FFXIV's latest patch, 3.4, came out this week. I spent the afternoon going through the main story quest.
It was really good. It tied up a lot of loose ends, and set the stage for the next expansion. There were a lot of good moments, especially in the middle. It did get a little complicated near the end. Final Fantasy "theology" has always been a little mind-bending.
One interesting element in the main story was that they sent you back to do an old primal from 2.0. Not a new version of the primal, but literally the old fight. Now, FFXIV does include mechanical reasons to do old fights. They're part of the random duty finder roulettes which give out endgame currency. But this is the first time they've given a story reason to do the old fight.
What was most interesting was that it was the old fight, but if you're on the main story, they changed the dialogue of the primal during the fight to reflect the new situation. It was a really interesting idea, and worked really well. I'm not sure if it's something SE could pull off again, but it worked beautifully in this story.
All in all, the 3.x story was a great one, and I'm looking forward to the next expansion.
I bought 3.0 and stopped playing just a few weeks after 3.1. I think the pieces work really well together, especially the story, but it's always been a struggle for me to have the proverbial carrot in the game. What does 3.x offer in terms of carrot aside from gear and lore close out?
ReplyDeleteIn terms of content? Aside from the MSQ, 3.4 has:
Delete- 2 new 5-man dungeons
- the latest wing of the 8-man mid-core/hard-core raid
- a new 8-man Primal fight
- they extended Palace of the Dead (this random rogue-like dungeon experience),
- there's something about Grand Company Squadrons where you recruit soldiers and send them on missions
- I think there is more Hildebrand/scholastica story
It's a fair bit of new content, though nothing drastically unique. New dungeons, raids, and gear are the bread-and-butter of FFXIV. I haven't done anything other than the MSQ and one new dungeon though.
This is not the end of the 3.0 series of patches. There is apparently a patch 3.5. Current guesstimates are for a Jan 2017 release ahead of the new expansion. They still need to provide us with the trigger event that will lead us to Ala Mhigo or wherever the new expansion will take place. We also have the final wing of the 24 man raid and the Demon trial still left. Also the disaster that was Diadem is supposedly being retooled for 3.5.
ReplyDeleteThat's a good point. You're right that the 24-man story isn't finished. So one more intermediate patch to look forward to.
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