Gaming

Well I mean, it’s not really like that in this case. Every story expansion just requires you to have cleared the previous parts of the game.

The base game/before the first expansion isn’t bad per se, I had a fun time with the game at that point. But there happens to be a remarkable step up in quality starting with the first expansion, and the game pretty much keeps getting better from there.

Also during the last few years they have been revamping the early-game extensively, adding modern visuals and refreshing the design of the dungeons and boss fights. But having played before these changes, I still wouldn’t call the beginning of the game “filler”. I found it quite charming, and the multiplayer aspect is also fun in its own respect at that point.

Just my 2c, I’m not one to defend large corporations but I don’t think the trope really applies to XIV

The game started 10 years ago. It was a different game back then.

"Pray return to the waking sands" PTSD intensifies

I came from WoW (after leveling every class through Shadowlands), and when I started FFxiv, I was thinking "it's not amazing, but it's better than WoW at this same level." It was still fun to play, and it wasn't a straight slog, the whole story ramped up over time.

And then I hit the first expansion, and it was better than most of WoW except maybe Legion (my favorite expansion). There was a moment, right before a trial, where you're on a bridge and the music ramps up (anyone who has played probably knows what I'm talking about), and I had to just sit and let it wash over me for awhile before queueing up. Just standing on a bridge, hearing a song telling the whole story I had learned over an entire expansion.

And then it just continued ramping up. So it starts out about equivalent to WoW and then gets better at a much faster rate. And then, when you finish the main story quest, instead of the choice of "mythics or raids, that's all you get, hope you like dungeons," You find there's more to do outside of the main story quest than in. There's so much to do.

Yep WoTLK on free servers for me is questing and a bit of farming to get some gold for necessities.

Back in the day I painstakingly (while having fun) managed to level up to 60 but hadn't paid for the expansions, and then I took a break to finish a project in school, when I finally came back to WoW Cataclysm happened and everything changed, then I lost interest.

The thing is, One Piece does get exponentially bigger and better as the story unfolds but if you don't like it from the start then it probably just isn't for you.

During the darkest moments the pandemic, I needed something to take my mind off of reality. So I skipped to One Piece 500ish and just started reading. Didn't really love it, but didn't really hate it. Then around 600ish, it started clicking. And then by 650, I couldn't believe I was rooting for Luffy and the Straw Hat crew.

Now I'm at 1100 and part of the extremely annoying crowd who talk about One Piece.

To be honest, the episodes are like max 15 minutes of actual content if your remove the intro, outro and all the recaps.

But One Piece suffers from what every long anime suffers, long outdrawn stories that get stretched (pun intended) over too many episodes. There are arcs lasting over 100 episodes. In those episodes, not much happens, but always something happens to try to keep the interest of the viewer. But the main culprit are the flashbacks.

Flashbacks happen so frequently in those series, it is like reading a book and every couple of pages they copy one of their pages from a previous chapter in its entirety. I too can write a 300 page book like that.

Anyway, it should be illegal for people to recommend anything with more than a 1000 episodes.

One Piece has some incredible awesome moments, but the dull moments in between don't make up for it.

I also love that video.

You can at least play to 70 on the free trial now. So you can take some breaks through some of the more laborious sections.

I do think Heavensward is where it gets good, and the story becomes more focused. ARR is a real slog though.

There's almost enough XP in the main story quest to level two jobs. Don't be afraid to make a tank so you can queue for dungeons faster. It's piss easy, and the community is chill af with new players.

I waited for FFXV to get good and it just kept getting worse lol

I tried 13 multiple times. Steam says I have more than fifty hours in it. I know the last time I got all the way to the open world segment. But I just can't get into it and was mostly making myself play because I bought the entire trilogy on a sale. The game's insistence on putting all the plot in a menu made it much more difficult to follow along or to get attached to any of the characters. I know I read everything as it became available and I honestly have no memory of the vast majority of it. I'm not even sure I could name the fully party.

On top of that, the gameplay itself just wasn't great. Party composition was almost always dictated by the plot and character growth was completely linear, so there was very little opportunity to experiment with the game's systems. And when I did get to experiment with it, encounters were so rigidly structured and my characters' levels being capped by plot progression meant there was no wiggle room to actually experiment. Throw in traditional FF problems like debuffs being useless and new ones like AOE attacks being heavily luck based and it didn't even have fun combat to fall back on.

If you’re halfway through the MSQ then you’re already well into the parts people widely regard as good. If you’re not having a good time yet you probably never will.

I loved the crafting system in ff14, but there is a point where you can no longer progress unless you complete the main story quests.

For me, every single FF game took me a couple hours before I really hits.

FF3 was so incredibly hard for me to get into because it just seems like one trope after another. Then it just clicked and now it's one of my favorites.

Gw2 is my favourite game but if you are into high end raids, either FF14 or Wow are better in my opinion.
If you are into PvP or open world, I prefer gw2.

Yeah, I got whiplash by how hard the story picked up at the end of the post ARR quests, and it just kept going. SB was a bit less interesting, but really good still imo.

The combat also gets so much better once you get to 70-80 on most classes. I'm glad I stuck with the game, but man, I dunno if I would do it again.

You're in luck then. All dungeons can be done with ai now.