So patch 6.3 is live in Final Fantasy XIV, and as always, that means a hefty does of new content and even more on deck for later. Seriously, it feels like it’s been four years since we got a new Deep Dungeon, and I for one am here for this. But we won’t get that until the interquel patch, so for now it’s just a whole lot of new content to explore across the usual formats with a new dungeon, new PvP rewards to chase, and so forth.
As usual, I’m sure I’m not going to quite be able to get to every part of the new patch content with this column, but I feel confident I can hit the majority of it. I am also not going to be addressing the changes to Paladin because I did that while looking at the patch notes. No, my focus today is going to be on dungeons, the new raid, and so forth. Are we all on the same page? Great. Let’s begin.
Out in the cold
Lapis Manalis, in many ways, is a refreshing return to form. It’s not that I think the first two dungeons were bad for this expansion, but both of them suffer a little bit as a whole; both feature at least one boss fight that’s just annoying to me, the summon gate trash in Alzadaal’s Legacy is annoying, there’s too much running between packs in Troia, and so forth. So I appreciate that Lapis Manalis feels much more like steady fundamental dungeoncraft, and it feels pretty good from top to bottom.
The first boss is basically just recycling the first boss of Qitana Ravel with an added hiding phase, but that doesn’t bother me; the hide phase feels distinct and it makes the overall fight seem bigger even if it’s pretty standard. The second boss, meanwhile, uses some interesting markers and steals at least one mechanic from the Variant Dungeon by requiring to to dodge back and forth while staying on the edge of a marker. I do feel like the Doom is a bit unnecessary for failure to dodge, since the attack that inflicts it hits hard enough without it, but it’s a fun boss fight.
But the last fight? That’s a fun one. It’s frantic and active across the board, difficult to manage in many places, but also with rotating mechanics that again make the fight feel bigger without making it overstuffed. You can clear it pretty easily, and the biggest risk with most of it is just getting overwhelmed and panicking and winding up eating damage that you can avoid along the way.
It’s a shame that the gear is just another rehash of familiar models that still can’t be dyed. That part was a letdown. Everything else here feels solid, and I like it.
Dear gods
I have to say that I’m a little let down by the trash in the second of the areas here. The first trash pulls are neat, staggered in a way we don’t see often and still engaging. The second set, though, feels… way more perfunctory, much less fun, and not thematic. I was picturing rows of soldiers in a way we just didn’t get. Oh well.
The only other real complaint I have from a design perspective about Euphrosyne is that the second boss has one mechanic that I still find really awkward to read. But that’s actually handily addressed by the fact that the second boss also has one of my favorite mechanics where you need two tanks to handle two separate targets and keep them apart. You also have to manage your DPS on both of them; if one of them dies first, the fight gets harder, but if they both live too long, it’s a wipe. Gameplay pressure!
Beyond that fight, though, I’m really pleased and feel like each fight has just the right balance of mechanics. The bosses each feel complex and eager to make your life much more difficult as you try to suss out the precise mechanics, but at the same time each one never winds up becoming a full-on wall to the degree that some fights could. The third boss particularly is a nice showstopper, but it feels like something you can deal with sans any serious threat if you’re paying attention.
And the fourth boss… yeah, that’s going to throw some people for a loop. Once you understand all of the telegraphs, it’s a pretty straightforward fight, but if you resist learning them or just opt to ignore them on the regular, you are going to get killed repeatedly. At the same time, part of the fun with fights like this are the simple reality that you always have the tools to handle the circumstances; it’s just a question of whether or not you use those tools efficiently and carefully. I really enjoyed it and think it’ll be a nice raid to run for the next few months.
Trials and islands
The new trial is pretty fun, but the non-Extreme version seems to be tuned just a little bit too easy. It’s not like it’s devoid of challenge, but it definitely feels a bit too quick to pick up on how to play. Then again, that’s actually fbeen a consistent pitch target for the story trials for a little while now, intended to be just hard enough to make you feel as if you were in a fight but not hard enough to actually seriously impede progress. I don’t wholly agree with that philosophy, but it’s where the design has landed.
As for island sanctuary… well… this is the one place where I think the developers kind of fell flat. It’s not that there’s nothing new to do; it’s that there… isn’t much more to do. In fact, most of what there is to do is just to keep your island running like the machine it has been up until now and eventually level up, and while you are not wholly devoid of ways to advance your leveling along the way, you are definitely light on methods.
The problem is that islands were a lot of fun (and I still think they’re cool), but this ultimately seems like the most basic and perfunctory approach to just tacking more stuff onto the side. It is technically an expansion, but it doesn’t include new space to explore, and short of wanting to build up a stock of the new items, you don’t even really have a reason to leave your main base and explore the island any more. That’s… kind of weak! It could be better!
I’m hoping that this boils down to Square either having a lot of other things that needed to be worked on for this patch in particular or having a lot of bigger stuff that just was not ready for this patch because the alternative is that island sanctuaries are going to feel kind of unnecessary even in future patches. Which is not great when they are, on a whole, a cool feature. I suppose we’ll find out when 6.35 and 6.4 arrive, hmm?
Feedback, as always, is welcome in the comments down below or via mail to eliot@massivelyop.com. Next week, I’m going to go into the story elements and lore that got revealed in this patch, so you still have a little more time if you’ve been waiting to clear the quests.
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.
