Here we are again with a new Final Fantasy XIV patch, and while there is a lot of interesting stuff happening on the story side, there’s also a chunk of stuff to talk about from the content side as well. Fortunately for me, it’s also just about enough content that it fits nicely in one column without any lingering bits to take care of after the fact. So this week we’re just talking about the content side of things without a word given to story, although I can’t promise that it’s going to be totally hidden just by the nature of this stuff.
In some ways, I feel like this particular patch’s content thus far is a bit of an overreaction in various directions. That’s not to say that it’s bad, but the new dungeon, the new trial, and the new Arcadion fights all feel like they are direct answers to existing critiques of the expansion to date… but they do run the risk of correcting too far. I’ll explain what I mean as I talk about each piece on its own, in other words.
Easy castle times
Thus far Dawntrail has definitely made a habit of making sure that each of its dungeons are using mechanics we haven’t seen before, and I can’t claim that this dungeon doesn’t play around with that. Each boss definitely has some mechanics we haven’t seen before. But I also feel like if anything, it’s a little bit too easy overall. The second boss in particular really has two mechanics to deal with, and while the mechanics overlap in interesting ways to give you a pretty narrow safe range to stay in, it’s not all that challenging even if you’re screwing up on the regular.
The first and final bosses are a bit more challenging, to be fair (I rather like the time-delayed tracks on the last boss) and both of them feature things we don’t see in dungeons often if ever. The first boss does interesting things with the arena, in particular, and the growing danger fields is something that we last saw in the NieR raids of all the things in the world. I think that’s fun. It just never quite felt as hype as it should.
Admittedly, some of this might just be that I’m rather jaded after Dreadwalk was a fountain of unreadable nonsense or mildly annoyed at some of the weirder bits of wasted space in the dungeon (there are a couple of lengthy empty staircases that just occupy space without having anything going on), but it feels like a very pedestrian dungeon that mostly exists to give us filler content ahead of other stuff. It’s not bad, but it feels kind of mid. That happens every so often, sure, but it does no good to pretend that it doesn’t or that the results aren’t sort of meh.
She slashes high
It was just a couple weeks ago that I was mentioning how the game currently has an issue with trial fights, and I think this patch’s trial really drives home exactly the point I was making. This fight is not mid (although it may be a touch overloaded), but it really does highlight the idea that this was way too much work for a fight you have to do precisely once.
Yes, Extreme exists, but the fact of the matter is that especially with the new mechanics on display here – the danger floor that only hits when something clips it, for example – this is a kinda tricky fight. With a weaker group and/or not happening to get this early on, it can be downright challenging. And my problem is not that it should be easier, but rather that it feels bad when this is hard to clear and your only reason for doing so is clearing the main story. Nothing else!
I want to get trials that are fun and involved, and I want to see the team continue to experiment with this format. I don’t think this fight is too hard, although I understand people who might feel that way, and I think putting trials back into the MSQ is a good thing insofar as otherwise these fights are too easy to skip. But they’re also easy to skip because you don’t have a reason to do them. I can muddle my way through this fight once, and then I never have to go back to it. If I just want tomestones, why would I do this one again? What incentive do I have?
To be clear, what’s on display here is a good fight that clearly had plenty of love put into it and tries some new stuff. I like all of that. I don’t like that for a lot of players it’s a one-off roadblock, and the only way to actually see it be useful content is a harder mode that some people are going to be turned off from just because the fight is already tricky. That’s not awesome. Good that we’re getting trickier trials again, less good that they’re still superfluous.
One fall
A weirdly consistent issue with this tier of Arcadion is that it feels like every single boss needed, like, one more pass for readability of effects. A just weird issue is that each of the bosses feels like they’re basically a mix of the previous tier’s bosses; M5 feels very much akin to M1, M6 is a variant on M4, M7 feels a lot like M3 with notes of M4, and M8 feels like M2 without its most unique mechanic. That’s… odd, really.
While I think there’s definitely a bit of an issue vis-Ã -vis readability for effects, as I alluded to, I also think some of this has been a reaction to a general feeling that the first tier was overall on the easy side. This round isn’t overwhelmingly harder, but it definitely feels easier to drop and/or get hit on a consistent basis. Fortunately, I also don’t think it’s really too much of an overcorrection. It errs a little bit on the side of being harder than it needs to be, but only a little bit, and it also has the difference that it’s coming out without people having the same gear advantage as when the first tier launched. That’s going to have an impact.
I do think the themes are a lot weaker than the first round, though. Where the first tier really did interesting stuff with melding people and monsters, this one just doesn’t, and to make matters worse the last boss is literally not even matched to the theme he’s supposed to have! Although it is cool to see one of the mechanics in that fight come back again, it’s been a while since we’ve had that particular dodge.
Feedback, as always, is welcome in the comments down below or via mail to eliot@massivelyop.com. Next week, as we do with every patch, we’re going to be looking at the story beats in more depth… and unlike some patches where one or the other is way more interesting, this time I feel it’s much more balanced. So, yay!
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.
