Patch 3.4 Review!

[Toguro]

[INCLUDES SPOILERS!] Following the threads responding to 3.4 on both the Gamefaqs and here just made me think.. "Hey I should make a review about 3.4! Since there's so much hate floating". So I'll do exactly that!

Main Story Quests:
By far my favorite part of this patch. It was.. surprisingly lengthy. I tried doing it all in one sitting and wore myself out at final quest.. Which is a plus I say. The WoD battle was quite great imo. However.. I didn't feel any sense of danger in that fight. Maybe my gear was too strong I don't know.

VAs are something that really helps me feel into the game so I enjoyed every cutscenes with voices. The cutscenes were also very well-done I think. The new animations and such. I liked how there was a massive amount of character development here. From the WoDs, Urianger, Alisae etc. They all had their chances to shine. I DO however feel the end of the WoD was premature..

I LOVED the Titan battle edit. That was really cool and a nice new trick by the devs. Very unique.

The MSQ's sheer length is why I like it. It kept me interested for a good while and was longer than all other patch MSQ.


Dungeons:
I will split to Pros and Cons for this..

Pros- Visual effects on point as always. I like the music from these two dungeons alot and the new boss themes were a very nice surprise. I think both of these dungeons are more fun than the 3.3 set. Especially Hullbreaker(good god..). I loved all of the interesting new mechanics in the dungeons. Mainly in Xelphatol. Like the balloons getting soldiers, the.. zipline(?), elevator(been awhile since we got one xD), and lastly I liked all of the boss fights. Very well made and fun.

Cons- Sigh* here we go. Is it just me? Or are the dungeons this patch extremely easy?! I was able to complete these dungeons before the 20min mark. For a new dungeon that's ridiculous imo. The enemies are so weak it's extraordinary. It's like they come with marshmallow swords to try and kill you. Why are enemies hitting tanks for only 400-600dmg? What is this??? Hitting healers for barely over 1,000. These enemies are so weak a PLD could probably win solo with Clemency. The only things that are a threat are bosses but they use stale marshmallows instead.

Both of these dungeons are larger than the 3.X counterparts but they are filled with NOTHING. Xelphatol is a huge dungeon... of running. These dungeons were cool.. but this difficulty is insane. A blind guy in a neck brace and no arms can beat these with his toes.

Other- Anyone else notice the new dungeon format? Before the last boss there seems to be minibosses now. Which aren't really bosses at all.. This started with 3.3 btw.


Alexander Creator:
Pros- I honestly love every bit of Creator. The fights are great and unique. The new mechanics are NEAT. The gear ain't bad. The Devs listened to the raiders somewhat and made the savage gear kinda unique. Savage gear differs from normal. Creator is just good. A from me.

Cons- However, it would've been an A+ if it had the love that Coil 12 and 13 got. Unless I just haven't seen it yet(have not successfully beat Alexander yet), there are no CGI cinematics or VAs in Alex. I was hoping for it. Disappointed in that. And also the story.. with it being so easy to complete the story carries so much less weight thsn Coil for me..

[Have yet to do Sophia]


[Have yet to unlock Squadrons]


QoL Features
The massive amount of QoL changes are VERY welcomed. Too many to list here but it's great. The Devs do listen to their audience and I am happy so many changes made it in. This includes apartments and aquariums etc. No cons here


Wondrous Tails
Pros- Khloe

Cons- The RNG. Otherwise, a great new feature.


Set-Up Of Patch:
This section is my special one.. I see people say stuff all the time about patches. "The Devs are very predictable. I know what will be released 1 year from now. It'll be the same." "Devs don't listen to feedback". "Devs will never stray from the same format".

I have to say.. this patch has a TON of changes to the format. First off, Snowcloak(Hard) here. People swore up and down that it'll be here because the Devs are predictable. Second, crafted weapons. That's completely new to progression. Sophia weapons, they are NOT i250 as some doomsayers were chanting both here and other sites. The Savage gear is NOT 100% the same as NM Alex gear. Although it was expected to be. The Expert dungeons for some reason give 50 tomes not 40 lol. That's new. PotD will be added in 3.45. We have not gotten any thing like that during 3.X. What I mean is PotD, a CATCH-UP content, will either give gear or weapons for progression alongside the Relic will be released in an EVEN numbered patch. That's new. And finally, believe it or not. 3.4 is a very large patch it just is.


Verdict:
I give... 8/10 or 8.5/10. I've played since 2.3 and I think this is one of the best and largest patch yet, honestly. The dungeon difficulty drags the score down though. They are way too easy. Too stinkin' easy.. Overall though the content is great, the story is good and chunky, tons of QoL changes, lots of signs of the Devs listening to the player base, and it kinda restores hope in my eyes actually. They're changing things up. Slightly, but they are. Makes me look forward to the next updates and the features that leave PS3 out gives me hope that they are dropping PS3 for 4.0 which will be a godsend.

Well if you read all this.. you're a boss! That is all!

[Kaurie]

I would hardly say that releasing Gubal (Hard) instead of Snowcloak (Hard) is an example of the devs mixing things up.


Here are my thoughts on the same things:

MSQ
Yet to finish, so reserve final judgement til the end. That said, the only thing so far, I find the plot interesting, but the execution poorly done. Gu Ba was great, Warriors of Darkness were great, everything else is not great. The Aymeric dinner scene was dreadfully awkward if nothing else. Alisae's miraculous recovery is ridiculous given how like 5 minutes earlier we were told how she basically has no hope. I just got to Ala Mhigo, I am not sure how much more is to go.

Sophia
Story wise, I have no idea what is happening, because honestly the olde style speech and all the made-up jargon used in the dialogue puts me to sleep. I ended up skipping through cutscenes etc.

Normal fight, was pretty easy. Mechanics were OK I guess. I didn't really enjoy this, but I guess it's a clear once and move on sort of thing.

Extreme fight, it's not bad. It's not my favourite and not my least favourite. That is, I don't enjoy it, but I also don't hate it - like I do with some other primals.

Dungeons
I agree these were way too easy, at the levels of 3.2 easy - which was the biggest failure of 3.2 imo.
The atmospheres are pretty cool, but are ruined by the same ol linear hallway style. The linear hallway ruins it even more here, as it ruins the actual story of Xelphatol. The story is that we're invading their camp to stop a summoning. Yet for some reason, they are all aware of us with no alarms going off. Despite being aware, they just stand in packs of 1-3 waiting for us to come up to them on their platforms. It would have made much more sense if this actually felt like some sort of camp and they were going about their daily business and we caught them by surprise. This was alleviated some towards the end of the dungeon when they were taking a blimp thing to unload soldiers off to get us.
Overall the mechanics of the bosses were pretty much on the level of Cutters Cry difficulty and you could spam pull packs of groups with little concern right off the bat.

Alexander
I wish I got to try more of this out. I have only done A9N, but it was a pretty lackluster fight. I hate that the boss is stationary. I really loved both A1N and A5N (and their savage counterparts), so it's sad to see this one start out this way. Hopefully A10 onwards is better, and A9S improves.

QOL Features
Overall really great - CD reset on Wipe, countdown etc. Very good additions.

Aquarium
I feel way too many resources went into developing something very trivial. A concern considering we're always told how small their development team is.

Wondrous Tails
This is like the ex primal. I don't hate it, but I don't like it either. It's just sorta there. I feel it would be better if the reward was catered to your role - or perhaps gave you a token to purchase a reward for your role. I don't care for a DRG/tank item and the rest of the rewards are pretty meh.

Squadrons
I still have no idea why the devs thought it would be good to take the crowning failure of their main competitor and copy it into their game.

Verdict
4/10

[Nandalowell]

My personal opinions are a bit different.

MSQ: For me, Aymeric's dinner was the best part of the entire story; could be because I'm a huge Elezen fangirl but I thought it was extremely cute and some very nice "fanservice". The WoD story was extremely rushed, I'm not excited at all to go to Ala Mhigo, and I'm a little miffed Thancred and Y'Stola are the only Scions to get new outfits, yeah, I'm complaining they didn't get new outfits, that's how much I cared about everything after Ishgard.

Sophia: I thought was really fun, I haven't gotten to try out extreme yet but i'ts something I'm actually looking forward to.

Dungeons: LOL. I liked how Yoshi was like "don't just rush in!" Well, that's exactly what we did and it was cake. Gubal's final boss did take some figuring out but we had a lot of fun doing it and once we had it figured out it too was extremely easy. The design, while pretty is a very boring straight run to the end.

Alexander: Haven't finished yet but the first fight was pretty standard.

Wondrous Tails: Eh, not sure what I was expecting but haven't seen any rewards that'd actually make me want to do 3/4 of the things she's asking me to.

Squadrons: I'm only doing it because the word going around is you need to do it to rank up. I'll drop it if that turns out to be false.

Side quests: Haven't done Hildibrand yet but the Scholasticate.. Was the first round that boring? I don't think I would have continued if the first round was that boring..

Apartments: I knew exactly what I was getting but I'm still a little disappointed I spent half a mil on another FC room. Not much else to throw gil at so I'll have fun decorating it.. Though a little more new furniture would have been nice.

Overall, I had a lot of fun but, by choice, I blew through almost everything in one day a little more content before falling back into the daily grind would have been nice but it is what it is. 11/10 would date Aymeric again.

[Colorful]

Quick review:

MSQ:
Also my favourite part, a few interesting lore titbits and while I felt the conclusion of the WoD storyline was a little rushed, they did what they could with one patch. The Aymeric dinner was great, although rudely interrupted and the talk with Alisae was rather sweet, glad she's going to be sticking around. Plenty of voice acting, which seals the deal for me. I noticed rather than odd pauses where people would just look at each other for a solid 2-5 seconds which felt unnatural, but I'm not sure if that's a side effect of Alisae's missing dialogue (didn't complain all of Coil). Almost no filler quests too which surprised me, 10/10 for me.

Alexander:
Loved it, the mechanics were varied and interesting while not being too hard on the first go. Music on 3 and 4 were amazing, at least the first phase of 4 anyhow. Still didn't care much for the Au Ra girl and her huband/lover, but it was a heartwarming ending, 10/10 excluding story.

Sophia:
Found it disappointing easy, at least on normal but the music is amazing, interesting that they voiced Sophia rather than Alexander too. Weapons are rather ugly looking, so I won't try extreme myself, 7/10.

Dungeons:
Same as the usual, easy, simple mechanics, little to no story and all around too long. Have to give credit to the art team though, they always make amazing environments, bumps it from a 4 to a 6/10.

Squadrons:
I didn't want Garrisons in FFXIV for the longest time, and now they're here! 2/10, at least let us deploy soldiers away from our garrison or at a retainer bell.

Wondrous Tails:

Really nothing special, a way to make gil I suppose! 7/10.

Verdict: Overall a great patch, I still miss the 3rd dungeon we used to get to spice up the dailies but otherwise it's a great patch with quite a bit of content to go through. Looking forward to future story developments, and the FanFest. 8/10.

[RiceisNice]

I resubbed 30 days for this patch, and I kind of went in without any expectations after the past few ones.


MSQ : The focus was mostly on the warriors of dorkness, and the best way I can sum it up is "forced and rushed". There was so much build up to them throughout the expansion, only to get written off as "dead for real now" in the span of 30 minutes after the climatic encounter with them. You'd think with all the implication, that it was our world that was being endangered by us, the warriors of light. But nope, instead they're trying to save theirs, an entirely separate, alternate world that I honestly feels like an asspull within the confines of FFXIV lore. Instead it's more and more build up for future content...which really feels like what this entire expansion was about; more build up. Whether or not that build up itself deliveries is a separate question.

And on the side note, why the quest to do titan hard mode? It felt completely unnecessary for something that could've been done in a solo scenario, and ultimately felt pointless even with the small dialogue changes (if only because they did not establish any significance of it). Urainger's stance on the matter was also a bit predictable with how they handle the content. Specifically the warring triad side quest and the MSQ. The guy's had an involving role with the Warring Triad, and that questline within itself is not associated with the MSQ. I sincerely doubt they were willing to write him off to the Ascians completely independent of his presence in a very significant side quest and create a very big time-hole within, considering the time relation within each other.

Sophia : I've only done normal mode, and the fight wasn't interesting regards to mechanics and in visual (especially since I have prior knowledge that it was the same team who did the Leviathan encounter). I'm probably a little bit biased against it because of how they'd say they had put a lot of focus on the visuals on this encounter, but it's exactly that reason I didn't felt it was up to snuff; it didn't look or feel all that much dynamic or immersive than say Leviathan or even Nidhogg. Relatively speaking, it was not very enjoyable or dynamic compared to their past works.

Wonderous Tails: I don't want another reason to go back to do old content (especially 2.0 frontlines). I couldn't care for this implementation if I tried.

Dungeons: What is there to say? It's more hallways, treasure chests slapped in the middle of the road, and tuning that your average player who has played the patch prior will already overgear it. The mechanics are there, but it's ever so un-punishing to the individual that screws it up, it's more of a nusience than a deathly ability. Like how I mentioned in the boss fight, the presentation itself, relatively speaking, wasn't outstanding compared to their past works.

Squadrons: I haven't been able to get my fourth member yet since it's tied to the challenge log (due to work and well, my general lack of interest in the gameplay so far). For something that they've previewed for a long time now, this implementation feels more of a build-up/set-up for future implementation. Which as I mentioned in the MSQ, the entire expansion feels like this (diadem for example) and honestly feels like there's too much of that.

Though I will say I'm a little bit bothered by how they straight up said "hey u, we need you to command some adventurers, here's your desk and everything". That entire promotion/passage of rite was incredibly rushed and expedited. Though this is from an adder perspective and I'm not sure how the other two handle their proceedings.

Summoner Glamour: .

The Creator: I haven't done this yet, but I've heard that a9 and 10 are snoozefests, with it pickign up a little bit in 11. I'll reserve my personal opinions until I do it.

[jazo]

So, I had like 2-3 hours to play it yesterday, so I went and looked for the new hairstyle and... its locked somewhere
ok... lets see if they dropped the prices for thome gear, nope... ok thet didn't mentioned it on patch notes so I was just wishing it was omitted.

Ok, lets get that new gear and rank for GC, nope, locked... lets check forums, seems like you need to do squadron stuff to promote ranks

Welp, lets try the squadron thing since its time consuming like ventures I heard, better start sending those noobs to work... and we don't have enough noobs, ok, lets get some hot miqos and hyurs girls to my gang, and get rid of potato and bear asap! Maybe I can glamour their gear and have my maid army later!

Need to complete challenge log and praise RNG god to send me people, ok, I don't have much time left, lets complete the fast ones and get whatever I got so I can experience new content...

10 guildhest later (thats 3 challenges completed with the 3, 10 and commendation one) and nothing, not a singe new recuit... ok... I have a little time left before going to bed, what other challenge I can do?

Oh, there's the stamp one, again, RNG but maybe I can do better with that and its work for 2 new content at once, lest see the tasks... dungeons, raids and ext battles, nope cant do that now or I will fall asleep during it...

Went to sleep, sad and without trying any new stuff. And will not be able to sit and play till weekend if I'm still alive (project release and we didn't had a proper QA testing... its going to end bad)

Hate being a productive responsible adult during a patch, also, hate that particular content I was doing to be locked and RNG dependent.

[Niwashi]

Squadrons: ... For something that they've previewed for a long time now, this implementation feels more of a build-up/set-up for future implementation.

Because that's what it is. Squadrons are supposed to be able to join us in duties, but that part isn't ready yet. So in the meantime we get to recruit the team and train them. (It actually works out ok being piecemeal like this, since we'd want them leveled and trained up to our level before taking them into dungeons anyway. If we were given both parts of the feature at once, people would complain about how long it takes to get our squadron up to a useful level. This way, we can have them at a useful level by the time we're given a use for them, so when it comes we can get right into it.)

Though I will say I'm a little bit bothered by how they straight up said "hey u, we need you to command some adventurers, here's your desk and everything". That entire promotion/passage of rite was incredibly rushed and expedited.

Though I'm generally quite happy with how the squadron is set up so far, I agree about unlocking it. That was really rushed, not even a proper quest. That part really should have been handled better.

[Pence]

I re-subbed for one reason: The first time you run shiz on patch day is more difficult and chaotic. BUT then I realised I have to run A12 again with 7 uncleared DF people and my motivation dies. Not to mention I really have nothing new to do. I don't have time to invest in raiding anymore, but I have a brain-cell so casual content is too faceroll........

I think this is true for a lot of players now. It's a sad state for the game - players come back for the patch day unknown then get bored ASAP. I'm already back to farming FATEs and PvP BG queues.

Idle thought: Yoshi said 1 piece of armour takes 6 months to make (All races). So does a weapon take 1 month? (Surely that's just a resize issue). Because Yo-Kai has 1,000 weapons......that's pretty much a year of Dev time.....

[Toguro]

Regarding the Alisae recovery, I think k that's due to the fact that when going to Xelphatol it is actually taking a long time to do that. And she had the best chirugeons to care for her.

[Remedi]

Yet for some reason, they are all aware of us with no alarms going off.

Actually ,if you pay attention, in the section before second boss you can hear the alarm going off (a bell ringing)