Wisdom of Nym: Final Fantasy XIV patch 3.4 in review, continued

    
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There’s never really a good splitting point when discussing Final Fantasy XIV patches. They always cover so much ground with features and additions that any breaking point in a discussion is naturally artificial. There are small quality-of-life changes that I miss in the middle of patch notes, even; I hadn’t realized about the ability to do batch turn-ins for beast tribe tokens until I was actually standing in front of the vendors.

That’s a good thing, incidentally.

For my last column on the topic, I primarily focused on the big story and dungeon centerpieces of the patch, which makes up the bulk of the new content in this patch. But it’s not not all of the additions of the patch, not even all of the new content we got. So let’s dive in once more, starting with another bit of slightly underwhelming story that really feels like it’s approaching a non-climax. (Not an anticlimax; that’s different.)

And here it still goes.

The Warring Whatever

The whole story floating around the Warring Triad has seemed to get an almost randomized place on the game’s priority list, especially dealing as it has with Urianger, Y’shtola, and Krile, who intermittently have other things to do in the main storyline. I hadn’t recognized it at the time, but it was kind of good that the 2.x stories were so separated; it meant that plots occasionally felt a bit disconnected, but it also meant that you didn’t have, say, Cid just randomly showing up and then leaving in the middle of stories that had little to do with him.

While the last patch gave the story a fair amount of screen time, this one felt almost perfunctory, covering a lot of ground at high velocity and not even giving much time to let the hints that were dropped sink in. There’s an implication that something bad was done with Sophia’s followers… then that gets discarded almost two minutes later with more or less no further conclusions. It feels abrupt, and it makes this entire story feel as if it’s building toward a non-climax despite how big a deal the Warring Triad should be.

Sophia’s actual fight is pretty keen, and it’s a bit of a different approach to several sorts of dodging mechanics, so that’s a good thing. I’m not in love with it, but it’s interesting, and Extreme feels like a fair building upon the same principles with less margin for error. And the music is still great.

Ultimately, I find myself wondering whether the sheer number of plotlines has finally overwhelmed the game. While 2.x had three major ongoing plots (the MSQ, the Crystal Tower, and Coil) with Hildibrand’s gags on the side, this expansion currently has five (the MSQ, Alexander, Void Ark, the Warring Triad, the Scholisticate) with a bit of extra Hildibrand. The Triad storyline doesn’t seem to have a coherent focus yet, and it never gets enough development for what it wants to be.

Also, no lalafell allowed.

Squadrons ahoy!

At this point, as I see it, there are two major downsides to Squadrons. The first is that they represent a new system gating promotions without a clear enough explanation of how that works; you can’t even apply for a promotion and be told, “You can get promoted when you do more with your squadron.” This would be all right in and of itself if not for the fact that the system is also almost entirely self-reliant right now; rewards for Squadron progress almost wholly cover… Squadron progress.

That’s partly a good thing, since it means that it doesn’t become an arbitrary hoop you have to jump through just to continue on elsewhere in the game. But it also means that you’re devoting time and effort to a system that doesn’t seem to have much in the way of outside application. I don’t want Tomestones of Scripture coming in from Squadron missions, but there are times when it feels like throwing seals at something designed just to cost more seals.

It’s possible this changes more in the higher levels, and it’s equally possible that it was designed more to establish a foundation for these mechanics than to provide everything that can ever be done with them. As it stands, I like the system, but I feel it’s a bit underwhelming. Hopefully the next few patches will do more with it and expand on what the system is capable of doing so that it seems less like an arbitrary seals-and-time cost.

I’m also not happy with the 18-hour missions, since they narrow your window for play pretty severely, especially given the way training works. It’s not a dealbreaker, but a half-hour training duration and 12-hour missions would feel more flexible.

Wonder, wonder, wonder

'Uptown Funk' - Mark Ronson ft. Bruno MarsWondrous Tails is pretty great, and not just because you get to help out your local kitten. It’s admittedly another chance to be rewarded with some randomness for stuff you were doing anyway, akin to many, many other features in the game, but the slight randomness of this particular system winds up enhancing and improving the overall experience. It’s the right type of randomness, offering additional rewards for good luck rather than making good luck the default.

I’ve seen some people argue that it’s also a good way to revitalize older content, but I’m not sure that’s entirely true. Certainly it’s more effective at incentivizing runs with new players to content, but there’s very little older content that people will do now that they weren’t willing to do before. My desire to do some things hasn’t changed one iota, and thanks to first-time bonuses, I usually find myself doing about the same spread of activities as before; it’s just that I have a little bonus as added incentive to do those things.

The odds of some of the better rewards are pitched a little low, but I also think that works nicely; the rare rewards feel rare, and while you can improve your odds a little with careful play, mostly it comes down to the luck of the draw.

Tomestones!

Normally, I don’t even think a new set of tomestones is worth remarking upon, but the fact that Expert roulette rewards have been jacked up significantly is significant. Doing nothing but Expert runs now will get you to cap in five runs; you can easily get to the cap even faster whilst doing other activities. (And believe me, I’m happy about this when I know I have a week coming up when I’ve got four days to play, tops.)

It’s also worth noting that the Scripture tomestone gear is universally pretty lovely, with only a handful of exceptions (tanks and Dragoons have the short end with this batch), following the tradition of having the last batch get the prettiest gear. Ah, well, no use being sore about that.

Feedback, as always, is welcome in the comments below or via mail to eliot@massivelyop.com. Next week… aw, come on, you know how this is going to be. We’ve got a fan festival to cover, and I’ll be right there on the ground. This is not difficult to decipher.

The Nymian civilization hosted an immense amount of knowledge and learning, but so much of it has been lost to the people of Eorzea. That doesn’t stop Eliot Lefebvre from scrutinizing Final Fantasy XIV each week in Wisdom of Nym, hosting guides, discussion, and opinions without so much as a trace of rancor.
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