Apparently, I do. That is a character flaw to be addressed at a later date.
Still, the reality exists that all that time has passed. It’s a real thing. And while I can gently chastise myself until I’m blue in the face, there’s the fact that said long gap leads to certain expectations. I’m generally pleased with the patch, but there are a few things that do sort of bother me, some of which I expected and some of which were surprising. Let’s dive in.
MSQ: Wait, what?
Bad stuff first: the main scenario quests in this particular patch are short. Very short. I blew through the whole thing on my main whilst watching all cutscenes in about an hour and a half; one of my alts is on track to do the whole thing even faster while speeding through. And I’m not really upset about that, because it means that the quests aren’t being padded out, but it does give everything the distinct feel of “let’s set up for the next few patches.”
The game never outright says that, of course. But it’s hard not to play through what’s going on without seeing everything as a clear and transparent setup for further main scenario developments. Much like the story in 2.1, it’s a pacing action, something set up to deliver on further content rather than rising motion.
That having been said, it also continues the excellent character work that had been done all through the expansion storyline, and the new addition to the cast is awesome. Those who have been lost cast a long shadow over the events of the story, and the game is really doubling down on making it unclear who the actual villains are despite no shortage of antagonists. It’s direct, it’s straightforward, and it’s well-told; it just feels a bit thin after all this waiting.
New dungeons: A shift in philosophy is welcome
We have only five patches to judge by, but all through the 2.x series there was a pretty clear rule wherein one of the three new dungeons per patch would be a clunker. Pharos Sirius, Lost City, Stone Vigil, Sastasha, and Amdapor all earned that reputation, at least locally. I was not happy to see them pop up, because they involved sections that were just annoying, badly designed, or irritating for no reason whatsoever. By contrast, Neverreap and Fractal were both excellent dungeons; their main weaknesses had nothing to do with the dungeons and everything to do with the fact that they outstayed their welcome slightly.
Here we are in 3.1, and I’m thinking that this might be part of the reason why we’re only getting two dungeons per patch now. Because both Saint Mocianne’s Arboretum and Pharos Sirius (Hard) are solid dungeons without anything that makes me say “dear lord, not this again.”
Pharos Sirius has some entertainingly gated areas as you climb back down the tower, and at least one place where a big pull of enemies feels like a fun challenge with positive rationale rather than just something to rush through. The first and second boss are both easy if your DPS is on the ball about killing adds, but wrinkles are present: you have to drag tethers to animals for the first one, and you have to kill the slimes on the orange smoke for the second. The last boss requires a bit more artistry with knocking Remedy Bombs away from the Grey Bombs, but even that isn’t too bad once you get used to doing so.
Meanwhile, the first boss of Saint Mocianne’s Arboretum is a boss from Legend of Zelda, dodging multiple static fields as the both slowly rotates its Bad Breath AoE, and it’s a lot of fun. Second boss is also dodge-intensive with a mild DPS check when adds show up, and the third boss is all about looking away during Front Fatale whilst avoiding AoEs. About the only super-dangerous thing that you might miss are the Final Stings that the Orn Hornets perform while you DPS down honeycomb barriers toward the middle.
Both dungeons are fun, they’re solid, and they have nothing that I would classify as downright annoying. If the trade for getting better dungeons is getting fewer on a regular basis, I suppose I can live with that.
Void Ark: A bit more disconnected
The queues for Void Ark have been kind of a mess, I’ve found. I’m not sure why that is, exactly, but it kind of ties into the nature of this particular dungeon nicely. Void Ark itself is a bit of a mess.
I don’t mean that thematically, although that element is there. While there was never going to be a way to mirror the structure of the Crystal Tower dungeons directly, this kind of stutters due to its lack of elements from the series to brush against. The lore behind the Void Ark itself and about the fall of Mhach is great, don’t get me wrong; I’m loving the peek at earlier eras and developing a more solid view of the game’s lore. But it does mean that the Ark itself isn’t a reference to anything, so it doesn’t have that clear line of structure like the tower.
More than that, while the Void Ark has the same core makeup as previous raids, something feels just a bit off about it. The pieces are all right, but the way they’re arranged feels wrong in some fashion. Perhaps it’s just the novelty of the place.
The first boss is pretty light on mechanics, focused mostly around dodging things with a brief homage to the wall-off mechanics of World of Darkness. It’s the second trash pull wherein things get messy, since I’ve seen far too many groups die from not targeting the Pagan’s Knots along the sides. Second boss is more mechanical and pretty fun on the whole; I like the idea of fighting a plant-hydra-thing and its stem.
And then you get to the third boss, and things come apart just a little bit. It’s not that Cuchulainn is hard, exactly, it’s that there are lots of things that can get messy unexpectedly and lots of ways for a new group to wipe with very little understanding of why. Considering that the last boss is far more straightforward (albeit with a gaze attack that casts too quickly to be avoided much of the time), I can’t help but feel as if the bosses were generally a bit too light on mechanics for the format.
But maybe that’s just me, and maybe that’s a result of comparing it to the high points of the Crystal Tower series rather than the low points. Certainly it works, and there are positives to be said about how it’s all laid out; it’s not bad, it just doesn’t feel like a comprehensive experience the way that even Labyrinth of the Ancients achieved.
Of course, there’s more to discuss in the patch: The issues with the Diadem, for example, deserve a whole column. Still, I have to save some material for next week. Until next time, you can leave feedback in the comments down below or mail it along to eliot@massivelyop.com.
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.
