Fun fact: If you don't do coils before HW/SB Allisae treats you like a stranger when she joins the main plot but if you went through coil with her she treats you as a trusted friend after what you went through together in Coil.
@@icefireobsidian7490 If you did one before the other, you can re-watch the cut-scenes at an inn room using "The Unending Journey" book. There is a "Quest Progression" checkbox for the HW cutscenes that allow you to see her dialog as if you haven't met her in Coils (off) or if you already have (on).
@@RothAnim So if I did Coil after, I can go back and rewatch cutscene as if I had done Coils? I was going to to do a New Game+ for HW eventually to see this and play through it as a Dragoon to see the Estinein scenes that differ as a dragoon. Yet, If I don't have to do this then that would be great.
There's even dialogue for if you don't finish coils. I got them unlocked but never did them cause I couldn't get a group together, so when she saw me she said something like "too bad we never finished coils but oh well, nice to see you again." (Paraphrasing obviously)
FFXIV: here's all the info you need in game to be a part of the story Blizzard: here's an incomprehensible 30 second cutscene. Now go and buy threee books to understand what happened.
Can you imagine doing the Coils of Bahamut with your static, completing the bosses as you go and getting what story is there. But the Final Coil of Bahamut (Turn 3 & 4) is told through a £16.99 book? That's what WoW does.
Actually, if Blizzard made Coils, you'd fight through the trash to the first boss.. kill it, then have to gain rep by multiple runs to unlock the 2nd boss etc. all the way up to the last boss which you'd *almost kill* then Thrall, or whoever would leap in and finish him off.
Coil is the closing chapter on 1.0, putting the finishing touches to the story of transition to 2.0. Any question you may have about what happened in the intervening 5 years between 1.0 and 2.0, any possible lingering plot points, are addressed and given a proper conclusion. As a legacy 1.0 player, this is why my favorite raid is Coil.
I love how turn 3 sticks outlike a sore thumb. the original plan was for every phase of 8-man raids to have 5 parts with a trash phase in middle, but after players responded with basically "do we really need this?", the devs went "you know what? no, we don't" and from then on every phase of 8-man raid was 4 parts, all killer no filler
Imagine a multibillion video game corporation listening to feedback of (then) merely just thousands of players really. What a big surprise that ffxiv exploded the way it did.
@@TheShachimaru it also helps when your Dev is a raider as well. A lot of the raid issues and balance issues tend to get Yoshida and Co thinking and fixing the game towards player friendly aspects. Sure there may be some issues, (like removing threat management) but in the end its always towards the health of the game.
That would explain why Turn 3 was over in like 30 seconds for me when I did it unsynced solo when at least all the other ones were a legit adventure even at Level 80.
I find it so amusing that good king moogle mog, one of the more comical bosses, actually sets up a lot for people before coils with questions of what a primal actually is.
And it was done sort of by accident, as the Good King (long may he reign) was a replacement as Leviathan was delayed after the tsunami that rocked Japan.
I completely forgot about that! Can even recall that my reaction was sorta like: "Wait, so, the Moogles INVENTED a primal?" Queue Coils and then the reveal in Heavensward, and things start to connect.
I’ll never get tired of hearing WoW players genuinely express amazement that the story is actually told in the video game. Like what kind of brain washing took place where it became a totally expected norm for the story to not be told in the video game lol.
It's kinda crazy! Speaking as a WoW vet, I honestly believed for a long time that telling a good story in an MMO just couldn't be done - the format didn't allow it, the gameplay didn't allow it, etc. Then I played FF14, and I realized that you absolutely can, but only if you care enough to do so.
Remember that WoW engine is far older than FF14 and they didn't really get into in game story telling cinematics or character interactions until Wrath and later. There was good story telling in WoW at points but a lot of it was in quest text start and turn in for the most part, cause that's how it wasin early days. They were focued on making the entire world and giving you things to do. FF14 ARR more on story over other things, it shows in both good and bad. Sadly wow just went downhill.
@@Xanatrix well... WoW's engine is based on the Warcraft 3 engine, just built further... though I don't know if that qualifies within the context... but hey when it comes to the MMO context, sure.
Little fun fact the floor design in the Bahamut fight is based of the phylogenetic tree of life, and the outer ring represents Bahamut destroying all of it. Just goes to show how much detail is given into every aspect of this game.
The music of FF isn't just there to fill the background. It tells a very deliberate story, it is written much like a play or movie - you have leitmotifs and themes that return and intermingle to reintroduce and hint at exactly what's going on. They are definitely important parts of the game... that many of them turn into these awesome, energetic pieces part way through is not a mistake, either.
Indeed, the music is part of the storytelling. Anytime you hear "Answers" playing in the game, its meant to bring back memories of that opening cutscene and everything to do with Bahamut. Heavensward in particular has one recurring song that is a huge part of the narrative experience. MINOR SHADOWBRINGERS SPOILERS Even one off pieces tell a story. If you go into The Twinning dungeon after having run all the previous raids in the game, both the dungeon theme and the theme of the boss at the end are going to play into the narrative of that dungeon to an immense degree. Besides just being awesome music on their own.
There are so many things that repeat. You hear one song and you know this is planned to be kind of a goofy moment in the story, you hear this other song and that's basically the Ascian theme. The trailer and theme for Endwalker does this so well. There's parts in the trailer that are callbacks to previous expansions, so they use the leitmotif associated with that expansion and you get that feeling of Heavensward or Stormblood during those scenes.
Some leitmotifs are even recalled throughout the series, such as the chocobo theme, the prelude, and that one little track that is simply called "Final Fantasy". FF has been about music from the very start.
@@characterantula4868 Except with Nzoth and Sylvanas those are the exception not the rule. In FFXIV every major fight against a big story boss/raid boss or a primal since ARR has a song that not only is unique but tells a story or enhances the fight by following the action.
To comment on the sense of scale: Each Turn of Coil's zone loading screen has a name and a 'X Yalms' displayed. That Yalms is your depth from the surface. Final Coil takes place 6,836 yalms below the surface. Since Yalms = Yards, you're about 3.88 MILES (6.25 km) underground during that fight. In contrast, the deepest shaft mine in the world, the Mponeng Gold Mine, is only 2.5 miles below ground at its lowest point.
@@randalica92 it’s even worse when you get dungeons like Haukke manor. Not that the dungeon is bad, but playing at level 43 is so awkward not having most of your cds like sentinel or HG. That’s why when going into most lower level content synced, I try to go on BLU bc it’s literally the same at every level lol.
@@thevoxdeus Is that coils, or in general? If it's in general that's not completely true. I don't know about coils because I've never synced it properly.
I once had a dude tell me that WoW must have a better story than FFXIV because there's a lot more lore videos for it on UA-cam But it's like no FFXIV just doesn't need all this supplemental material to enjoy the story It's all _in the game_
“I shouldn’t have to make a video recapping the video that’s Recapping The Video!” To paraphrase Pyromancer. It’s daft to think about looking back. Used to think “wow, so many people talking about so much lore, it must be amazing!” Now we see the truth… of “it takes this many people this much time and effort just to try and understand this mess of a story.” Imagine -needing- so many lore channels to TRY understand a game’s story.
@@GmaerXQ and the loremasters we have in ff14 are very much the lurkers, whether its ethys and his popping up every so often, or anonimouse and his forum lurking.
@@GmaerXQ Funny enough, Pyro seems to be having some trouble understanding the story in FFXIV. Every time I tune in he's yelling at his chat to explain something or yelling at them for "spoiling" something that he should already know. I guess he's still used to the WoW style of story telling.
well not everything is in the game. theres a lot of extra lore in the eorzea enzeclopedia + the bonus story we get over an expansion going over the stories of the side characters. You dont really learn what Fordola does between stormblood and shadowbringers in the game but you can read the story online on the website. its not super important but it still exists though they are pretty short reads and not entire books.
Louisoix scenes in Coils is the first time I teared up in FFXIV. It's amazing. And Answers playing while fighting Bahamut makes so much sense, since Bahamut's children were sacrificed by the Allag, so it kind of serves as a somber song of grief that Bahamut's singing. Lyrics make perfect sense even from his point of view. Just beautiful writing. BTW. It's written by Ishikawa.
Loisoux is the honorary dragoon. He performed the dopest of high jumps, killed a First Brood dragon incarnation and died immediately after. The truest dragoon this world has ever seen.
I'm not sure if you did it yet given that it's an optional dungeon in ARR, but Tam-Tara Deepcroft (Hard) contains some interesting story moments too for some characters met at the very beginning of your adventure. Highly recommended :)
Really, a good chunk of the "Hard Mode" dungeons are great to help tie up loose ends or expand on some stories left by the wayside, and I almost feel like they need more of them since they didn't really *have* that during Shadowbringers. And the plot threads they pick up can be just straight-up *interesting*, too. (VAGUE SPOILERS BELOW) -Sastasha Hard? Hey, remember those pirates? They're doing pirate stuff again. -Copperbell Hard? Uh, yeah, can't really mine when there's still a really *BIG* problem there... -Tam-Tara Hard? ...hey, remember that one party from waaaaaaaaaaaay back in the day? Wonder whatever happened to what's left of them...
Fun thing of note regarding Poetics, it actually helps with the cooperation aspect that 14 is noted for. In WoW, when a new player to a dungeon or raid it's met with derision because the new person is seen to be holding people back. In 14, that bonus helps with a positive response (the term "newbie bonus" is a common response) and it also tells people "hey, new person here, good idea to explain stuff". Doesn't happen all the time, but it does happen and it's a good thing.
Plus for the people in between that are repeating content but have someone else explaining the fight, they're just there to go "oh shit free tomes, thanks newbie!" Everyone wins, the newbie gets experience and story, the teacher gets to feel good about teaching, and everyone gets money.
The Best bit of a lot of these raid stories is they add so much to the story, without being required to understand things moving forward. They are a great way to close out stories if you want it.
They do enhance the experience if you do them though, like doing the Alexander and Omega raid series helps fit some story pieces together for Shadowbringers. I believe the lead writer Ms. Ishikawa has also advised people to make sure they've done Omega before Endwalker.
Alexander is the only 12 Boss raid that feels disconnected from the MSQ. Everything else feels connected. I feel Alexander is going to come back in a huge way in a future expansion. Eden is my favorite raid series. It's a nice ending t I Shadowbringers. Because yes, you stopped the Sin Eaters, and saved Norvrandt, but the world doesn't feel completely saved and the story doesn't feel over until you complete Eden. I loved it. And yes I know about Alexander's connection to the Exarch and the Crystarium. I am talking more about Mide and her boyfriend who go back in time together. I feel that will have a whole expansion based on it, or at least a raid or adventuring foray like Bojza and Eureka.
there is an option in the settings that you can check off to auto skip all previously viewed cut scenes. it saves time when farming while allowing you to view it to completion the first time. you can also do the same thing to travel cut scenes like the airship/boat/ferry. along with the housing cut scenes.
The only thing i dont like about coils is that its not mandatory (maybe make an easy version for story purposes). Coils essentially contains the true ending of 1.0 and 2.0 (also alisae will treat you like a friend if you did it before you meet her again).
It also changes how a number of scenes play out, including a good chunk of dialogue on SB and ShB with Alisae. It's not difficult at all if you blaze it at 70+ unsycnhed. Only t9 requires a team effort because you cannot ignore meteors
@@miau384 Yeah, unless they revamped it to have 'story' tiers, like all the other raids, it would be a total nightmare to make it mandatory. I still remember all the complaining for the original steps of faith, which was legitimately pretty hard, but not coils level. It was more like a standard hard trial level. Even that was getting SE lots of flak from the userbase so they nerfed it into the ground... really wish they would restore it for a hard mode version. Doesn't help matters that coils is so atypical when it comes to raids they completely revamped the system for the next expansion and have pretty much used the altered system ever since.
Something to consider is many players don’t know 1.0 exists at all. So it doesn’t carry the same weight it does to people who played 1.0. As someone who played ARR without having touched 1.0, I think some of the weakest writing in ARR is where they expect you to know or care about certain characters, like Cid, when you have no idea who they are. For 1.0 players it was probably very exciting and the writers were coming at it with this mindset and I don’t think it was necessarily a bad motivation or overall terrible execution, but for me the part of ‘omg it’s some random guy’ and then it goes into Cid’s backstory I was just wondering ‘why… do I care?’ Once a friend explained, I understood, but it still felt weird to me. Especially because now that 1.0 doesn’t exist at all, not knowing what happened in 1.0 is standard, not the exception.
To be fair, there was a fair bit of "mystery endings" when you were doing the raids as they came out, before all the turns were playable. Particularly after you beat Twintania and watch the subsequent cutscene, it's a big tease that didn't get resolved for months, especially since we knew a lot less about the Allagans than we do now. But yes, it's still satisfying that it was all tied up in the game itself through your journey as the WoL, and getting to unravel the mysteries yourself as you play.
The difference is in FF you know you will eventually get an in-game explanation of what's happening whereas in WoW this is often not the case either because Blizzard choose to reveal too little or what you need to know is behind an additional paywall in a book. I could only follow the WoW story because of videos and wikis. I had to go outside the game to understand what was happening in the game. FF gives you what you need IN THE GAME.
But the writing was all done, the raid makers just had to catch up. It's different when the writer hasn't actualy written the resolution yet, and you can tell.
I'm not trying to criticize XIV or The Binding Coil here, by the way. I think it was handled well. Just saying the perspective is a bit different when doing the content while it's out--there's plenty of "mystery" in there. I think it was explored in a satisfying way over the months it unfolded.
@@AnonSeacat I think what people are pointing out is there's a big difference between building up a single raid's content and building up something random you need a book to show you. You know you're getting the former eventually.
This is the crucial difference, though: they were introducing mysteries that, logically, should be solved by *the end of the content cycle*. And then they were, and it was good and satisfying. Blizzard has, for a very long time, been utterly terrified of conclusively ending anything, because they're terrified of the idea of Warcraft seeming like it's going to "end". Or at leas,t perhaps, the executives are, and that filtered down to how the line developers work on and write the content.
@@TheMetroidblade When you go to an inn and rewatch cutscenes there is a check box on some that say reflect quest progress, this is for quests that affect each other, coils affect one that was recent, as in post shadowbringer questline, and I think there are some earlier ones too.
@@TheMetroidblade when you meet Aliscae in the MSQ she will treat you like a stranger if you didn't do coils. If you did coils she will instantly recognize you and treat you as a friend.
Not only do you get Poetics, but more importantly in my opinion helping new players do fresh new content also earn you Wondrous Tails Second Chance points, which you unlock after meeting a certain Miqo child in Heavensward, it's a simple stamp minigame that earns you a bunch of EXP, Tomestones, Maps, Items, MGP the whole lot, it's a really nice extra incentive to help out new people.
I wanna clarify something real quick: The reason you unlock every floor when you unlock the raid is because this is old content. All the future raids will have you progress and unlock sequentially, but once they are unlocked you have them. Except savage, which is all unlocked at once (when you clear the normal mode and you do the relevant savage unlock quest) When a current raid tier comes out, you **have** to progress sequentially through each floor on savage every week. There are caveats, such as someone with the second floor done taking a freshie into the third floor, and so on, but yea. Those lockouts get removed sometime in the odd patch, usually near the very end (the community wants it fully unlocked in the odd patch as it comes out, but we'll get there when we get there, yoshi p please)
What really helps FF's story is that, within the context of the story, everyone acts naturally, everyone feels human. Humans that can use magic, of course, but there's still a logical, sensible train of thought that the characters take the actions that they do. They don't just get cosmic inhuman God like powers, they're just normal humans.
Hey, sometimes a character with cosmic inhuman godlike power can be a very interesting character, especially as you come to understand their history and motivations. I don't know where you're at in FF14, but I'll leave it at that vagueness.
Honestly you should try every hard mode dungeon and new raid/instance whenever you can because they're _all_ good but definitely each expansion's alliance/raid.
The high level members just auto attacking is I think a great balance between getting a feel of the fight and getting to know the story quickly. Coils was too difficult when it was first released and many players complained that they just wanted to see the story, so they came up with Savage difficulty later for hardcore players and made normal mode easy to clear.
The joy Bellular gets from discovering ff14 is so much fun. Just the shock of seeing a functional MMO actually living up to and exceeding expectations. You can just see his energy being raised from his copium detox.
Imagine being given Valor points [uncapped weekly even] for simply helping first time dungeon clears/"sprouts" in WoW. Would make those normal and heroic qeues that much more interesting and rewarding. Or hell, even seeking out new players to help get them through the content.
It would also give incentive to bring in these new kids to the guilds to farm their newness. End result being more new blood for guilds and helping a healthy inflow of community members.
Is it just me or does Bellular look...happier? Like I don't mean just expression and voice. His skin is like looking healthier with a glow and he seems to be more fit?! Like I'm in a relationship and all but he's looking good! Better than before imo, like DAYUM
Preach, rich, and asmongold all started looking better. WoW was stressing them out far too much with all the retention systems and terrible story hooks.
@@azolvi3473 and it didn't have to be like that, the gameplay, dungeons, bosses, and raids are all top tier. If they can work on improving the player experience in other areas, and make it less grind, they might be able to recover. But from the recent changes, recovery is a long ways a way, if at all...
It's so nice seeing all the WoW players who've transitioned to FF14 (myself included) seeing just how much can actually been done in an MMO's story when the developers actually care about it.
I just finished crystal tower and patch 2.55… holy shit, time to start heavensward. Wow has never emotionally come close to this quality of story telling
Just a tidbit to get you excited for the future, Bellular : the main writer for the Coils storyline, Natsuko Ishikawa, has become the main writer for the Main Story Quest starting in Shadowbringers, and will continue her work in Endwalker. She's also famous as being the one that wrote the Dark Knight quest line - frequently lauded as the best Job Quest Line in the game. So yea... you're in for a treat! ;)
That raid is crazy with detail. Bahamut is standing on top of the tree of life and phylogenic trees of every species radiates from the center and terminates at the ring of fire, signifying the catastrophe.
Next time you run the final coil, look at the floor in Bahamut's arena. Then realize the pure symbolism of the burning ring of fire that acts as the edge of the arena and will kill you if you touch it is also terminating the phylogenetic tree. The floor itself is a flippin' metaphor.
Damn this video dropping the same day EW's alliance raid got a new little blurb on the main site feels poetic. Resolving plots that occur naturally in the world indeed.
For a WoW refugee, Garuda for me was the moment that really set in the feeling of "wait, they are really going all out on regular story bosses?", where they are not just small little steps in the storyline with reused generic combat music like most games (not just MMOs) handle it, but instead they are hyping each and every larger boss encounter as something special. It's a shock to the whole system, this realization that yes, games can actually do this if the developers care enough. And when these songs each tell another piece of the story... just wow.
@@walrus2193 And that's why Susanoo one is my favorite mount, it have the phase 2 music who is much quieter than the others mounts but also more fitted for a long travel
Your thought about sowing the seeds makes a lot of sense. FF14 started, in Yoshi P's words, with over confidence and it not only hurt the game, it almost ruined the entire brand of final fantasy. Yoshi's approach in the 1.X patches all the way until now have just been "let's plant our seeds, let's start a nice little garden" and now it's this greenhouse of a really lovely game and it's Square's most profitable final fantasy. And it's because he and the dev team treated it with the time and care it needed to grow and be the game it is now.
What you say about having all the information needed to understand something in the moment, but later learning new information that gives you a new apreciation for those older scenes (which you can, of course, replay to your heart's content later) is actually something that happens A LOT in this game. Like, I really enjoy watching people play through the story, and after finishing Shadowbringers there's just SO MUCH you notice and understand that you didn't before. Details, nuance, certain phrasings or dialogue lines... It's amazing. I've actually rarely seen this in any medium ever, period.
Watching this... and along other people's reactions to just the way XIV tells its stories and I'm starting to believe that dedicated WoW-only people have been Stockholm'd by legit bad game design. Hearing you talk about story has me shrugging like "you mean conventional narrative structure found in plenty of video games?" and it really makes me wonder just what the hell kind of experience people have over in WoW.
From what I can gather, you literally can't start in 1.0 of WoW unless you are playing specifically vanilla, all content before BFA is locked out from being playable at all. You start in BFA, and once you get to a certain level, you are locked out it and are forced into Shadowlands.
@@keiichimorisato98 Wrong. That is entirely wrong. Go play the game. You can play every single part of wow if you level normally. You don't 'start' in BFA, you start in a beginner zone, then you have the option of leveling in previous expansions, or you start the BFA quest. But you can always go back and play the other expansions assuming you have the proper level. 1.0 in WoW is not like Ff14. it doesnt not have a 'story' line. it has individual quest that weave a story. Campaign quest didnt really come around until Wrath. Even in TBC, story is told through quest, that are not specified as a 'story' line. Plus quest and content are changed and taken out. So context and the experience changes if you werent around before it changed. This is why classic WoW has such a mass appeal. Its like if you want to go play Legion, you can go do that. You arent 'locked' out of it by anything other than player level.
@Jay Bee Well it's just that certain content DOES get locked out after a point. Once you hit Lv. 25, you will never see Deadmines again on that character, even if you really liked the content. A lot of content is irrelevant because so much of it is just gaining experience to level, rather than experiencing a story. There's no real objective to complete besides hitting max level. Anything you collect in these dungeons also feels irrelevant as you'll find gear that replaces it in the next 15 minutes. Lv. 1-49 is like that in FF too, but as soon as you hit an expansions level cap, you can use the tomestone pieces for pretty much an entire expansion. I never needed to replace my Lv. 50 gear in Heavensward until about Lv. 58-59, since it was that high in item level.
@Jay Bee That might be true to an extent. What I can say from my time playing WoW is that I came into it at a time (Legion) when there was already a ton of pre-existing lore that was overwhelming to wrap my head around, but the zones themselves told the stories in a very loose and open-ended way. There wasn't a lot of structure to it, at least in the earlier content. And for me subjectively, I prefer a more structured narrative, since I'm more used to playing JRPGs. I played TBC Classic and felt that even more (the raids were fun, though!) I also loved games like the Baldur's Gate series and KotOR, mind you, so I appreciate the western approach too, but even they had their big set pieces. The minimalist, explorative approach doesn't appeal to me as much unless it's executed very well, where WoW felt a little disjointed. That was a game I definitely played in order to play with friends, keep up with content, do dungeons and raiding, and overall get involved in a wider community. The focus in XIV feels very different since the MMO aspects are all still there, but there is a story and a presentation to rival even great single player games at the heart of the MSQ, and then there are all the MMO elements on top of that. Perhaps because I'm already a fanboy of the franchise and a bit of a weeb, none of the quirky stuff seemed out of place to me, but what I will say is that while in WoW I felt like I had to power through the repetitive parts to reach the better stuff, XIV kept me engaged nearly effortlessly the whole time. In fact I'd still be playing it now if I didn't 1. have other games in my backlog I'm working on and 2. spend a good chunk of time playing other games with friends and working.
Note - Coils (and ARR in general) is unique among FF14 expansions in that there are lengthy, story-driving cutscenes in the middle of raids and dungeons that interrupt gameplay. Heavensward raid series "Alexander" has a few, but not nearly to the degree and length that Coils does - they save the more lengthy story cutscenes for between raids, out-of-instance. The still HAVE the story, but you don't have to have the rest of your raid team waiting for 5-10 minutes while you watch a cutscene, so there's not that biting urge to skip and not keep your party waiting.
The edge of Bahamut's arena is really neat. It's a demonstration of an evolutionary tree just within the boundary, and then at and past the boundary denotes a *mass extinction event* where most of those evolutionary lines just *end*.
WoW: "Here's five seconds of CGI we paid a billion dollars for to tell you to buy the new book for $59.99 thank you goodbye." FF14: *seven hours of IN-ENGINE cutscenes retcon-explaining how the fuck all that shit happened and then establishing new lore*
This option is amazing until there is a transition cut scene you you forget about like the last boss in Aetherochemical Research Facility and accidentally pull the boss well a 🌱 is watching it
@@darkdelusion This is why you look at your party list or just simply keep an eye out for the beginning of the run being in the middle of your screen going "HEY A PERSON HASNT DONE THIS YET"
Correction regarding the Poetics, the bonus reward of +100 is only granted once. However you will still earn between 10-30 Poetics even if you've done it before. Meaning you'll always get at least some Poetics if you do ANY old content that's at least for level 50.
Fun part about Poetics is that some content that didn't touch the system previously can be changed to use Poetics as a form of catch-up. HW Relics can be done in an afternoon if you spend the 14k poetics in advance for the items. There is *always* something to buy with poetics and you should never cap them.
You do get poetics for lvl 50+ content, even if replaying/farming it. You just get a bonus chunk if one player has yet to complete the duty. Similar for the newer stones: You do get some stones from the appropriate duties, but many more with the daily roulette.
People just assume you're drunk on your own sauce, so you're in no state to give an objective assessment. Then they realize that no, that IS a fairly objective assessment, and you get to sit back with a smug "I told you so" lol.
People are surprised because people in general have a bias towards things that they enjoy. If someone enjoys New World, they will tell everyone how good they think it is, but not everyone will think the same. There is also the problem with the rabid fan-base that XIV breeds, they are far more willing to attack people who would even say other games are okay (i've seen enough times to know its not one-off situations); so that makes people less likely to trust. Basically, the FFXIV fans are their own worst enemy when it comes to getting people interested in XIV.
On the topic of being able to select the fights you want - in the later xpacs, the normal mode is unlocked sequentially (each fight is a quest that unlocks the next) while the savage version of raids are weekly locked behind progression while they're current. So while you'll be able to always select whichever normal mode fight you want once you've unlocked all the fights, you still have to do savage fights turn by turn for about four months unless you piggyback off someone else's progression and forego getting weekly loot from earlier turns.
this is mostly a bi product of japanese games, where many times, the cutscene is the reward. Of course, raids give you gear and whatnot but in a big way the story is a big part of the overall exp.
This is kinda the truth for me as a player of jRPGs in general throughout the last couple decades. I played the game to get the story reward. The actual gameplay I wanted to get through, because that next cutscene and next story beat was waiting for me. Gear? Collectables? Nah, I want to see how the plot evolves. The story is the main reason I play FF14 now. Sure, I do enjoy doing various things in game(Hm. Imagine having things to do in game that are not tied to furthering your end game raiding, but can just be done.) but the plot is the focus for me.
The best part of the music is that even it adds to the lore of whatever fight it's a part of. With primal fights, it's either the primal singing (Garuda, Shiva), the adds singing (King Moggle Mog XII), or the primal's followers singing (Titan, Leviathan). For "Answers" in the Bahamut fight, it's supposed to be Hydaelyn herself singing. It's why I always promote players looking into lyrics for a lot of the themes for fights in FFXIV, because those lyrics can help explain some additional details. Also a fun fact, the singer for the Shiva theme was used as the model for the primal. So it's not just her voice she provided to the primal, but her face as well.
Personally, WoW has felt like they are just throwing story beats at the wall and seeing what sticks. Like a lot of people, I stopped playing in Warlords of Draenor, it felt like that whole storyline was undoing a lot of the established lore and just rehashing old content. I felt like that expansion purposefully obsfucated what was canon and really opened the door to a lot of bad story telling. I'm just waiting for the next expansion cycle to magically find a way to add Deathwing 2.0 to the game. The FF14 story has felt earned over years of playing. The twists make sense and are often foreshadowed, surprising moments are wonderous rather than feeling like a blindside. Expansion stories, raids and dungeons all feel like self contained stories that make sense both alone and as a part of the larger world. It's a game that is constantly building on its own lore and rewards players that invest their time rather than tearing it all down and making players start from scratch with endless unexplained retcons.
The main suggestion I make is: Do the Dark Knight quests. They're amazingly well written. 50-60, the Heavensward section, is a tearjerker. Many of the class quests are well written - Warrior 60-70 being an exception - but of the ones I've played only Dark Knight and Samurai brought me to tears. Be prepared, Bellular. Heavensward is a much more emotional experience than ARR.
About the "minilvl no echo sync" thing: WoW took until 2018 to institute a "party sync" mechanic. In an extremely limited capacity. FF14 has had this system _from launch_ since 2013 and it's such an ingrained, foundational part of the game's progression system and content management that it's just normalized beyond conscious thought for most players. It's such a good system that it's almost insulting that Blizz took FIVE FUCKING YEARS to steal it.
I've been thoroughly enjoying hearing all your thoughts on XIV. I'm really excited to hear what you think of Heavensward and on. The one thing I'd ask for is that you do more spoiler discussion. You can segment it out like you did with this video where the first half is non-spoiler and the second half is full spoiler discussion. This is obviously coming from my perspective as someone who has played the game for over 8 years now. I love hearing what people think of the narrative because it's narrative is just so strong!
just to clarify on your comment on turn/boss selection. when they are current and savage difficulty (look for HW and onwards), you have to do them in turn to get to then next fight in current tier. so 3 fights to get to the 4th. they just remove that barrier when it's no longer current so people can do the fight they want. they also remove the loot restriction.
Pretty crazy how well the FF team can tell a story, and don't fear closing the chapter on any of them because they know they can just tell more stories.
The tomestone boost for new players is both to help them acquire them for endgame-ish gear of that portion of the game (lvl 50, 60, 70 and just before Endwalker launches 80), but it also encourages veteran players to run older content too.
Don't feel pressured about the synced version and the usual wankery people fabricate around it. As long as you got the story you've gotten the most important bits out of it. You can get into synced raids later, as they aren't going anywhere.
"there is no speculation to do" And that is something that Pyromancer does not understand :O and for the raids, Coils are unique iin that, you get whole wing uncovered, while later (Alexander, alpha/deltascape, Eden), you have to uncover one boss at a time, during story.
Although, it's funny to see Pyromancer think he knows what's going to happen and be completely wrong. "Oh, this is a major spoiler they've done!" No, no it isn't. He just thinks it is because he's done some speculation with very limited knowledge very far in advance. He hasn't even finished 4.0 and he thinks he knows how 5.0 is going to play out. Even some of his notes are incorrect. Back in ARR, there's a cutscene where Nanamo and Raubahn talk about Omega and refer to it as "like Ultima". The next stream, he was talking about that cutscene and he called it Ultima 2. The chat said that the name was spoken in the cutscene. He was adamant it wasn't because of his notes. He was like, "that's probably something that's in a later cutscene." It wasn't. I rewatched the scene in the inn. The name is literally the first word Nanamo speaks. Why he doesn't hit screenshot to have a record of the dialog, I don't know. I've done that on many occasions, like the Rising event a few years back where we got little notes from the developers and various departments, like art or sound. I wanted a record of everything they said, so I took screenshots of all of it and put it into a folder.
@@tjl9458 Pyromancer writes a ton of notes and yet he fails to pick up on some very basic story telling. I had to stop watching him because every hour he'd get mad and yell at his own chat for "spoiling" something when it really was something he should have known but didn't retain. Like when Ardbert said that the 13th and the Void was the World of Darkness. Pyro couldn't remember that it was all explained in the CT storyline and yelled at his own chat and mods for spoiling him. He also misses things because he's writing notes, like when he missed the WoL refusing to drink Aymeric's wine, then he acted like a complete ass and told his chat that they were stupid and that he didn't miss anything. How would he know what he did or didn't miss if his head was down writing notes, notes that are probably wrong or that he won't remember the next day? Maybe WoW rotted his brain or something but I think him getting to 5.0 is going to be a lesson in frustration for everyone involved as he won't be able to pick up on anything. He couldn't even understand how Thordan used the eye and had to argue with his chat at the end of 3.0, how is he going to understand Shadowbringers?
@@GetterRay I can't stand his approach to notetaking. It's no wonder he misses stuff if he's taking notes mid-cutscene. It interrupts the whole flow of the scene. I remember someone suggested him taking notes after the fact and he yelled at chat.
I love content creators saying they love the early game. Everyone who knows, knows it just gets better and better. By the time you finish current content you will be thrilled for Endwalker.
i find it so annoying when people say this. Like, just let people like Bellular or Asmon or Preach express how happy they are with the game and how they enjoyed whats happened instead of always chiming back with "you havent seen nothing yet it only gets better wait till X" like he's already sold stop trying to be so pushy about it and invalidating what he just said was good for him
@@huslainemaxwell9866 What are you talking about? I'm clearly saying I like that he's enjoying the game and I'm happy they will enjoy it more. How is that pushy?
My favorite part of my first run of Coils was when all the veterans in my group misremembered a mechanic and walked into a kill wall. All of the sprouts were so confused, just trying to burn down the boss.
For gear to equip; not now but after EW drops. They are still always useful though. If nothing else you can exchange them for gear, turn that in for seals at your GC, then use those to buy things you turn for some quick gil on the marketboard.
@@stevenbasarowich3429 Yes. I was trying to be brief and used the most common/useful example (particularly for all the lv80 GC Privates I see running around, lolz.) Ofc, all the usual suspects... glams, minions, housing items...
5:58 regarding the comment about skippable cutscenes for the repeat runs. There is a neat feature in the settlings here - Character config > Control settings > Skip playback of previously viewed scenario cutscenes. Its a really nice QOL feature that some newer players may not be aware of :) no need to always hit esc on the subsequent runs! ^^ all the best.
Don't forget to do your Wondrous Tails when you get to HW. If your a crafter speak to her sister Zhloe. Such an adorable quest line. Highly recommended. One of my favorite quests in FF. But it takes a few weeks to unlock all the content but well worth it.
For as you go forward, something I'd like to point out that I don't think is made super clear in the game is that unlike WoW, certain pieces of content in the game are gated by older pieces of content because of story and lore connections, even if the locked content may be in another expansion. The biggest example of this I've found so far is that one of the Shadowbringers end game areas requires that you have completed the Stormblood 24-man alliance raid content before you will have any option to unlock it. But there's also some stuff like the ARR Hildibrand quest chain where the initial story appears to be kind of a goofy comedy piece that personally didn't hit for me, with the rewards being mostly cosmetic. After the first chunk of it, I put it off indefinitely, only to discover down the line when collecting Triple Triad cards that there are several trial encounters that unlock during the full Hildibrand line. Another smaller example is that some of the vendors involved in end game turn-ins (I think mostly around Rowena) won't unlock in later expansions until you have unlocked them in each of the preceding ones. So if you've only unlocked the ARR one, you may not see the option to unlock the Stormblood version until you've also opened the Heavensward variant. Basically what it comes down to is, it's a really good idea, both from a game systems and story perspective, to do as many of the + quests as you encounter them as possible. I realize that there's probably a very strong desire to reach Endwalker before the launch of the expansion, but I just wanted to get across that there can, and surprisingly often is, merit to at least unlocking the content in order, if not completing it. I took the WoW mentality of "push through, the latest systems won't need the old stuff anyway" and I really regret not only missing some really great story content, but all the time I ended up spending trying to untangle which quests were pre-requisites on the wiki when I went looking for something mentioned in a Shadowbringers Live Letter that I had never seen pop up despite being at the end of the MSQ.
Can you keep giving updates on where you are in the story? I'd love to hear your thoughts on the msq as it develops throughout heavensward and not just all at the end
On the content via menu. It doesn't work like that. Once you do the endgame savage stuff you gotta do them in order. If you'd start with wing 3 for example you can't get your weekly loot from 1 and 2. Until echo comes out.
Hey, y'all mentioned skipping the cutscenes for future, snappier runs... y'all do know there's a "skip already seen cutscenes" option, right? Never have to watch or skip a cutscene you already seen before. 👍🏻
You point at 12:30 (or so) is the thing that is crazy to me. WoW has 16 years of amazing content that is either never seen again, or is solo-raided by someone who literally one shots everything as they try for a transmog or a mount drop. Right before SL dropped at the end of BFA I started doing Firelands to get the Staff to give my Druid the Fire Cat form. I didn't play Cata until late, so I'd never been in there before, so I just ran though and Moonfired everything and collected mogs. Such a shame that as a player of 17 years who missed a few raid tiers that I will never be able to do those again in any sort of form that even closely resembles how it was back in the day. Its such a missed opportunity.
One thing I enjoyed doing, as a former WoW raider, was watching the evolution of XIV's 8-man raiding from its WoW-like origins in Coil to its present state, as well as its bifurcation into normal and savage tiers to improve story accessibility.
So glad you got to enjoy the lore of Coils. When you get to Heavenward, be sure to do The Warring Triad raids. There are past and future payoffs tied to this; and I think implications we haven’t even seen yet as of the end of Shadowbringers.
And if you haven't completed the SHB role quests it's also a good idea to do all 4 of them and the follow up 5th too! I've met a lot of people who didn't know there was a 5th, and a very important 5th questline it is. One of the most important optional quests in XIV lore wise. It's pretty cool!
I highly recommend doing every raid, both normal and alliance, from hereon. They may be optional, but the storytelling and world building and the lore they contain is astonishing. Same goes for class/job quests, including DoH/DoL quests; they each bring their own thing and build it up. The non-combat classes particularly, since their interactions help build political and cultural lore and understanding. Not only that, the non-combat classes unlock their own mini-storylines in the form of Custom Deliveries, and of the one's I've completed, the very first one you unlock is one I absolutely adore. I'm sure others already have tips for you, but for DoH/DoL, a quick passive way to level them up, is to either get a friend/FC member to craft/collect HQ items for you, or if you're a spendthrift, buy them straight off the marketboard, and do the daily Grand Company hand-ins. NQ items usually give about 25-75% of your current level (for the item type/class being handed in), while HQ gives around 50-100% of your current level. Just doing this alone is enough to match your non-main combat classes in leveling, IMO, so if you start early, they'll get up there fast.
Don't forget Michael, Bahamut is one of the three ultimate fights ;) Also, Louisoix does mention something that is later expanded on if you play Summoner. Edit: The bosses also drop items to craft very good level 50 gear (also used for glam), so crafters even have a reason to go in there on a combat job.
FFXIV does 'making a fight feel epic', better than any other MMO out there. It may not BE epic, but it certainly feels it thanks to the music and story
I feel like the writing team at Blizz is weirdly fixated on the big bad guy, the thanos, the poster child. They look at TBC and WotLK and think "hmm, what made this so good" whilst staring at the box art. Then suddenly it dawns on them. "Since we can't put Illidan on the cover for a 4th time, we just need to make a new big bad guy." But making a new big bad guy takes tons of development and foreshadowing, so what are they going to do? They're going to make everything super convoluted and mysterious. Make him 7 parallel universes ahead of us, because thats like our one weakness as champyuns of Azeroth - bad writing.
I watched this vid yesterday and today I got a level 80 friend to do Coils with me (lvl 52 sprout) unsynced. He hadn't actually unlocked the third coil so we both were in for a nice treat and man did it deliver!
I love watching you being excited like it was Christmas morning opening up your toys. I’m so glad a lot of new people have gotten a chance to play FF14. Just remember FF14 has ALWAYS, been great, it just a lot of people were blinded by WoW smoke and mirrors.
It really is interesting how many player are amazed if the a game like Final Fantasy XIV shows most of its story in the game itself. As a player who grew up playing JRPGs and I still do by the way, the stories are mostly told in a complete manner in game without looking for wikis or some other sources outside the game. It is to be expected that the whole is in the game. Although, ironically, a recent mainline Final Fantasy game that I've played. Which was XV did try the opposite of this approach and it made most of the fanbase a bit upset. Thankfully, the Royal Edition fixed that issue a bit.
I've done the first two coils solo at 80. I've yet to try the final coil, but I'll give it a shot this week. There were some sore spots that were difficult to solo, and it'd probably be faster to queue in the duty finder, or start a listing in the party finder, or just ask a couple of lads in the ol FC, but I'm just naturally a solo player.
I'd like them mandatory if they had scaled down versions. As it is now you just have to use Party Finder to do them not queueing in the Duty Finder. Which means I will never do them.
If you are planning to do this sync, do it with party finder. Coils are not included in mentor roulette so no mentors will even pop in to help. The only way you will get a full party if you q with duty finder is 7 other ppl, with the correct composition, q in at the same time. Just make a party finder looking for sync-ed run. Coils are not included to mentor rou because it is considered between extreme and savage level raids.
6:02 one of my favorite tracks in the game is Spiral, seriously good baseline and synths followed by the Answers melody done with chimes. I forget exactly which fights it plays in specifically, but I have it on my jukebox in my player house lol.
Don't become a "synched minimum item level andy", just do what you want to. If you wanna spend all day chocobo racing, that is cool. I recommend checking out other stuff, but just do what you want =). FF14 is all about fun, community, and self expression. You don't have to play any particular way as long as you're having fun and not hurting other players. As for the poetics bonus. I'm happy and surprised you said it was there to help a new player. They're there for a variety of reasons, bonus for having to wait for the cut scenes, and they let you know someone is new so you can explain fights/boss mechanics (sometimes they're tricky).
Bell enjoys raiding, so i think him and his group going back to raid the things they missed because they weren't around for the first time -IS- what he wants to do.
@@frostmagemarii sounds good, Just wanted to put out that FF14 is and should be a low pressure game unless you want the pressure. If you're stuck or feel pressured into doing hard content simply because everyone else is, you don't have to and people shouldn't judge you for it. ;). If we make chocobo racing and island sanctuary really really popular maybe we'll be able to get Yda playing blitzball ;).
The reason the music in Final Fantasy is both so weird and so catchy is because Nobuo Uematsu (the original composer) was more influenced by prog rock and psychedelic rock than he was by classic music. Listening to the ancient NES soundtracks remixed as metal or rock sounds with modern instruments is really eye-opening. Naturally, the expansion Final Fantasy series is more than just a prog rock tribute, there are now tracks representing almost every know form of music. However, that original Uematsu touch is still admired by Soken, the FFXIV composer, and he does a great job keeping some of those influences and introducing his own black magic.
Just so you know, having all of each Coils for that tier unlocked at once is something you'll only encounter with Coils. It's the odd man out in that regard, not the rule. (Unless Savage or Ultimates do it. I can't speak to that. I've never done those.)
The lead writer for Coils (Natsuko Ishikawa) is the same head writer for the entire Shadow Bringers expansion. It was actually her writing skill in Coils that landed her the position of head writer for ShB. She's also responsible for Alchemist, Rogue, Crystal Tower, Dark Knight, and Azim Steppe questlines.
I think Bellular himself said something similar in comparing WoW to FFXIV. Something like, "WoW feels like a game that wastes your time, while FFXIV feels like a game you can waste time in."
lmaooo Bellular's continued take on FFXIV and his genuine surprise to the overall quality of the game is amazing! As an ex-WoW player myself that started playing about a year ago, seeing everyone come on over and experiencing FFXIV is one of the best moments I've ever had in any game! Seeing nearly my entire WoW guild in FFXIV and all of us playing again is awesome!! FFXIV is the home we've been wanting for years! I regret not switching sooner. WoW simply cannot compete with FFXIV anymore and I think Endwalker will cement FFXIV as the rightfully deserved top spot.
Fun fact: If you don't do coils before HW/SB Allisae treats you like a stranger when she joins the main plot but if you went through coil with her she treats you as a trusted friend after what you went through together in Coil.
I didn't know that neat
@@icefireobsidian7490 If you did one before the other, you can re-watch the cut-scenes at an inn room using "The Unending Journey" book. There is a "Quest Progression" checkbox for the HW cutscenes that allow you to see her dialog as if you haven't met her in Coils (off) or if you already have (on).
That is a seriously amazing detail they didn't even need to add in.
@@RothAnim So if I did Coil after, I can go back and rewatch cutscene as if I had done Coils? I was going to to do a New Game+ for HW eventually to see this and play through it as a Dragoon to see the Estinein scenes that differ as a dragoon. Yet, If I don't have to do this then that would be great.
There's even dialogue for if you don't finish coils. I got them unlocked but never did them cause I couldn't get a group together, so when she saw me she said something like "too bad we never finished coils but oh well, nice to see you again." (Paraphrasing obviously)
FFXIV: here's all the info you need in game to be a part of the story
Blizzard: here's an incomprehensible 30 second cutscene. Now go and buy threee books to understand what happened.
And the story in the actual books get tweaked, retconnected and fundamentally don't really matter for the game who just sets up the 'next big thing'.
@@AKImeru
Which you can tell, that Blizzard does not really have faith nor do not give a shit about their product(s).
@@flowtekGG When KH still has a more comprehensive story than WoW
@@Xport9 probably cuz everyone who originally created and wrote the product (when it was good) hasn’t been with the company in quite some time either.
Better hurry before we throw everything in those books out the window, 'cause writing is hard.
Can you imagine doing the Coils of Bahamut with your static, completing the bosses as you go and getting what story is there. But the Final Coil of Bahamut (Turn 3 & 4) is told through a £16.99 book?
That's what WoW does.
phew, so friggin true.
That sounds horrifying.
Actually, if Blizzard made Coils, you'd fight through the trash to the first boss.. kill it, then have to gain rep by multiple runs to unlock the 2nd boss etc. all the way up to the last boss which you'd *almost kill* then Thrall, or whoever would leap in and finish him off.
It’s all 💰
You're exaggerating. But you're also not wrong.
Coil is the closing chapter on 1.0, putting the finishing touches to the story of transition to 2.0. Any question you may have about what happened in the intervening 5 years between 1.0 and 2.0, any possible lingering plot points, are addressed and given a proper conclusion. As a legacy 1.0 player, this is why my favorite raid is Coil.
👍🏼
Dude, Turn 9 is literally the final battlefield where the legacy players fought Nael. That was such a nice touch to add in there.
The scene against bahamut with Answers playing, I stopped playing I just watched... oh my god lol
the only problem I have with coils is that its a kind of overlooked part of content because of the difficulty and it not being on the roulettes.
It’s also a perfect segue into Heavensward imo
I love how turn 3 sticks outlike a sore thumb. the original plan was for every phase of 8-man raids to have 5 parts with a trash phase in middle, but after players responded with basically "do we really need this?", the devs went "you know what? no, we don't" and from then on every phase of 8-man raid was 4 parts, all killer no filler
Imagine a multibillion video game corporation listening to feedback of (then) merely just thousands of players really. What a big surprise that ffxiv exploded the way it did.
@@TheShachimaru it also helps when your Dev is a raider as well. A lot of the raid issues and balance issues tend to get Yoshida and Co thinking and fixing the game towards player friendly aspects.
Sure there may be some issues, (like removing threat management) but in the end its always towards the health of the game.
@@everyonethinksyoureadeathm5773 completely agree. Also no ptr. All testing in house. Imagine that.
That would explain why Turn 3 was over in like 30 seconds for me when I did it unsynced solo when at least all the other ones were a legit adventure even at Level 80.
Except some 8 man's do have trash, looking at you Alexander
I find it so amusing that good king moogle mog, one of the more comical bosses, actually sets up a lot for people before coils with questions of what a primal actually is.
that's good king moggle mog the XII, mind you!
Forever may he reign!
Good king moggle mog. May his fervent soul lead us to eternal splendor
And it was done sort of by accident, as the Good King (long may he reign) was a replacement as Leviathan was delayed after the tsunami that rocked Japan.
I completely forgot about that! Can even recall that my reaction was sorta like: "Wait, so, the Moogles INVENTED a primal?"
Queue Coils and then the reveal in Heavensward, and things start to connect.
I’ll never get tired of hearing WoW players genuinely express amazement that the story is actually told in the video game. Like what kind of brain washing took place where it became a totally expected norm for the story to not be told in the video game lol.
It's kinda crazy! Speaking as a WoW vet, I honestly believed for a long time that telling a good story in an MMO just couldn't be done - the format didn't allow it, the gameplay didn't allow it, etc.
Then I played FF14, and I realized that you absolutely can, but only if you care enough to do so.
Remember that WoW engine is far older than FF14 and they didn't really get into in game story telling cinematics or character interactions until Wrath and later. There was good story telling in WoW at points but a lot of it was in quest text start and turn in for the most part, cause that's how it wasin early days. They were focued on making the entire world and giving you things to do. FF14 ARR more on story over other things, it shows in both good and bad. Sadly wow just went downhill.
Where the "I told you so" comes in handy.
@@sparhawk2195 Remember that FFXI is older than WoW, and also told amazing stories.
It isn't new.
@@Xanatrix well... WoW's engine is based on the Warcraft 3 engine, just built further... though I don't know if that qualifies within the context... but hey when it comes to the MMO context, sure.
Little fun fact the floor design in the Bahamut fight is based of the phylogenetic tree of life, and the outer ring represents Bahamut destroying all of it. Just goes to show how much detail is given into every aspect of this game.
If you think that is detailed, the stages only get more and more detailed and helpful in future raids.
I mean, it is a Final Fantasy game first in terms of design perspective, and THEN, it is a MMO, those details will always be amazing.
that is an avaerage final fantasy, detalis are their second name
The music of FF isn't just there to fill the background.
It tells a very deliberate story, it is written much like a play or movie - you have leitmotifs and themes that return and intermingle to reintroduce and hint at exactly what's going on. They are definitely important parts of the game... that many of them turn into these awesome, energetic pieces part way through is not a mistake, either.
Indeed, the music is part of the storytelling. Anytime you hear "Answers" playing in the game, its meant to bring back memories of that opening cutscene and everything to do with Bahamut.
Heavensward in particular has one recurring song that is a huge part of the narrative experience.
MINOR SHADOWBRINGERS SPOILERS
Even one off pieces tell a story. If you go into The Twinning dungeon after having run all the previous raids in the game, both the dungeon theme and the theme of the boss at the end are going to play into the narrative of that dungeon to an immense degree. Besides just being awesome music on their own.
There are so many things that repeat. You hear one song and you know this is planned to be kind of a goofy moment in the story, you hear this other song and that's basically the Ascian theme. The trailer and theme for Endwalker does this so well. There's parts in the trailer that are callbacks to previous expansions, so they use the leitmotif associated with that expansion and you get that feeling of Heavensward or Stormblood during those scenes.
Some leitmotifs are even recalled throughout the series, such as the chocobo theme, the prelude, and that one little track that is simply called "Final Fantasy".
FF has been about music from the very start.
World of Warcraft did this really well in the Nzoth fight and with Sylvanas fight as well! Cheers and glad youre enjoying your games music too
@@characterantula4868 Except with Nzoth and Sylvanas those are the exception not the rule. In FFXIV every major fight against a big story boss/raid boss or a primal since ARR has a song that not only is unique but tells a story or enhances the fight by following the action.
To comment on the sense of scale:
Each Turn of Coil's zone loading screen has a name and a 'X Yalms' displayed. That Yalms is your depth from the surface. Final Coil takes place 6,836 yalms below the surface. Since Yalms = Yards, you're about 3.88 MILES (6.25 km) underground during that fight. In contrast, the deepest shaft mine in the world, the Mponeng Gold Mine, is only 2.5 miles below ground at its lowest point.
Most of the community doesn’t do coils synced it’s all good. The story is really why you need to do it. Glad you enjoyed.
Gameplay of Coils nowadays is also not really good since rotations are very slow and clunky for lvl 50.
@@FarZeroDark still feeling it in roulettes, you don't even have to pay attention as a PLD to ace your LV 50 rotation (remember no Goring Blade yet).
@@randalica92 it’s even worse when you get dungeons like Haukke manor. Not that the dungeon is bad, but playing at level 43 is so awkward not having most of your cds like sentinel or HG. That’s why when going into most lower level content synced, I try to go on BLU bc it’s literally the same at every level lol.
@@randalica92 Tanks never really need to pay attention though. That attention is needed for defensive cooldowns and positioning.
@@thevoxdeus Is that coils, or in general? If it's in general that's not completely true. I don't know about coils because I've never synced it properly.
I once had a dude tell me that WoW must have a better story than FFXIV because there's a lot more lore videos for it on UA-cam
But it's like no
FFXIV just doesn't need all this supplemental material to enjoy the story
It's all _in the game_
“I shouldn’t have to make a video recapping the video that’s Recapping The Video!” To paraphrase Pyromancer.
It’s daft to think about looking back.
Used to think “wow, so many people talking about so much lore, it must be amazing!”
Now we see the truth… of “it takes this many people this much time and effort just to try and understand this mess of a story.”
Imagine -needing- so many lore channels to TRY understand a game’s story.
@@GmaerXQ and the loremasters we have in ff14 are very much the lurkers, whether its ethys and his popping up every so often, or anonimouse and his forum lurking.
@@GmaerXQ Funny enough, Pyro seems to be having some trouble understanding the story in FFXIV. Every time I tune in he's yelling at his chat to explain something or yelling at them for "spoiling" something that he should already know. I guess he's still used to the WoW style of story telling.
well not everything is in the game. theres a lot of extra lore in the eorzea enzeclopedia + the bonus story we get over an expansion going over the stories of the side characters. You dont really learn what Fordola does between stormblood and shadowbringers in the game but you can read the story online on the website. its not super important but it still exists though they are pretty short reads and not entire books.
@@ActionAbe1 You do learn what she's doing in the SMN quest line. You see her with Arenvald in game before the short story was even published.
Louisoix scenes in Coils is the first time I teared up in FFXIV. It's amazing. And Answers playing while fighting Bahamut makes so much sense, since Bahamut's children were sacrificed by the Allag, so it kind of serves as a somber song of grief that Bahamut's singing. Lyrics make perfect sense even from his point of view. Just beautiful writing. BTW. It's written by Ishikawa.
>the first time I teared up in FFXIV
But not the last, I'm sure.
@@aerotanlightpaw1183 for sure! lmfao
There's also the first time I cried. And also the first time I weeped in FFXIV... And the 10th time. LOL
@@aerotanlightpaw1183 be careful if you are going to play another final fantasy in the future then XD prepare your feelings lol
@@MelaniAlarcon I've played all of them but Revenant Wings and Tactics Advanced 2 😋
@@aerotanlightpaw1183 ohh, i see FFX and Crisis Core ending got me hard
Loisoux is the honorary dragoon. He performed the dopest of high jumps, killed a First Brood dragon incarnation and died immediately after. The truest dragoon this world has ever seen.
😱 You're right!
Does it count as dying if he never hit the ground?
@@UltimaKeyMaster he didn't hit the ground? Literally the worst floor tank.
@@JohnYoo39 didn't he became a sky tank though?
@@kzkaa. :O
I'm not sure if you did it yet given that it's an optional dungeon in ARR, but Tam-Tara Deepcroft (Hard) contains some interesting story moments too for some characters met at the very beginning of your adventure.
Highly recommended :)
Second this
Really, a good chunk of the "Hard Mode" dungeons are great to help tie up loose ends or expand on some stories left by the wayside, and I almost feel like they need more of them since they didn't really *have* that during Shadowbringers.
And the plot threads they pick up can be just straight-up *interesting*, too. (VAGUE SPOILERS BELOW)
-Sastasha Hard? Hey, remember those pirates? They're doing pirate stuff again.
-Copperbell Hard? Uh, yeah, can't really mine when there's still a really *BIG* problem there...
-Tam-Tara Hard? ...hey, remember that one party from waaaaaaaaaaaay back in the day? Wonder whatever happened to what's left of them...
It's story is continued in Palace of the Dead
Wait, does it? I must have forgotten everything
@@SlvrStryker you forgot Amdapor Hard having some especially /interesting/ bosses.
Fun thing of note regarding Poetics, it actually helps with the cooperation aspect that 14 is noted for. In WoW, when a new player to a dungeon or raid it's met with derision because the new person is seen to be holding people back. In 14, that bonus helps with a positive response (the term "newbie bonus" is a common response) and it also tells people "hey, new person here, good idea to explain stuff". Doesn't happen all the time, but it does happen and it's a good thing.
Plus for the people in between that are repeating content but have someone else explaining the fight, they're just there to go "oh shit free tomes, thanks newbie!" Everyone wins, the newbie gets experience and story, the teacher gets to feel good about teaching, and everyone gets money.
@Urazz Aurum Vale: Allow us to introduce ourselves
The Best bit of a lot of these raid stories is they add so much to the story, without being required to understand things moving forward. They are a great way to close out stories if you want it.
Wooo! Glad you got to experience it!
They do enhance the experience if you do them though, like doing the Alexander and Omega raid series helps fit some story pieces together for Shadowbringers. I believe the lead writer Ms. Ishikawa has also advised people to make sure they've done Omega before Endwalker.
@@CrashB111 Considering the *very clear* Omega tech robot that shows up at the end of the Benchmark, that's very obvious :3
Alexander is the only 12 Boss raid that feels disconnected from the MSQ. Everything else feels connected. I feel Alexander is going to come back in a huge way in a future expansion. Eden is my favorite raid series. It's a nice ending t I Shadowbringers. Because yes, you stopped the Sin Eaters, and saved Norvrandt, but the world doesn't feel completely saved and the story doesn't feel over until you complete Eden. I loved it.
And yes I know about Alexander's connection to the Exarch and the Crystarium. I am talking more about Mide and her boyfriend who go back in time together. I feel that will have a whole expansion based on it, or at least a raid or adventuring foray like Bojza and Eureka.
@@Gunplabro Alexander is connected storywise to Shadowbringers. Specifically, the Twinning dungeon and lore around it explain the how and why.
there is an option in the settings that you can check off to auto skip all previously viewed cut scenes. it saves time when farming while allowing you to view it to completion the first time. you can also do the same thing to travel cut scenes like the airship/boat/ferry. along with the housing cut scenes.
The only thing i dont like about coils is that its not mandatory (maybe make an easy version for story purposes). Coils essentially contains the true ending of 1.0 and 2.0 (also alisae will treat you like a friend if you did it before you meet her again).
Issue is that it is too hard for casual content. It's basically Savage tier.
It also changes how a number of scenes play out, including a good chunk of dialogue on SB and ShB with Alisae.
It's not difficult at all if you blaze it at 70+ unsycnhed. Only t9 requires a team effort because you cannot ignore meteors
@@miau384 Yeah, unless they revamped it to have 'story' tiers, like all the other raids, it would be a total nightmare to make it mandatory. I still remember all the complaining for the original steps of faith, which was legitimately pretty hard, but not coils level. It was more like a standard hard trial level. Even that was getting SE lots of flak from the userbase so they nerfed it into the ground... really wish they would restore it for a hard mode version. Doesn't help matters that coils is so atypical when it comes to raids they completely revamped the system for the next expansion and have pretty much used the altered system ever since.
Something to consider is many players don’t know 1.0 exists at all. So it doesn’t carry the same weight it does to people who played 1.0. As someone who played ARR without having touched 1.0, I think some of the weakest writing in ARR is where they expect you to know or care about certain characters, like Cid, when you have no idea who they are. For 1.0 players it was probably very exciting and the writers were coming at it with this mindset and I don’t think it was necessarily a bad motivation or overall terrible execution, but for me the part of ‘omg it’s some random guy’ and then it goes into Cid’s backstory I was just wondering ‘why… do I care?’ Once a friend explained, I understood, but it still felt weird to me. Especially because now that 1.0 doesn’t exist at all, not knowing what happened in 1.0 is standard, not the exception.
The only thing I don't like about coils is they made it so you can miss the phase transition if you have the camera the wrong way.
To be fair, there was a fair bit of "mystery endings" when you were doing the raids as they came out, before all the turns were playable. Particularly after you beat Twintania and watch the subsequent cutscene, it's a big tease that didn't get resolved for months, especially since we knew a lot less about the Allagans than we do now. But yes, it's still satisfying that it was all tied up in the game itself through your journey as the WoL, and getting to unravel the mysteries yourself as you play.
The difference is in FF you know you will eventually get an in-game explanation of what's happening whereas in WoW this is often not the case either because Blizzard choose to reveal too little or what you need to know is behind an additional paywall in a book. I could only follow the WoW story because of videos and wikis. I had to go outside the game to understand what was happening in the game. FF gives you what you need IN THE GAME.
But the writing was all done, the raid makers just had to catch up.
It's different when the writer hasn't actualy written the resolution yet, and you can tell.
I'm not trying to criticize XIV or The Binding Coil here, by the way. I think it was handled well. Just saying the perspective is a bit different when doing the content while it's out--there's plenty of "mystery" in there. I think it was explored in a satisfying way over the months it unfolded.
@@AnonSeacat I think what people are pointing out is there's a big difference between building up a single raid's content and building up something random you need a book to show you.
You know you're getting the former eventually.
This is the crucial difference, though: they were introducing mysteries that, logically, should be solved by *the end of the content cycle*. And then they were, and it was good and satisfying.
Blizzard has, for a very long time, been utterly terrified of conclusively ending anything, because they're terrified of the idea of Warcraft seeming like it's going to "end". Or at leas,t perhaps, the executives are, and that filtered down to how the line developers work on and write the content.
One thing about this game is that now you did coils there are changes to cutscenes later that will be different because you did coils
Woah really? That’s really cool. I haven’t done them because I wanted to get through the story before endwalker.
@@TheMetroidblade When you go to an inn and rewatch cutscenes there is a check box on some that say reflect quest progress, this is for quests that affect each other, coils affect one that was recent, as in post shadowbringer questline, and I think there are some earlier ones too.
@@TheMetroidblade when you meet Aliscae in the MSQ she will treat you like a stranger if you didn't do coils. If you did coils she will instantly recognize you and treat you as a friend.
It is neat but don’t oversell it. It is just a few words that are different not like a different cutscene.
@@shinon748 thats bollocks, she recognized me from the time they both met me for the first time.
Not only do you get Poetics, but more importantly in my opinion helping new players do fresh new content also earn you Wondrous Tails Second Chance points, which you unlock after meeting a certain Miqo child in Heavensward, it's a simple stamp minigame that earns you a bunch of EXP, Tomestones, Maps, Items, MGP the whole lot, it's a really nice extra incentive to help out new people.
I wanna clarify something real quick: The reason you unlock every floor when you unlock the raid is because this is old content.
All the future raids will have you progress and unlock sequentially, but once they are unlocked you have them.
Except savage, which is all unlocked at once (when you clear the normal mode and you do the relevant savage unlock quest)
When a current raid tier comes out, you **have** to progress sequentially through each floor on savage every week. There are caveats, such as someone with the second floor done taking a freshie into the third floor, and so on, but yea. Those lockouts get removed sometime in the odd patch, usually near the very end (the community wants it fully unlocked in the odd patch as it comes out, but we'll get there when we get there, yoshi p please)
What really helps FF's story is that, within the context of the story, everyone acts naturally, everyone feels human. Humans that can use magic, of course, but there's still a logical, sensible train of thought that the characters take the actions that they do. They don't just get cosmic inhuman God like powers, they're just normal humans.
Hey, sometimes a character with cosmic inhuman godlike power can be a very interesting character, especially as you come to understand their history and motivations.
I don't know where you're at in FF14, but I'll leave it at that vagueness.
@@jaeusa160 I'm primed to enter Endwalker actually. It still feels very much like everyone is just human. Even _Redacted_.
Glad to hear you enjoyed Coils! The next ones will be really fun as well!
If you think about stormblood, the "Trash" equivalent are done in a single player instance while you are unlocking the raids.
Honestly you should try every hard mode dungeon and new raid/instance whenever you can because they're _all_ good but definitely each expansion's alliance/raid.
The high level members just auto attacking is I think a great balance between getting a feel of the fight and getting to know the story quickly. Coils was too difficult when it was first released and many players complained that they just wanted to see the story, so they came up with Savage difficulty later for hardcore players and made normal mode easy to clear.
Really? The original coil was Savage level diffculty. Wow!
The joy Bellular gets from discovering ff14 is so much fun. Just the shock of seeing a functional MMO actually living up to and exceeding expectations. You can just see his energy being raised from his copium detox.
Imagine being given Valor points [uncapped weekly even] for simply helping first time dungeon clears/"sprouts" in WoW. Would make those normal and heroic qeues that much more interesting and rewarding. Or hell, even seeking out new players to help get them through the content.
It would also give incentive to bring in these new kids to the guilds to farm their newness. End result being more new blood for guilds and helping a healthy inflow of community members.
Is it just me or does Bellular look...happier? Like I don't mean just expression and voice.
His skin is like looking healthier with a glow and he seems to be more fit?!
Like I'm in a relationship and all but he's looking good! Better than before imo, like DAYUM
Preach, rich, and asmongold all started looking better. WoW was stressing them out far too much with all the retention systems and terrible story hooks.
@@keiichimorisato98 Pyromancer as well is living healthier over all. It's like wow sucked the soul out of them.
@@keiichimorisato98 Oh don't even get me started with how dreamy that stache is looking on Rich haha
@@azolvi3473 and it didn't have to be like that, the gameplay, dungeons, bosses, and raids are all top tier. If they can work on improving the player experience in other areas, and make it less grind, they might be able to recover. But from the recent changes, recovery is a long ways a way, if at all...
It's so nice seeing all the WoW players who've transitioned to FF14 (myself included) seeing just how much can actually been done in an MMO's story when the developers actually care about it.
I just finished crystal tower and patch 2.55… holy shit, time to start heavensward.
Wow has never emotionally come close to this quality of story telling
Just a tidbit to get you excited for the future, Bellular : the main writer for the Coils storyline, Natsuko Ishikawa, has become the main writer for the Main Story Quest starting in Shadowbringers, and will continue her work in Endwalker. She's also famous as being the one that wrote the Dark Knight quest line - frequently lauded as the best Job Quest Line in the game.
So yea... you're in for a treat! ;)
That raid is crazy with detail. Bahamut is standing on top of the tree of life and phylogenic trees of every species radiates from the center and terminates at the ring of fire, signifying the catastrophe.
Next time you run the final coil, look at the floor in Bahamut's arena.
Then realize the pure symbolism of the burning ring of fire that acts as the edge of the arena and will kill you if you touch it is also terminating the phylogenetic tree.
The floor itself is a flippin' metaphor.
Damn this video dropping the same day EW's alliance raid got a new little blurb on the main site feels poetic. Resolving plots that occur naturally in the world indeed.
Just like how Endwalker is releasing on the day of a full moon.
"The music is so much more "out" then I'm used to...Garuda has vocals!"
Oh you sweet summer child. Your mind will be blown by the end of MSQ.
For a WoW refugee, Garuda for me was the moment that really set in the feeling of "wait, they are really going all out on regular story bosses?", where they are not just small little steps in the storyline with reused generic combat music like most games (not just MMOs) handle it, but instead they are hyping each and every larger boss encounter as something special. It's a shock to the whole system, this realization that yes, games can actually do this if the developers care enough. And when these songs each tell another piece of the story... just wow.
@@thesunthrone The first thing I talk about with WoW homies: the FF14 boss mount drops: play the boss music. So good.
@@walrus2193 And that's why Susanoo one is my favorite mount, it have the phase 2 music who is much quieter than the others mounts but also more fitted for a long travel
Your thought about sowing the seeds makes a lot of sense. FF14 started, in Yoshi P's words, with over confidence and it not only hurt the game, it almost ruined the entire brand of final fantasy. Yoshi's approach in the 1.X patches all the way until now have just been "let's plant our seeds, let's start a nice little garden" and now it's this greenhouse of a really lovely game and it's Square's most profitable final fantasy. And it's because he and the dev team treated it with the time and care it needed to grow and be the game it is now.
What you say about having all the information needed to understand something in the moment, but later learning new information that gives you a new apreciation for those older scenes (which you can, of course, replay to your heart's content later) is actually something that happens A LOT in this game.
Like, I really enjoy watching people play through the story, and after finishing Shadowbringers there's just SO MUCH you notice and understand that you didn't before. Details, nuance, certain phrasings or dialogue lines... It's amazing. I've actually rarely seen this in any medium ever, period.
Watching this... and along other people's reactions to just the way XIV tells its stories and I'm starting to believe that dedicated WoW-only people have been Stockholm'd by legit bad game design. Hearing you talk about story has me shrugging like "you mean conventional narrative structure found in plenty of video games?" and it really makes me wonder just what the hell kind of experience people have over in WoW.
From what I can gather, you literally can't start in 1.0 of WoW unless you are playing specifically vanilla, all content before BFA is locked out from being playable at all. You start in BFA, and once you get to a certain level, you are locked out it and are forced into Shadowlands.
@@keiichimorisato98 Wrong. That is entirely wrong. Go play the game. You can play every single part of wow if you level normally. You don't 'start' in BFA, you start in a beginner zone, then you have the option of leveling in previous expansions, or you start the BFA quest. But you can always go back and play the other expansions assuming you have the proper level.
1.0 in WoW is not like Ff14. it doesnt not have a 'story' line. it has individual quest that weave a story. Campaign quest didnt really come around until Wrath. Even in TBC, story is told through quest, that are not specified as a 'story' line. Plus quest and content are changed and taken out. So context and the experience changes if you werent around before it changed.
This is why classic WoW has such a mass appeal.
Its like if you want to go play Legion, you can go do that. You arent 'locked' out of it by anything other than player level.
@Jay Bee I have played WoW, I played during Cata, MoP, and WoD, though each time I never made it past level 20.
@Jay Bee Well it's just that certain content DOES get locked out after a point. Once you hit Lv. 25, you will never see Deadmines again on that character, even if you really liked the content. A lot of content is irrelevant because so much of it is just gaining experience to level, rather than experiencing a story. There's no real objective to complete besides hitting max level. Anything you collect in these dungeons also feels irrelevant as you'll find gear that replaces it in the next 15 minutes.
Lv. 1-49 is like that in FF too, but as soon as you hit an expansions level cap, you can use the tomestone pieces for pretty much an entire expansion. I never needed to replace my Lv. 50 gear in Heavensward until about Lv. 58-59, since it was that high in item level.
@Jay Bee That might be true to an extent. What I can say from my time playing WoW is that I came into it at a time (Legion) when there was already a ton of pre-existing lore that was overwhelming to wrap my head around, but the zones themselves told the stories in a very loose and open-ended way. There wasn't a lot of structure to it, at least in the earlier content. And for me subjectively, I prefer a more structured narrative, since I'm more used to playing JRPGs. I played TBC Classic and felt that even more (the raids were fun, though!)
I also loved games like the Baldur's Gate series and KotOR, mind you, so I appreciate the western approach too, but even they had their big set pieces. The minimalist, explorative approach doesn't appeal to me as much unless it's executed very well, where WoW felt a little disjointed. That was a game I definitely played in order to play with friends, keep up with content, do dungeons and raiding, and overall get involved in a wider community.
The focus in XIV feels very different since the MMO aspects are all still there, but there is a story and a presentation to rival even great single player games at the heart of the MSQ, and then there are all the MMO elements on top of that. Perhaps because I'm already a fanboy of the franchise and a bit of a weeb, none of the quirky stuff seemed out of place to me, but what I will say is that while in WoW I felt like I had to power through the repetitive parts to reach the better stuff, XIV kept me engaged nearly effortlessly the whole time.
In fact I'd still be playing it now if I didn't 1. have other games in my backlog I'm working on and 2. spend a good chunk of time playing other games with friends and working.
Note - Coils (and ARR in general) is unique among FF14 expansions in that there are lengthy, story-driving cutscenes in the middle of raids and dungeons that interrupt gameplay. Heavensward raid series "Alexander" has a few, but not nearly to the degree and length that Coils does - they save the more lengthy story cutscenes for between raids, out-of-instance.
The still HAVE the story, but you don't have to have the rest of your raid team waiting for 5-10 minutes while you watch a cutscene, so there's not that biting urge to skip and not keep your party waiting.
if theres one thing i love about ff compared to wow its feeling like my character is actually important
The edge of Bahamut's arena is really neat. It's a demonstration of an evolutionary tree just within the boundary, and then at and past the boundary denotes a *mass extinction event* where most of those evolutionary lines just *end*.
WoW: "Here's five seconds of CGI we paid a billion dollars for to tell you to buy the new book for $59.99 thank you goodbye."
FF14: *seven hours of IN-ENGINE cutscenes retcon-explaining how the fuck all that shit happened and then establishing new lore*
Also there is a great setting where you auto skip already seen cutscenes.
This option is amazing until there is a transition cut scene you you forget about like the last boss in Aetherochemical Research Facility and accidentally pull the boss well a 🌱 is watching it
@@darkdelusion This is why you look at your party list or just simply keep an eye out for the beginning of the run being in the middle of your screen going "HEY A PERSON HASNT DONE THIS YET"
@@azolvi3473 Normally I am pretty good about but comply spaced on the transition
Correction regarding the Poetics, the bonus reward of +100 is only granted once. However you will still earn between 10-30 Poetics even if you've done it before. Meaning you'll always get at least some Poetics if you do ANY old content that's at least for level 50.
Love all your input and have followed you for many years through your WoW coverage. So glad to have you here in Eorzea with us, Bellular!
Fun part about Poetics is that some content that didn't touch the system previously can be changed to use Poetics as a form of catch-up. HW Relics can be done in an afternoon if you spend the 14k poetics in advance for the items. There is *always* something to buy with poetics and you should never cap them.
You do get poetics for lvl 50+ content, even if replaying/farming it. You just get a bonus chunk if one player has yet to complete the duty. Similar for the newer stones: You do get some stones from the appropriate duties, but many more with the daily roulette.
Why is every single new FFXIV player surprised at how good things are? We literally say it all the time.
People just assume you're drunk on your own sauce, so you're in no state to give an objective assessment. Then they realize that no, that IS a fairly objective assessment, and you get to sit back with a smug "I told you so" lol.
They are used to wow and general bias copium that brush it off as just bias for your own game.
People are surprised because people in general have a bias towards things that they enjoy. If someone enjoys New World, they will tell everyone how good they think it is, but not everyone will think the same. There is also the problem with the rabid fan-base that XIV breeds, they are far more willing to attack people who would even say other games are okay (i've seen enough times to know its not one-off situations); so that makes people less likely to trust.
Basically, the FFXIV fans are their own worst enemy when it comes to getting people interested in XIV.
Because many have difficulty understanding that any mmo that isn't as big as WoW has anything better to offer.
My thoughts exactly
On the topic of being able to select the fights you want - in the later xpacs, the normal mode is unlocked sequentially (each fight is a quest that unlocks the next) while the savage version of raids are weekly locked behind progression while they're current. So while you'll be able to always select whichever normal mode fight you want once you've unlocked all the fights, you still have to do savage fights turn by turn for about four months unless you piggyback off someone else's progression and forego getting weekly loot from earlier turns.
this is mostly a bi product of japanese games, where many times, the cutscene is the reward.
Of course, raids give you gear and whatnot but in a big way the story is a big part of the overall exp.
This is kinda the truth for me as a player of jRPGs in general throughout the last couple decades. I played the game to get the story reward. The actual gameplay I wanted to get through, because that next cutscene and next story beat was waiting for me. Gear? Collectables? Nah, I want to see how the plot evolves. The story is the main reason I play FF14 now. Sure, I do enjoy doing various things in game(Hm. Imagine having things to do in game that are not tied to furthering your end game raiding, but can just be done.) but the plot is the focus for me.
The best part of the music is that even it adds to the lore of whatever fight it's a part of. With primal fights, it's either the primal singing (Garuda, Shiva), the adds singing (King Moggle Mog XII), or the primal's followers singing (Titan, Leviathan). For "Answers" in the Bahamut fight, it's supposed to be Hydaelyn herself singing. It's why I always promote players looking into lyrics for a lot of the themes for fights in FFXIV, because those lyrics can help explain some additional details.
Also a fun fact, the singer for the Shiva theme was used as the model for the primal. So it's not just her voice she provided to the primal, but her face as well.
Personally, WoW has felt like they are just throwing story beats at the wall and seeing what sticks. Like a lot of people, I stopped playing in Warlords of Draenor, it felt like that whole storyline was undoing a lot of the established lore and just rehashing old content. I felt like that expansion purposefully obsfucated what was canon and really opened the door to a lot of bad story telling. I'm just waiting for the next expansion cycle to magically find a way to add Deathwing 2.0 to the game.
The FF14 story has felt earned over years of playing. The twists make sense and are often foreshadowed, surprising moments are wonderous rather than feeling like a blindside. Expansion stories, raids and dungeons all feel like self contained stories that make sense both alone and as a part of the larger world. It's a game that is constantly building on its own lore and rewards players that invest their time rather than tearing it all down and making players start from scratch with endless unexplained retcons.
The main suggestion I make is: Do the Dark Knight quests. They're amazingly well written. 50-60, the Heavensward section, is a tearjerker. Many of the class quests are well written - Warrior 60-70 being an exception - but of the ones I've played only Dark Knight and Samurai brought me to tears.
Be prepared, Bellular. Heavensward is a much more emotional experience than ARR.
About the "minilvl no echo sync" thing:
WoW took until 2018 to institute a "party sync" mechanic. In an extremely limited capacity.
FF14 has had this system _from launch_ since 2013 and it's such an ingrained, foundational part of the game's progression system and content management that it's just normalized beyond conscious thought for most players. It's such a good system that it's almost insulting that Blizz took FIVE FUCKING YEARS to steal it.
I've been thoroughly enjoying hearing all your thoughts on XIV. I'm really excited to hear what you think of Heavensward and on.
The one thing I'd ask for is that you do more spoiler discussion. You can segment it out like you did with this video where the first half is non-spoiler and the second half is full spoiler discussion. This is obviously coming from my perspective as someone who has played the game for over 8 years now. I love hearing what people think of the narrative because it's narrative is just so strong!
Great to hear you liked the Coils =) hope you will enjoy the Story of the Raids to come as well
I bet hes gonna love alexander
just to clarify on your comment on turn/boss selection.
when they are current and savage difficulty (look for HW and onwards), you have to do them in turn to get to then next fight in current tier. so 3 fights to get to the 4th.
they just remove that barrier when it's no longer current so people can do the fight they want. they also remove the loot restriction.
Pretty crazy how well the FF team can tell a story, and don't fear closing the chapter on any of them because they know they can just tell more stories.
The tomestone boost for new players is both to help them acquire them for endgame-ish gear of that portion of the game (lvl 50, 60, 70 and just before Endwalker launches 80), but it also encourages veteran players to run older content too.
Don't feel pressured about the synced version and the usual wankery people fabricate around it. As long as you got the story you've gotten the most important bits out of it. You can get into synced raids later, as they aren't going anywhere.
"there is no speculation to do"
And that is something that Pyromancer does not understand :O
and for the raids, Coils are unique iin that, you get whole wing uncovered, while later (Alexander, alpha/deltascape, Eden), you have to uncover one boss at a time, during story.
Although, it's funny to see Pyromancer think he knows what's going to happen and be completely wrong. "Oh, this is a major spoiler they've done!" No, no it isn't. He just thinks it is because he's done some speculation with very limited knowledge very far in advance. He hasn't even finished 4.0 and he thinks he knows how 5.0 is going to play out.
Even some of his notes are incorrect. Back in ARR, there's a cutscene where Nanamo and Raubahn talk about Omega and refer to it as "like Ultima". The next stream, he was talking about that cutscene and he called it Ultima 2. The chat said that the name was spoken in the cutscene. He was adamant it wasn't because of his notes. He was like, "that's probably something that's in a later cutscene." It wasn't. I rewatched the scene in the inn. The name is literally the first word Nanamo speaks. Why he doesn't hit screenshot to have a record of the dialog, I don't know. I've done that on many occasions, like the Rising event a few years back where we got little notes from the developers and various departments, like art or sound. I wanted a record of everything they said, so I took screenshots of all of it and put it into a folder.
@@tjl9458 Pyromancer writes a ton of notes and yet he fails to pick up on some very basic story telling. I had to stop watching him because every hour he'd get mad and yell at his own chat for "spoiling" something when it really was something he should have known but didn't retain. Like when Ardbert said that the 13th and the Void was the World of Darkness. Pyro couldn't remember that it was all explained in the CT storyline and yelled at his own chat and mods for spoiling him. He also misses things because he's writing notes, like when he missed the WoL refusing to drink Aymeric's wine, then he acted like a complete ass and told his chat that they were stupid and that he didn't miss anything. How would he know what he did or didn't miss if his head was down writing notes, notes that are probably wrong or that he won't remember the next day? Maybe WoW rotted his brain or something but I think him getting to 5.0 is going to be a lesson in frustration for everyone involved as he won't be able to pick up on anything. He couldn't even understand how Thordan used the eye and had to argue with his chat at the end of 3.0, how is he going to understand Shadowbringers?
@@GetterRay I can't stand his approach to notetaking. It's no wonder he misses stuff if he's taking notes mid-cutscene. It interrupts the whole flow of the scene. I remember someone suggested him taking notes after the fact and he yelled at chat.
I love content creators saying they love the early game. Everyone who knows, knows it just gets better and better. By the time you finish current content you will be thrilled for Endwalker.
Less than 30 days baybeeeeee
i find it so annoying when people say this. Like, just let people like Bellular or Asmon or Preach express how happy they are with the game and how they enjoyed whats happened instead of always chiming back with "you havent seen nothing yet it only gets better wait till X" like he's already sold stop trying to be so pushy about it and invalidating what he just said was good for him
@@huslainemaxwell9866 Or stop being a fearmonger about ARR in general, especially to wow vets who are used to grinds.
@@huslainemaxwell9866 What are you talking about? I'm clearly saying I like that he's enjoying the game and I'm happy they will enjoy it more. How is that pushy?
My favorite part of my first run of Coils was when all the veterans in my group misremembered a mechanic and walked into a kill wall. All of the sprouts were so confused, just trying to burn down the boss.
Not sure if this is a spoiler but about those poetics, we still use them for relevant content at level 80.
For gear to equip; not now but after EW drops. They are still always useful though. If nothing else you can exchange them for gear, turn that in for seals at your GC, then use those to buy things you turn for some quick gil on the marketboard.
@@brighteyesseven1071 And a weapon.
@@stevenbasarowich3429 Yes. I was trying to be brief and used the most common/useful example (particularly for all the lv80 GC Privates I see running around, lolz.) Ofc, all the usual suspects... glams, minions, housing items...
5:58 regarding the comment about skippable cutscenes for the repeat runs. There is a neat feature in the settlings here - Character config > Control settings > Skip playback of previously viewed scenario cutscenes. Its a really nice QOL feature that some newer players may not be aware of :) no need to always hit esc on the subsequent runs! ^^ all the best.
The importance of poetics for the heavensward relic weapons means I always have something to sink them into
Don't forget to do your Wondrous Tails when you get to HW. If your a crafter speak to her sister Zhloe. Such an adorable quest line. Highly recommended. One of my favorite quests in FF. But it takes a few weeks to unlock all the content but well worth it.
I'm so happy that you have such a great time with the game. Can't wait for more of your impressions. The game has so much awesome content.
For as you go forward, something I'd like to point out that I don't think is made super clear in the game is that unlike WoW, certain pieces of content in the game are gated by older pieces of content because of story and lore connections, even if the locked content may be in another expansion. The biggest example of this I've found so far is that one of the Shadowbringers end game areas requires that you have completed the Stormblood 24-man alliance raid content before you will have any option to unlock it.
But there's also some stuff like the ARR Hildibrand quest chain where the initial story appears to be kind of a goofy comedy piece that personally didn't hit for me, with the rewards being mostly cosmetic. After the first chunk of it, I put it off indefinitely, only to discover down the line when collecting Triple Triad cards that there are several trial encounters that unlock during the full Hildibrand line. Another smaller example is that some of the vendors involved in end game turn-ins (I think mostly around Rowena) won't unlock in later expansions until you have unlocked them in each of the preceding ones. So if you've only unlocked the ARR one, you may not see the option to unlock the Stormblood version until you've also opened the Heavensward variant.
Basically what it comes down to is, it's a really good idea, both from a game systems and story perspective, to do as many of the + quests as you encounter them as possible. I realize that there's probably a very strong desire to reach Endwalker before the launch of the expansion, but I just wanted to get across that there can, and surprisingly often is, merit to at least unlocking the content in order, if not completing it. I took the WoW mentality of "push through, the latest systems won't need the old stuff anyway" and I really regret not only missing some really great story content, but all the time I ended up spending trying to untangle which quests were pre-requisites on the wiki when I went looking for something mentioned in a Shadowbringers Live Letter that I had never seen pop up despite being at the end of the MSQ.
Can you keep giving updates on where you are in the story? I'd love to hear your thoughts on the msq as it develops throughout heavensward and not just all at the end
On the content via menu. It doesn't work like that.
Once you do the endgame savage stuff you gotta do them in order. If you'd start with wing 3 for example you can't get your weekly loot from 1 and 2. Until echo comes out.
Hey, y'all mentioned skipping the cutscenes for future, snappier runs... y'all do know there's a "skip already seen cutscenes" option, right? Never have to watch or skip a cutscene you already seen before. 👍🏻
You point at 12:30 (or so) is the thing that is crazy to me. WoW has 16 years of amazing content that is either never seen again, or is solo-raided by someone who literally one shots everything as they try for a transmog or a mount drop. Right before SL dropped at the end of BFA I started doing Firelands to get the Staff to give my Druid the Fire Cat form. I didn't play Cata until late, so I'd never been in there before, so I just ran though and Moonfired everything and collected mogs. Such a shame that as a player of 17 years who missed a few raid tiers that I will never be able to do those again in any sort of form that even closely resembles how it was back in the day. Its such a missed opportunity.
Do you realize how OLD the content you're doing? It's still so good.
That GShade preset is doing wonders for the cinematic stuff man goddamn
The stormblood* 24 man raids on scale level will blow your mind :)
You mean Stormblood, actually bloodstorm would have been a good name!
@@oriain81 haha I didn't even notice. All that tomestone blu farming last night has my brain rattled.
One thing I enjoyed doing, as a former WoW raider, was watching the evolution of XIV's 8-man raiding from its WoW-like origins in Coil to its present state, as well as its bifurcation into normal and savage tiers to improve story accessibility.
So glad you got to enjoy the lore of Coils. When you get to Heavenward, be sure to do The Warring Triad raids. There are past and future payoffs tied to this; and I think implications we haven’t even seen yet as of the end of Shadowbringers.
Specifically, on a means to save the 13th shard.
And if you haven't completed the SHB role quests it's also a good idea to do all 4 of them and the follow up 5th too! I've met a lot of people who didn't know there was a 5th, and a very important 5th questline it is. One of the most important optional quests in XIV lore wise. It's pretty cool!
I highly recommend doing every raid, both normal and alliance, from hereon. They may be optional, but the storytelling and world building and the lore they contain is astonishing. Same goes for class/job quests, including DoH/DoL quests; they each bring their own thing and build it up. The non-combat classes particularly, since their interactions help build political and cultural lore and understanding. Not only that, the non-combat classes unlock their own mini-storylines in the form of Custom Deliveries, and of the one's I've completed, the very first one you unlock is one I absolutely adore.
I'm sure others already have tips for you, but for DoH/DoL, a quick passive way to level them up, is to either get a friend/FC member to craft/collect HQ items for you, or if you're a spendthrift, buy them straight off the marketboard, and do the daily Grand Company hand-ins. NQ items usually give about 25-75% of your current level (for the item type/class being handed in), while HQ gives around 50-100% of your current level. Just doing this alone is enough to match your non-main combat classes in leveling, IMO, so if you start early, they'll get up there fast.
“Yeah not all of them!” The pure pain in this man’s voice.
A pain most of share.
Don't forget Michael, Bahamut is one of the three ultimate fights ;)
Also, Louisoix does mention something that is later expanded on if you play Summoner.
Edit: The bosses also drop items to craft very good level 50 gear (also used for glam), so crafters even have a reason to go in there on a combat job.
FFXIV does 'making a fight feel epic', better than any other MMO out there. It may not BE epic, but it certainly feels it thanks to the music and story
I feel like the writing team at Blizz is weirdly fixated on the big bad guy, the thanos, the poster child. They look at TBC and WotLK and think "hmm, what made this so good" whilst staring at the box art. Then suddenly it dawns on them. "Since we can't put Illidan on the cover for a 4th time, we just need to make a new big bad guy."
But making a new big bad guy takes tons of development and foreshadowing, so what are they going to do? They're going to make everything super convoluted and mysterious. Make him 7 parallel universes ahead of us, because thats like our one weakness as champyuns of Azeroth - bad writing.
I watched this vid yesterday and today I got a level 80 friend to do Coils with me (lvl 52 sprout) unsynced. He hadn't actually unlocked the third coil so we both were in for a nice treat and man did it deliver!
I love watching you being excited like it was Christmas morning opening up your toys. I’m so glad a lot of new people have gotten a chance to play FF14. Just remember FF14 has ALWAYS, been great, it just a lot of people were blinded by WoW smoke and mirrors.
It really is interesting how many player are amazed if the a game like Final Fantasy XIV shows most of its story in the game itself.
As a player who grew up playing JRPGs and I still do by the way, the stories are mostly told in a complete manner in game without looking for wikis or some other sources outside the game. It is to be expected that the whole is in the game.
Although, ironically, a recent mainline Final Fantasy game that I've played. Which was XV did try the opposite of this approach and it made most of the fanbase a bit upset. Thankfully, the Royal Edition fixed that issue a bit.
As solo player, I wish they made these mandatory. Queue is so long, even for healer, so I've only done one Turn so far.
I've done the first two coils solo at 80. I've yet to try the final coil, but I'll give it a shot this week. There were some sore spots that were difficult to solo, and it'd probably be faster to queue in the duty finder, or start a listing in the party finder, or just ask a couple of lads in the ol FC, but I'm just naturally a solo player.
I'd like them mandatory if they had scaled down versions. As it is now you just have to use Party Finder to do them not queueing in the Duty Finder. Which means I will never do them.
If you are planning to do this sync, do it with party finder. Coils are not included in mentor roulette so no mentors will even pop in to help. The only way you will get a full party if you q with duty finder is 7 other ppl, with the correct composition, q in at the same time. Just make a party finder looking for sync-ed run. Coils are not included to mentor rou because it is considered between extreme and savage level raids.
6:02 one of my favorite tracks in the game is Spiral, seriously good baseline and synths followed by the Answers melody done with chimes. I forget exactly which fights it plays in specifically, but I have it on my jukebox in my player house lol.
It's the trash mob battle theme, a variation of the ambient theme Primal Timbre.
Don't become a "synched minimum item level andy", just do what you want to. If you wanna spend all day chocobo racing, that is cool. I recommend checking out other stuff, but just do what you want =). FF14 is all about fun, community, and self expression. You don't have to play any particular way as long as you're having fun and not hurting other players.
As for the poetics bonus. I'm happy and surprised you said it was there to help a new player. They're there for a variety of reasons, bonus for having to wait for the cut scenes, and they let you know someone is new so you can explain fights/boss mechanics (sometimes they're tricky).
Bell enjoys raiding, so i think him and his group going back to raid the things they missed because they weren't around for the first time -IS- what he wants to do.
@@frostmagemarii sounds good, Just wanted to put out that FF14 is and should be a low pressure game unless you want the pressure. If you're stuck or feel pressured into doing hard content simply because everyone else is, you don't have to and people shouldn't judge you for it. ;). If we make chocobo racing and island sanctuary really really popular maybe we'll be able to get Yda playing blitzball ;).
I could barely hear Answers in the background in the music section and it still gave me chills
Good to see he’s still a cat girl. I wonder if he’s grown attached to his character now that he’s gone this far xD
Once you go cat girl you never go back :)
@@darkdelusion preacher did lol. He was a cat girl for the night club he did recently and bought a fantasia after to switch back to Roe.
Well at least until Femgar comes out-catmomma 😈
@@aerieleah533 Clearly a man of culture.
@@aerieleah533 LOL once you go FemRoe....
The reason the music in Final Fantasy is both so weird and so catchy is because Nobuo Uematsu (the original composer) was more influenced by prog rock and psychedelic rock than he was by classic music. Listening to the ancient NES soundtracks remixed as metal or rock sounds with modern instruments is really eye-opening.
Naturally, the expansion Final Fantasy series is more than just a prog rock tribute, there are now tracks representing almost every know form of music. However, that original Uematsu touch is still admired by Soken, the FFXIV composer, and he does a great job keeping some of those influences and introducing his own black magic.
Just so you know, having all of each Coils for that tier unlocked at once is something you'll only encounter with Coils. It's the odd man out in that regard, not the rule. (Unless Savage or Ultimates do it. I can't speak to that. I've never done those.)
Savage unlockss on a tier basis like coils and ultimates are each one giant raid. But you don't need savage to understand the raid story!
The lead writer for Coils (Natsuko Ishikawa) is the same head writer for the entire Shadow Bringers expansion. It was actually her writing skill in Coils that landed her the position of head writer for ShB. She's also responsible for Alchemist, Rogue, Crystal Tower, Dark Knight, and Azim Steppe questlines.
Never get tired of this Asmongold quote: "These days Wow wastes your time, back then we used to love wasting our time"
I think Bellular himself said something similar in comparing WoW to FFXIV. Something like, "WoW feels like a game that wastes your time, while FFXIV feels like a game you can waste time in."
@@Khotetsu he was quoting asmon
@@dscarmo Oh cool, I didn't know that. I just remember the quote because it's so accurate
lmaooo Bellular's continued take on FFXIV and his genuine surprise to the overall quality of the game is amazing! As an ex-WoW player myself that started playing about a year ago, seeing everyone come on over and experiencing FFXIV is one of the best moments I've ever had in any game! Seeing nearly my entire WoW guild in FFXIV and all of us playing again is awesome!! FFXIV is the home we've been wanting for years! I regret not switching sooner.
WoW simply cannot compete with FFXIV anymore and I think Endwalker will cement FFXIV as the rightfully deserved top spot.
Something no one talking about regarding FF14 and old raid content: Blue Mage.