Thread: My review of patch 3.3 (Not for the Honesty)

Sorry for the late fix for the title lol
>>Spoilers will be included if you have not read the patch notes, so don't bother reading otherwise.

Hi! Today I'll be sharing my thoughts on the current patch 3.3 and all its changes. About 3 weeks ago I just returned from my 3 month break from the game. Why would I take a break you ask?

You: Bu..but I didn't ask anyth-

WELL I'LL TELL YOU WHY!!! I was bored. So bored. Alot of people took a break actually. Probably for other reasons of course. After all there were school finals, money issues etc. Anyways lets get to the right the topic. Where 3 years into this game and at the end of the 2nd Expansion (*claps*) Now lets see what we've got!

First up: Dungeons!

Sohr Khai

Sohr Khai is basically a test given by a Dragon (Hreasvolgrr or w/e, cool guy...or lady) to earn the trust to defeat Nidhogg......let me stop there for a sec. I took on Steps of Faith, like 4 times the size of a normal dragon and beat the crap out of your Dad (Midgarswohmer, idk how to spell it) and you don't trust me to take Nidhogg down?? Whatever -_-. Anyways if your expecting anything innovative then your going to be disappointed. Only things they have different here are orbs that seem to follow you wherever you go and the one enemy type that launches you in the air into mobs if they die and you stand over they're corpse, and no, there's no way to use that to your advantage of speed running or anything. Its looks ok, though its nothing spectacular. Its like mixing Wanderers Palace with Neverreap except without the thrill of being chased or the open stage design of Wander's Palace, because that would be a "bad thing". :/

Hullbreaker Isle (Hard)

Its Hull Breaker Isle with a heavy drooling dip of GAUNTLET. Follow the path, fight some enemies, follow the path, hear the bad guys strike a bad joke or w/e it was they thought they were saying and beat the crap out of em, follow the path etc. The bosses are bland this time. I feel like they must've fired someone or scolded some guy for making bosses actually neat last time. These ones are cakewalks though they're is some new mechanics. The last boss has a pretty slow memory game thing when your poisoned and you see which chest has a potion before it closes....oh wait...Diablos fight had that. Except there, it was more challenging and didn't move slow as molasses treating us like grade-schoolers looking at the potion we need for 7 secs before it goes into the box.

I don't really need to do it but i'm gonna do it anyway for that 3 month break I took.

Holy-Typical-Square-Enix-Bland-Non innovative-2 Bit-Level Design Batman!

At this point I can no longer expect SE to add anything that deviates from this repetitive bleak style of level design. I also said it before. Beautiful Hallways. That's what we're getting. No one says anything about it because they believe the game should be this way and they don't have enough time for it? Its a damned MMO people! You either have the time or you don't. And if you don't, make the time! That's exactly what you do for statics. Now for those that do want more deep level designs, start requesting it before the next expansion, because we're just going to get 4 things otherwise, more story, more music, more rng, and more hp sponges. God forbid we have an adventure that isn't laid out for us in 14. Pfft, underwater gameplay. Might as well down a toilet drain at this point.

Dungeons get a 4/10

Aquapolis

This isn't on dungeons list because it doesn't qualify as one. Though if you wanted to, you can call it a random dungeon, BUT DON'T YOU DARE compare it to Rangeons from Cladun X2 or Legasista, because at least there, you had control over your progress through each floor! When you enter your greeted with enemies, beat the crap out of em, maybe be greeting by a taurus demon rippoff (basically a cyclops from that one Tamtara except its a big boy now) then you choose 2 doors before you. Ok, this is the good part. You choose a door, and you hope you get to proceed to the next level!

Any of you who thinks that was a good idea just plz leave or just stop reading at this point to share your comment, because to me this was one of the WORST ideas since Diadem. Your progression is not based on skill, brains, or anything logical of sorts. Its a 50% percent chance game. I literally saved at least 20 Dragon Skin Maps for this mode before I took my break, and my buds are pretty happy I did because at least they get more CHANCES TO GET ANYWHERE!!!

Ok, now that thats out of the way. I'll tell you why I appreciate it....yeah...

The mode has rewards can get ranging from outfits, a buttload of gil and some materia which could be a godsend if you even get that far anyway *AHEM* The enemies look generic and some are just blatant copies but somehow looks a bit more menacing. Could be because these are the dungeon monsters from older dungeons we haven't seen much of? Not sure honestly but they're not bad. You also some mini boss fights that are nothing spectacular, in which case you'll be burning the pretentious bast*** down quick, though its cool to note that the Cyclops can actually interrupt and join the fight during any of these so its pretty interesting but nothing amazing. Among the luck bs, people keep saying, "OH, we got a rainbow save!" NO, there is no rainbow save, you chose the right door, that's it. You choose the other, you would've been f***ed, OK?? What I'm talking about is when the doors are chosen, sometimes it'll close for a second and open, or sometimes close completely, make the room flash red, then make it flash rainbow happy times and open the door. A friend of mine finds it funny when it does this, me on the other hand, its just building tension to test your luck, nothing else. I suppose you can say its a poke at humor, I suppose it fun the 1st time but you know as they say, Fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice, shame on you, fool me 20 more times.....well then you can just go f*** yourself >

PVP

Everyone's favorite topic, can I get a hi-five!

....Yeah I thought so too. News Flash tho! Season one of Feast is over so thats pretty exciting, peeps got there rewards of trophy furniture thing and a headband of there choice I believe.....kinda....yeah. What I'm excited about this is maybe they'll have another mode be the the Season game event? Ehh? Like Securreeeee ???? Ask them fellow PvPers! Speak so they know! >8O

Anyways onto the new mode, because they didn't add new armor :/

Shatter

Like my hopes and dreams, HA! joking, the mode's "OK". Which is sad because we have all this time between these new modes just to give something thats just....Meh!? The whole mode your capturing bases and breaking crystals, there's nothing new or different or any other objective, that's the whole thing. No gathering crystal resources to power a cannon to fire at your enemies bases or a return point to take the crystals before someone steals your crystals from a player (which I would really like btw). Its just, capure the bases as long as possible for points and if a crystal appears, the team who does the most damage gets the most points. Thats it. 5/10 no ifs ands or buts about it.

The only good side to pvp so far is the new items, one is a reward for doing this mode a buttload of times which is a mini airship which I like to call the Eorzean Hoverboard. Sounds cool? Well....its ok, but its not a an actual floating skateboard. More more like a futuristic segway mini thing. Not too great but could be a good motivation if the mode wasn't so plain. New minion at the shop, its a cheerleader, Ok. How about some real motivation!? And thats about it. for PvP. Sieze blew my mind when it came out, till I realized how complete crap it was. Only thing great was the map. Random nodes, 3 teams, butt heads to get them. Shatter, 3 bases, random spawning crystals, butt heads to get them. STOP TREATING US LIKE IDIOTS!

Raid

24 people taking on new content together, getting wrecked by mechanics some are new to while experienced ones yell at you for being new and tell you to jump off an edge as advice. I guess you can say its my fault for logging in when schools out, but.....wtf!? Well anyways, the run is visually amazing as usual. The bosses are actually pretty neat. My favorite being the spider one with the giant web platform and we use an acid spitting monster to sink below the web to break the web bindings. That's freakin cool, I'll give them that.

Though in the end, it stills falls short to a basic gauntlet run with no real diversity. Now if I put that fact aside, you have a fantasy-like visually appealing thrill ride that requires wit to defeat amazingly put together bosses (if you haven't already done it). If it wasn't for the first a-holes I met in that place, I would've had a blast. Even then I still had fun going through it the first time, just ignore the morons and your golden. If your relatively new to that mode do yourself a favor and recommend it to others, turn off chat regardless of what anyone says and enjoy the instance. Its actually pretty darn cool.

Rapping up

I didn't try the Extreme mode yet but I'll update soon, btw, it took me 2 days to complete the story and to make a long story short so I can avoid some spoilers, The story is good as always. Sidequests are a pain, Beast tribe quests are another way to upgrade your relic which I really don't give a crap about when I first logged in after 3 months but had no other reason to log in other than to do them after 2 days of catching up with the story....and completing the sidequests, all of em. The thing is, I actually meant to come back this upcoming Tuesday, because Deep Dungeon is coming out, so that's why I'm making this now. The patch is bland without it. So I'm gonna give my thoughts on Deep Dungeon next week. Though I can already imagine what it'd be like with these currrent developments. Aquapolis... Its not even under water! Might as well call it SAWTY Polis, it'd be alot more accurate the way it tricks you. People find that fun but when I show them they didn't find the ball under the shuffled set of cups they get pissy with me. How's that fair!?



......That's impressive.

You can't just have an unlimited amount of new mechanics. People complain of them being reused but at least they're in different ways or variations. Sohr Khal had mostly new mechanics as well.....also your review is extremely biased. You have to base on WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT not on all your hopes, dreams & things that just won't happen. Like did you really expect an "open" dungeon after all of 2.4 - 3.x linear dungeons so far? It'd be illogical.

Mcach is a good fun Raid with intetesting mechanics. Visually impressive.

Sohr Khal is pretty good with fun bosses(bar moogle)

HB HM is a rehashed HB with one okay boss, adds, & a poisonous meatbag.

Nidhogg is incredibly fun(as long as you have a good party) with amazing music, & my absolute favorite Trial.

Aquapolis is RNG on top of RNG 8x with meh rewards until the last room, but is kinda fun & something different.

Relic is quite nice, much easier than 210 yet still grindy enough to pass time w/o slamming your face into a broken mirror

Moogle is Ixali with pricey rewards.

PVP Shatter is actually pretty fun, it's nice to focus rocks instead of being swarmed to death, but the PVP itself still feels horribly unbalanced and terrible.

Overall for 3.x I'd say it's much better than 3.1, worse than 3.2 & 3.0.
5 or 6/10

Anyway...why did I post this again?

I've done the new dungeons once each. There's no reason to get tomestones anymore (all gear will be replaced by Alexander 3 normal mode...) and they're not that fun (as you said, beautiful hallways) so there's no reason for me to do them. I like Aquapolis, but it has a lot of wasted potential. Weeping City is neat, but it's designed for 24 strangers to win on their first time seeing the dungeon in under 2 hours, so it's a hallway and not all that challenging. Most of the 24 man raids have been hallways, but this zone is so nice and wide open that I really, really wish it wasn't.

Nidhogg is okay.

I had a lot of hope for Deep Dungeon until some recent comments indicating you could clear it with 4 DPS classes.

The lack of compelling item rewards (4 relevant stats in the game, 2 pieces of gear per item level tier, no choice) plus the lack of compelling design (mechanics might be interesting but everything surrounding the fights is completely the same) is quickly killing my motivation to log in.