Just my 2 cents after finishing the ARR main quest for the first time.
I started playing recently and I find the game enjoyable, but ...
Sorry if I repeat things that have been said in the past.
The first 20ish levels are fine: the main story, the first 3 dungeons, they're good. What the game is great at - at that time - is holding your hand and showing the various things of the game. An experienced player like me will go fast on some things, but some other new to the game and to MMO in general will be able to understand things bit by bit.
The side quests of the classes are brilliant, there's a little story and it's really enjoyable (played archer/bard and marauder/warrior).
Level 20-35: what a drag. Getting to Toto-Rak is a pain. The Haukke Manor story feels pasted on (dungeon is ok) and the plethora of fetch quests are really boring. Brayflox is a good dungeon again in a really really un-heroic piece of storyline. And then Titan is a freaking hard fight (hardest I found until now), great indeed, but really painful passing it.
And then ... plot twist! Nice plot twist (predictable? maybe), juicy but...
It all resolves at level 47 onward, the whole 35-47 is another painful slog, especially Coerthas, it diverts your attention to something else, you're hoping to get to the bottom of the plot and the story keeps only going sideways. Damn. Stone Vigil and Garuda are the only enjoyable parts in that long fight with boredom.
And then it all resolves abruptly in 3 instances one after the other: Westwind (shortest I've seen), Castrum Meridianum and The Pretorium. With all lieutenants packed in, with the whole response to the Empire threat packed in a lot of cutscenes in the same couple of dungeons.
That could have been better spread, the "Eorzea rising" could have arranged to take levels 40-50, get into each castrum with each grand company and mabye battling each lieutenant independently (Rythan, Nero, Livia), leaving Gaius, Ultima Weapon and Lahabrea together like they are now.
Honestly, the last two dungeons being 8-man with forced cutscenes are a bit of a letdown, lots of high level people darting through, and me and my friends were not understanding what was happening... we got lost a few times and just skipped ahead when the major fight started ... meh! (Nothing against high level people, I know I acted like this in other games so guilty as charged, just perfectly clear that is bad when it happens to you).
I understand why 8-manning them, as most of the coming trials for the follow up quest will be 8 man, and these were meant as a "teching" experience, but together with all the cutscenes (stop yapping, Gaius, will ya?), and all the bosses packed together, the overall "story" ending was pretty ... underwhelming.
I know this won't change and the quest reduction coming with the new patch will not address this (creating few dungeons from scratch isn't an easy task), but damn what a great potential spoiled!
Continue reading...
I started playing recently and I find the game enjoyable, but ...
Sorry if I repeat things that have been said in the past.
The first 20ish levels are fine: the main story, the first 3 dungeons, they're good. What the game is great at - at that time - is holding your hand and showing the various things of the game. An experienced player like me will go fast on some things, but some other new to the game and to MMO in general will be able to understand things bit by bit.
The side quests of the classes are brilliant, there's a little story and it's really enjoyable (played archer/bard and marauder/warrior).
Level 20-35: what a drag. Getting to Toto-Rak is a pain. The Haukke Manor story feels pasted on (dungeon is ok) and the plethora of fetch quests are really boring. Brayflox is a good dungeon again in a really really un-heroic piece of storyline. And then Titan is a freaking hard fight (hardest I found until now), great indeed, but really painful passing it.
And then ... plot twist! Nice plot twist (predictable? maybe), juicy but...
It all resolves at level 47 onward, the whole 35-47 is another painful slog, especially Coerthas, it diverts your attention to something else, you're hoping to get to the bottom of the plot and the story keeps only going sideways. Damn. Stone Vigil and Garuda are the only enjoyable parts in that long fight with boredom.
And then it all resolves abruptly in 3 instances one after the other: Westwind (shortest I've seen), Castrum Meridianum and The Pretorium. With all lieutenants packed in, with the whole response to the Empire threat packed in a lot of cutscenes in the same couple of dungeons.
That could have been better spread, the "Eorzea rising" could have arranged to take levels 40-50, get into each castrum with each grand company and mabye battling each lieutenant independently (Rythan, Nero, Livia), leaving Gaius, Ultima Weapon and Lahabrea together like they are now.
Honestly, the last two dungeons being 8-man with forced cutscenes are a bit of a letdown, lots of high level people darting through, and me and my friends were not understanding what was happening... we got lost a few times and just skipped ahead when the major fight started ... meh! (Nothing against high level people, I know I acted like this in other games so guilty as charged, just perfectly clear that is bad when it happens to you).
I understand why 8-manning them, as most of the coming trials for the follow up quest will be 8 man, and these were meant as a "teching" experience, but together with all the cutscenes (stop yapping, Gaius, will ya?), and all the bosses packed together, the overall "story" ending was pretty ... underwhelming.
I know this won't change and the quest reduction coming with the new patch will not address this (creating few dungeons from scratch isn't an easy task), but damn what a great potential spoiled!
Continue reading...