A lot of people do not like this story, or at least feel that it is significantly flawed. I will say right now, right up front, that I do not care. Stormblood was exactly the Star War that I needed. ARR had put me into such a malaise that I was skipping all un-voiced dialogue and barely paying attention to that which was voiced. So dedicated had I become to this ennui that I continued this way through most of Heavensward, and didn't start getting much out of that story until my girl Matoya showed up and reminded me how much I love Final Fantasy. Heavensward just kept throwing elven politics and high draconic at me and I was not in the mood to care. What I needed in order to pull me back into this story, was a fun, bright, simple, straightforward adventure with lovable villains made from 100% ham. That's exactly what I got, and I loved every second of it.

Just finished the 4.0 msq. Gameplay-wise, this expansion is the best FFXIV has had so far. The duty, trial, and dungeon design is the best it's ever been, with those generally all being pretty fun. The writing however does not at all live up to how good Heavensward was. Half the expansion you spend away from the place the main plot is about, with most of it not really being all that interesting. There's some alright character moments but largely I was just bored by the writing.

UPDATE: Finished the 4.x patch msq now as well, and did a bunch of the side content. A lot of the writing for the main story is the worst it has been in FFXIV so far, mainly everything that follows up on Stormblood's plot. While I was mostly just bored with 4.0's plot, the plot in the 4.1 to 4.3 patches was just frustratingly bad. Everything that sets up Shadowbringers is generally pretty good though, and I loved stuff like the Omega raids. And the game design has continued to improve.

Story-wise, Stormblood isn't as good an expansion as its predecessor, but it's still much better than ARR, so that's a plus. I enjoyed the many different places the storyline took us, but I felt like the character arcs weren't as well executed as Heavensward's (even taking into account that expac's couple of fumbles here and there). Still, they left a big enough impression on me and I especially liked the many "heart-to-heart" scenes between them.

As for the gameplay, the dungeons and trials are beautifully designed and full of fun and interesting mechanics, a definitive step up from Heavensward, in my opinion. The post-game raids, though a little boring and awkwardly paced narrative-wise, are very engaging and provide a fun gameplay loop. The Cid trials are a good callback to previous FF entries, too.

So even though it's considered by many to be the weakest FFXIV expansion, Stormblood is still an amazing FF game on its own. P.S.: Lyse is gr8 you guys are just mean

My hot take for SB is that the main story would've been much better received if they had forgotten this whole "fight on two fronts" nonsense and focused their efforts on either Gyr Abania or the Far East exclusively, instead of spreading it out on two different regions (that are very far away from each other).

While I agree with the general sentiment that SB is inferior to HW, plot-wise, I'm also baffled how the game community worships Yotsuyu and Zenos. Two boring characters that somehow get a pass because "she has a tragic backstory" and uh... checks notes ...because "he has a lotta junk in the trunk"? Anyway, I'm almost ok with Yotsuyu, but I absolutely hate Zenos.

After HW it seems the devs found a sweet spot for content delivery, so mechanically SB feels more of the same. This is slightly improved by having a somewhat more challenging content, since SB is a bit closer to the current power cap than ARR and HW.

One aspect that SB improved significantly were the raids. The Omega raids have a silly plot about a thing that only briefly shows up during post-HW, but to balance that, the raid is FILLED with FFV and FFVI fanservice. The Ivalice raids, as the name suggests, is chock-full with FFXII and FFT references. The bosses, soundtrack, and even the gear aesthetics, they did not fail to bring a smile to the jaded FFXIV player that I am.

Despite greatly enjoying the new raid series, overall I felt very apathetic towards this expansion pack.

Stormblood really pisses me off. It's not like it's one of the most frustrating games or anything, or even that it's bad. It's just that it does so much to destroy any ounce of its potential and the interesting themes it brings up to the story, drowning its legitimately engaging writing of how rebellion divides and changes the common folk in a sea of garbage filler, uninteresting characters, and continuous fucking about.

In short, Stormblood is basically A Realm Reborn 2 in all its flaws reincarnated, but now more infuriating from a critical lens because there's wayyyyy more interesting potential beneath. There was so much that Stormblood could've been that I went to practically fanfiction levels of script doctoring, seeing how its themes could've been made interesting with characters that were actually developed.

Granted, the majority of these issues do go away in the patch content, just like ARR's Before the Fall. But it's still at the forefront of my mind that the quest design for Stormblood base generally ends up having a lot of FIVE BACK TO BACK FETCH QUESTS THAT DEVELOP NOTHING even as I finish up the last couple quests in 4.x. Whoever was in charge of making the design for quests I hope never gets put in that position again.

This sounds excessively negative, but I wanted to get that vent out primarily to refocus then on why I think stormblood, at the least, is still good and a solid worthy time investment. Kind of a weird sell after all that crap, but there is a slew of amazing stuff especially in the patch content. For one, rotations for your job classes are extensively interesting now, and solo duties now start to get downright challenging if at the least requiring your attention. Dungeons and raids are the best they've ever been too, with especially the Omega raid questline being absolute nonstop raw energy.

One of my favorite instances is Alphascape 3.0, where the boss tested crazy spatial awareness by having a difficult to read attack that depended on its position right before it turns around and does another 50/50 read you have to be on high alert for. The alliance raid also again has no shortage of spectacle, especially with the FFT/XII fanservice. The story of it is absolute trash though idk what happened there. And while I haven't been able to do them, just from what I've researched and the hours I've spent watching them, the Ultimate raids are absolute peak mmo gameplay. Incredible tests of rotational skill, mechanic knowledge, and potentially some of the best team gameplay I've ever seen.

The music and aesthetic is also still incredible, although they kill the motif to death more than they ever have before to where I don't want to ever hear the regular battle theme or stick around in rhalgr's reach. But holy hell is the Steppe and Doma just wonderful places to explore. There's also a good amount of worldbuilding in certain areas that really engage me in (you know, when they're not making you do a bunch of dumb filler).

One last thing that needs to be said is how strong the patch content story gets, with solid characterization and emotional moments that now I'm extensively excited for Shadowbringers. Just thinking about the amazing cutscenes in 4.5 really have my blood running. Hopefully that faith isn't destroyed, but I'm led to believe it won't be.

Overall, Stormblood definitely is a hill to climb up to to a large extent, but thanks to the best gameplay in the mmo so far, and a patch content story that saves it, plus its general aesthetical leanings, it became a solid game to play through.

Fuck Zenos though. Why the hell do people like Zenos, he's worse than Gaius, hell maybe one of the worst FF villains in general.

People tend to not like this one, but usually for the wrong reasons. The 4.0 stuff is Fine honestly (I have some Opinions on how it handled the Au'ra), one of the best depictions of a conquered people suffering from colonialism out there. It's when you start getting into the 4.x story that it comes at you with some Very Questionable Takes, like "giving refugees financial support is bad and will make them lazy, you gotta give 'em Jobs", and "Selling your daughter to Vaguely Implied Sexual Slavery is fine, actually."

The story feels like a step down from Heavensward. There are a ton of fake out deaths which I'm not a fan of and many of the characters that Heavensward built up get pushed to the side to introduce a ton of new people. The scope of the story is too large to flesh out most of its characters even though there are some interesting areas. Due to the lack of focus a lot more of the story feels like filler than it was likely supposed to.

Raiding in Stormblood was much better than in Heavensward as mechanics were more forgiving and cross-server party finder made finding party members much easier. However, the new post game Eureka area was an example of what people dislike about FF11 and 1.0 FF14. Lots of walking around in a sparsely detailed over world waiting for certain monsters to spawn which require a team of people to kill. Rinse and repeat. Tying this area to your relic weapon was what made me stop trying to do savage yet again.