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