Patch Evaluation

[Lewtskie]

The story was good enough, the ending got a little corny there but the scene with the WoD was touching; pulled the heartstrings a little. But it's come to show that the writers are great with writing a strong ending, maybe even a beginning, but falter at the meat of the story. Look no further than to Alexander's arc for an example as well. Almost the entirety of that storyline I've been rolling my eyes, so tempted to skip C/S because if I had to watch Mide stroke her damn scar even one more time... and I loved the absurdity of the goblins, so not even that bothered me, just how cliche it all felt. By the end the story managed to pull some emotion other than disdain out of me, so props to them for that.

Story aside, the Creator has been some of the best content I've played in a while. The last two fights especially; they're chaotic and frantic which is what fights need to feel like. Still having a blast every time I run them, even if its with a somewhat questionable DF group. Agreed on more random events like in a11. It takes you by surprise somewhat and just feels fun. That's what phase transitions should be like.

I've racked my brain with Squadrons and it's a hot mess. I'll give credit that to do it proper isn't a mindless action, but at the same time, getting things just right is asinine. That the squadrons are designed with the intention of changing your people's classes to match missions but locking said necessary items out until 40/rank 2 is a trollish move. In the future I'd like to see some life given to these dummies. Give them small talk dialogue, some unique personalities reflected in their actions, something. Also, if further development is brought into them then give me beastmans. I need a Vath buddy on my team, or a Sahagin, that'd be sick.

And Blunderous Fails needs to burn in a fire alongside Rowena. This concept of "Hey, do all these things the support old content no one cares about anymore and MAYBE get something cool" wouldn't have been so bad if you had some better means of not getting completely rammed up the backside by RNG. I'm just going to put aside my hate for now and just offer this one suggestion: Give us a wildcard sticker. Put it somewhere, anywhere in the book, maybe make it shown what will give it to you or not, but give us this one thing. Having the control of even just one placement could save so much headache and maybe make this more worthwhile.

[Atoli]

Main Story
10/10 would go on a date with Aymeric again

Hildibrand Sidestory
No rating because not done yet.

Scholastic Quests
No rating because not done yet.

Alexander 9-12
A12 is amazing in terms of how creative and fun the mechanics are and visually absolutely stunning, A11, while nothing new mechanics-wise, is really fun just based on the whole mecha theme.
A10 is a horrible waste of my time, boring, ugly, pointless. A9 is fun and creative even if I don't like the turn. Overall, it's still 2.5/4 turns that are good vs. 1/4 with Gordias
While the story felt just as bland and pointless as before, at least I got to laugh at Mide for bringing her misfortune over herself, so..7/10?

Sophia
I absolutely love and adore this Primal. Super fun fight, interesting story, amazing visuals, lots of voiceacting, perfect difficulty for me 10/10.

PvP
No interest in that.

Wondrous Tails
Who doesn't love themselves more RNG with their game? =.= 2/10. It's a cute idea to make players run old content again, it's absolutely horrible that items are locked behind it that are otherwise unobtainable.

Squadrons
Out of all the non-battle content, this is pretty much the only one where RNG only messes with half of your fun instead of taking it all away forever.
I'm ashamed for liking them considering how absolutely bare-bones the concept is so far. 5/10 or something. Not for the godawful implementation but for the basic idea behind it and the rewards. It's 5/10 for potential, basically.

Gubal Library
Pretty yet disappointing. I think this is the first time I could dance through the new ex dungeon brain-afk on day 1 blind with bad randoms and STILL clear it without a single death.
But I just really love libraries, all the lore tidbits and some of the mechanics, so it's kinda still a 6.5/10.

Xephatol
Ahahaha...no >.>
If it wasn't for some of the nice visual concepts and the baloon popping fight, I'd feel inclined to never touch this doze-fest more than for the very first run.
Made excessively worse by robbing us of the possibility of a new zone that turned out to be a really short and incredibly streamlined and easy dungeon. 2/10.

The general fact that any and all fluff this patch is gated behind 15 layers of RNG
Oh hey, hairstyle is a random reward out of hundreds of possibilities out of a random chest that doesn't exist on 90% of all floors and is in a random invivisble position on the remaining 10%!
Oh hey, not just the new glamour gear mats but also the super sought after autumn trees come from Aquapolis, which is RNG behind RNG behind RNG behind RNG
Oh hey, stickers in Khloe's book are random and resets are random but no way to get e.g. the Thancred minion but through this book!
And it just goes on and on from there...0/10, absolutely hate it.

Gear
Alex gear looks amazing again. Tome gear doesn't. Secondary stats are pretty shitty on both for the classes I mainly play. 5/10 could be better.


Overall evauluation is 5.3/10.
Yeah..that seems about right.
Usually I never get bored and enjoy a patch until the day before the next one comes out
(and even wish I had more time before the new one gets released)
but this is the first one in a very long time that had me really underwhelmed right off the bat,
and half a month in, I already find it hard to motivate myself to log in at all,
and if I do, I mostly do 3.3 stuff because the 3.4 content is just really "urgh".

[basketofseals]

They put a gondola kinda thing for the WOL to traverse on but it looks flat out goofy seeing us ride it like statues.

I'm loving this patch. Especially wonder tales, but I have to agree with this. That animation has got to be one of the most awkward ones in the game.

[Greedalox]

I really like Wondrous Tails

[LaylaTsarra]

I really like Wondrous Tails

People fuss on this forum about it but in game everyone in my FC is doing it just about. I've been too busy to deal with it but given the Caster Top this go around I'll give it a go once I get my weeklies done and tomes capped on my main and alts.

[Alistaire]

People fuss on this forum about it but in game everyone in my FC is doing it just about. I've been too busy to deal with it but given the Caster Top this go around I'll give it a go once I get my weeklies done and tomes capped on my main and alts.

Recognizing there are good things to get from it, and recognizing it's easy to do so you probably should do it...that's not the same as liking it.

It could've been a lot better, and even the things that are good to get from it aren't really fun. They tuned it so it's really only worth the time it takes if you do things unsynched, and idk how you could look at stomping through old random primals several times a week as a fun endeavour.

[Greedalox]

Recognizing there are good things to get from it, and recognizing it's easy to do so you probably should do it...that's not the same as liking it.

It could've been a lot better, and even the things that are good to get from it aren't really fun. They tuned it so it's really only worth the time it takes if you do things unsynched, and idk how you could look at stomping through old random primals several times a week as a fun endeavour.

People wouldn't do it if you couldn't go unsynced. Then there's the odd paradox of people wanting incentive to do old content but then disapprove when the incentive is there because "old content isn't fun". I like the system truthfully, and I am having a hard time imagining a situation that doesn't poke one of the conditions you have for the Tails. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like you want the content to be synced while having a modern advantage such as the duties required being Alexander or Sophia Ex... which is just do the stuff you would normally do anyways but get goodies for it.

I dunno, I think it's just one of those situations where people want to have their cake and eat it too when somethings gatta give.

[Alistaire]

People wouldn't do it if you couldn't go unsynced. Then there's the odd paradox of people wanting incentive to do old content but then disapprove when the incentive is there because "old content isn't fun". I like the system truthfully, and I am having a hard time imagining a situation that doesn't poke one of the conditions you have for the Tails. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like you want the content to be synced while having a modern advantage such as the duties required being Alexander or Sophia Ex... which is just do the stuff you would normally do anyways but get goodies for it.

I dunno, I think it's just one of those situations where people want to have their cake and eat it too when somethings gatta give.

Huh? None of that made sense. What I'm saying is with the rewards and chances of those rewards as they are, the only way people would do them is to go unsynched. And doing it unsynched isn't much of a challenge, isn't a whole lot of fun, and you spend more time filling the pf than doing the actual fights. It's rewarding enough from that perspective but that doesn't make it good content.

If they were to make it require synch, or even a step further and make it minimum ilvl required (which has been suggested in threads), they'd have to up the rewards or nobody would do them. That's really the only way to make these anything other than a chore, but people likely wouldn't go for that. Or the skilled players would and then the unskilled majority would complain about it.

[NolLacnala]

Patch 2.2, 5th Edition