6.2 MSQ Story Review

[aveyond-dreams]

The following is a review and my thoughts of the MSQ for 6.2, and as such will be contained within the following spoiler tags:

I enjoyed the references between Zero and D from Vampire Hunter D in her appearance, though her origin story and nature are rather vague for my liking. The “What is a friend?” line from Zero is a bit...anime-is for lack of a better phrase. Despite being with us for such a short amount of time, her personality brings a nice bit of variety to the cast, though it doesn’t do enough to solve the other issues our party has.

There is still a lack of spontaneity in the men of this cast, it feels like they either serve as the end of jokes, do one-liners that aren’t very fitting to the situation at hand, or simply restate their mission with varying tones. We need a male lead that is written better, as soon as possible. Vrtra is ill suited to this role, nor was I impressed with how his adult face turned out. He feels like a very one-note character. The style in which his and Zero’s faces were designed seems to work best for youthful or female characters, neither of which I would use to describe Vrtra outside the child form I would rather not see return.

I’d still like to see a Balthier of sorts join the cast, and reprise the role of dashing rogue that Thancred left vacant. The cast also needs more chemistry whether positive or negative to bring about more intriguing scenes between them. It is a common sentiment that the scions feel too homogenized in their way of thinking and this makes for interactions that are rather predictable, aside from Zero.

The overuse of Azem’s crystal has rendered any impact it may have now or in the future moot. The story would arguably be better off with it being shattered. Any major enemies we face in the future can be managed with our party or other nearby combatants. I do not want to see the sigil of Azem pop up again in such an unceremonious fashion. In fact, there should be less instafix solutions like Hydaelyn’s crystal that so easily fixed Zero. Stronger characterization and arcs > gizmos that solve problems in one go.

After having compared the finale teaser image to pictures of the Zodiark projection in Mare Lametorum, I am going to go with the conclusion that Golbez has rid the 13th of its watcher and...not entirely sure what he’s done with whatever remained of Zodiark on that shard. I only hope that the plot surrounding that goes deeper than a standard resurrection of him or if Golbez had absorbed Zodiark’s aether, that he does something meaningful or important with it. It is a shame though as an FFIV fan seeing people understandably not be too taken with him, because my first introduction to him was him showing up, beating us up and stealing away the protagonist’s love interest while here our introduction to him was just him saying cryptic things with very little to latch onto.

The Archfiends are so far not very intimidating, especially when pitted against Zero’s power of memoria. They have a very “monster of the week” feel and for players who are unfamiliar with FFIV, I struggle to see why they should feel tension or excitement at the sight of Golbez musing about his grandiose plans since we have no clue as to what precisely they entail. The quest that went more into the backstories of the fiends was good, but I would’ve liked to have learned their back stories before we started going after them. The Voidsent we encountered this patch could’ve behaved...more like demons, and don’t exactly strike me as very fearsome entities. It felt more like a visit to the Feymarch than a trip into the Void at times.

There is also a fundamental issue of how much worldbuilding would be done away with should the 13th be restored. This patch already alludes to such, with a Gremlin awaiting the coming of the hero depicted in the statue at the centre of Zero’s domain. A statue that was not there originally, nor did she wish for it to be placed there according to her own words. Zero has no desire to save that world, and neither do I. Restoring the Void is something that would maybe work in a single player game, but in an MMORPG where such elements are essential for worldbuilding and to those who engage in it, RP, the removal or cleansing of the 13th would take away one of the remaining pillars of interest that players look forward to. Especially in a world where both dominant deities are now gone.

Overall, while I would say the good did outweigh the bad for me, I feel that the elements I mentioned earlier could have been handled a bit better than they were in the MSQ. I’d give it 3 and half stars, for delivering on a decent experience but one that could have been presented more carefully.

[SentioftheHoukai]

Yeah, I'm not gonna lie my main desire is to see that that "grand twist that will totally change the course of the story" Yoshida advertised is us failing to defeat Golbez and him launching a full-scale invasion of the Source, starting in Meracydia. It's a locale plentiful amounts of the fanbase wish to go to and see, Golbez himself has espoused plans to "enact a great war to deliver salvation to their Star" and Meracydia literally has truckloads of pre-existing ties to lore of the 13th shard.

Do I have faith that Yoshida and the junior dev team will deliver on my grandest hopes and dreams for the coming narrative? .....No, not really.

[Jeeqbit]

We will probably learn more about Zero over time. I don't like the idea of saying everything is anime because like anime this is literally produced in Japan by mostly Japanese people who probably just have similar lines of thinking to the people who make anime.

I suppose the scions are usually homogenized in their thinking, so SE probably just wants the focus to be on the threat we are facing. From their point of view, FF is about a small team facing overwhelming odds together and winning, going back through the previous FF games. It's not much of a team if they are fighting eachother instead. Statics which have experienced drama could probably attest to that.

I think they will continue using Azem's crystal until trials are added to Duty Support from 7.0 and maybe longer if they don't want to explain why other people are there.

Hydaelyn's crystal being given to us right before felt too convenient, but it did make a lot of sense to take a crystal of light to a world of darkness to act as an additional repellent to the darkness there.

[nebby00]

To be fair, saving the Thirteenth was always inevitable and an eventual goal that would be fulfilled. This was hinted toward way back in HW and even in SHB.

The introduction of Unukalhai being a survivor of the Thirteenth and was supposed to be a Warrior of Light of the Thirteenth being the whole plot point. His desire to save the Thirteenth was further hinted to in SHB when once completing the whole class quest storyline and the continuation of it, him and Cyllia are planning to restore and revive their world, inspired by Ryne's efforts with the WoL in the Empty. The Thirteenth always was supposed to be properly explored and eventually restored to its former state.

However, the way they're going about it doesn't leave me with much faith in them. For this patch I was mostly looking forward to the new content and surprisingly this time not the story. Sure it's... decent, especially compared to 6.0 and 6.1, but it just leaves me feeling lukewarm? If that's even the proper word to describe it. Just... neutral, which is a shame since I usually did enjoy the story, especially in HW, post-SB patches, and SHB. It just feels to me like they're trying to push everything heavily into the patch stories just to get it over with prior to 7.0, and it just feels like it's missing depth or slower pacing/proper build up. And tbh, I don't really care for Zero atm. Hopefully they flesh her out a bit more in the following patch.

[Atelier-Bagur]

Overall, I enjoyed 6.2 and is excited for the direction they're going with here. But a lot of questions are still up in the air for me to not be like "omg so hyped".

[Atelier-Bagur]

Honestly, Im still in the realm of trying to figure out where the story ultimately will be going for. There's a few possibilities that can happen among the goals established here:

1. Saving Azdaja
2. Defeating Golbez and the Archfiends
3. Zero
4. Restoring the 13th shard

With the way they're going hard on establishing all this lore with the 13th, it definitely feels like they're trying to tie up this loose end before the next big expansion. I'm 100% certain 7.0 isnt going to be about the 13th shard but possibly Meracydia or the New World but it could be something else entirely. Just hope it isnt Shadowbringers 2.0 (Lightbringers?) since we've already dealt with that idea already and would want to continue exploring the rest of Etheirys.

[GeckoMain]

Yeah I agree with most of your points- I also found this patch hard to enjoy because of how conveniently things happened. We just so happened to enter the void in the exact location of zero, and we just so happen to have JUST been given hydaelyns crystal which purifies zero and she just so happens to have the extremely rare power to kill voidsent for good. It just screamed bad righting to me and then zero herself, while kind of cool, is very very edgy and that seems to be a common theme with a lot of characters so it would have been nice to not have someone so dark and edgy.

Agree on the azem crystal comment too- I hate how the very msq has become super solo now, we dont even team up with other real adventurers anymore really we just summon some with our magical crystal- it's unimaginitive and the plots reaching a point where all the main characters feel unkillable and this just adds to it further.

I'm slightly worried as well about what interesting things are left lorewise- with the conclusion of the ascian arc and the 13th seeming to be heading towards being fixed, they're going to be almost entirely depending on the creation of completely new lore and backgrounds to new locations- as we've literally covered almost every bit of lore the game has to offer kind of. This could go either way I suppose- it's just a bit concerning that they seem to be making it up as they go along and relying a bit too much on people loving the scions. I'd like to see the scions removed or put in the background for the next expansion- they need to mix things up a lot to stop it going stale. Overall I still enjoyed the patch, but don't think it holds up well to inspection.

[Atelier-Bagur]

Yeah I agree with most of your points- I also found this patch hard to enjoy because of how conveniently things happened. We just so happened to enter the void in the exact location of zero, and we just so happen to have JUST been given hydaelyns crystal which purifies zero and she just so happens to have the extremely rare power to kill voidsent for good. It just screamed bad righting to me and then zero herself, while kind of cool, is very very edgy and that seems to be a common theme with a lot of characters so it would have been nice to not have someone so dark and edgy.

Agree on the azem crystal comment too- I hate how the very msq has become super solo now, we dont even team up with other real adventurers anymore really we just summon some with our magical crystal- it's unimaginitive and the plots reaching a point where all the main characters feel unkillable and this just adds to it further.

I'm slightly worried as well about what interesting things are left lorewise- with the conclusion of the ascian arc and the 13th seeming to be heading towards being fixed, they're going to be almost entirely depending on the creation of completely new lore and backgrounds to new locations- as we've literally covered almost every bit of lore the game has to offer kind of. This could go either way I suppose- it's just a bit concerning that they seem to be making it up as they go along and relying a bit too much on people loving the scions. I'd like to see the scions removed or put in the background for the next expansion- they need to mix things up a lot to stop it going stale. Overall I still enjoyed the patch, but don't think it holds up well to inspection.

We literally only have Y'shtola with us in terms of actual Scions. I suppose you mean Estinien but he just joined in 6.0

I seriously dont get this criticism at all.

[Striker44]

Personally, I've really enjoyed this patch so far, and all I've done is the MSQ part. Still need to check out IS and the new raid sequence. The MSQ was fun, though. FFIV is one of my favorite games in the series, and I loved the references to it. The dungeon and trial in particular were also a lot of fun, plenty of motion to the fights, and the remixed dungeon final boss theme was amazing. It's the first FFXIV version of an old battle theme that I think I actually prefer to the original, and that's saying something given this theme is already my favorite of its type from the series.

I'm glad they seem to be on pace to wrap up the 13th before 7.0, too. We already did an entire xpac focused on going into a reflection and saving it. Keep the party (various Scions) together, and go on a new adventure.

Agree on the azem crystal comment too- I hate how the very msq has become super solo now, we dont even team up with other real adventurers anymore really we just summon some with our magical crystal- it's unimaginitive and the plots reaching a point where all the main characters feel unkillable and this just adds to it further.

Lorewise, I think this just makes sense from a practical perspective. Back in the day, it made sense to team up with other "real" adventurers because that's all we were, too, so it made sense that this network of friends we might have from the Adventurers' Guild could support us in our endeavors. It's even given as a reason all three "origin" stories can still occur simultaneously even though you only play through one - other random adventurers take care of the others.

Now, however, we're a full-fledged member of the Scions who have battled enormous monsters and god-like primals. There isn't really any sensible "random person" to come across that would be seen as viable to join us in these fights. We're no longer "one of many" but the clear star of the show (for better or worse, this happens naturally in any MMO that I can think of). Now we join with other stars of the show (Warriors of Light) through Azem's crystal. It's a natural way to integrate us finding companions still feasible for the level of the fights we're doing now (how else exactly could we pull people together for a Trial on the 13th, for example).

[GeminiReed]

I'm glad they seem to be on pace to wrap up the 13th before 7.0, too. We already did an entire xpac focused on going into a reflection and saving it. Keep the party (various Scions) together, and go on a new adventure.

While I was running the story I was desperately hoping for a "As long as you don't expect me to eat the Dark like you did the Light..." response. Alas, t'was not to be.