Wait, you get a double column today? Yes indeed you do! This is good news for those of you who like to read about the things I have to say regarding Final Fantasy XIV. (For those who don’t, well… you’re not going to read this anyway, so I hope your day is going well.) See, as I discussed in the first Wisdom of Nym we put live today, there are a lot of job changes going into this patch – enough that I can easily fill out an entire column’s worth of content based solely on all of that and still wind up having to shuffle some stuff off to “yeah, and there was other stuff, too.”
Sorry, Machinists. I love you all, but Samurai is more interesting than Chain Saw potency buffs. They’re functional changes, you understand.
However, there are more than a few pieces of interesting information conveyed within the patch notes outside of just the mechanical shifts, and I didn’t really want to write about one and not the other… and there wasn’t really space to just make one super-long column. So instead we get two columns today. You can still join them together in your mind, like one of those Gundams that powers up when it locks into another Gundam. (Does Gundam do that? I’m not actually a Gundam fan, I’m so used to that from Transformers and Macross that I just assume it’s a Gundam thing too.)
Gender unlocked
So for a while we’d been getting a steady stream of gender-locked outfits for glamours and from other sources. Not an unstoppable stream, but enough so that there was actually… well, a split there. It wasn’t overwhelming, it wasn’t terrible, but it did eat at one of the things I’ve long held up as one of the best aspects of FFXIV’s glamour system: the fact that you have so many options to make your character look like you want.
A lot of that is changing with 6.1, it seems. Seriously, the list of remaining gender-locked outfits is pretty small. Some of the Garo gear, I guess? And there are still minor gendered differences for, say, Red Mage AF gear here and there. That’s about it.
Now, I’m not 100% sure why we got so much gendered gear for a while. My theory is that the developers wanted to have skirts and dresses but didn’t want to make those lady-exclusive without giving the men something to wear as well, but then you just wound up with a whole lot of really nice looks being gender-locked for no good reason. Unlocking them across the board means more customization, more options, and generally more fun with costumes. I am a fan, and I am happy that it’s happening as a feature that had previously not been announced.
Shame about that Garo gear, though. (I checked, it’s not on there. Probably a series thing.)
A bulk of quests
We are getting a lot of quests tomorrow. Like, a lot. I expected that there would be a fair number of MSQ installments, just because… well, there sort of has to be a bunch, we’re starting an entirely new arc and we need some sort of building action unless the whole story is starting and finishing in this patch. (This is technically possible, but that seems unlikely.) But there are more quests for the Myths of the Realm series than I expected, too; usually the alliance questline is short and direct, this feels bulkier.
Of course, I imagine it’s fairly early that you unlock the first raid, but there’s still more elaboration afterwards. That’s notable.
Even more notable is that rather than just a single quest to wrap up the role quests, there’s a whole series there to boot. I am curious about what’s waiting at the end of it because it seems like there’s more than just lore to be had there. Maybe it’ll be something for the Adventurer Plate, or maybe it’ll be some new cosmetics or a new pet of some kind. The fact is that if there are that many quests, it’s probably going to have some substance to it beyond just “show up and maybe do a fight.” Compare that to the one-quest wrap-up in Shadowbringers and it seems like there’s more going on here than just lore.
I was a little sad that we weren’t getting our new tribal quests right away this time, which is unusual, but it’s nice to see that the quest volume doesn’t appear to have been neglected. Some of the workload no doubt went into the changes being made to the MSQ around Praetorium and Castrum Meridianum, of course, but I do feel like we got a fair amount to do even without that. Although it doesn’t quite have that usual satisfying element of daily repetition, something to do on a regular basis… then again, getting nuts for upgrade items will bulk out daily routines a bit anyhow.
Fixing the old
A lot of this patch is actually backwards-looking, which makes a certain amount of sense. The first major arc of the game is finished; it’s time to make sure that all of the old content is in the best state it can be, and that means adjusting things like old dungeons and getting rid of consistent annoyances. I’ll miss Cape Westwind in theory, but mostly for the memes that it inspired, not because the battle itself was memorable or even worthwhile.
For that matter, I find it really interesting how many of the old dungeons have been adjusted in various ways. Copperbell in particular is a dungeon that had previously been ruled by gimmick fights; by contrast, Toto-Rak was long annoying to go through just because of a period of slowdown. It’s very obvious when stepping into the original dungeons that the developers hadn’t yet quite nailed the formula for getting these dungeons to flow and feel interesting to go through.
Also of note is the fact that a lot of older dungeons will now be available in exploration mode, which means more chances to get screenshots and just find neat corners of the maps. I really like this feature and I’m glad to see it continuing to expand throughout the game.
Several of the features we know are coming along fall into the usual status of “convenience features you didn’t realize you wanted but immediately want once you see them.” Like, the addition of more items to the Currency tab and the option to choose what you cycle between for currencies? Not something I would ever have listed as a want, but I’m happy to see it and it’s going to be very useful. Checkmarks for the stuff you already have registered? Same deal.
I’m excited, as I always am before a new patch. I’m also a little anxious about how the job changes are going to impact the jobs I play and how my rotations will change, which is pretty important in the long run, but I wrote an entire column about that which you can already read. There are multiple sources of excitement and anxiety, you know?
Feedback, as always, is welcome in the comments down below or via mail to eliot@massivelyop.com. Next week… well, as I mentioned, I’ll be discussing the content of patch 6.1. That part hasn’t changed. I did imply that it would be a little bit longer before you saw another column, but sometimes you get a pleasant surprise.
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.
