6.4: Dark throne review

[Kaliesto]

Not a great start for a community topic about this patch, but nonetheless.

I thought the whole patch was pretty solid, so that is a positive. I noticed some people here though that certain story beats seemed to either fly over people's heads or felt it could have been little different, but honestly story-writing is subjective, and this is the way they wanted to convey certain things that were going on in this patch.

Now negatively I felt once again the patch content was too short, and we're back on the grinding weekly wheel again.

Not a good look honestly not that the developers actually care what I have to say about it or anyone else, its just the way they want to do their patch cycle. I'm starting to think they don't have much people on their staff if its four months of this each time.

[Atelier-Bagur]

Oh wow since when did Kotaku decided to join the forums?

[Atelier-Bagur]

In terms of content, Ive already expected what we got so I was left satisfied with both msq and the last raid tier.

Also glad the whole Zeromus theory didnt pan out as we all thought it would. At least they didnt make it THAT predictable.

[Renathras]

Are FFXIV writers on drugs?

Well...

...I was expecting something. Anything, really. This...was not even that.

EDIT:

Now negatively I felt once again the patch content was too short, and we're back on the grinding weekly wheel again.

I will say I somewhat agree with your post, and this part in particular. I was thinking near the end that it would be nice if they had the MSQ a little longer and broke it up into the X.Y and X.Y5 instead of all the X.Y. It would need to be longer to do this, though, but when I got to the end and they were talking about how they'd make haste to work out a solution, I mentally said to myself "...which should take about 4 months."

Would be nice if we had a little nudge more on story in the X.Y5 patches - even if it wasn't a lot, just a "So here's where our efforts are, can you help us out with this little thing? Okay cool, we're still moving forward, but it'll be a bit longer before preparations are complete."

The only time they do this is in the X.5 and X.55 patches, and that almost always feels better. Especially now that patches are 2 weeks longer.

[TowaIsBestGirl]

Oh wow since when did Kotaku decided to join the forums?

I never thought I'd say this..... But this comparison is far from fair. To Kotaku.

I don't always enjoy what they have to say, but at least they have something to say. This..... thread? Why is it even here?

[Elucesta]

Way too much people standing around talking with no tension aside from the garland plot point. Moon segment was but too short then lost its momentum after. The need balance story and gameplay a bit
Better. I was disappointed we only got 1 dungeon. They could have given us 2 dungeons to break up the monotony. At this point it just feels like I'm watching a visual novel. The raids are fun, cool. But I feel msq wise, there were some shortcomings.

[Themarvin]

6.4 I absolutely like it... it takes the story in another direction, which is nice... getting away from all the Ascians is what confuses people, so please?

Really something big on the move.

[Rehayem]

Well, let's see:

MSQ: Enjoyed it much more this time than in 6.3, loved that red moon and the music in there.
Dungeon: Very pretty dungeon, love that arrangement of Old Sharlayan theme in there
Trial: It felt too easy or it felt like it wasn't complete. I still have to do the Extreme trial of it to see how good that fight it.
Raids: Honestly gave quite the challenge wiped few times, and I loved those, it was great fun. I will be trying the Savage.

Island Sanctuary is getting more love, hopefully they keep building up on it. Other improvements are also great (bigger range on buffs is awesome), especially the visibility for people's jobs/roles. Wish they had added that back in Shb during Bozja because that place is always a death fest lol.

[Atelier-Bagur]

I never thought I'd say this..... But this comparison is far from fair. To Kotaku.

I don't always enjoy what they have to say, but at least they have something to say. This..... thread? Why is it even here?

Yeah I dont think spouting baseless nonsense isnt exactly "something to say"

[Carin-Eri]

Have to say, whilst I don't particularly dislike the new portions of the MSQ, it did seem a little drawn out.

And, with regards to the current conclusion:

I'll confess it annoyed me - I mean, I know there is probably some justification for it in terms of maintaining story progression... but two tropes came into play, which I found really irritating.
The first one was the classic 'Evil Gloating' trope. I mean, Golbez was on his knees, Azdaja - whilst still corrupted - was free of her cage and his control. His weapon had dissolved. Great! So what do we do? We let Golbez monologue at us.
Sorry - we should have booted his sorry ass down the abyss. Yeah, I guess that wouldn't work in terms of keeping the story going but I'm a little tired of this trope - a trope that Disney's 'The Incredibles' outright mocked - being used like this.
To be honest, it felt like a damn turn-based RPG game situation.

The second really ties into the first - the victory fakeout. Where it looks as if we've won but said assumed victory is snatched away (in this case, at least in part, because we decided that standing around listening to Golbez monologue at us was a good idea) and the situation takes a turn for the worst to the point of "oh no - we're powerless against this threat that we totally could've prevented! Run away, back to the Source!"
Run away. Again. No doubt so another convoluted contingency plan can be made.

I've loved the MSQ to this point, and being critical of it doesn't really feel overly natural but the tropes they employed really didn't hit the right notes with me and, for the first time, I actually reached the (current) endpoint of the MSQ and haven't immediately wanted to discuss how great it was with my friends, because overall... I actually felt pretty deflated.