Patch Evaluation

Hi again. I'm gonna be talking about the latest releases of content FFXIV brought and give my criticisms, useless as they are, but doing it anyway :). Mostly its for the discussions and I like talking about them so others could share the experiences, as well as venting similar annoyances. Anyways lets get started...oh right, onelast thing. We all know about the Yoshi P interview that Yoshi really has no intentions of changing the straightline/amusment park rollercoaster rides style of gameplay, so there's not much reason for me to discuss some matters, so you wont be seeing me go http://img.memecdn.com/ffxiv-hallway..._o_6974927.gif
anymore. Sorry :p

SPOILERS, BE WARNED!!!

Story Stuff


Main Story

Obviously good, but there was something a little mixed in there. I know were playing an RPG in which we as players feel obligated to make decisions, but when the decisions don't mean jack shit don't give us options when it does nothing to change the course of gameplay or story. What it does is just give us a reason to look at our Journals and select different answers to see what others say. Also F*** you Alphinaud making my answer seem like shit.

Me: And the road moves on.
Alphinaud: So it does my friend.
Me: Snarky piece of crap. >:/

There's tons more but I'll add some time later. anyways its mostly a 9/10

Hildabrand Sidestory

Funny and fun as always. I'm so glad they kept his mom for these as she's just tons of fun to listen to (well read but yeah). Vivi is kinda adorable still, but.....idk, just tired of em at this point. It isn't Vivi from FF9, its a mammet with powers, but thats just me. The story was fun as always though, and I didn't have to move too much, that's progress X). One thing in particular bugged me, not sure if anyoe else felt the same but, that scene with the old man when we were commanded to strip him naked and beat em senseless...yeaaahhhhh. I'd prefer if my character didn't have inner monologue for that. As much as I complain about my character being a plank of wood, I wouldn't like my character saying, goodnight sweet prince as she walks away from the possibly dead old man after leaving him defenseless against morbols in the area. Thats the only thing though, other than that, pretty darn fun XD. 9/10

Scholasticate

Still interesting. I have alot of fun with these investigative mystery types but its still limited to what the player can do outside of the stories boundries. I wont be giving advice on quest structure because "Yoshi P", but its still a bit underwhelming. Nice story though. 8/10

Alexander

HA! Forward and back, and then forward and back, and then go forward and back, then put one foot forward! This is your theme song as of now Yoshi with you and your Exponential Entropy, but anyways joking bs aside, these fights were pretty fun. I thought the 1st one was kinda bleh but they were interesting to say the least, and not much bs either (that being surprise mechanics you never know until you die from them making it trial and error by default). Alright, this has to be said though. Action Sequences, OMFG do more of em, please god yes. That was generally the biggest eyebrow raiser for this entire patch and for good reason. It looks cool, its responsive to impulse, its basically a mini-game within a boss fight. MOAR PLEASE! I can only imagine what else they'd add like our character having to hack a terminal playing a minigame like whack-a-gobbie or something or having our character do a series of FF7 jumps to platforms timing them right to ascend. So yeah, more of that please X). 8/10

Sophia

Probably the only boss I noticed that talks alot and I'm able to understand most of what she's saying. Since I was lagging for a while because Comcast blows and FFXIV still hasn't talked to them, I was unable to do Extreme mode. Anyways, talking about normal mode, this fight was pretty fun. Its rather short, like Shiva's fight but......ok, not to sound like some feminist or anything (I'm a guy) Shiva's and Sophia's fights are pretty darn short, on the normals anyway. Not sure why I feel that way and it could just be me but Idk, what do you guys think? So yeah, fun fights, also tiny bits of math in the fight (counting weights), I welcome it. Instead of just using numbers for RNG you can do so for simple problem solving, your learning devs! Lol, but seriously nice job. :) 9/10

PVP :D

Duels

WHM vs DRK = You'll be fighting till another Dalamud drops the bomb on us, except it'd be Soken's hand in a thumbs up position with Yoshi P inside or something.....idk, the mode's unbalanced. To be honest we all know the mode was going to be unbalanced, but I'm yet to hear or see any discussions on fixing some of these un-balances on the forums. If your gonna make us believe your keeping an eye on PvP other than throwing things at us your gonna have to participate Square, and no, I don't mean having your workers play the damn game, I'm sure they do that anyway. Talk to the PvPers, answer some requests, take more notes. Another thing I like to add is please allow us to duel in other places as well. If its just between 2 people I really cant see a reason to not allow it. Your literally dividing the community just for a simple 1 on 1 mechanic. Not to mention great it could be for RP purposes. PvP Gear is practically useless with the new gear now. If its all ilvls and materia bonuses don't do crap still......oh wait, this is that straightline bs I was talking about right? my bad XP

Also, Bards and corner shooting, yeah, its broken.

......no other PvP announcements....sigh 6/10, at least they listened to our request but, yeah.

Filler Content Calling it this now for how redundant its getting

Wondrous Tails

http://2new1.fjcdn.com/reaction_gifs...29c7b6106a.gif

Lol jking. Aside from the creeepy cute Miqote this mode is....a piece of crap. Your making us run random dungeons and content to fill out a book for some girl's friend for items, in which the 3rd item is the most wanted thing because the other items are crap yet somewhat impossible to get due to rng?

http://orig03.deviantart.net/c9cc/f/...ke-d49cbfv.gif

All I'm going to say about this is, "Rowena, die in a Fire IV". >:/ Pedo Roegydan out of 10

Squadrons

https://38.media.tumblr.com/b7808b9f...m293o1_250.gif

Read my signature, I was not disappointed. Oh, and I've yet to see an item for my use other than the Squads. Goodjob -_- Airships/10

Dungeons

Gubal Library

Loved it as much as the other one, and no thats not taking a hit at the shocking similarities because IT FUCKING IS SIMILAR, but the overall design of the dungeon is still eye catching. Books are scattered around the library sharing funny stories, some referring to other things like why Cure II is no longer Cura (Classics over convenience I say -_- ) and funny stories about some Dragon Born kid which was an interesting read......Heavensward is such a Skyrim wannabe if that's what they're implying XD. The boss fights are ok. Gonna say this now though. I believe it was the 2nd boss, which is the Fire copy of that one Alexander boss....why.... Are you that lazy or maybe your trying to ease players into that content? Idk, but it was stupid. The original fight wasn't too hard to begin with anyway, so I really don't see the point other than more convenience. Other than that, it was a ride I enjoyed.....woops did I say that out loud ;D 8/10

Xephatol

Gonna be honest, I thought this dungeon was a bit boring. If it wasn't for that ONE part I'd say its pretty dull. There's some nice visuals like the waterfall rapids and looking above the clouds when your so high up (apparently). They put a gondola kinda thing for the WOL to traverse on but it looks flat out goofy seeing us ride it like statues. We're already planks of wood, we don't need to be reminded lol. So yeah, that ONE part......Piglets for everyoneeeeee!! X) Actually I'm sure its just there to show us what we could possibly get by running that boring place hundreds of times. While is good for showing players what they can have, Lol yeah no thanks. Not that bad though. I give it a 7/10


Overall evaluation is a 7.5

I had fun with the story stuff which took me about 3 days this time. A quick note: I just recently discovered they actually had a scholasticate quest and I completed it today, though I completed the other content way before in 2 days.
Filler content is less than abysmal, though I guessed as much after the Deep Dungeon incidents, which I'm surprised they didn't just build on the subtle success of Deep Dungeon instead of the Garrisons reject (Squadrons) and Wondrous Tails. I know there's suppose to be 50 more floors coming, but they did NOT add them to the patch on release, and al they added now was more random RNG on the RNG table. I'm not tired of it, just annoyed with it now. Please don't kill your new content.

So yeah, fun for the time it lasted. Nice job guys.

http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j2...-thumbs-up.gif

Updated as of now.

You forgot the part about how dumb it was to make everyone's wondrous tails rewards all the same. It's Naul all over again.

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Originally Posted by Alistaire

You forgot the part about how dumb it was to make everyone's wondrous tails rewards all the same. It's Naul all over again.

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There is nothing dumb about making the reward the same, it was done to prevent the RNG of oh I never get the body piece i want as tier 3. By keeping the books similar reward wise it keeps things in order and prevents a potential scenario like, "How come I never get Thancred for line 2 but he's gotten Thancred for line 2 3 times already" It just keeps things fair/easier to manage.

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Originally Posted by Alistaire

You forgot the part about how dumb it was to make everyone's wondrous tails rewards all the same. It's Naul all over again.

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They are!?

https://67.media.tumblr.com/73f0f061...99t0o1_400.gif

Oh wait, it'd kinda make sense if we're all doing the same dungeons for our books, but not for the rewards so yeah, still pretty dumb. Not everyone wants 250 tank gear afterall. At least thats what showed up on mine the first week.

I got so mad at Wondrous Tails last night :( Had the Thancred minion available as the 2nd line award so I waited until I had 7 stickers and blew almost all 9 of my second chances on shuffles. I ended up with a set up where the odds were pretty good I would get two lines and very good that I would at least get one. Then I collect my final two stickers only to have them appear in the exact spots that did not connect to anything so I got zero lines for the week >:/

When I went to turn in the book I spammed the /slap emote on Khloe until the police showed up and hauled me away.

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Originally Posted by Kurogaea

Oh wait, it'd kinda make sense if we're all doing the same dungeons for our books, but not for the rewards so yeah, still pretty dumb. Not everyone wants 250 tank gear afterall. At least thats what showed up on mine the first week.

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It's not even just that. The value of the battle pieces has a very small window before everyone's in i260 bodies, so already the jobs that haven't "gotten their turn" are disadvantaged, and those that get these rewards after the 4-week mark are basically left with really rare junk.

Scholasticate

Yeah it is unfortunate that we are that we can't do any actual detective work. At least Briardien asked for my oppinion sometimes, and agreed with it. Of course it is no witcher temple district, but for an MMO I think it is a pretty decent invetigation questline. I'm actually enjoying it more than Hildibrand. Hildi feels kinda forced. Like they really didn't want to do more, but caved in to fan demand. Their heart might not be in it. Or it might just be the abscence of Greg and Ultros.

Main Scenario

We are really going to have to disagree here. I know we can't change the story but I really liked that we got to talk a lot. Especially when I had a chance to remind Alisae of that one time she saved our skins in 2.55 to stop her from lamenting her "uselessness". It was also a nice touch how they implemented Titan hard. We also got a huge lore dump, some twists, a decent ammount of forshadowing, an epic confrontation with the WoDs, an acknowledgement of our past deeds outside the Main Scenario (Coil), and a pet that as far as I know has been in high demand (Moenbryda). It also fealt quite long, with a dungeon, a trial, a solo duty and several long cutscenes. For me this was the best patch-Main Scenario including the 2.x era

Still loving Deep Dungeons and I like looking for hoard. It also explains why my character goes in over and over again despite freeing Edda long ago.

As for Squadrons and Woundrous Tails: I'm doing Frontlines and dungeons anyway for tomestones, so I see no problem with getting seals and recruits as a bonus. It will not gear me for savage raids, but I was never that good at raiding so it doesn't matter for me much. I just like having new toys to play with.

The story was good enough, the ending got a little corny there but the scene with the WoD was touching; pulled the heartstrings a little. But it's come to show that the writers are great with writing a strong ending, maybe even a beginning, but falter at the meat of the story. Look no further than to Alexander's arc for an example as well. Almost the entirety of that storyline I've been rolling my eyes, so tempted to skip C/S because if I had to watch Mide stroke her damn scar even one more time... and I loved the absurdity of the goblins, so not even that bothered me, just how cliche it all felt. By the end the story managed to pull some emotion other than disdain out of me, so props to them for that.

Story aside, the Creator has been some of the best content I've played in a while. The last two fights especially; they're chaotic and frantic which is what fights need to feel like. Still having a blast every time I run them, even if its with a somewhat questionable DF group. Agreed on more random events like in a11. It takes you by surprise somewhat and just feels fun. That's what phase transitions should be like.

I've racked my brain with Squadrons and it's a hot mess. I'll give credit that to do it proper isn't a mindless action, but at the same time, getting things just right is asinine. That the squadrons are designed with the intention of changing your people's classes to match missions but locking said necessary items out until 40/rank 2 is a trollish move. In the future I'd like to see some life given to these dummies. Give them small talk dialogue, some unique personalities reflected in their actions, something. Also, if further development is brought into them then give me beastmans. I need a Vath buddy on my team, or a Sahagin, that'd be sick.

And Blunderous Fails needs to burn in a fire alongside Rowena. This concept of "Hey, do all these things the support old content no one cares about anymore and MAYBE get something cool" wouldn't have been so bad if you had some better means of not getting completely rammed up the backside by RNG. I'm just going to put aside my hate for now and just offer this one suggestion: Give us a wildcard sticker. Put it somewhere, anywhere in the book, maybe make it shown what will give it to you or not, but give us this one thing. Having the control of even just one placement could save so much headache and maybe make this more worthwhile.

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Originally Posted by Alistaire

You forgot the part about how dumb it was to make everyone's wondrous tails rewards all the same. It's Naul all over again.

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It's not even close to being Naul. the problem with Naul is because i need to kill Naul and Naul is dead so i can't find it. the rewards being the same doesn't create any situation like that.

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Originally Posted by Alistaire

It's not even just that. The value of the battle pieces has a very small window before everyone's in i260 bodies, so already the jobs that haven't "gotten their turn" are disadvantaged, and those that get these rewards after the 4-week mark are basically left with really rare junk.

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probably why they have crafting and gathering pieces on the list too. i imagine they can move the battle pieces to a 2 line reward at that point if they want.

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Originally Posted by Eifahlwyn

I got so mad at Wondrous Tails last night :( Had the Thancred minion available as the 2nd line award so I waited until I had 7 stickers and blew almost all 9 of my second chances on shuffles. I ended up with a set up where the odds were pretty good I would get two lines and very good that I would at least get one. Then I collect my final two stickers only to have them appear in the exact spots that did not connect to anything so I got zero lines for the week >:/

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Same happened to me. Had an almost guaranteed two line set going after using eight points to reshuffle whilst at 7/9, there was several places even that would have given just the one line... but of course it goes and puts a sticker for eight and nine in the less-likely of given spots, ensuring no lines.

Main Story
10/10 would go on a date with Aymeric again :o

Hildibrand Sidestory
No rating because not done yet.

Scholastic Quests
No rating because not done yet.

Alexander 9-12
A12 is amazing in terms of how creative and fun the mechanics are and visually absolutely stunning, A11, while nothing new mechanics-wise, is really fun just based on the whole mecha theme.
A10 is a horrible waste of my time, boring, ugly, pointless. A9 is fun and creative even if I don't like the turn. Overall, it's still 2.5/4 turns that are good vs. 1/4 with Gordias :rolleyes:
While the story felt just as bland and pointless as before, at least I got to laugh at Mide for bringing her misfortune over herself, so..7/10?

Sophia
I absolutely love and adore this Primal. Super fun fight, interesting story, amazing visuals, lots of voiceacting, perfect difficulty for me 10/10.

PvP
No interest in that.

Wondrous Tails
Who doesn't love themselves more RNG with their game? =.= 2/10. It's a cute idea to make players run old content again, it's absolutely horrible that items are locked behind it that are otherwise unobtainable.

Squadrons
Out of all the non-battle content, this is pretty much the only one where RNG only messes with half of your fun instead of taking it all away forever.
I'm ashamed for liking them considering how absolutely bare-bones the concept is so far. 5/10 or something. Not for the godawful implementation but for the basic idea behind it and the rewards. It's 5/10 for potential, basically.

Gubal Library
Pretty yet disappointing. I think this is the first time I could dance through the new ex dungeon brain-afk on day 1 blind with bad randoms and STILL clear it without a single death.
But I just really love libraries, all the lore tidbits and some of the mechanics, so it's kinda still a 6.5/10.

Xephatol
Ahahaha...no >.>
If it wasn't for some of the nice visual concepts and the baloon popping fight, I'd feel inclined to never touch this doze-fest more than for the very first run.
Made excessively worse by robbing us of the possibility of a new zone that turned out to be a really short and incredibly streamlined and easy dungeon. 2/10.

The general fact that any and all fluff this patch is gated behind 15 layers of RNG
Oh hey, hairstyle is a random reward out of hundreds of possibilities out of a random chest that doesn't exist on 90% of all floors and is in a random invivisble position on the remaining 10%!
Oh hey, not just the new glamour gear mats but also the super sought after autumn trees come from Aquapolis, which is RNG behind RNG behind RNG behind RNG :D
Oh hey, stickers in Khloe's book are random and resets are random but no way to get e.g. the Thancred minion but through this book!
And it just goes on and on from there...0/10, absolutely hate it.

Gear
Alex gear looks amazing again. Tome gear doesn't. Secondary stats are pretty shitty on both for the classes I mainly play. 5/10 could be better.


Overall evauluation is 5.3/10.
Yeah..that seems about right.
Usually I never get bored and enjoy a patch until the day before the next one comes out
(and even wish I had more time before the new one gets released)
but this is the first one in a very long time that had me really underwhelmed right off the bat,
and half a month in, I already find it hard to motivate myself to log in at all,
and if I do, I mostly do 3.3 stuff because the 3.4 content is just really "urgh".

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kurogaea

They put a gondola kinda thing for the WOL to traverse on but it looks flat out goofy seeing us ride it like statues.

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I'm loving this patch. Especially wonder tales, but I have to agree with this. That animation has got to be one of the most awkward ones in the game.

I really like Wondrous Tails :D

Patch 2.2, 5th Edition

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Originally Posted by Greedalox

I really like Wondrous Tails :D

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People fuss on this forum about it but in game everyone in my FC is doing it just about. I've been too busy to deal with it but given the Caster Top this go around I'll give it a go once I get my weeklies done and tomes capped on my main and alts.

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Originally Posted by LaylaTsarra

People fuss on this forum about it but in game everyone in my FC is doing it just about. I've been too busy to deal with it but given the Caster Top this go around I'll give it a go once I get my weeklies done and tomes capped on my main and alts.

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Recognizing there are good things to get from it, and recognizing it's easy to do so you probably should do it...that's not the same as liking it.

It could've been a lot better, and even the things that are good to get from it aren't really fun. They tuned it so it's really only worth the time it takes if you do things unsynched, and idk how you could look at stomping through old random primals several times a week as a fun endeavour.

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Originally Posted by Alistaire

Recognizing there are good things to get from it, and recognizing it's easy to do so you probably should do it...that's not the same as liking it.

It could've been a lot better, and even the things that are good to get from it aren't really fun. They tuned it so it's really only worth the time it takes if you do things unsynched, and idk how you could look at stomping through old random primals several times a week as a fun endeavour.

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People wouldn't do it if you couldn't go unsynced. Then there's the odd paradox of people wanting incentive to do old content but then disapprove when the incentive is there because "old content isn't fun". I like the system truthfully, and I am having a hard time imagining a situation that doesn't poke one of the conditions you have for the Tails. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like you want the content to be synced while having a modern advantage such as the duties required being Alexander or Sophia Ex... which is just do the stuff you would normally do anyways but get goodies for it.

I dunno, I think it's just one of those situations where people want to have their cake and eat it too when somethings gatta give.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Greedalox

People wouldn't do it if you couldn't go unsynced. Then there's the odd paradox of people wanting incentive to do old content but then disapprove when the incentive is there because "old content isn't fun". I like the system truthfully, and I am having a hard time imagining a situation that doesn't poke one of the conditions you have for the Tails. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like you want the content to be synced while having a modern advantage such as the duties required being Alexander or Sophia Ex... which is just do the stuff you would normally do anyways but get goodies for it.

I dunno, I think it's just one of those situations where people want to have their cake and eat it too when somethings gatta give.

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Huh? None of that made sense. What I'm saying is with the rewards and chances of those rewards as they are, the only way people would do them is to go unsynched. And doing it unsynched isn't much of a challenge, isn't a whole lot of fun, and you spend more time filling the pf than doing the actual fights. It's rewarding enough from that perspective but that doesn't make it good content.

If they were to make it require synch, or even a step further and make it minimum ilvl required (which has been suggested in threads), they'd have to up the rewards or nobody would do them. That's really the only way to make these anything other than a chore, but people likely wouldn't go for that. Or the skilled players would and then the unskilled majority would complain about it.