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alias_sqbrSo I started writing this post with the intention of writing up the whole of "A Realm Reborn", the base story covering the first 50 levels of the online multiplayer roleplaying game Final Fantasy 14. But I seem to have run out of enthusiasm for the game at level 45, so will just post what I have now.
It didn't get bad or anything, I just have this problem with subscription games where I felt obliged to play to get my money's worth, and that takes the fun out of it (this is why I put off subscribing for so long) So I'll take a break and play again if/when it feels like it would be fun again. Which it probably will, it's a good game!
EDIT: After taking a long break I realised the group dungeons were making more anxious than I'd realised, and I never felt like going back.
So! I've often seen "A Realm Reborn" described as the mediocre setup to the more interesting later DLCs, which I will hopefully get around to playing one day since I already bought them.
It's called "A Realm Reborn" because this is actually the second incarnation of Final Fantasy 14. The first one was so bad they literally blew it up with a dramatic in-universe catastrophe, which the world is recovering from in-game.
The structure is that you play through the plot of "A Realm Reborn" for the first 50 levels, then move onto to Heavensward, Stormblood, and then Shadowbringers, by which point you're at level 80 and the end of the current story. I got the base game and all the DLCs for a bundle on special for like $30. A basic subscription costs about $13US/$20AU a month. You can also pay extra for pretty clothes etc but the base subscription gets you all you need to play and enjoy the game.
I started to write this post at Level 44, which took me two months to get to, but I haven't been playing super hard, and changed characters a few times at the start.
The "Realm Reborn" plot, and general worldbuilding, is fairly generic fantasy. Like most generic fantasy it has some unfortunate edges.
The backstory of the world is too complicated for me to fully follow, with waves of expansion and collapse due to huge magical calamities. But the basic dynamic I've seen is that the main playable races live in cities that have only been around for 500 or less years, and are in constant conflict with various species of "beastmen" who often consider themselves the rightful inhabitants (though some only arrived recently). Most beastmen are brainwashed minions of godlike Primals, which were summoned by the beastmen to repel the evil Garlean Empire (which worked, but at the cost of their free will) There are smaller peaceful beastmen tribes who have kept their free will, who you can befriend.
And like...it's not quite a "civilised settlers versus savage indigenous people with violent gods" situation, but it certainly draws on those tropes sometimes. There's also a dungeon where you have to kill a bunch of enslaved and abandoned golems so the city that enslaved them can access the mine again. They shout, like, "no more slavery" as you kill them :/ :/ And I mean there is the odd moment where someone goes "kinda sucks we enslaved and buried those golems" etc, but it's still uncomfortable. Afaict the situation gets more nuanced on the DLCs, but this is what I have seen so far.
Also the game is pretty heteronormative and male gazey, like there's a number of background sexy catgirls dancing in the streets and I don't think I've EVER seen a sexy dancing catboy (that wasn't a player ;P ).
There's enough variety of well-drawn female NPCs that it's not the WORST, but it could definitely be better.
My feelings on the gameplay are basically the same as before: it's a fun RPG, with a variety of types of combat, and it does a fairly good job of teaching you your new skills as you learn them during the early levels. I feel like I understand RPGs in general better for having played this game and it's tutorials.
The balance isn't perfect, and there have been a few times when I got stuck on especially hard quest and had nothing very interesting to do while levelling up to get past it. But mostly the game keeps things smooth and interesting, with a variety of quests and challenges beyond the main quest line, as well as seasonal events. Every few levels some new part of the game will open up to me, which keeps things interesting and makes it easier not to get overwhelmed. At level 45 there's still moderately cool looking quests and stuff I could be doing if I wasn't bored of the game in general.
Afaict it's less fun levelling a second etc class, since you've already done a lot of the content. But you can switch back and forth easily and keep your character and items etc, so it's easy to try different classes out whenever you like. I've tried a few classes at this point, and eventually figured out I seem best suited to melee DPS: I just run up to stuff and hit it a bunch, without paying much attention to anything else. Unfortunately I still have to dodge attacks and am very bad at it. The meanest (if...accurate...) thing anyone has said to me in-game was a frustrated healer, who was sick of resurrecting me, snarking that it's ironic that my character's name, Squibar, is similar to the Spanish for 'dodge', since I never do it.
I sometimes pondered trying the other melee DPS classes (I'm a pugilist), but I'm at level 45 with this one, so. Maybe one day.
I tried the first quest each for cooking and botany (gathering plants). They were ok, and could be useful, but weren't enough fun for me to bother with. The game is geared towards combat, and that's been the most fun.
Dungeons with random other people are an unavoidable part of the main quest line. They've gotten a lot easier with practice, and watching a guide video in advance. I still find them socially awkward, especially since I'm not brilliant at the game. But I've never had a dungeon fail, so it's not like I'm ruining the dungeon, just...giving the healers an extra challenge >.>
The other dungeon players are generally either entirely silent or friendly, even when people screw up (not always me!), and the worst I've seen anyone say is some irritated snark, but nothing super cruel. People in the world at large don't talk to each other much, but the newbie channel is friendly, as is the "free company" (player group) I'm in.
Outside of dungeons it's fine playing by yourself, and it's set up so that if you fight a monster with someone else you always both benefit, which encourages occasional moments of cooperation between strangers.
There's optional player-vs-player fights but I haven't investigated them.
And that's about it! So yeah, overall a good game, I definitely got my money's worth, and I'll probably play some more some day.
It didn't get bad or anything, I just have this problem with subscription games where I felt obliged to play to get my money's worth, and that takes the fun out of it (this is why I put off subscribing for so long) So I'll take a break and play again if/when it feels like it would be fun again. Which it probably will, it's a good game!
EDIT: After taking a long break I realised the group dungeons were making more anxious than I'd realised, and I never felt like going back.
So! I've often seen "A Realm Reborn" described as the mediocre setup to the more interesting later DLCs, which I will hopefully get around to playing one day since I already bought them.
It's called "A Realm Reborn" because this is actually the second incarnation of Final Fantasy 14. The first one was so bad they literally blew it up with a dramatic in-universe catastrophe, which the world is recovering from in-game.
The structure is that you play through the plot of "A Realm Reborn" for the first 50 levels, then move onto to Heavensward, Stormblood, and then Shadowbringers, by which point you're at level 80 and the end of the current story. I got the base game and all the DLCs for a bundle on special for like $30. A basic subscription costs about $13US/$20AU a month. You can also pay extra for pretty clothes etc but the base subscription gets you all you need to play and enjoy the game.
I started to write this post at Level 44, which took me two months to get to, but I haven't been playing super hard, and changed characters a few times at the start.
The "Realm Reborn" plot, and general worldbuilding, is fairly generic fantasy. Like most generic fantasy it has some unfortunate edges.
The backstory of the world is too complicated for me to fully follow, with waves of expansion and collapse due to huge magical calamities. But the basic dynamic I've seen is that the main playable races live in cities that have only been around for 500 or less years, and are in constant conflict with various species of "beastmen" who often consider themselves the rightful inhabitants (though some only arrived recently). Most beastmen are brainwashed minions of godlike Primals, which were summoned by the beastmen to repel the evil Garlean Empire (which worked, but at the cost of their free will) There are smaller peaceful beastmen tribes who have kept their free will, who you can befriend.
And like...it's not quite a "civilised settlers versus savage indigenous people with violent gods" situation, but it certainly draws on those tropes sometimes. There's also a dungeon where you have to kill a bunch of enslaved and abandoned golems so the city that enslaved them can access the mine again. They shout, like, "no more slavery" as you kill them :/ :/ And I mean there is the odd moment where someone goes "kinda sucks we enslaved and buried those golems" etc, but it's still uncomfortable. Afaict the situation gets more nuanced on the DLCs, but this is what I have seen so far.
Also the game is pretty heteronormative and male gazey, like there's a number of background sexy catgirls dancing in the streets and I don't think I've EVER seen a sexy dancing catboy (that wasn't a player ;P ).
There's enough variety of well-drawn female NPCs that it's not the WORST, but it could definitely be better.
My feelings on the gameplay are basically the same as before: it's a fun RPG, with a variety of types of combat, and it does a fairly good job of teaching you your new skills as you learn them during the early levels. I feel like I understand RPGs in general better for having played this game and it's tutorials.
The balance isn't perfect, and there have been a few times when I got stuck on especially hard quest and had nothing very interesting to do while levelling up to get past it. But mostly the game keeps things smooth and interesting, with a variety of quests and challenges beyond the main quest line, as well as seasonal events. Every few levels some new part of the game will open up to me, which keeps things interesting and makes it easier not to get overwhelmed. At level 45 there's still moderately cool looking quests and stuff I could be doing if I wasn't bored of the game in general.
Afaict it's less fun levelling a second etc class, since you've already done a lot of the content. But you can switch back and forth easily and keep your character and items etc, so it's easy to try different classes out whenever you like. I've tried a few classes at this point, and eventually figured out I seem best suited to melee DPS: I just run up to stuff and hit it a bunch, without paying much attention to anything else. Unfortunately I still have to dodge attacks and am very bad at it. The meanest (if...accurate...) thing anyone has said to me in-game was a frustrated healer, who was sick of resurrecting me, snarking that it's ironic that my character's name, Squibar, is similar to the Spanish for 'dodge', since I never do it.
I sometimes pondered trying the other melee DPS classes (I'm a pugilist), but I'm at level 45 with this one, so. Maybe one day.
I tried the first quest each for cooking and botany (gathering plants). They were ok, and could be useful, but weren't enough fun for me to bother with. The game is geared towards combat, and that's been the most fun.
Dungeons with random other people are an unavoidable part of the main quest line. They've gotten a lot easier with practice, and watching a guide video in advance. I still find them socially awkward, especially since I'm not brilliant at the game. But I've never had a dungeon fail, so it's not like I'm ruining the dungeon, just...giving the healers an extra challenge >.>
The other dungeon players are generally either entirely silent or friendly, even when people screw up (not always me!), and the worst I've seen anyone say is some irritated snark, but nothing super cruel. People in the world at large don't talk to each other much, but the newbie channel is friendly, as is the "free company" (player group) I'm in.
Outside of dungeons it's fine playing by yourself, and it's set up so that if you fight a monster with someone else you always both benefit, which encourages occasional moments of cooperation between strangers.
There's optional player-vs-player fights but I haven't investigated them.
And that's about it! So yeah, overall a good game, I definitely got my money's worth, and I'll probably play some more some day.
no subject
Date: 2020-05-12 08:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-05-14 09:31 am (UTC)I'm glad! I was really worried about what it would be like going in.