Pet peeves: The return (Part 2)

leadbelcher rocket battery when

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Leadbelcher lumimark.

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Hit another point in FF I have thoughts about!

Post Stormblood patch/4.2 spoilers

So I reached the bit Stonetower mentioned before, with Yotsuyu/Tsuyu now being alive but with amnesia. While I’ll wait to see how it plays out, learned to not expect the worst, I do have one thing to say about it.

I do not like at all how they turn her amnesia/as Tsuyu into this “little girl/child yet fully adult woman who likes cwandy :3”. It feels really unsettling and not in a way I think they intended it to be. It feels creepy.

I don’t like this approach with her. Even with an Amnesia route, there are so many better ways to handle it.

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The Doma arc in SB is poorly paced, especially the Confederacy sub-arc, I quite agree. Things will pick up after a certain point — you’ll see.

It doesn’t help that the Confederacy arc in particular leaves you nested in deep sub-sub-sub-sub-quests that make it easy to lose track of your overall goal. To wit,

SB spoilers

You have to deal with distrust in the Raen village…
…where you were sent to find Yasakani–no–Magatama, a Kojin relic…
…which you need so the Red Kojin are distracted and can’t help the Garleans…
…so the Confederacy can attack the village of Isari…
…so you can free Gosetsu…
…so that together you can travel to Doma…
…so you can find Lord Hien…
…so he can liberate Doma…
…so the Garlean Empire gets involved in a war on two fronts…
… which will take some pressure off the Ala Mhigan Resistance…
…so you can push the attack in Gyr Abania and liberate Ala Mhigo…
…which is only an objective because Ilberd dragged the Eorzean Alliance into this war against their will.

Every subsequent step on top of this stack is another bit of mental load for the player — and another point at which they might ask, “Wait, why am I doing this again?” HW, in comparison, keeps your goals pretty straightforward throughout the entire plot without such levels of nestedness. Thankfully the goals become easier to follow after the end of the Doma arc and stay straightforward through at least all of post-SB and ShB.

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The Confederacy arc was pretty meh, but I found the steppes to be alot worse personally. Otherwise I loved Kugame/the eastern arc mostly.

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Neat. I’ll do my month of incarceration in 9.2 and jump over to FF14.

Exactly this. I had the same reservations about that arc and I still think it was annoying.

If you need some assurance right now... (reasonably spoiler-free)

It won’t be used as a cheap plot device to absolve her of her crimes and moral responsibility, unlike a certain competing MMO.

I absolutely agree with not liking that particular trope. Seems specific to Japanese media; I saw it in Code Geass and it annoyed me there too.

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This is reassuring to hear, and I’m glad that wont be an issue!

Also while I don’t like the trope, I think it can still be used…somewhat okay.

But I don’t like it at all when it’s used this way & reminds me of bad Stormwind roleplay. Like I said, it feels creepy and very off-putting.

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It absolutely feels creepy and makes me think of some unfortunate (and sexist) tropes traditionally associated with Japanese culture.

Post-SB spoilers, kinda

Yamato Nadeshiko, in particular.

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That fits it pretty well on how it is/feels yeah!

But I am thankful that it isn’t done even worse and at least all of this seems and feels like a bit of a side-track story that is also due to getting wrapped up.

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I salute you for wanting to play a month of what will undoubtedly be a dumpsterfire on wheels.

The early SB patches feel like side stuff, but that’s jsut wrapping some plots up. You’ll get some stuff leading onto ShB soon!

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I had some nuggets of that already, I think?

Post Stormblood Spoilers

I had a cutscene earlier with imperials in the capitol talking about how Zenos was alive still, somehow! And a figure(I will assume Ascian) watching them.

Yup that’s some of it and I won’t say anything but you’ll find out who it is soon enough!

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I’ll just do it long enough to get flying, hit revered, max my alts, then do Island expeditions and Tmog runs until it’s over.

Even though I know deep down this expansion is indeed a prison if I wanna get all the collectibles, on all covenant for all armor type… I’ll spare you a 2 page rant about why Anima is the worst ressource/currency ever implemented in the game.

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And I’ll spare you my 10 page essay on why that and the covenant locking of collectibles and cosmetics is the worst decisions they ever did.

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A part of me feels a bit sad about it, because I do think there is something to the covenant idea, and I generally like the vibe and mogs and items the Venthyr has to offer.

But the systems in place with it all the grind is some of the most uninspired and really BAD WoW has done yet, along with the trainwreck that is the rest of the expansion.

Had it been another expansion, or another game, I would have loved the venthyr collectibles I think.

They should have gone for the Dark souls Covenant approach. Unlockable collectibles that you need to be active in a specific covenant to unlock, but once you have them you have them, and you can swap around all you like between with little trouble.

Also dont make it a 2 year grind per covenant.

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I’ve just barely finished upgrading all the sanctums for 3 covenants. Just getting there brought me no form of joy, only relief.

Why is Anima not automatically generating? Even a meager 1K per week would go a long way. Why can’t I farm it? No seriously, why can’t I? Why is the quantity entirely limited by WQs? Why isn’t there a double your Anima gains event on the calendar? Why do I bloody have no such thing as account wide covenant upgrades and Tmogs for every armor type? Why do I have to do tedious grind and chores on 4 different characters instead of doing it just once or 4 times only instead of 16 times?

These are the reasons why I’m highly cynical about the future of Wow. No amount of Hopium can stave off the frightening thought that I’m stuck, even as a casual completionist putting up with this many barriers just fosters resentment.

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Let me air my grievances in excruciating detail.

Spoilers I have done household chores for the pirates for 50 minutes. Rule 63 Alphinaud says "I have a plan, Hu Man here will remove the enemy turtles." Which is like, fine, at least it's not more pirates. But wait Lyse is missing, again, and we find her moping on her own, again, and then this bizarre conversation takes place.

Is this autotranslated? Am I reading this correctly?
“I am sad”
“I once bought tarts, even though I prefer cookies.”
“I am no longer sad”

The cutscene ends and nothing else is said except “go and meet up with them.” So I open the map and

Is this a joke? We are literally on a pier next to a boat but instead it’s just, cutscene over, swim straight into the ocean to find “the cave”.

We are trying to alleviate pressure on Rhalgr’s Reach by going to Hong Kong so we can go to the Pirates so we can go to the turtle people so we can get a gem so the turtle people will convince the pirates to help us save one guy which will help us start a rebellion which will eventually help us with objective 1. I went to Doma expecting late game Sekiro style crazy insurrection but instead I get a worse version of Vashjir.

It also doesn’t help that it’s fog 90% of the time.

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If I was to point a general flaw with FF it is that it certainly does have a big problem with sending you away to do side-things so much that it in the end feels pointless and you don’t know why it even ties into your main goal.

It doesn’t happen all the time but when it does, it is noticeable. What I can suggest atm is keep pushing through. Some parts of that gets better, one part I found so much worse, but once you are done with all these side things and it finally kicks off, it did feel worth it in the end, at least for me.