What are you looking forward to most in 6.45?

It's still a few hours before the servers will be up, but what are you looking forward to the most?

I can't decide between BLU and new crafting/gathering relics. I love Manderville so excited for new quests and those relics. My heart just belongs more to tradeskilling.

Going to check out the new Variant. Psyched to be traveling with Hancock. I always liked him.

What is everyone else going to do first?

I am looking forward to what reapers new relic looks like.

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Originally Posted by Godzillaxpowerrangers

I am looking forward to what reapers new relic looks like.

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Ooo yes. I liked the last one though unfortunately this step will go back to no effect I believe.

Blue Mage.

If nothing else, it's always a fun diversion for me.

I am looking forward to the amazing relic grind that rivals Bozja and Eureka in depth and complexity and makes us all want to play the game actually and not despair in endless roulettes to grind the next 1500 tomes. Oh...wait...

EW was a mistake.

Usually I check out new furniture. The firepot stands in the pic look nice. Then will probably get Manderville done to open up the relics. Then some Blu Mage shenanigans :)


and of course, new fishing holes and TT cards to track down.


It's been a while since I felt spoiled for choice.

The only things worth doing this patch. BLU and TT

Friendship ended with combat relic farm, now gathering/crafting life is my best friend...until they take it from me too :(

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Originally Posted by Ranaku

I am looking forward to the amazing relic grind that rivals Bozja and Eureka in depth and complexity and makes us all want to play the game actually and not despair in endless roulettes to grind the next 1500 tomes. Oh...wait...

EW was a mistake.

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>Eureka
>Depth

What depth lmao, you just kill NMs nonstop, the Eureka grind is 20 times more mindless and numbing than any amount of roulettes. And, for both Eureka and Bozja, I sure hope there isn't ever again another step that requires you to participate in giant raid content that will be dead next expansion (looking at you, BA and DR). I'd take the boredom that is grinding currency in roulettes over misery that is exploration zone raids.

Now, I do hope there will be more involved steps, but knowing what 'more involved' meant with previous relics, I won't be too upset if its another 1500 tome shill either.

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Originally Posted by Heroman3003

>Eureka
>Depth

What depth lmao, you just kill NMs nonstop, the Eureka grind is 20 times more mindless and numbing than any amount of roulettes. And, for both Eureka and Bozja, I sure hope there isn't ever again another step that requires you to participate in giant raid content that will be dead next expansion (looking at you, BA and DR). I'd take the boredom that is grinding currency in roulettes over misery that is exploration zone raids.

Now, I do hope there will be more involved steps, but knowing what 'more involved' meant with previous relics, I won't be too upset if its another 1500 tome shill either.

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Working with the lost actions was always fun, people had to at least in the first days actually figure out how it works and what spawns bosses and people had to actually team up. Also dunno if you remember but we got BA too and people still run it frequently.

People like you are the reason we have the bland tomestone grind now.

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Originally Posted by Heroman3003

>Eureka
>Depth

What depth lmao, you just kill NMs nonstop, the Eureka grind is 20 times more mindless and numbing than any amount of roulettes. And, for both Eureka and Bozja, I sure hope there isn't ever again another step that requires you to participate in giant raid content that will be dead next expansion (looking at you, BA and DR). I'd take the boredom that is grinding currency in roulettes over misery that is exploration zone raids.

Now, I do hope there will be more involved steps, but knowing what 'more involved' meant with previous relics, I won't be too upset if its another 1500 tome shill either.

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There is way more attached to Eureka than just mindless relic farm. Eureka was complementary to what FFXIV most lacks of: wide area with challenging mobs where your stats (in this case, element alignment) matters. Eureka satisfies old school MMORPG players.

- You need to communicate
- Monitor fate timing
- Join groups to grind EXP
- As you go on, you have elementals to give you buff
- Chest with RNG for the best rewards
- You die and you lose more than just your time, you lose exp. Punitive system.

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Originally Posted by Heroman3003

>Eureka
>Depth

What depth lmao, you just kill NMs nonstop, the Eureka grind is 20 times more mindless and numbing than any amount of roulettes. And, for both Eureka and Bozja, I sure hope there isn't ever again another step that requires you to participate in giant raid content that will be dead next expansion (looking at you, BA and DR). I'd take the boredom that is grinding currency in roulettes over misery that is exploration zone raids.

Now, I do hope there will be more involved steps, but knowing what 'more involved' meant with previous relics, I won't be too upset if its another 1500 tome shill either.

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I mean, you have to go thru the entire Manderville Questline to even unlock the Relic and if you weren't really a fan of the questline, that's as much a kick in the nads as BA or DR ever were.

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Originally Posted by Ranaku

Working with the lost actions was always fun, people had to at least in the first days actually figure out how it works and what spawns bosses and people had to actually team up. Also dunno if you remember but we got BA too and people still run it frequently.

People like you are the reason we have the bland tomestone grind now.

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It would have been fine to have content like BA and DR required for relic grind if it wasn't dead the moment expansion was over. It's impossible to find double-digit DR run in DF, and from what my friends that got to level 60 in eureka told me, its even worse with finding people willing AND knowledgable enough to run BA, so I am so not looking to that. Also, having done Eureka zones 1 and 2, all of Bozja (though not all relic grind yet), I will say, Lost action do absolute jack shit to make content any more interesting, they just make failure more likely. Oh, the damage sponges are even spongier and two-hit-ko is one-hit-ko if you dont use right actions, how exciting.

Again, I do want better steps than just 'grind tomes'. What I do not want is 'better' steps that are tied into content thats both impossible to solo and is guaranteed to be dead the moment 7.0 drops. Thankfully, this expansion doesn't really have such content. Which, I am not against generally existing, but tying it into relic grind is just an awful decision imo.

I enjoyed Eureka and Bozja. Neither bit of content was perfect but...surely such content could just be designed with future proofing in mind instead of scrapping it altogether.

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Originally Posted by Ranaku

I am looking forward to the amazing relic grind that rivals Bozja and Eureka in depth and complexity and makes us all want to play the game actually and not despair in endless roulettes to grind the next 1500 tomes. Oh...wait...

EW was a mistake.

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EW wasn't a mistake. I don't wanna grind for relics. 1500 tomes is fine because I can get a weapon for all my classes very easily. I don't need complexity I need a shiny complex-styled weapon.

Join the Open Late Night Discord, they set up regular BA and DR runs.

https://discord.gg/28SRRADTK3,

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Originally Posted by Godzillaxpowerrangers

I am looking forward to what reapers new relic looks like.

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I'd imagine that this set of relics is going to be the joke weapons from the design contest. It was pretty obvious that those ones won because they were good candidates for being manderville relics, and we've already received the more serious half of the entries with the current tier's tomestone weapons.

This one:
https://img.finalfantasyxiv.com/t/34...jpg?1670921999

EDIT: From what I've seen so far, it doesn't seem to be the joke weapons this time around. Thank god.

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Originally Posted by sagacious

I don't wanna grind for relics.

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That just means that relics weren't meant for you. And that's ok. But I don't think it's a good thing to have taken away the relic grind from the ones who enjoyed it for the sake of people who weren't the target audience of the content anyways, nor should SE be encouraged to do so. It's the time-based equivalent of nerfing savage or ultimate because it's too hard for casuals.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

I enjoyed Eureka and Bozja. Neither bit of content was perfect but...surely such content could just be designed with future proofing in mind instead of scrapping it altogether.

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Same here. And honestly, Bozja's alternate steps (the ones that allow you to go outside of Bozja itself to complete them) did a pretty good job at future proofing the SHB relic grind. The only true pain points for someone coming into Bozja now (ignoring the nonsense that is 180 normal raids) are trying to complete CLL/DR/Dal for the first time and the DR relic step. SE probably could design a fully future proofed version of Eureka/Bozja on their next attempt, seeing as they were pretty close last time they tried.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

I enjoyed Eureka and Bozja. Neither bit of content was perfect but...surely such content could just be designed with future proofing in mind instead of scrapping it altogether.

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Bozja was future-proofed pretty well with alternative sources that aren't Bozja. EXCEPT aparently that one DR step because it was tied behind RNG-based grind that rivals pre-nerf ARR relics, which just makes both options terrible in retrospect. That's the issue, there IS future-proofing, but for some reason, for one single step that needed it more than any other, it was just done terribly. And Eureka is still purely just 'grind NMs until you start hearing Eureka overworld music whenever you close your eyes' when it comes to relics. Exploratory zones are good idea as a whole, and Bozja was a step in right direction with making it more solo-friendly in terms of relic grind aspect and, as result, future-proofed, without invalidating the zone itself entirely, as its useful still for both leveling other jobs and equally good as other sources of grind steps. I hope that 7.0 will iterate further on actually making exploration zone fun kind of fun, and not 'just extremely grindy and unnecesarily punishing and leaving people who play in bad timezones next expansion and want to go back to do this dead in the water' kind of fun.

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

I mean, you have to go thru the entire Manderville Questline to even unlock the Relic and if you weren't really a fan of the questline, that's as much a kick in the nads as BA or DR ever were.

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This.

I mean, I know some players like/love them, and that's their prerogative. I, however, feel that they should've drawn a line under those quests rather than drag them out because whoever writes those stories doesn't seem to care that their running gags are actually limping quite badly now. It's all so predictable - Hildibrand flying through the air and landing headfirst in the ground with his clothes in tatters, Nashu being a scatterbrain, Godbert running around in his underpants (*shudder*) have been done to death.
In fact, I would argue that this nonsense is a good example of the 'Overused Running Gag' trope, but it doesn't quite qualify since said trope requires the writers to be aware that the so-called humor has run it's course.

Anyway - I guess I'll sigh and eye-roll my way through the usual, predictable, shenanigans this storyline always presents for the sake of the relic weapon. I just wish they'd change the formula a bit.

Easily BLU. I think the BLU level cap and new spells is what I'm most excited about.

After that probably the relic, though I'm more meh on that than I would be with an Exploration Zone. New model and aura effects are cool, and I like the Hilde story enough I want to see the next part, but I'm not as excited as I would be, say, if we were talking about Pyros dropping.

After that, probably Criterion...but meh. I didn't do the last one at either the medium or hard difficulties, just the solo mode since I wanted to see all the paths and the story. But that's because I cared about Sil'Dah'/Ul'Dah's combined lore. I don't even think I've heard the name of this mountain before, so I don't actually care about it at all at the present time, and so I have no interest in the story going in, even if they give me some reason to care (maybe it hides a secret Allegan outpost with major lore implications...but probably not; it's not MSQ, after all.)

Don't tend to care about the Crafting/Gathering relics. I like some grind in my relics, but those are just MINDnumbing. I still haven't finished the Ishgard ones (though I've come close with one...like 2-4 years later...)

[QUOTE=AwesomeJr44;6297671]I'd imagine that this set of relics is going to be the joke weapons from the design contest. It was pretty obvious that those ones won because they were good candidates for being manderville relics, and we've already received the more serious half of the entries with the current tier's tomestone weapons.

This one:
https://img.finalfantasyxiv.com/t/34...jpg?1670921999

I can also see those in gold saucer. Time will tell in the end if it is the joke weapon winners or a different look. I won't be too picky on my slashy slashy weapon.

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Originally Posted by Carin-Eri

I mean, I know some players like/love them, and that's their prerogative. I, however, feel that they should've drawn a line under those quests rather than drag them out because whoever writes those stories doesn't seem to care that their running gags are actually limping quite badly now. It's all so predictable - Hildibrand flying through the air and landing headfirst in the ground with his clothes in tatters, Nashu being a scatterbrain, Godbert running around in his underpants (*shudder*) have been done to death.
In fact, I would argue that this nonsense is a good example of the 'Overused Running Gag' trope, but it doesn't quite qualify since said trope requires the writers to be aware that the so-called humor has run it's course.

Anyway - I guess I'll sigh and eye-roll my way through the usual, predictable, shenanigans this storyline always presents for the sake of the relic weapon. I just wish they'd change the formula a bit.

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I'm seriously wondering who still finds Hildibrand funny, it's been the same 3-4 gags since ARR. Even if you loved it back then it has been 8 years and nothing has changed...

The hair looks beautiful!
But afraid that once again just a fit for some races. But still, loved it!
Hope it's not the case, coz I totally see my viera using it.

Definitely finding the new BLU spells and wearing out the Criterion dungeon's brief lifespan. Possibly chortling once at the Manderville quest. I'm sure the next step will be something uninspired like 1500 tomestones. While I'd like something engaging and timeless, that's a pretty big ask, especially from the skeleton crew that runs this game.

When I hear the exploration zones are "throwbacks to old MMOs", I'm like, "you mean the worst, most unfun parts of old MMOs?" When I look back with rose-tinted fondness on my college days of playing MMOs, I look back on the social experiences I had with my friends. The spending hours and hours and hours standing in one spot grinding health sponge field mobs for a 0.01% chance at a staff with the exact right stats can flush itself down the toilet.

I said hell no to Diadem 2 back in Heavensward. Maybe they tweaked it to make it more entertaining in its newer incarnations; I hear Lost Actions are interesting. But hours and hours of field mob grinding? Gooooooood riddance.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

I'm seriously wondering who still finds Hildibrand funny, it's been the same 3-4 gags since ARR. Even if you loved it back then it has been 8 years and nothing has changed...

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Buts, buts, Mao LIKES Hildebrand! Mao enjoys Hildebrand quests VERY much!

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Originally Posted by AwesomeJr44

I'd imagine that this set of relics is going to be the joke weapons from the design contest. It was pretty obvious that those ones won because they were good candidates for being manderville relics, and we've already received the more serious half of the entries with the current tier's tomestone weapons.

This one:
https://img.finalfantasyxiv.com/t/34...jpg?1670921999

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I don't find this likely. They don't match the aesthetic that has been established with the previous versions. The current relics look like any other relics at their early stages.

These will most likely be some sort of Gold Saucer rewards are my guess.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

When I hear the exploration zones are "throwbacks to old MMOs", I'm like, "you mean the worst, most unfun parts of old MMOs?" When I look back with rose-tinted fondness on my college days of playing MMOs, I look back on the social experiences I had with my friends. The spending hours and hours and hours standing in one spot grinding health sponge field mobs for a 0.01% chance at a staff with the exact right stats can flush itself down the toilet.

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Days farming a contested mob just so I could do the pre-quest before I could start my epic? Nooooooo thank you.

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

I don't find this likely. They don't match the aesthetic that has been established with the previous versions. The current relics look like any other relics at their early stages.

These will most likely be some sort of Gold Saucer rewards are my guess.

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On one hand, it is far more likely to have 'funny' weapons be in Saucer, just generally.

On the other, having the 'middle' stage of Manderville relics be funny joke weapons is extremely fitting thematically. That way, there's the 'basic' first version, the 'funny' second version and the 'cool' third version. Weapons completely changing aesthetic with model changing is nothing new in relic stages already, so might as well go all in, is the possibility.

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Originally Posted by Heroman3003

On one hand, it is far more likely to have 'funny' weapons be in Saucer, just generally.

On the other, having the 'middle' stage of Manderville relics be funny joke weapons is extremely fitting thematically. That way, there's the 'basic' first version, the 'funny' second version and the 'cool' third version. Weapons completely changing aesthetic with model changing is nothing new in relic stages already, so might as well go all in, is the possibility.

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Given the story they're telling that these are ancient Manderville family weapons of some renown and importance, I just don't see it likely. We'll see when the servers open and people start getting them.

Plus I think Gerolt would fall over into his grave if asked to make something like that. He's played for fun but he's a master craftsman.

Kimono glamour!

Probably looking around criterion and take some screenies as it seems to have some really gorgeous backgrounds - true endgame!

MSQ > Relics > Island Sanctuary > Variant

I wasn't particularly looking forward to the end of the Pandaemonium raid story, but I was pleasantly surprised and really enjoyed Themis.

Cutting a patch in half means that the content is finished fairly quickly, especially as I don't usually do Ex unless I'm interested in a glam.

I'm hoping that the SGE and RPR Relics won't be ugly, especially the SGE one, I ended up sticking with the Divine Light one.

As for the variant dungeon, I'd have liked it to be with Hien or Yugiri. I'm rather disappointed that it's Hancock, there were some fun moments with him during the MSQ, but he's still a brigand running a business for the Ul'dah cartel.

As for the relic, I hope it's going to be as much fun as the last quests.

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Originally Posted by Shikiseki

Probably looking around criterion and take some screenies as it seems to have some really gorgeous backgrounds - true endgame!

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I think SE is just confused about the endgame. They seem to think that this is single player game and that endgame means that you end your game after you finish the content once and then go play something else.

Going to have to grind out BLU 1st, since spell-learning parties are going to drop off the face of PF 2-3 weeks in, as usual for these types of short-lived content.

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Originally Posted by Deo14

I think SE is just confused about the endgame. They seem to think that this is single player game and that endgame means that you end your game after you finish the content once and then go play something else.

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Ngl I'm kinda at a point where I don't hate that mentality anymore. I've been on break for a month or two now and having the freedom to catch up on my long list of games/focus on real life without feeling like I'm desperately missing anything in 14 has been nice. There's a high chance I won't even log in to do 6.45 stuff today since I honestly just don't feel a pressure to do so. I feel like if I do it today or next week, it doesn't really matter.

I think it's rather unhealthy to sink your entire life into this game (speaking from someone who did that for three years) and at this point I don't think the intent behind this game is to make it one like that. Doesn't mean people don't do it anyway (guilty) but it's sort of like you're causing your own issue instead of there actually being one.

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Originally Posted by Eraden

Buts, buts, Mao LIKES Hildebrand! Mao enjoys Hildebrand quests VERY much!

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And that's fair enough - as I said, individual prerogative.

For me, though, in the same way I don't find hearing the same joke told five or six times funny, I don't find Hildibrand flying through the air and landing headfirst in the ground with his clothes in tatters for the 50th time, Nashu being a scatterbrain, Godbert running around in his underpants (*shudder*) for the 50th time funny anymore.

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Originally Posted by Carin-Eri

And that's fair enough - as I said, individual prerogative.

For me, though, in the same way I don't find hearing the same joke told five or six times funny, I don't find Hildibrand flying through the air and landing headfirst in the ground with his clothes in tatters for the 50th time, Nashu being a scatterbrain, Godbert running around in his underpants (*shudder*) for the 50th time funny anymore.

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Heavensward Hildi was peak comedy in FFXIV standards, Endwalker Hildi seems to keep rehashing the same joke over and over again.

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Originally Posted by LianaThorne

Ngl I'm kinda at a point where I don't hate that mentality anymore. I've been on break for a month or two now and having the freedom to catch up on my long list of games/focus on real life without feeling like I'm desperately missing anything in 14 has been nice. There's a high chance I won't even log in to do 6.45 stuff today since I honestly just don't feel a pressure to do so. I feel like if I do it today or next week, it doesn't really matter.

I think it's rather unhealthy to sink your entire life into this game (speaking from someone who did that for three years) and at this point I don't think the intent behind this game is to make it one like that. Doesn't mean people don't do it anyway (guilty) but it's sort of like you're causing your own issue instead of there actually being one.

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It better not be more than a week from now on then, since it seems like V&C still has bad rewards, so you'll end up having to run it solo if you miss this opportunity. No FOMO btw, but make sure you play it on patch, or it will take ages for you to find a group.

If I wanted to do what you do, I'll just play single player games - and guess what, I'm doing that already, I'm currently playing CP2077 and I'm loving it. But this is MMORPG, it needs to give players reasons to play it, because queues need to be filled so others can play.

Sinking your life into a game is such a lame argument. Good games will make you want sink your life in it, just like any good product, but it's up to you to have a tiniest amount of self control so the games won't obstruct your life. If they do, that's your mental problem, not a problem with a game. Products shouldn't be mediocre so they protect users from liking it too much.

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Originally Posted by sagacious

EW wasn't a mistake. I don't wanna grind for relics. 1500 tomes is fine because I can get a weapon for all my classes very easily. I don't need complexity I need a shiny complex-styled weapon.

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This is called a tome weapon, and that's why they exist, for those who do not choose the relic grind. Making this relic grind basically nothing is a slap in the face to a large portion of the player base and just plain lazy development imo.

variant dungeon

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Originally Posted by Heroman3003

>Eureka
>Depth

What depth lmao, you just kill NMs nonstop, the Eureka grind is 20 times more mindless and numbing than any amount of roulettes. And, for both Eureka and Bozja, I sure hope there isn't ever again another step that requires you to participate in giant raid content that will be dead next expansion (looking at you, BA and DR). I'd take the boredom that is grinding currency in roulettes over misery that is exploration zone raids.

Now, I do hope there will be more involved steps, but knowing what 'more involved' meant with previous relics, I won't be too upset if its another 1500 tome shill either.

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Originally Posted by Ranaku

Working with the lost actions was always fun, people had to at least in the first days actually figure out how it works and what spawns bosses and people had to actually team up. Also dunno if you remember but we got BA too and people still run it frequently.

People like you are the reason we have the bland tomestone grind now.

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I'm not sure why we need to argue over which dunghill (Exploratory Mission grind or Tomestone grind) stunk worse, as compared to just discussing how they might each be improved?

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Originally Posted by Theodric

I enjoyed Eureka and Bozja. Neither bit of content was perfect but...surely such content could just be designed with future proofing in mind instead of scrapping it altogether.

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That I'd like to see. Though, I could say the same for revised Anima books, etc. XIV too often leaves something just a couple egregious, but easily dealt with, irritants away from good and instead just starts up another attempt to differently poor quality instead of fixing what was there.