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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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?
I really love the patch yes, no complaints! Still taking it all in.
The content needs some work. while I love it and the handwork the FF14 team put into it, there is still flaws and let downs. The biggest on the is Airship isles. These are mix emotions from the community as they feel sometimes not fun and boring. They are also unrewarding in easy mode for players who do not travel with groups. The isle is also a pain since to get really anything done you need one person to distract as the other person gets the objective and then switch. SE needs to either tone the mobs down on HP or allow gatherers to farm in stealth mode.
Minion Battle: I have tried to play this, but it is over complicated and the tutorial is dry as a desert.
24 feels too easy compared to its predecessors with old mechanics, but is still interesting in story.
love shared housing.
The new dungeons are interesting at first, but I can see they are going to get old really fast.
Greatly enjoying it in all honesty. 10/10 will continue Sub.
I really love that patch..
spent soo much gil getting all the new glamours. Going around begging crafters to make stuff for me, gathering mats... very stressful but it's okay.
I'm having a blast in the Diadem and I actually really like both new dungeons. At first PS not so much but I think it's very interesting. I LOVE the Arboretum.
AND YES TO VOID ARK YESSSS
Really like it overall.
I just done the MSQ and it seemed short plus we only got two new dungeons. I hope this isn't a sign of things to come.
I wish se would move away from the copy paste approach with new linear dungeons and a 24 man pinata loot. Diadem is an interesting trial run though. Se should turn the game into a hybrid theme park and spends resources on revitalizing the mmo genre. So many good ideas poorly implemented like chocobo races and triple triad. Give people the tools to more easily host triple triad tournaments and chocobo races ran by players. I feel a strong community bring an infinatelt better replayable source of content then logging in to run dailies then logging out.
I don't recall anything but I'll take you for your word. We got two dungeons at launch; Neverreap and Fractal got very tiring. I'd prefer a choice of three instead of two.
The guy/team who makes the dungeons will not be the same guy/team who make the MSQ quests etc.
My concern is now they've had a successful launch they'll be dialling back the content for future patches. I guess we'll have to wait a further three months to see if it's true. I hope not.
It's an ok patch.
I'm not too interested in Verminion, so that's a large portion of the patch that I'm not partaking in.
Was never interested in gold saucer, i only do diadem if it's premade with people i know and the dungeons well... Sucked the plant one looked nice but there was no interesting new mechanics.
I look forward to Void arks unfolding story, nice to see diablos as a threat again and the MSQ was well kinda bad imo... It was short and nothing really happened and the WOD introduction was handled poorly.
It's an okay patch at best
Meh, this patch felt far too small, especially the story. Nice to see some resolve to 3.0 and really loved seeing such but I think most of 3.1's story should of just belonged with the rest of 3.0's. Stuff like Diadem is pretty great though does have its share problems, and LoV got me back into the Golden Saucer. So Overall hoped for a lot more, but its something at least.
Overall I really enjoy this patch (Although unhappy with the bunny ears)
Metallic Dye, some Boots glamour, Challenging Void Ark and Expert Dungeon, The Diadem's gathering (Still can't say happy to Diadem for combat at all).
Them not including the new relics made this patch a -pass- for me. One of the few things I enjoy is that painful grind.
void ark is good, new dungeons are good, even the diadem is ok.
but idk, somethings is missing.
I was expecting a bit more from the void ark. it is not as epic as i was hopeing for.
- Diadem is just monster grind, almost no mechanics to it and has many negative points
- both dungeons are imo great. nice feels, nice visuals, the fights are engaging. after finishing the arboretum i was wondering what it's original difficulty was like
- and lords of verminion... it is actually pretty well done, but i still think the majority wasn't asking for this. i would have rather seen a real hard mode dungeon or mid-tier raid
- haven't had a chance to do thordan ex so far, but it looks like a lot of fun and ilv205 weapons keep it relevant. but i hope we get a new primal in 3.2
- MSQ was probably the most disappointing thing though. the quests were really boring, and the last one had no real climax. overall it was just a setup for what will hopefully come
It was an ok patch for me :/
It's nice to have more things to do, but honestly, I don't get bored easily, so I wouldn't have minded running only Fractal and Neverreap a few more hundred times either.
What I do care about is story, and with the long patch break since the release of 3.0 I was really craving some great story. Was utterly disappointed on that though :(
Super short, nothing really happened, and this weird trend to no longer actually animate cutscenes but instead just show still pictures with voiceover is continuing, too. The story dungeon run with all the NPCs was a lot of fun, but not enough to satisfy me..xD
So far, I'm loving the patch, though I'll admit it's not perfect. Here's my evaluation from what I've done, both good and bad, and starting with the bad......
Bad
The Diadem: Got pretty dull after the second or third time I entered. There's not much to do really other than combat for loot drops, particularly as a fisher where there's only two or three new fish that I can't find elsewhere that I've noticed, one of which is completely worthless from a seller standpoint, (not a single one has sold all week, which indicates there's no value there to anyone). As for the loot drops, aside from the times you'll get drops that are upgrades for your secondary classes, (or main classes if you get a rare 210 drop for your class, and someone else doesn't get it), it's pretty worthless. Beyond the Pegasus and a few materials for crafters, there's nothing worth getting in the spoils trade in, so even when you dump the useless 150 gear you get, you don't have anything to really spend it on. This is particularly disappointing, in that while the Diadem is approximately 80% combat focused, there's no combat rewards you can get from the spoils trade in. All in all, I'm probably going to stop paying attention to it until my FC unlocks Hard, unless a group of my friends are wanting to run it.......
The Roulette Issues: Just, whatever is wrong with the Expert Roulette right now. I know DF wait times are long for us DPS, but right now the Expert Roulette is practically broken. A friend and I entered it earlier as two DPS, and gave up after waiting close to an hour for a group. This wouldn't have been quite so bad if the "0 party members" UI glitch didn't exist and we could see what we were missing, but without knowing whether we were waiting on just a healer or tank, or both, it didn't seem prudent to keep waiting......
Good
Lords of Verminion: I'll say it, I'm in love with this game. I have to force myself to do other content, and now that I've completed the MSQ and new dungeons, given up on exploration, and got my Void Ark drops for the week, the only thing that's stopping me from spending hours on end playing this is friends wanting to do other stuff. That being said, I'll be the first to admit there are problems with it. The time limit and cost on the tutorial are a problem, the controls on PS4 are a bit clunky even after getting used to them, the AI missions are mostly built around who can zerg rush harder, and 99% of minions are completely outclassed by the remaining few, (based on what a friend told me about the stats of it, the Twintania minion is a particularly egregious example as it's relatively "average", (read weaker than any you actually use), but requires you to complete all 24 challenges first to unlock it). All that being said, it's still a very enjoyable game, and the first time I've actually enjoyed an RTS, because it's down to the pure aspects of it rather than focused on building up resources first as most RTSs are. It can be improved, obviously, but I'll still be sinking countless hours of my time into it in the future.....
New Dungeons: They are designed beautifully, and are just fun to play through. Certainly a great improvement over Neverreap. I'm sure that if the Expert Roulette ever starts working properly, we'll be sick and tired of them within a few weeks, but for now they have my seal of approval.
Void Ark: After playing so much 4 player and 8 player content, and being almost completely unable to attempt the CT trilogy, I am extremely happy to have another 24 player raid. What's more, it's actually a fun one. The mechanics within it are simple enough that you can just enjoy the fights without having to get too angry over the fact that there is no coordination between the alliances and what the hell is C doing and why are we having to kill both our adds and theirs!? Ehm. Sorry. Flash backs. Anyhow, I know there are some complaints about Void Ark being too easy, but people need to remember that from all indications, this is the first raid in another group. LotA was extremely easy by comparison to WoD, (though WoD was hard because of players not mechanics). We'll be getting more difficulty as later patches unlock more to the chain, but for now we have a good 24 player raid that we can actually get into without having to take a couple of hours long nap while waiting on the que. I will also say that the story so far for Void Ark has caught my attention far better than the CT trilogy ever did. I'm not just looking forward to the next part for more bosses and loot, I'm also looking forward to seeing where the story will go.....
Main Story Quest [MSQ]: While not exactly the largest amount of story content we've gotten, it certainly caught my attention. A couple of great cutscenes, (one in particular that I enjoyed but some people are divisive on), some actual dialog choices at a couple of points, and a fun solo instance at the end of it all. More so than all of that though, this portion of the story left us with a lot of questions that we want answered, and which will probably put the next story content higher on my to do list than it was when this patch came out. I won't discuss it in anymore detail though to avoid spoilers......
Everything Else: There was a lot of great stuff included in this patch. I'm particularly loving all the QoL improvements, such as having party members and flags show up on your mini map, buying GC items in bulk, Gold Saucer Challenge Log entries, trying on multiple pieces of gear at once, being able to DF Bismark and Ravana, getting exp from level 50 content, ect. I'm also getting quite a bit of enjoyment out of the idle camera, though it has issues from time to time like facing blank walls, or deciding that you really need to know what the inside of bushes looks like. The gear we've got so far ranges from some of the best looking outfits, to "still better than pre-50, but not by much". I'm not entirely sure on the new Beast tribe quests, because I just haven't really had time for it, and likewise I can't speak on Thordan EX, because I haven't made attempts at it yet. Anything else there is, I'm either forgetting it, or I haven't found out about it yet.....
Over all, I'm greatly enjoying almost all the content produced by this patch. While I know full well there are some issues, in my opinion each patch keeps improving when compared to previous ones. While I'm still a little disappointed that relics got pushed back, there's more than enough here to keep me occupied until then.....
Iv been enjoying it so far^^
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.
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:
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.
I like this patch, but I wish they:
- Added a Hildebrand side story.
- Made the MSQ a bit longer, its very short right now.
I have enjoyed most of it, simply due havent been able to explore everything yet ;)
But this patch so far has hit all the new things on the head. Cool dungeons, sweet MSQ with a doze of hilarity hehe, Verminion is fun and requires some learning, Void Ark was great as well as Thordan Ex ^^
Next on my list is to try Diadem :)
I mentioned it earlier but we still have stuff coming in 3.15. The relic quest is obviously coming but we are also getting the Saint Endalim Scholasticate quests. Considering the events that played out in the MSQ, a quest chain involving what is going on among the clergy of Halone in Ishgard could be pretty interesting.
The patch itself is nice. I just with the expert roulette didn't take a million years to pop. I was unable to do expert at all yesterday after wasting hours of my time.
I'm enjoying it.
I like the new 60's a lot, but I was expecting to have a harder time with them plus Void Ark. I went in blind on Pharos Sirius HM with my party, and we figured it out after 3-4 wipes. I was able to make it through Void Ark on my first try with someone filling me in on Mumble and I wasn't the only new one in my party. Enjoyable but saw everything there was to see a little too quickly, so now...
I'm still not sure how I feel about Verminion. I like RTS and I love having something new to do with minions, but I'm not fond of how it's designed as far as keeping track of specials or selecting groups of minions of one type. I was also hoping I'd be able to challenge other players directly so that I could play with friends (we've done chocobos and triple triad), but we looked and that doesn't seem to be an option. Somehow one of them lost at the tutorial though so I guess I'm not missing out.
I haven't done the MSQ, Diadem, or other stuff yet.
I like it so far too. I wouldn't say it's the BEST content patch ever (for me that was 2.2), but definitely the best "catch up"/odd numbered patch, which isn't saying much since 2.1, 2.3 and 2.5 were all kinda shitty.
Sound like the 2.1 story (without doing a previous dungeon to gather some stones for the new Scion HQ).
Void Ark is a bit too simple. Perfect difficulty level should be around CT1 and CT3, but not lower than CT2. Stylish environment, stylish enemies, but the mechanics are lacking. For 24 man raids I love more those fights where every group have its own task to do, and not everyone mixed together in a zerg fest.