WoW SE what.....

Its worth pointing out we still have the relics plus another quest chain involving the Saint Endalim Scholasticate, which being the body that trains clergy in Ishgard may delve into the story of how Ishgard's church is dealing with the changes and challenges to its established doctrine, and we did also get the Beasttribe quests.

They said in an interview that rather than try and cram multiple storylines into the MSQ that they were going to branch things a bit and have storylines running alongside each other. The MSQ this patch might have been laying the grounds for changes along those lines. It might mean that the search for the scions might not share the same questline as the dealings with the Dragonsong war. We will see.

It's the smallest major patch they've done. I certainly hope 3.2 is on the fast-track.

The normal Content is awesome, really funny. The work, put into Lords of Verminion should have been taken to introduce 1-2 more 4 Man Expert Instances.
It is not even a week out and the area in GS is already empty.
If you trie to play ranked on Odin, you play alawys against the same player, cause no one plays it.

Sad, but totally wasted development time.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Cheraa

The normal Content is awesome, really funny. The work, put into Lords of Verminion should have been taken to introduce 1-2 more 4 Man Expert Instances.
It is not even a week out and the area in GS is already empty.
If you trie to play ranked on Odin, you play alawys against the same player, cause no one plays it.

Sad, but totally wasted development time.

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To be fair, that's because there's more stuff to do than just Verminion. I'm sure there are a lot of players like myself that have been putting off Verminion a bit to see what all the other content is like. I know that I'll certainly be playing more of it now that I've finished the MSQ, got my gear from Void, and gave up on the Diadem. Also, on Shiva, the past few times I've been to the Verminion area it still had at least a couple of dozen people there during the off hours for the server. Not exactly staggering numbers, but certainly more than the situation you seem to have on your server.....

EDIT: I will also say that there is one other factor that draws players to the other content more so than Verminion, particularly on the NA/EU servers. Loot. Everyone's so worried about gearing up constantly or trying to get loot for glamour purposes, that practically no one takes the time to just do stuff for fun, or to relax, unless there's a tangible reward involved. MGP is alright, but that's not much of a draw to players. This is the same reason the GS as a whole has been getting more and more deserted as time has gone on. Pretty much the only places you ever see anyone in the GS is the mini cactpot counter and the jumbo cactpot counter.....

My thoughts on the patch... if anyone cares to read them. XD

EXPERT DUNGEONS

I'm not going to lie, I hated normal Pharos. The music is nice, but the dungeon feels long and wiping on the first boss was way too constant for my liking. Pharos HM has the same visual feel as Pharos and I like the music in HM as well, but it is much, much smoother. I do find the 2nd boss to be the most annoying with his charging and stunning, but that's the only real big complaint I have.

That hidden treasure chest on the pipe when you jump down always makes me laugh. I love watching new ones to the run miss the pipe and get all upset that we missed a chest (I usually go down last and grab it after they've landed and said something in the chat about it, LOL).

SMA is amazing. It looks amazing, it feels amazing, the mobs are amazing, and I like the boss mechanics. The 2nd Honeycomb wall annoys me, since it makes speed pulling to that wall really challenging (the wall takes long to kill, so more adds spawn, 1-2 adds have a final sting mechanic, and the incoming damage can be too much to handle when final sting does come out).

To boot, the armor from the new expert dungeons is amazing and I want to collect all of them.

TL;DR: I like the new dungeons designs/mechanics much better than FC/Everweep. The armor looks amazing.

DIADEM

The Diadem does have its flaws, leechers are common and basically untouchable. Rage quitting is common and not being able to replace members makes it really hard to get credit once 2+ people leave. I feel like 210 loot should have a need option (can only need if you are on the class it goes to when the chest opens), but i150 and i180 are great as greed-only options for turn ins/alt class upgrades.

With the amount of loot dropping, I really don't need to see "so-and-so has cast their lot for this-and-that-item" 16 times in half a second. I don't mind seeing what numbers they rolled and who got the loot, but with so much loot dropping and sometimes very frequently, I think that the "so-and-so has cast their lot" should not be present for this content. It works well in a raid environment, or a 4-man dungeon, but it really, really has no place in Diadem other than creating unnecessary spam.

But, for those who pug the Diadem, when we get a good pug it is an amazing experience. We may not have the closeness as an FC run, but making friends with the strangers in your party and the other parties via /shout chat is a nice experience and I quite enjoy it personally.

I'm not really sure how to feel about the stats on the i210 being better than raid and Eso gear. I would have preferred if it had different stats (ie WHM Eso coat is Crit+Pie, while A4S is SpSpd+Pie, I think it would have been better to have a 3rd option that is different from the other two like Crit+Det/Det+Pie/Det+SpSpd/SpSpd+Crit). I understand making it the best makes the content worth running over and over and over again, but I think even having an option that was different than the other two without being overpowered would have been alright. It would have allowed for more options for a BiS other than the previous "either this raid item is your BiS or the upgraded tome version is".

I also think the glamor on the Diadem items are mostly hideous, lol. When I saw the Sky Pirate set (the new craftable one), I honestly thought that was going to be the look of the Diadem gear and i150, i180, and i210 would all look the same (for the same job/class type ie: healer, fending, ect). Instead 95% of the loot I've obtained looks like level 15 gathering gear.

TL;DR: People are jerks and can easily make this a miserable experience. With a good party (premade or not), it is very fun. I like it. I don't like that the i210 is better than Eso and Raiding gear. The system message saying who cast their lot should automatically be turned off in this instance. Most of the items are glamored to gross looking vendor gear. ._.

MAIN SCENARIO

I'm going to be super vague to avoid spoilers.

The expressions were very well done. Crazy eyes looked really crazy, scared eyes looked really scared... except the face Alphinaud made when we first met the new lala character, he looked like he was going to eat them... a little too intense, imo. The scene was still funny, though.

I see characters went back to looking at their empty hand when gazing at an "item". That made me sad, I really liked the appearance of papers, keys, and potions in 3.0.

Nutkin censor was amazing, lol. The stills for that part were hilarious and well done.

Over all, though, I felt like the story for this part was very filler-like. I understand those are needed sometimes to move the plot along, especially with so much that happened in 3.0, but I feel like we didn't really accomplish/do anything other than discover some new faces. We only had a brief encounter with this new "villain" and we only saw the scary bad dragon for a moment... and he was asleep for most of it.

TL;DR: Expressions were good, the parts that were supposed to be funny were hilarious. However, it felt like a filler to move the plot along and set us up for the next patch.

VOID ARK

VA has a really sci-fi feel about it and that, personally, is not my cup of tea--so visually, I'm not that fond of VA. My boyfriend, however, loves sci-fi and the creepy feel of VA, he especially likes the hallway with the flickering lights. I do like the circles we jump through from platform to platform, those are very pretty.

The mechanics on the boss are nice, even on the first day we didn't have as many wipes as WoD. The mechanics are interesting, they're not things we haven't seen before, yet they are implemented in a very refreshing way. The bosses are fun to do and still challenging enough that the first day there were some wipes, however they were easy enough for everyone to pick up and wipes didn't even happen on the 2nd day (unlike WoD).

The armor looks nicer than I expected. I honestly was not fond of the armor when I first saw it at all and had no intentions of getting any of it. However, after seeing it in person, I have changed my mind. I think the tanking chest is especially pretty.

TL;DR: Visually, not pleasing to my taste. The mechanics are nice, challenging, yet easier for everyone to pick up on than WoD. The armor is prettier than I thought.

THORDAN EXTREME

I haven't been in this fight much, so I can't really have a solid opinion on it.

I am no longer in a static due to health reasons, so having an i205 is not a big priority for me. I'm also not very fond of tossing my 990 Eso weapons under the bus... mostly because of their cost.

The other content has me pretty occupied at the moment, however, I am a completionist and I plan on doing it eventually.

TL;DR: I have only attempted it twice, so I can't say too much about it now. But I will do it eventually.

[EDIT] I am a dumbass and forgot about LoV

LORD OF VERMINION

LoV is very interesting. It's unlike anything else in this game and makes a great addition to the GS. It seems to run fairly smoothly (especially compared to Chocobo Races which lags frequently... at least for me anyway).

I, personally, am not very good at these types of games, so I've only completed the first couple of levels... I also tend to only summon the minions I think look cute instead of, you know, having a strategy. XD This probably explains why I'm not very good at it...

My boyfriend has a much better grasp on it and says LoV is almost like a mini interactive story. Some parts he says are really fun to summon poppets and watch them take on challenges like a little raid.

TL;DR: Works well in the GS, unique to this game but not a completely foreign design. Instance is much smoother compared to Chocobo Racing. Campaign is like a mini story series, very cute. My boyfriend is amazing and I suck at LoV. D:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Zazriel

What an amazing patch 3.1 is. My guess is its the best update they have ever released. What do you guys think? Are you enjoying the new content?

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This patch is terrible.

An extremely short MSQ with one minor battle. No trials or dungeons related to it.
They skipped any kind of backstory and rushed us access for the new dungeons. Not sure if they are trying to help people get into it sooner, or just being lazy.
Diadem is an over-glorified materia farming zone. Lets face it. You can farm for your 210 gear for hours any maybe find something, but in 3.2 its going to be worthless. Best option is to farm that materia since they have already stated they are going to be making some attempt in 3.2 to make it useful again.
Only 2 dungeons? After everyone bitching about the lack of expert dungeons in 3.0, you chose to still only give us two choices?
No Hildibrand or other Side Story questline.
Vermillion is terrible. Control issues and other problems. Go read the gold saucer thread.
Aetherchemical research place is still not on duty roulette to the best of my knowledge.
Void ark might be the only saving grace of this patch. The story became rather interesting at the end. Although I do question how many people npc'ed their mhacthi cuttings not knowing what they were.
No relic till 3.15? Why? Afraid it would content with thord content?

I'd complain about the fact that there is only 1 beastmen quest, but I think my complaint on that one dates to how underwhelming the amount of 3.0 content there was. Only two new tribes and if they did them both now, they wouldn't have anything for later patches till next expansion.

Even SE stated they the lack of savage clears but still no nerf. A3S is a static killer. I've seen tons of people quitting the game that have been around since release because of this, but they did not address it.



While the content itself has its upsides but after 5 months of waiting for the new content we are given a depressingly minimal amount.
If SE doesn't improve the budget for this game, I question if 4.0 will be a thing.

SE tore up a popular character just so he'd appeal more to the male demographic, added more gear for women only with no male only equivalent just to appeal to the male demographic, gave us little actual content, invalidated their only endgame raid with overworld gear and added a poorly-thought out clearly unfinished new mini-game. the two new dungeons are fun, though. 1/10.

Honestly just lack luster i was expecting some what more if im honest, considering the large break they took.

MSQ - as others have said, way way way to short with not much of anything happening.
Void Ark - Looks amazing but its easily the most faceroll 24man they have ever done by a long long way. ( Good story though must admit! )
Pokemon - Mostly dead already. Honestly i think they made this just to much and should have kept it alot more simple along the lines of TT.
2 Dungeons - Already Faceroll and Speedruns becoming the norm. Again like Void ark they look great though.
DiaDem - I cant really comment on this entering for the first time on sunday with FC so im hopeing its the saving point for this patch.

My personal opinion about this patch is the team needs to look at there battle content, its either way to easy or so hard its dumb. Pokemon looks great for those intrested in it but i really hope to much time wasn't wasted making it because it looks pretty dead on its feet already. Im sure alot of work went into this patch but i just get this feeling of it being a small minor patch, waiting on other things.

I felt that the MSQ content was a little on the brief side, but then I did the side content and there were almost as many cutscenes around Void Ark as there was in the MSQ. So I was mollified a little bit by that.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Selli

The 2nd Honeycomb wall annoys me, since it makes speed pulling to that wall really challenging (the wall takes long to kill, so more adds spawn, 1-2 adds have a final sting mechanic, and the incoming damage can be too much to handle when final sting does come out).

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The adds spawn based on the honeycomb's HP. If you leave it alone, no additional mobs spawn until you get its HP down.