Revelations from Patch 5.5 (Part 2)

[RyuDragnier]

Zadnor Red Mages

I was surprised, and actually pretty delighted, to see not one but two Red Mages in various Zadnor FATEs. That one of them is the mentor to the other is especially intriguing, and left me wondering what relation they have to X'rhun Tia. Perhaps it's mentioned in their dossiers—I haven't yet looked through all of them. It was also interesting to see that there were more victims of Misija's plot than the ten Blades seen in DR and those conspiring nobles. I was even more delighted that this chain of FATEs ultimately ends with the mentor being captured rather than killed, since undoing his tempering would mean we actually managed to save one of the Blades.

Oh about those two

It's mentioned in the Dossier for Lovro that he was a spy for the resistance, and that Lambard, the rogue RDM we killed in the RDM questline, was in fact his teacher. Lovro couldn't stand his sucking up to the Garleans, but used the knowledge to his advantage and began to train students in it and attempted to subtly turn them against the Garleans. Meryall was being trained by him after he returned to Bozja due to her immense talent at it. She btw, is 14.

[KizuyaKatogami]

They were always going to cut dungeons they said that in the fanfest leading up to this expansion. You got deep dungeon it's called Bojzan Southern Front. This point is just you getting something in one expansion and expecting a exact version of it in any that follow. What extra diamond weapon phase? Where are you getting that from?

Datamines. It’s also made very prevalent in the fact that the fight awards two totems yet it’s a 7 minute fight. Deep dungeon isn’t bozja lmao. That’s a sad excuse all they did was make it so you’re able to level in there, that doesn’t make up for the fact there is no deep dungeon. Not to mention Bozja itself has been rushed to all hell. It wasn’t just one expansion, it was both. It really isn’t hard to connect the fact that both previous expansions did it, but this expansion where things are cut and rushed didn’t have it.

[Cilia]

Datamines. It’s also made very prevalent in the fact that the fight awards two totems yet it’s a 7 minute fight. Deep dungeon isn’t bozja lmao. That’s a sad excuse all they did was make it so you’re able to level in there, that doesn’t make up for the fact there is no deep dungeon. Not to mention Bozja itself has been rushed to all hell. It wasn’t just one expansion, it was both. It really isn’t hard to connect the fact that both previous expansions did it, but this expansion where things are cut and rushed didn’t have it.

Preface: a piece of content being in a previous expansion does not mean you are entitled to get it in every expansion moving forward.

There is no Deep Dungeon because they made Bozja instead.

The cutback on dungeons began back in Heavensward as a means to direct resources elsewhere, which has given us such content as Ocean Fishing, Deep Dungeons, and Bozja. Resources aren't unlimited.

Data retrieved from datamining isn't necessarily reflective of what's implemented. Think of it as prototype data, rather than what's "supposed to be" implemented. (I agree it feels like there's something missing in the Diamond Weapon fight and other than the armored Diamond Weapon's model find it kind of lazily done all around, but it is what it is.)

... but rather than say they're just being lazy or rushing things, I'm willing to chalk it up to dealing with the pandemic and the fact their resources are limited. (I remember an interview somewhere where Yoshi-P said the dev team is chronically underfunded and understaffed. Not sure how reflective that is of their current circumstances, but.)

I agree it feels like there was a lot cut in this expansion, but am more inclined to pin the blame on resource shortage and the pandemic than just say the devs are being lazy or negligent.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Preface: a piece of content being in a previous expansion does not mean you are entitled to get it in every expansion moving forward.

There is no Deep Dungeon because they made Bozja instead.

The cutback on dungeons began back in Heavensward as a means to direct resources elsewhere, which has given us such content as Ocean Fishing, Deep Dungeons, and Bozja. Resources aren't unlimited.

Data retrieved from datamining isn't necessarily reflective of what's implemented. Think of it as prototype data, rather than what's "supposed to be" implemented. (I agree it feels like there's something missing in the Diamond Weapon fight and other than the armored Diamond Weapon's model find it kind of lazily done all around, but it is what it is.)

... but rather than say they're just being lazy or rushing things, I'm willing to chalk it up to dealing with the pandemic and the fact their resources are limited. (I remember an interview somewhere where Yoshi-P said the dev team is chronically underfunded and understaffed. Not sure how reflective that is of their current circumstances, but.)

I agree it feels like there was a lot cut in this expansion, but am more inclined to pin the blame on resource shortage and the pandemic than just say the devs are being lazy or negligent.

There were things missing before the pandemic hit. New job primal weapons,deep dungeon(you say because we got bozja instead, yet, they were able to come out with eureka zones AND deep dungeon at the same time, so that’s really not an excuse. New Ultimate models for the new jobs(instead they just got shire and dungeon weapon models). And many more things that were prior to the pandemic. I do think the pandemic affected things of course, but again, things were bad before it even hit. The datamines for diamond weapon indicated there was a cutscene missing for the fight itself and model changes that went unused. The fight is also on the far shorter end of them as well. As for the entitlement, i dont expect every single thing to be the same as a past expansion. I do expect however, for us to at least see improvements from that past expansion and not downgrades like we've seen this expansion.

[KaerisKlyne]

One day we're going to stop giving time to assumptions and subjective opinions stated as immutable facts and things will be fun again.

5.5 part 2 was cool, I've enjoyed the bulk of Shadowbringers as a whole, and I'm excited to see where things go with content seemingly taking a more XIV-specific turn. The game has only gotten better and better since I started with the 2.0 relaunch and it's still hard to believe the story I've sat with for like a decade is coming to an end before a whole new adventure.

There is...SO much stuff in this game, I love it.

[KizuyaKatogami]

One day we're going to stop giving time to assumptions and subjective opinions stated as immutable facts and things will be fun again.

5.5 part 2 was cool, I've enjoyed the bulk of Shadowbringers as a whole, and I'm excited to see where things go with content seemingly taking a more XIV-specific turn. The game has only gotten better and better since I started with the 2.0 relaunch and it's still hard to believe the story I've sat with for like a decade is coming to an end before a whole new adventure.

There is...SO much stuff in this game, I love it.

Blatant content loss isn’t an opinion though...

[RyuDragnier]

There were things missing before the pandemic hit. New job primal weapons,deep dungeon(you say because we got bozja instead, yet, they were able to come out with eureka zones AND deep dungeon at the same time, so that’s really not an excuse. New Ultimate models for the new jobs(instead they just got shire and dungeon weapon models). And many more things that were prior to the pandemic. I do think the pandemic affected things of course, but again, things were bad before it even hit. The datamines for diamond weapon indicated there was a cutscene missing for the fight itself and model changes that went unused. The fight is also on the far shorter end of them as well. As for the entitlement, i dont expect every single thing to be the same as a past expansion. I do expect however, for us to at least see improvements from that past expansion and not downgrades like we've seen this expansion.

You seem to forget the additions of Hrothgar and Viera, which would have resulted in development time taken from other things, especially since both races were released under serious time constraints (meaning they likely had the entire dev team working together on them at one point).

[Minato777]

This was a pretty crappy patch cycle IMHO for me. shitty healer rework, only 1 Dungeon per patch, no freebie msq mounts or glam, also while the 5.0 had a pretty good story the patch content was luke warm at best for me. also REALLY HATE playing as a npc and wish they let me skip this crap(ive just been letting them die and restart on very easy just to make it go a little faster but even than it just drags).

[KizuyaKatogami]

You seem to forget the additions of Hrothgar and Viera, which would have resulted in development time taken from other things, especially since both races were released under serious time constraints (meaning they likely had the entire dev team working together on them at one point).

Even so though, where’s the transparency? “Hey due to the new races, we had to cut some content.” At least we wouldn’t be left in the dark then. I find it highly unlikely they had the entire dev team working on them though lmao. Afaik they aren’t even under the same job specifications. But i highly doubt they affected things like the missing weapons or the missing voices from weapons trials etc.

[Katie_Kitty]

I dunno how anyone can claim content hasn't been cut majorly in this expansion. We got less dungeons and we got less ultimates and no deep dungeon, like it or not, that's less content.

In fact, this game has consistently been bleeding and losing content in every expansion as time has gone on. Shadowbringers has less content than Stormblood, and Stormblood has less content than heavensward. It's pure denial to pretend this isn't the case.