Final Fantasy XIV Stormblood: First real impressions
Now that I am finally onboard with Final Fantasy XIV's Stormblood expansion and can, for once, actually experience it, I finally am able to put my thoughts down and my first impressions about the game. The first hour doesn't do it justice...the rest of the game has to be experienced, or at least some of the rest of the game has to be experienced, before judgment can be passed on whether it was a worthwhile expansion or not. And so far, the expansion has been more than worth the money, outside of the preorder going awry and some other technical difficulties.
There are bugs, but that's not unheard of in a brand new launch. Things that were missed by the development team in a game of this scope isn't unheard of, just so long as the more bothersome ones get fixed. Flight returns, but is strangely limited to the expansion areas once again, meaning that flight around Eorzea is still not a thing. If Square Enix pulls a cataclysm, I'm going to be ticked, for the record. But I digress...flight is still cool, the underwater is neat, the two dungeons that I've had a chance to tank yesterday are both fun, directx fatal errors aside...
Overall, the experience I've been having is an interesting one. They have been slowly pushing to have the monsters be more and more powerful, able to take the player on and leave them struggling, especially during group oriented instances. There were multiple times where the large pulls I did in the dungeons nearly went awry, though the groups never really minded, as it gives the healer something to work at...but it's an interesting feeling to feel like the dungeons are starting to actually become worth taking seriously. Consider that my tank is in ilvl 270 gear, which is what drops from the second dungeon and is the second set of gear in Stormblood, and still is struggling with the dungeons. What if I were a tank that wasn't geared in ilvl 270? Could I still tank the dungeons with two mobs pulled? Or would it come too close for comfort and/or result in my death?
This isn't entirely new...I did make large pulls in "The Aery" from Final Fantasy XIV's Heavensward expansion, but there, it felt even a little bit easier than it does here. It could simply be because it is a leveling dungeon? I don't know, maybe I'm talking bull...
The rest of the changed gameplay mechanics are fun, though I miss having access to certain tools as my warrior now...which makes TP management extremely important now. Not having access to the cross-class ability "Flash" means that I'm always relying strictly on technical points to use overpower. That said, it has been nice to have less buttons to worry about, though some exclusions confuse me. Warriors had a DoT, which was nice even if I didn't really use it all that often...which has since been removed. Okay, fine, but why? My stun got taken away and made a class role. Once again...okay? But why? If it's because it was "redundant", then I would argue that it was anything but. I used it all of the time as a little bit of extra damage and even acting as a stun in situations that it was necessary, actually using it to its fullest extent. "Fracture", which was the DoT, isn't something I really miss, but that stun sure is. Maybe I'll just trade out "awareness" for that in most situations and put awareness back during raids or something...
The storytelling has taken itself a step up and is actually quite competent now. It was already being shown off in the later work in Heavensward as multiple things were fixed and the story, which had broken itself for some strange reason, slowly reversed itself into making sense again and become epic again. Now, with that storytelling that has been slowly being perfected, Stormblood's story comes across as a wonderfully driven narrative that actually begins to rival the storytelling of the old Final Fantasy games, something of which I greatly approve.
So, lots of good things, lots of "eh" things, some bad things. Overall it's too early for me to say my piece on whether Stormblood is a great expansion or not, but it holds promise so far.
There are bugs, but that's not unheard of in a brand new launch. Things that were missed by the development team in a game of this scope isn't unheard of, just so long as the more bothersome ones get fixed. Flight returns, but is strangely limited to the expansion areas once again, meaning that flight around Eorzea is still not a thing. If Square Enix pulls a cataclysm, I'm going to be ticked, for the record. But I digress...flight is still cool, the underwater is neat, the two dungeons that I've had a chance to tank yesterday are both fun, directx fatal errors aside...
Overall, the experience I've been having is an interesting one. They have been slowly pushing to have the monsters be more and more powerful, able to take the player on and leave them struggling, especially during group oriented instances. There were multiple times where the large pulls I did in the dungeons nearly went awry, though the groups never really minded, as it gives the healer something to work at...but it's an interesting feeling to feel like the dungeons are starting to actually become worth taking seriously. Consider that my tank is in ilvl 270 gear, which is what drops from the second dungeon and is the second set of gear in Stormblood, and still is struggling with the dungeons. What if I were a tank that wasn't geared in ilvl 270? Could I still tank the dungeons with two mobs pulled? Or would it come too close for comfort and/or result in my death?
This isn't entirely new...I did make large pulls in "The Aery" from Final Fantasy XIV's Heavensward expansion, but there, it felt even a little bit easier than it does here. It could simply be because it is a leveling dungeon? I don't know, maybe I'm talking bull...
The rest of the changed gameplay mechanics are fun, though I miss having access to certain tools as my warrior now...which makes TP management extremely important now. Not having access to the cross-class ability "Flash" means that I'm always relying strictly on technical points to use overpower. That said, it has been nice to have less buttons to worry about, though some exclusions confuse me. Warriors had a DoT, which was nice even if I didn't really use it all that often...which has since been removed. Okay, fine, but why? My stun got taken away and made a class role. Once again...okay? But why? If it's because it was "redundant", then I would argue that it was anything but. I used it all of the time as a little bit of extra damage and even acting as a stun in situations that it was necessary, actually using it to its fullest extent. "Fracture", which was the DoT, isn't something I really miss, but that stun sure is. Maybe I'll just trade out "awareness" for that in most situations and put awareness back during raids or something...
The storytelling has taken itself a step up and is actually quite competent now. It was already being shown off in the later work in Heavensward as multiple things were fixed and the story, which had broken itself for some strange reason, slowly reversed itself into making sense again and become epic again. Now, with that storytelling that has been slowly being perfected, Stormblood's story comes across as a wonderfully driven narrative that actually begins to rival the storytelling of the old Final Fantasy games, something of which I greatly approve.
So, lots of good things, lots of "eh" things, some bad things. Overall it's too early for me to say my piece on whether Stormblood is a great expansion or not, but it holds promise so far.
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