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Unpopular opinion: Icebrood Saga is bad


Clyan.1593

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Huh, I'm surprised so many people are saying Grothmar Valley is the good part of the season. It is the definition of scheduled event grinding where players don't really have any control of the game, which I absolutely hate and find very boring. Feels like the game is playing you at that point (Boy did I hate farming amalgamated gemstones).

Grothmar Valley is by far the weakest of the 3 maps so far. But I'm liking the saga overall, story is good for an mmo. And much more interesting than some of their previous stories so far.

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Yeah, overall I'm quite disapointed with Icebrood Saga so far.It's also the first time I really feel like this. There had been weak moments in the past of this game, but this season is really really bad.

I think there just isn't a clear enough vision from those in charge so that they can effectively lead their teams into developing logical content. So Icebrood saga is or is not LW season 5? WHY is that even a thing to consider when they been adamant about their LW model the entire life of the game.

Realistic and unfortunately I'm wondering if Icebrood Saga is just their interim project and asset they can scramble together while they make the next expansion and also the side effects of them losing all those employees. They have probably had to shift so many things internally and making any kind of gaming content does take a long time. We should at least have some sympathy and understanding for them since those layoffs.

They essence manipulation system is ok. I don't hate it. It's just a bit clunky and with the timers and required amounts makes it not sustainable to go after every time you come to the match. If it was optimized then I think people would go after it. Killing 10 enemies and you get that buff that lasts for 30/1hr? Great! Killing 30 enemies and it lasts only 15 min? Not so great. Instead of each attack being a KAMEHAMEHA I thought it would be more interesting if each was unique like red being the beam, green being a targeted AOE and blue being a small cone. It would have been interesting and creepy if the Whispers said stuff according to your profession and maybe some of your past accomplishments. IMAGINE Jormag whispering "what's the point of saving children if you can't even save yourself...." IF you had the Extra Life AP 0_0

They should have had the forest area be like the underground labyrinth area in Silverwastes where you could be killed instantly because of XYZ.

Drakkar is a great meta after they optimized it and when they add VO in Drizzlewood it'll be even better. I've said this before and I'll say it again...its ALL about the leaders and management. If we can't even get the Game Director that left LAST November to say goodbye that gives me pause about what other lacks of communication are going on behind the scenes.

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@Ashantara.8731 said:

@vier.1327 said:I do not even know how the masteries works!

You need to stack 30 per color to have its respective essence available for CC (and damage) -- simple.

The thing is it can take a while to get to 30 stacks and in between fights and then all that effort for a 15 min buff but only towards one type of enemy? Those are great mechanics for the Drakkar fight and meta but for PVE its not very feasible unless you grind for 45 min. They should revamp that system and you receive time on the buff from the pickups initially instead of requiring the stacks. I think they did course correct and that's why the latest essence manipulation skill can be towards any enemy.

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@Taril.8619 said:

@"Yggranya.5201" said:I have never played MMO with good story but is average too much to ask?

FFXIV and SWToR have good stories imo.

SWToR it's mostly about the individual class story from my experience, after that the generic stories were pretty meh.

FFXIV is great story (With slight exception to 2.1-3.0 which involved a lot of fluff and obnoxious fetch quests, but after getting to 3.0 it goes on very strong with many people finding the 3.0 story the best in the game) and in fact, the story of XIV is pretty much the only reason to play the game given its actual game systems suck (Combat is flat, repetitive and boring, side content is grindy and unrewarding, PvP is forgettable, Raids are pathetic outside of Savage where they're just Simon Says where you simply push your predetermined rotation while walking out of the bad circles)

But yeah, the key is to have actual characters. With character development that changes them over time with good reason (Not like Braham and his 180 flip from adoring the Commander to "UR NOT MY REAL MOM!" mega-emo phase). Whom react to situations like actual people, not as walking plot devices.

Also, it helps not to write in Mary Sue's like Aurene (Or Thrall AKA Green Jesus in Warcraft)

FF story is awful, you have lego characters and some of the worst content padding in mmo businessi would also claim, that progression is broken, since you can learn EVERYTHING on one toon

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@"Yggranya.5201" said:I have never played MMO with good story but is average too much to ask? The base game story in GW2 was nothing special but at least it didn't suck as bad as Aurene.After all, Aurene is not the commanders pet, the commander is Aurenes pet.Aurene has all the power and all the information and the commander just bumbles around, hoping not to accidentally doom Tyria. The commander just continues to bumble around, mostly wasting time as Aurene knows what to do but tells you nothing. After all, a pet needs something to do to keep it entertained and of course, out of the way while the master does things that actually matter.If Aurene leaves for the story, it still won't make it go away, anet made it too important.Not to mention the prophecy BS where, instead of doing it because you want, you do it because "it's the way it's meant to be". No one wants to be a mindless puppet following some destiny/fate, right?What i'm saying is, it can't possibly get any worse than that.

SWTOR has some great class storiesand on the bad side, this game is still far from the cringefest of BDO and the sleuth of of eastern mmosprey that it never reaches those depths

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@battledrone.8315 said:FF story is awful

FFXIV story is great. Not sure what you're smoking.

The only reason the game even exists to this day is because it's carried by its story.

@battledrone.8315 said:you have lego characters

Which characters are "Lego"?

@battledrone.8315 said:i would also claim, that progression is broken, since you can learn EVERYTHING on one toon

How is being able to do everything on one character "Broken progression"?

You still level everything up from level 1, nothing is shared exp (Except Summoner/Scholar which was a mistake)

How is that any different to rolling 100 characters each having 1 class and 2 professions like most other MMO's?

If anything the progression is broken because gear progression is absolute tripe, with crafted gear being better quality than what you get from Raids and is easier to obtain, not timegated (Unlike raid gear which you can only get 1 token from each boss per week and gear requires 2-4 tokens per piece of gear) and each new tier of crafted gear is released alongside each new raid tier. Which ultimately makes running content utterly worthless and makes the best way to gear up your character is to not fight anything and just craft gear.

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@battledrone.8315 said:

@"Yggranya.5201" said:I have never played MMO with good story but is average too much to ask? The base game story in GW2 was nothing special but at least it didn't suck as bad as Aurene.After all, Aurene is not the commanders pet, the commander is Aurenes pet.Aurene has all the power and all the information and the commander just bumbles around, hoping not to accidentally doom Tyria. The commander just continues to bumble around, mostly wasting time as Aurene knows what to do but tells you nothing. After all, a pet needs something to do to keep it entertained and of course, out of the way while the master does things that actually matter.If Aurene leaves for the story, it still won't make it go away, anet made it too important.Not to mention the prophecy BS where, instead of doing it because you want, you do it because "it's the way it's meant to be". No one wants to be a mindless puppet following some destiny/fate, right?What i'm saying is, it can't possibly get any worse than that.

SWTOR has some great class storiesand on the bad side, this game is still far from the cringefest of BDO and the sleuth of of eastern mmosprey that it never reaches those depths

Now that you reminded me, SWTOR wasn't too bad, exept the usual light side or dark side stuff (i played it many years ago so not sure about today). I also agree that FFXIV story is terrible. Just another blank slate who does as they are told, a mindless mook.

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The real issue becomes that living world has ALWAYS been hot garbage since its inception, it never ... heck lets be honest the "story" in this game has never really been that well written or deep. That is the curse of all MMO type games, the story most of the time will fall flat especially if the gameplay is good which luck as it may is the case here where the combat engine is superb. This saga thus far has been a two pronged pile of BS and I feel like its honestly portions of an expansion we would of gotten, and filler to keep us occupied for a year or two while cantha is crafted.

  1. Way too much focus on the charr who have NEVER taken a back-seat In the narrative and have always been a front-runner in the conflicts and thus have never been done dirty really. They have had SOOOO much time in the lime light between BOTH games and its almost insane that people feel they are not flushed out, when in reality they have had some of the most developing moments granted to them. They are this games equivalent to WoW's Variant of Orc in that they have come so very far, and this saga should of had them be in the background and take a step back to let ANOTHER race whom yes I am biased too get some love.
  2. Norn are by extension of my first point the unwanted baby of A-net they appeared in Eye of the north and had some lore but not much, then miraculously became player characters in this game. But they have yet to even be flushed out or given their "Viking Saga" in which they go on some epic battle or adventure with dark themes, and truly dire states in which to fight for. This will be all we get for them, this saga that is and whatever it might do and thus far it has been underwhelming and as a norn player I feel a bit slighted. You killed Eir, who could of played a larger roll considering Zojja and Logan are kinda not even applicable to the story at hand and yet you murdered her to make room for her son who has been a dumpster fire of a character. You destroy norn lore, you poop all over us every chance you have by making all these changes to what we knew rather than adding to it in any meaningful form. The last real addition of worth we had was Asgeirs journal but that is IT and that is a damn shame considering how rich between the norn, kodan and jotuun you would have for a story. I mean Im pretty sure I could write you a better story and ya know what here... Ill give you a simplified version of a better narrative that could of tapped into the eldritch shennagians that you want, while also letting the norn have center stage.

! The air thickens as the darkness of the north encloses upon the lands of the south, Kralkatorik lays defeated and Elona united in rebuilding their people and culture. But yet shadows now lurk upon the horizons as calls to battle have sounded within hoelbrak. An ancient enemy has not only arisen in the far north, the Jotuun desperate to cling to the might of the days of old has found an artifact. One linked to the mighty ice dragon, they believe it is the key to restoration but truly it is the begining of the damnation and their self proclaimed king has raided blood legion lands and murdered soldiers causing the mighty Bangar Ruinbringer to seek retribution. However vengeance has clouded his heart and now he seeks not only to purge the jotuun but all non-charr. The artifacts corrupting influence the Fang of Svanir has claimed the minds of not one but two leaders. War has broken out and the norn have sounded their war-horns in an attempt to rally as meany warriors to the banner of Knut whitebear as they seek to end the conflict before it gets out of hand. With the mists breaking into our realm from the cracks of kralkatorik's rampage the god realms have been anchored to our world. Through them a gateway to the great unknown that we have yet to explore has been opened, and unspeakable horrors begin to appear acrossed tyria as the darkness from beyond also begins to push forth surging into the purity of tyria. Besieged on all sides and without hope Dragons watch and the warriors who have fought to preserve this world hear only two things, the distant laughter of malignant voices just beyond their sight. And the voice of one thought of been an enemy calling out to them? Jormag. The dragon of Ice and snow who has heard the call of the newly re-born aurene, its whispers serenade the commander and their allies in an attempt to open lines of communication between it and Us.. But is it our ally or our enemy? Is there a true enemy? Who can we trust. Our guildies have begun to question us, turn on us and the governments of the races deny us help. All that stands between tyria and certain annihilation are the steadfast norn, the scattered and ill-prepared charr and the whispers... from the north.

Its not hard, its not something that is like rocket science. The narrative was stronger in the prologue and then Bjora despite how much I like that map happened, and the narrative began to unravel and fall apart. And now it feels like its just going to be S4 again, but with less and more recycled assets all the while we have to wait until cantha (Another year or more out) before E-specs or anything really exciting happens. The lore has been all over the place since day one, and at this point I find myself coming back for the gameplay loop.... but it would be nice if they put the same effort they put into guild wars 1's narrative into this ones. Because Anything after and heck even prophecies is better than ANYTHING this game has produced and that is based on side content and main content.

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@HotDelirium.7984 said:

@vier.1327 said:I do not even know how the masteries works!

You need to stack 30 per color to have its respective essence available for CC (and damage) -- simple.

The thing is it can take a while to get to 30 stacks

Yes, in the open world, this is a truly annoying mastery. It's only practical if you spend a lot of time on a map and during Strike Missions, of course.

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@Poormany.4507 said:

@"Yggranya.5201" said:Also, why was this thread "closed" by Fire Attunement.9835? It's not really closed anyway and not like there is anything bad going on in here so, why?

It got moved to the Living World Forum section and closed on the Discussion section.

I purposefuly didn't post it on the Living World Forum because for me it's more about what is to be avoided in the future. It's not specifically about the LS itself, rather than its mechanics and its formalities. But I see now how maybe my wording in the title isn't chosen precise enough, and so I'm not surprised it got moved.

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@"Eloc Freidon.5692" said:

Masteries are being watered down in their importance to the game as a whole.

As someone who does not PvE often and only just began PoF/finished its prerequisite story like a week ago, I see this as only a good thing. Being unable to even participate in new content due to the gating of stuff behind masteries and mounts due to their overbearing importance is a really bad feeling. I don't want to be there doing the content; I just want new skins and stat options made available.

I think the mastery system is one of the weakest elements of the game's expansions altogether. It really doesn't change gameplay from the "Go here and do this event" ktrain mentality at all; it just adds another layer of complexity and gatekeeping behind it.

I think adding more armor sets and weapons would probably get people more excited than bouncing on mushrooms etc.

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@battledrone.8315 said:

@"Yggranya.5201" said:I have never played MMO with good story but is average too much to ask?

FFXIV and SWToR have good stories imo.

SWToR it's mostly about the individual class story from my experience, after that the generic stories were pretty meh.

FFXIV is great story (With slight exception to 2.1-3.0 which involved a lot of fluff and obnoxious fetch quests, but after getting to 3.0 it goes on very strong with many people finding the 3.0 story the best in the game) and in fact, the story of XIV is pretty much the only reason to play the game given its actual game systems suck (Combat is flat, repetitive and boring, side content is grindy and unrewarding, PvP is forgettable, Raids are pathetic outside of Savage where they're just Simon Says where you simply push your predetermined rotation while walking out of the bad circles)

But yeah, the key is to have actual characters. With character development that changes them over time with good reason (Not like Braham and his 180 flip from adoring the Commander to "UR NOT MY REAL MOM!" mega-emo phase). Whom react to situations like actual people, not as walking plot devices.

Also, it helps not to write in Mary Sue's like Aurene (Or Thrall AKA Green Jesus in Warcraft)

FF story is awful, you have lego characters and some of the worst content padding in mmo businessi would also claim, that progression is broken, since you can learn EVERYTHING on one toon

FF14's story was great for me, even though I had to force myself to do the required group content in the very beginning. Dunno what lego characters are in this context. Maybe FF7 for PSX with the square hands?As for everything on one character: To be fair, making alts is rather disencouraged without a guild/FC to send stuff between your characters, and with how long the personal story is not everyone will be inclined to trudge through it again (or pay for story and level skip potions), understandably.But ultimately story and such is personal preference; some simply don't like, care or can't get into it, while others love the story (mainly from Heavensward onwards).

As for Icebrood saga: I have generally liked GW2 story and am in/back for the story, so this hasn't changed that much. It was probably a "bad" idea to "re-learn" the game with the IB zones. What I found annoying was the general progress bar instead of hearts. Especially the prologue zone bar felt kinda slow to fill before the story would move on. Filling the bar in the last zone was okayish, since the events occur more frequently. OW metas are still the same visual vomit between player character skills and bling-bling and monster attack effects.

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Couldn't agree more. I stopped playing the game shortly after LS4 ep 5 got released, came back for 6 and after quitting the 2nd day of ep 6 got released I thought, how bad can things get from here? Little did I know that anet wanted to challenge that... and they succeeded. I only came back a couple weeks before Visions got released, caught up and the rest played them as they released.

The story isn't as horrible as it was in the final 2 episodes of LS4 but, it's no more than average. Decent for a MMO, bad compared to anything else. I don't know if it's the management in anet being useless or the writers just not being all that great but the story is fairly mediocre at best throughout the game. Also, stop being lazy. "Do X amount of events to fill this bar" doesn't count as story.

The maps, for me, have been an absolute disaster. Grothmar is... boring. Doing events on a set schedule and being "forced" to do them in a certain order that anet set is not my definition of fun. Bjora is ok, I guess. I enjoyed exploring that one for the most part and the puzzles were nice. When it comes to the metas, not a fan of the one on the first half of the map since I dislike anything that interferes with me wanting to do something other than the meta. Drakar is on par with almost every other world boss in the game. If there are enough people around, roll your face across the keyboard and you win, otherwise you lose. Nothing interesting to see there either. Visions left me as uninterested as the rest. Was better than I expected story wise but the bar for MMOs is set so low that it's not really an accomplishment. Drizzlewood is by far the worst map this season. Annoying to explore due to the map wide meta and the snipers all over the place, extremely repetitive with no unique events and a horrible final boss fight design, "achievements" that are nothing but grind. At least it has the best voice acting this season. Ok, I may be joking with the last one but I will take no voice acting over lazy Bethesda tactics of having a main character voice throwaway NPCs without changing their voice (like in Grothmar) any day of the week.

As others have mentioned, the masteries could be missing and nobody would even be able to tell the difference. They are so pointless and they lack so much imagination that I wouldn't be surprised if they went to their local convenience store and with no details asked the people to give them gameplay ideas. Makes me wonder, does that studio have any kind of standards or is everything treated with a "good enough" mentality? Strikes are mediocre. I stopped doing them a couple weeks after Visions launched and haven't touched them since. I just don't see the reason to do them since they aren't really all that much fun and the rewards are about as disappointing as the entire looting system in this game.

Overall I am not a fan of this season so far... at all. While I didn't believe their promises about expansion level features, given it wasn't the first time anet was promising more than they can deliver, some honesty at least would go a long way. I know personally would be more lenient if they were willing to tell the truth for once instead of treating us like idiots with nothing but empty promises and PR speech twice a year that they address the community. I gave up on the game for the time being, most likely will check the next episode when it gets released but I expect absolutely nothing from it other than what anet does best... the bare minimum.

Can we be done with LS already? Just create expansions.

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@DeceiverX.8361 said:

@"Eloc Freidon.5692" said:

Masteries are being watered down in their importance to the game as a whole.

As someone who does not PvE often and only just began PoF/finished its prerequisite story like a week ago, I see this as only a good thing. Being unable to even participate in new content due to the gating of stuff behind masteries and mounts due to their overbearing importance is a really bad feeling. I don't want to be there doing the content; I just want new skins and stat options made available.

I think the mastery system is one of the weakest elements of the game's expansions altogether. It really doesn't change gameplay from the "Go here and do this event" ktrain mentality at all; it just adds another layer of complexity and gatekeeping behind it.

I think adding more armor sets and weapons would probably get people more excited than bouncing on mushrooms etc.

I agree, I CANNOT fathom why we got those gliding skills and the Siren's hymns just to never use them again unless we magically go back to those maps. We are able to use the Counter Magic one and the extra downed skill so why not have those other ones at least in Central Tyria. Its a waste and WE all know it.

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As for Icebrood saga: I have generally liked GW2 story and am in/back for the story, so this hasn't changed that much. It was probably a "bad" idea to "re-learn" the game with the IB zones. What I found annoying was the general progress bar instead of hearts. Especially the prologue zone bar felt kinda slow to fill before the story would move on. Filling the bar in the last zone was okayish, since the events occur more frequently. OW metas are still the same visual vomit between player character skills and bling-bling and monster attack effects.

I want the hearts and more events to return. Each heart is usually a chunk of story but I assume they are trying to have each map be unique or different from others. Variety is attractive.

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there's something wrong with storytelling in GW2. that's been the case for me from the very beginning. I just can't get invested in the lore, factions and characters. all of LS feels like a slog to me. bad voice acting, simpleton characters, and a sort of PG13-ish politically correct feel. the only interesting part about gw2's pve is the open world, which is probably the best in the industry.

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@Taril.8619 said:

@battledrone.8315 said:FF story is awful

FFXIV story is great. Not sure what you're smoking.

The only reason the game even exists to this day is because it's carried by its story.

@battledrone.8315 said:you have lego characters

Which characters are "Lego"?

@battledrone.8315 said:i would also claim, that progression is broken, since you can learn EVERYTHING on one toon

How is being able to do everything on one character "Broken progression"?

You still level everything up from level 1, nothing is shared exp (Except Summoner/Scholar which was a mistake)

How is that any different to rolling 100 characters each having 1 class and 2 professions like most other MMO's?

If anything the progression is broken because gear progression is absolute tripe, with crafted gear being better quality than what you get from Raids and is easier to obtain, not timegated (Unlike raid gear which you can only get 1 token from each boss per week and gear requires 2-4 tokens per piece of gear) and each new tier of crafted gear is released alongside each new raid tier. Which ultimately makes running content utterly worthless and makes the best way to gear up your character is to not fight anything and just craft gear.

most of the story in the start is done with monologues by ONE CHARACTER IN A SMALL DESERT VILLAGE, THAT YOU HAVE TO GO TO EVERY TIMEAFTER A QUEST. that got old REALLY fast.lego characters are the princess and her bodyguard in the very start of the game, you do realize, that such creatures couldnt survive, right?with a HEAD, THAT IS BIGGER , THAN THE BODY AND LEGS COMBINED. throw in the cartoon network voices, and we have a winnera good mage needs to put most points in intelligence, reading books and studying all the timea good warrior needs stamina and strength, training and working outhow many professors have you seen with six packs ? YOU CANT DO BOTH!

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@Eloc Freidon.5692 said:

I'm not going to bother giving examples of how to fix these anymore, because Anet knows how to learn and fix. They just refuse to go back and undo what is broken.

This is literally everything wrong with Anet's devs right now.They simply refuse to revert whatever doesn't work, or restore what they unintentionally broke.

Idk if it's pride or laziness or both but this is probably the single reason why the game has been devolving ever since HoT.

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@battledrone.8315 said:

@battledrone.8315 said:FF story is awful

FFXIV story is great. Not sure what you're smoking.

The only reason the game even exists to this day is because it's carried by its story.

@battledrone.8315 said:you have lego characters

Which characters are "Lego"?

@battledrone.8315 said:i would also claim, that progression is broken, since you can learn EVERYTHING on one toon

How is being able to do everything on one character "Broken progression"?

You still level everything up from level 1, nothing is shared exp (Except Summoner/Scholar which was a mistake)

How is that any different to rolling 100 characters each having 1 class and 2 professions like most other MMO's?

If anything the progression is broken because gear progression is absolute tripe, with crafted gear being better quality than what you get from Raids and is easier to obtain, not timegated (Unlike raid gear which you can only get 1 token from each boss per week and gear requires 2-4 tokens per piece of gear) and each new tier of crafted gear is released alongside each new raid tier. Which ultimately makes running content utterly worthless and makes the best way to gear up your character is to not fight anything and just craft gear.

most of the story in the start is done with monologues by ONE CHARACTER IN A SMALL DESERT VILLAGE, THAT YOU HAVE TO GO TO EVERY TIMEAFTER A QUEST. that got old REALLY fast.lego characters are the princess and her bodyguard in the very start of the game, you do realize, that such creatures couldnt survive, right?with a HEAD, THAT IS BIGGER , THAN THE BODY AND LEGS COMBINED. throw in the cartoon network voices, and we have a winnera good mage needs to put most points in intelligence, reading books and studying all the timea good warrior needs stamina and strength, training and working outhow many professors have you seen with six packs ? YOU CANT DO BOTH!

If you really think that short = can't survive then i assume that you also hate asura? Of course, if the size of the a creatures body was what equals their strength and resilience, it wouldn't matter if you were asura or norn, you would get flattened by the giant monsters regardless.

Also, on the "realism", the only good thing in FFXIV is that you can play all classes with one character, the stats are more fluff than anything else. After all, on the main character, your character, when you get better at fighting than everyone else, it is because he/she is an idiot savant, not that they are actually good at it. Look at the stories in games and realise that a moron couldn't possibly be good at anything, so all that is left is that they are a "chosen one" and that is why they get power although they don't deserve it.

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