the 5.5 one can make me feel different though. - New small scale PvP mode. Apparently going to be approachable by casuals? Seems like a good direction for FFXIV's PvP at the moment, since you currently need too many people to have a PvP match. - Role quests are returning. Also, ranged is now split up into physical ranged and casters. I'm... divided on this. If it means again only 1 job quest at the level cap, that is going to be disappointing tbh. If it doesn't, then I will be very glad. Also gatherer and crafting quests... uh... *stares at him only having one of each unlocked and neither are even at level 50*. Also, WAR, MNK and RDM AF art. WAR looks pretty good, MNK looks nice and RDM looks pretty neat! - Estinien in the trust system. Yup, that makes perfect sense since Estinien is basically a honorary member of the Scions at this point. Also since we have no more melee DPS in that spot, since Ryne isn't with us anymore. I will miss Ryne in the MSQ. Hopefully they have more quests for us on the First that involve her :( - Island Sanctuary. Stardew Valley FFXIV edition? I mean, I'm down for it. Especially if we can customize the place. If I'm able to get a training dummy there and teleport to that place, it will basically just be my new house and I might actually consider getting my current house demolished. - As literally everyone expected, Ishgard housing. Makes perfect sense after the Ishgard Restoration. Not personally jumping on it, as I remember the bloodbath that was Shirogane housing *shudders* - Stat squish. I'm perfectly fine with this, since smaller numbers feel more impactful for me. I'm 100% a person that sees a 61389 damage Confiteor crit and just feels nothing towards the 3 numbers on the right. They mean nothing. Smaller numbers makes smaller increases more substantial - Removing belts. Nomura's worst nightmare... Honestly, I'm just glad about the extra inventory space for main weapons arms and rings. That is the good stuff! :) - Data center travel. UH. How in the heck is this going to work? Is it only in the regions or can I go from Chaos to Primal, for example? If the latter, that is amazing and removes the need to have alts for friends in other datacenters by quite a bit! - PS5 version. Yeah, that makes sense. - Digital Fan Fest 15th and 16th of May (14th and 15th for the NA folks). Looking forward to it and to seeing the new melee DPS job being revealed! Plus a live concert by the Primals is sick! So... I was gonna make a post about the whole barrier healer/pure healer thing and how that is weird compared to what they did with tanks in ShB and how it might impact tanks in End (I don't like EW as acronym), but an interview happened and they have already confirmed tanks are not getting balanced for main tank/off tank. So I'll just sum up what I had about healers: it is a very interesting direction that I honestly think is more healthy for the game. It diversifies and focuses the healers into their type of healing, a problem AST had since it came out, where the only pieces of identity it had were its cards and the fact it could be a WHM-lite or a SCH-lite, where the second part isn't really an identity. It also confirmed that the healers aren't getting split in 2 categories in the game (like the DPS are split between melee, physical ranged and magical ranged). Just for balancing, which is good since queues would otherwise be a pain for no real reason. Also, he confirmed that content will be easier with one pure healer and barrier healer, not required. 

TL;DR: I think this is a change for the better. AST will (hopefully) get a real identity outside of “it can be either like WHM or like SCH!” and their cards.