Based on the live letter and the trailer for the next Final Fantasy XIV patch, I definitely feel at least somewhat less served than I have been thus far in the expansion by… well, two things. The cast of the Arcadion lineup looks much less entertaining than the first set, and the tomestone gear looks downright awful. I get the inspiration, but the designs it’s drawing from weren’t great to begin with and they don’t translate well to FFXIV’s style. Maybe some of the other kit will look particularly nice.
Of course, there’s more to a patch than that, and these are fairly minor complaints especially when they’re entirely focused around visuals rather than content. The fact that the cast of the raid looks less interesting doesn’t mean they’ll be less interesting. And there’s plenty going on that has nothing whatsoever to do with the raid cast… starting with the confirmation that we are almost certainly not getting a trial series this expansion once again.
I’d previously said that it was too early to conclude that we were definitely getting the next trial as a part of the MSQ, but it is not clear that is exactly what is happening. I’m of two minds about this. On the one hand, the trial series has been kind of an odd vestigial part of the game for a long time now; it made sense for Heavensward, but not quite as much for Stormblood and Shadowbringers. I’ve noted before that trials now are far less relevant than they used to be, and so it makes sense to make them just part of the story instead of a side story that only matters if you’re doing Extremes.
At the same time, I think the problem here has more to do with the fact that trials are increasingly vestigial content compared to other options; the rewards for doing a raid battle are just more substantial than those for a trial, and there’s very little difference between them except for that at this point. Combine that with the fact that I’d much prefer a story structure more akin to prior expansions than Endwalker, and the sight of the trial being in the MSQ makes me a bit less excited even though I recognize that it’s also too early to assume that’s how the rest of the expansion will go.
We’ll know more once we’re actually into the story and through the weeds, but that also raises the question of what to think about the other content. And most of that is being slow-rolled this time around; while the patch proper comes out on March 25th and frees us from the tyranny of ever having to do Dreadwalk again, it’ll be about a month until Cosmic Exploration hits, then another month for Occult Crescent and the Mamool Ja quests.
I’m particularly interested to see how the gear situation is going to work on the Occult Crescent. We have a clear set of pictures for the gear that’s coming out with the patch, but unlike most sets we only have six sets seemingly pictured, a mix of sets corresponding with the main cast outfits from Final Fantasy V and job sets from the same which line up with the phantom jobs. How agnostic are these going to be?
Then again, agnosticism is a worthwhile question for everything when it comes to the phantom jobs. In Bozjan content, you were limited to certain sorts of essences for each particular batch of classes, but the six repeated phantom jobs have not had any particular limitations put forth. We just know that they alter your playstyle. So is one “the tanking phantom job” and you need to equip that if you want to tank? Does each general category have a few options? Can you be a Viper with a Time Mage support? Is that even desirable or helpful? I’d sure think it’s cool, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it is.
The other big thing we know about going into this patch is that the content is not expected to be used for leveling, which is honestly the right call. I don’t think the Bozjan content was in any way improved by attempting to let you level with it as well, and firmly dividing off the Deep Dungeon as leveling content is the right call here. Now… whether or not the Occult Crescent will have a good reason to keep people coming back beyond “content most people skipped” a la Eureka remains to be seen. The proof, as always, will be in the pudding.
As for Cosmic Exploration… it’s hard to say much yet, although I really hope that the “individual build-up” part doesn’t wind up tying into some sort of server-wide competition like Ishgardian Restoration. (That was indisputably the worst part of that content, both in pitting players against each other and servers against other servers.) The Star Contributor feature seems like a good way to celebrate participation without necessarily leaning in on the unpleasant side, there, so I do like that.
What’s going on with mechs, meanwhile, is still somewhat vague but looks promising. I like the effort to continually give plays something interesting to do as a benefit for crafting, and this looks like another robust slice of content. Plus the new tools are right there, which is one of the most important aspects of any such content.
PvP revisions look like… well, about where PvP has been the whole time. The shot in the arm that it got from the reward tracks helps, knowing that rewards are not gone forever but come back also helps, but it also does raise certain questions because, like… how do you motivate people who already have everything they want? I already find myself with a problem wherein I just don’t have stuff to spend trophy crystals on any more, and I don’t think I’m the only one. Adding things from previous reward lineups for crystals would give me something to buy, potentially, but what about things we already have?
I guess having one extra Frontline map is strictly better than having fewer. But the fundamental PvP problem the game has had is still not fixed.
Overall, this column might read a little critical or suspicious, but I’m really not feeling that way; the potential pitfalls just stand out a bit more, but I am excited for the patch. There’s a lot of neat ideas on display here, a big swing for crafting and gathering as well as a third try to get a particular style of content right (and this team often does well on its third go-round of ideas that didn’t quite get over the finish line before). So it’s going to be interesting to see how it plays out in a couple weeks.
Feedback, as always, is welcome in the comments down below or via mail to eliot@massivelyop.com. Next week, rather inconveniently, the patch happens right after my weekly column (which isn’t a surprise, that’s always been how it goes), so I want to talk a little bit about potential future jobs… more specifically, potential future phantom jobs, since we know we’re getting more.
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.
