Beyond Heavensward part 1: Job predictions for 4.0

 The Dragonsong War is over. Ishgard is finally starting to heal its wounds and Dragon and Man have formed a tenuous peace. Great job. You did it. You're the guy.

 So where do we go from here? Obviously Heavensward is not yet over. We have the finale of Alexander and the Void ark raids to complete and the Hildebrand and scholar questlines to complete. Theres still much to do in dravania before heading off to new destinations in the new expansion. But its always fun to speculate, isn't it?

 Already the seeds are being sown for Final Fantasy XIV version 4.0. We have no name, no information from SE at all. We can however infer from Yda and Papalimo's cutscenes that the next big story hook involves Ala Mhigo.
This had lead some people to groan because they take Little Ala Mhigo's location in Southern Thanalan and through not reading quest text so to speak assume that this will be a desert based expansion. Something after FFXII i would have no problem with but desert settings never really sit well with the MMORPG crowd that by and large balk at anything not traditional western fantasy in tone. Just go back and look at all the "i'm not racist, but-" comments after World of Warcrafts reveal for Mists of Pandaria where people hollered and screamed about how a world cannot have viking and asian cultures on the same world. Guess nobody ever pointed them to a history of our own planet but thats getting off topic.
Point is they have no need to worry because, much as i think an Arabian Nights style expansion would be rad Little Ala Mhigo is just a refugee camp. Ala Mhigo itself is not in Thanalan at all. It is between Gridania and the Garlean empire. It was the once great Uldah of the north. The human city built on craggy rock to crown the verdant forests and glades below. It is a land thriving with elemental power and ether. It's why you see the Padjals take in so many humans as students of the art of Conjuration. Like them they live in the woodlands of Eorzea, they are born and grow suffused with its energies and they also have the capabilities to take to nature magic with a natural aptitude races like the Lalafell or Roegadyn never could do.
Its an interesting place that for 5-10 years now has been completely taken over by the Garleans as their vanguard operating station/supply chain depot into the continent of Eorzea. So its going to be a blend of pacific northwest style forests and very anti nature magitek -knowing Yoshi i would not be surprised to see a Mako reactor or two as fan service with the VII remake on its way- which is a nice dichotomy which offers multiple story opportunities. Perhaps some Ala Mhigans stayed behind and believe magitek is the future and have joined up voluntarily much like people that joined up with the Nazis after being invaded in WW2? Perhaps the nature spirits are tainted by mining, drilling and pollution ruining this once pristine landscape? and surely there will be a resistance in the capital city fighting in the back alleys using guile and subterfuge to sabotage and slow down the Garlean war machine any way they can right?

 So what could you expect from such an expansion? well in the first of these short musing articles i am looking at potential Jobs for this expansion. Something we know is coming but not what jobs -or even how. After the "heres a new job crystal bro, get on it" nature of the HW job unlocks was not seen in a popular light as thought it was "too easy and lacking impact" i predict we shall see a return to the "Job unlocks based on existing classes leveled by the player" system from A Realm Reborn. It makes the player feel as though they earned these new jobs with a sense of exclusivity and time put in along with giving players another reason to level classes they may not have in the past once again serving to keep the queue times for leveling content high.
 But what jobs am i expecting? well given Ala Mhigo's theming and history as a blend of uldah and gridanian themes with a eastern culture with connections to Doma -which could have been reinforced by Doman slaves brought in by the Garleans teaming up with the native resistance front these are my guess for the Jobs coming in FFXIV vers 4.0



Job: Dancer
First appearance: Final Fantasy IV, The After Years
Role: Healer
Class requirements: Pugilist lvl.30, Arcanist lvl.30

Why: Well first off i still believe for at least one more expansion the rule of "1 per role" for new jobs will persist. Perhaps not for much longer than that but for now at least i expect this and honestly? not a lot of healer jobs left. Unless you start going really out there with things like Chemist (perhaps scholar and alchemist to unlock it?) or taking new SE jrpgs ideas like Bravely Seconds Exorcist Job there really isn't any solid new healer types for XIV outside of the Dancer.
 So what is a Dancer? beyond someone with the best moves to throw out down at the Golden Saucer? Dancers are in most cases an offshoot of White Magic. Just as Arcanists are an offshoot that focuses on the idea of calling the spiritual into the physical realm rather than asking to borrow its power like a Conjurer a Dancer is well versed in the old stories and tales that inspire and call on nature in a more primal fashion, almost like shaman. They are capable of low level White Magic like a Red Mage but unlike RDM a DNC can use their own unique skills to make them a rival to the best WHM jobs.
Getting in melee range and turning those graceful twirls and leaps into armour breaking kicks is one way they inspire their party and act as a buffer healer as WHM is outright healing and SCH is mitigation. AST is similar but a far back range version where a dancer blends the XIV gameplay of Bard and Astrologian together into a healer that is there in the fray buffing the attack speed and defence of friends and doing just the opposite to their enemies. As much support as healer they exist  as more than another bar filling whack a mole class but someone you are welcome to have at your side in a fight -literally- knowing they are strengthening the party for it.
 In lore terms there has been Dancers of a sort in XIV since the beginning. In Uldah Dancing girls -and later analogues to J-pop Idols- have been entertainers for centuries and everyone knows the ones who watch coin change hands and catch whispers in pubs, when nobody thinks the entertainment has a brain cell in their pretty little head, know all the secrets of the cities comings and goings that some people dont want the law to know about them. That makes them valuable. They can serve as spys, assassins and inspiring idols for world weary adventurers in equal measure. Over the years we have had a fair few questlines about how Dancing can heal the world weary heart including a questline towards the end of ARR where a new NPC taught the player multiple dances and promised to 'bring Dancing to Eorzea in a big way!" but where did this Human come from? Ala Mhigo. Who taught Dancing to Uldah so many years ago? the people of Ala Mhigo. So where could a player pick up such a job? well i think its safe to make a guess at this point and its probably not the Sundrop Dancers of the Sea of Clouds :p
Class wise i think it makes perfect sense for this to be another Pugilist Job like Monk. Only as Monk takes pugilists with martial prowess and teaches them the arts of chakra usage that same Adventurer adept in graceful movement and hand to hand combat is an easy fit for the Dancer job as well. It makes perfect sense. As for the second job? since Dancer is an offshoot of white magic as Ala Mhigo is a lesser magical culture than its Padjal neighbors making it require Conjurer doesnt really make sense, why bother when its technically a white magic downgrade lore wise right? But what about Arcanist? Scholar was already a case of taking your ability to call on the ethereal in a new direction as a healer so why wouldnt the same schooled Adventurer jump on learning a new Job like this again? Although its equally possible given the similar nature a Job like this could require Pugilist and Astrologian instead. After all Dancing has been used as a way of foretelling events in the past under terms like "Gyromancy" so its not impossible either, it just has less of a connection to Eorzeas immediate past and the grand companies.
So this is my Healer role prediction for 4.0 so what next?

Job: Geomancer

First Appearance: Final Fantasy III

Role: Dps

Job Requirements: Conjurer lvl.30, Gladiator lvl.30

Why: Also known as the Taoist, Elementalist or "Feng Shui Soldier" the Geomancer is the offensive side of Conjuration taken to its limits. As the Conjurer uses his Padjali taught knowledge of the elements mostly for healing the Geomancer understands that conflict is as much a part of the natural world as healing and growth and masters the arts of Earth, Water, Wind and Fire to imbue him or herself with strength and based on what terrain he or she fights on -and in some games even what direction they face when fighting the enemy- their elemental abilities take on new properties meaning the outcome of a battle can swing based on a changing your standing and looking at a fight from a new perspective. Using bells and chimes as a weapon and movement heavy gameplay the Geomancer would allow Conjurer players a DPS option whos movement heavy buffing and debuffing systems would make for a unique blend of MNK/DRG style movement and the Conjurers own currently lacking offensive magic capabilities.

Honestly beyond the idea of the Humans of Ala Mhigo taking the Padjali Conjuration in a new direction based on their similarly close home near the font of elemental power that is the great wood of northern Eorzea there is little in game lore that suggest Geomancer at this point. However Conjurer is the only Class in FFXIV that does not have a DPS option at this point and if we assume they return to the class requirements for the next wave of jobs it is the space that needs filling the most and the FFXI audience that jumped from Vana'diel to Eorzea have been pretty vocal about wanting this job in threads on the official forums for almost half a decade now. Again it just makes sense if we assume Ala Mhigo is the destination for 4.0 and like Astrologian it would fill the role of the 'spiritualism' based job for the expansion with a unique playstyle i think lends itself well to mmos. Perhaps you are in a dungeon like satasha and you can stand on a rock or in water and this changes the function of earth or water based spells based on which you choose to move into? instead of the MMORPG trope of "get out of the thing!" you are forced to notice your surroundings in a move thoughtful way and this feels like something that would fit in a story returning to the more verdant parts of the continent with a strong tie to the Elementals and as a fitting dichotomy for the magitek heavy enemies we would encounter in the Empires forces.

 And with Healer and DPS out of the way there is really only one place to go after that isn't there?

Job: Samurai

First Appearance: Final Fantasy V

Role: Tank

Job Requirements: Lancer lvl.30, Rogue lvl.30

Why: Decked out in plates of ceramic armour the Samurai are the vanguard of their Lords forces. Known for precision with bow, blade and spear and a willingness to lead the charge even into a situation that is very likely to lead to their deaths they embody the MMORPG Tank role as the armoured protector that favours offense based on none magical means unlike the Paladin and Dark Knight but also with reserved focus unlike the bloodlust of the Warrior. 

 Imagine that you are a Doman. Your culture has been completely curb stomped by the empire. What little of you did not escape to Eorzea with Yugiri's lot have been taken in as slaves as your own culture is stripped away and replaced. Why wouldn't they seek to join the growing Ala Mhigan rebellion? and perhaps an Adventurer both gifted with a natural aptitude with the spear and trusted by the Ninja of the Doman refugees has exactly the qualities they seek to entrust someone with keeping their warrior culture alive, for if the Ninja is the offensive tradition surely the Samurai is their defensive counterpart?

In HW Dark Knight served as the "something from outside" Ishgardian culture Job compared to MCH and AST and in this case where there is a strong possibility for Domans to play a part, perhaps even seeking to no longer live as refugees but settle in a free Ala Mhigo as their new home should the Empire be routed from it and then surely a Samurai would serve the same purpose here. Perhaps as a Tank focussed on mitigation and TP use over MP? This is a job that the userbase has been both demanding and expecting since rumours of its inclusion in ARR started doing the rounds in early 2013 and 3 years later people still crave a Samurai to accompany the Ninja. Given the nature of the story possibilities in front of us i feel this serves as the right choice.

For the Classes i expect Rogue with its connections to the Doman introduction feels right but with the Samurais in FF using spears as often as a Katana it also makes sense for Lancer to get some love and a Job thats not seen as the "oh great, get ready for the 'Goon to kill himself. Again" stereotype of choice. It would be a TP tank for TP classes thats not another blood hungry berserker but like Aaron in FFX they serve as a more stoic and tempered job ready to be the wall that protects the Dancers and Elementalists he or she fights besides in the Ala Mhigan resistance.

Of course this is all a complete asspull on my part and its likely we could get something so incredibly different and out of left field. Nobody expected Astrologian and Machinist after all. Though with a return to a more traditional FF setting i believe we will see the Job choices follow this theme. Though for now all we can do is have fun speculating of course, and speaking of next up i'll be talking about my expectations for changes and uses for current content in 4.0, so stay tuned! 

Quest Complete!...for now.

 After a long slog (and a long break for Overwatch and Monster Hunter Generations, but don't tell anyone about that!) i finally completed my Ninja Anima Relic up to its current ilvl240 state. Can't say i'm that fond of the model but theres only so many ways you can make the same glowing daggers i suppose. Overall what did i think of the experience?

 Honestly i hated it. I mentioned previously how the previous 'Hyperconductive' stage Relics were looking incredibly rare in the wild numbers wise and thus far i have seen a grand total of two other players who have complete the current stage of the Relic questline. Thats three in total on a medium leaning to high population realm. Not exactly in the ARR Relic numbers is it?
 My assumptions then are still my reasons for disliking it now. The grind. Not the fact that it is a grind, but how you grind. Did they utilise the new dungeons? kind of in so much as forcing you to spam the roullettes each day for esoteric tomestones to buy Umbrite stones. Did they use them in the story or quests directly? No. They did not. After an early part where you specifically were told to do every post patch ARR and pre level cap HW dungeon you were never told to interact with anything specifically ever again. Just a stage of grinding to buy maguffins. Then another. Followed by another.

I'm sure you can see a pattern has developed here. A pattern that was seriously causing me to burn out. I was still doing other things in game. I got 4 crafters 50-60 and did the same for BRD, MCH and i'm working on WHM now. Still i was reaching the point i would go "okay no, you dont want to drive yourself to hate the game. Its time to take a few days playing Overwatch instead" and so i did. A couple of times.
 Personally i am of the opinion that if you are having to work around a games system to stop yourself becoming sick of it there is something wrong, call me cynical. Though it helped and with some lucky Leve chest spawns i got my last 20 sands over a fortnight and got the 53 treated sands i needed to complete my Relic. Did i enjoy a third eso grind in a row? Not at all. Was it worth it? I guess?
 See the thing is i do this for the quests, story, flavour and the sheer jrpg completionist aspect of it. I am not trying to power up to push some progression raiding nor do i feel i lack power in the current content. It was just a goal. A carrot on a stick and the good old "stand around in town and have beginners go "Where does THAT come from!?" feeling" again. It was something i started and it feels a waste to leave it unfinished. Especially after the millions of gil, tens of thousands of tomestones and god knows how many hours it took and stats wise yeah its a very good weapon that i am sure plenty of other Ninja players with far less free time would very much want to have. It just feels bittersweet because the whole time it feels like you are being played for a rube by the design team to keep the dungeon queue times low. Which i guess is better than my experiences as a DPS in World of Warcraft where some dungeon finder queues could last for literal hours without a queue pop. Its just a shame the flavour of it is so dull.

 In my opinion they simply should have broken it up more. This stage was intended to take around 30-40 days of casual gameplay to complete. So why not 20 days of this and 20 days of another stage doing something else? Why not imitate the Trials of the Zodiac Brave books from ARR and give us a list of all the HW Hunt targets to track down? This would get us some tomes while also forming more hunting groups for other players doing their weeklies or working on the earlier tome farming steps. It would still essentially be the same thing, but by breaking it up would feel less like a monotonous slog of repetition for its variance.

 Bit of a whiny moan of a critique of it i know but i am glad its over and i can focus on other things like the Palace of the Dead more. I like the daggers and will keep updating them with each new stage in the questline as the expansion goes on, though honestly i have one other relic about to reach Hyperconductive stage and quite honestly i believe it will be staying there for the duration.

 All in all i always feel these Epic weapons in an mmo that take real months on end to complete should be a memorable experience, and while thats true in a sense of 'thank god its finally over' the story and actual activities thus far have been quite forgettable compared to ARR's Relic. There is always room for change and improvement however -something this MMORPG has shown more than any other- for now though i just dont think i can recommend it based on the experience which is as much of a reward as the item.

 I guess i'm just more of a journey over destination kinda guy.

Where are all the Relic weapons?

Remember A Realm Reborn? The Relic quests? The Trial of the Zodaic Braves?

Fun times right? All those Titan Hard Mode runs where low ping was suffering. We all did it. We got our Relics -a Stardust Rod was first in my case- and Eorzea was full of glowing weapons from coast to coast.

So what changed?

The current Relic state is the 'Hyperconductive' State with the current patch adding the new way to upgrade it again, but if you kept up Hyperconductive Kannagi in my case is what the patch starts the relic state out as for its max form.

You want to know how many other Hyperconductive weapons i have seen?

Four. Four in total. 

Everyone else has Sephirot and Thordin weapons and why? what happened to the mass Relic owning players?

In my case it was pretty simple and uniform from all i asked: "Have you seen the tome grinds for this?!?" and honestly i cannot blame them.

There has been some side stuff you can do to buy relic materials through other means but on the whole for the current step and 2 before it you are looking at a whopping 80,000 tomestones alone before all the other materials.

Lets say you do all the roullettes and get around 600 esoterics per day. That is 133 days. That is almost 4 and a half months of spending hours of your day, every single day without pause. Before the current Aether Sand farms to boot and the preceding fate farming atma 2.0 as well.

Compared to something like a dozen runs max on average of an extreme primal fight in a farm group thats a bit ridiculous in hindsight, isn't it?

All the more so for the people playing catchup with the previous steps having received no nerf whatsoever. Its a massive slog and the longer it goes on the less it is worth it in the eyes of the players. By the time you may catch up to the 230 level weapons everyone else will be further ahead and the other players will have farmed the other weapons. So good luck buddy, enjoy being stuck behind forever or putting your nose to the grindstone till you experience sheer burnout.

Which honestly is where i'm leaning at 80/240 maguffins for the current stage of my own. If im getting bored and thinking i should take a break for a week or two what about people who are new to the game and want to get started now? Theres no catch up route, its just a grind they will forever be behind on and thats a bad videogame experience to say the least.

There are plenty of ways to make catchup easier. half the 80 items for stage 3 to 40, make aether oil no longer market prohibited. They can do lots of things to make it faster, but this doesnt make it more fun does it?

Like i said at the start, if you were there you remember the ARR Relic, mostly because titan HM on the american servers from europe was a nightmare for many, but the nightmare was a challenge to overcome. Titan stood in as the wall to your relic and it was put up or shut up time. It was a challenge at the time but we all did it, we got our relics and it was a mark of pride to be in the primal killing club. You felt satisfied that you overcame a challenge.

I have overcome no challenge for my Hyperconductive Kannagi. I farmed fates and dungeons. I also did the beast tribes dailies i was doing anyway to level alts.

These are not feats of heroism or daring deeds. Its currency farming. Just like the worst parts of games like WoW, Destiny or The Division it is just farming points through repetitive busywork for a weapon upgrade that shouldn't leave you thinking "thank god its over" when you are finally finished.

At this point i reflect on these thoughts and i sincerely think i would not recommend the current relic to anyone just starting the lvl.60 experience. Its a massive catchup grind and the reward isnt worth it. Not just the ingame item but the sense of accomplishment is utterly diminished by crushing malaise and burn out.

Thats why you don't see the Anima Relics often. Theres no new blood starting it. Those of us that started on patch day are in for the long haul like the stubborn mmorpg grinding mules we are. For most of the Adventurers in Eorzea however it seems this has passed and years from now people will look at glamours of the Heavensward Relic and go "Wow.... i cant believe how much of your time you wasted for that thing!".

Which is funny since thats all videogames are really i suppose, but the failure is when the player is conscious of it.

I just dearly hope the next step involves something other than Tomestone farming i really do, and i dont blame you if you are burnt out on it. Sometimes its better to take a break and in this weapons case i really do recommend it. At 230 you are still pretty damn on top for most classes with the Relics, the sand isn't blocking your gameplay progression in the long run so never let it become a chore.

If only Yoshi P's team could aim for that in the quests for it more.

"Unable to complete version check" PS4 fix!

Well i experienced an annoyance the last few days trying to log in on my PS4. One that i looked up on and found many suffered from for weeks if not months at a time.

"Unable to complete version check"

What happens is you sign in on the launcher and when it should load the 'PLAY' button it crashed to a black screen, displays the aforementioned message and reloads the launcher to repeat it.

Quite simply you are stuck. Your launcher is out of synch with the servers and is no longer compatible. I had downloaded nothing, the only change in my experience had been a change to my phone line at the time so god knows if that was the cause.

There is however a solution.

From the dashboard of the PS4 go to settings>application saved data management>delete>ffxiv and you will see a few files. Most are character information, one is system data. Delete it.

Don't worry its not deleting all your game files and patches. Just forces the consoles to download the launcher again, ensuring it is the latest version. 

The game will behave like a fresh install, ask if you have a SE account and sign you in. The patcher will download about 57mbs of data then play normally. Aside from playing the beginning cutscene again and asking to select a datacenter the game should behave normally now.

This fixed the issue for me, for now at least, i hope it helps you as well!

Workshop Wisdom #1

With the addition of Moogle Beast quests all of a sudden Eorzea is booming with the sounds of industry again!

Perhaps you, yes even you good sir/madam can can engage in the fine arts of craftsmanship -Today!

 So you just hit level 60 on your first crafter. What now? Well the answer is pretty simple, you settle for that and make a steady income from what you can make and sell on the auction house or you start to take it to the next level. This means Blue Scrips.

What does this mean?
It means using a new proc you get in the mid to late 50's for each class you can craft an item, but not as a item to use or sell but instead as a Collectible. The quality rating of this is achieved just like trying to get a HQ normal item.

Check in Idyllshire and Mor Dhona for Rowena's employees that will exchange these items for scrips. Usually they demand certain items of certain ratings so check first. Not everything can be a collectible and not every collectible is even desired at the time so check first and plan for you material gathering second!

The scrips first uses will be for things like the rank 3 master recipes for your class and then your tools. Dont worry too much about the gear at first, the Moogles now give you them in exchange for their daily currency and thats good enough for now as long as you upgrade your accessories too.

The best place to begin is the 35 durability items. To use Leatherworker as an example this would usually mean crafting an item like Dragon Leather. 3 Skins and 1 log. you just need a botanist lvl.51 or higher and any combat class that could farm Green Dragons in the Churning Mists. You gather your materials and what now?

Well heres where your old pal Danny has a tip. Time for the wonder of macros!

-Though bare in mind these macros require having cross class skills from other crafters so having a few at 50 is required for this set of macros, remember to power level them with leves, ixal dailies and the use of buffs like manuals to get the most out of crafting.

Now open the menu and go to macros, for console users this is on the far right on the Systems sub section. Great a new two new macros, select an icon for each and name one "35 durability 1" and "35 durability 2" respectively.

Now enter the following:

 As you can see it requires the following skills:
-Byregot's Blessing
-Careful Synthesis 2
-Comfort Zone
-Great Strides
-Hasty Touch
-Ingenuity 2
-Inner Quiet
-Manipulation
-Steady Hand 2

But also you need to look at your stats. First of all you need over 250 CP to be able to execute all of the moves to begin with, and after that put everything possible stat wise into Crafting and Control through gear upgrades you make or buy for now and cheap materia melds using the new melder by the Jeweled Crozier Market Board.

HQ materials help but thus far this usually means a guaranteed 5000-7000 quality rated collectible, and usually 4000 is the level desired by the scrip npcs.

This is just an easy way to get started getting scripts to upgrade your recipes, tools and later gear but for now this could be an easy way for casual players to get their Aether Sand for their Relics without farming leves for Vilekin.

Hopefully this is a nice beginner tip to get you started crafting Collectibles and getting your scrip caps to start making it into the big leagues of crafting!

Easy Crystal Sand farming for the new Relic stage

Very quick post since this could change at any time.

There are lots of methods to get the new Crystal Sand needed for the Anima questline for the relic. The easiest is a 1 for 1 trade of one sand for one amber encased vilekin. These drop on every 3rd or 4th levequest.

So do the following:
>Pick up a levequest from Ishgard for the Dravanian Highlands
>Go start it, look around and if there is a chest loot it
>Either way abandon it and restart it and search again
>Repeat until you exhaust your leve allowances.

At a possible 20 in 30 minutes thats a small chunk of the 250 needed for the Relic done very easily, have fun!

Dragonsong

"Tell me why create, a circle none can break

Why must you let go, the life you were bestowed

This I fear I'll never know"

 Here it is the day after patch day. While Heavensward is not finished with at least 5 storylines ongoing (Alexander, Void ark, Hildebrand, The Warrior of Darkness and the Scholars should it continue) as of now the story of the Dragonsong war has. 

 So did i enjoy it?

For the most of it yes, yes i enjoyed it a lot. However its not without its flaws, so expect some spoilers as i talk about the experience below.

The Good

 I think first and foremost it has to be commended for finally making some NPC's other than the faction leaders and scions matter for more than a single patch. Had you breezed through ARR's 1-50 content a year before Heavensward i would not blame you for assuming Hauchefant was an original character for the expansion, but he was not. You did quests for him in the 40's in Ceorthas Central Highlands. But he had no personality. He did nothing but stand behind a desk and send you to another questgiver for the most part. Not only did they make him a fleshed out character but they made him one the audience cared about to the point they added his shield in as a glamour item for paladins crying out to 'rep mah boi fortempts!'

    something Similar can be said for Ysayle/Lady Iceheart. What we assumed was another moustache twirling villain of the patch only there to excuse another Primal fight grows into a far more fleshed out character that is not in fact the cliche femme fetale but a deeply insecure character whos basically winging it based on ideas that are little more than the half hearted ideas of a young girl raised on almost fairy tales. Even Hraesvelgr comments on her as "poor, deluded Ysayle". Its rare for an rpg to pull off 'pitiable' without some connotations of 'pathetic' underlying it. She was not a pathetic character, but a truly pitiable one which lead to her becoming more understandable and likeable in the longrun. 

The dragons themselves were a nice breath of fresh air for the fantasy videogame genre. Too often they are merely regally arrogant, timeless monsters that speak english. Here they were people for better and worse. They lived and died based on very relatable needs and emotional reasons. Compared to the usual demigods clad in scales this was a very welcome change. Even Niddhog -who will get more comments on later- had the understandable blood vendetta pushing his actions. He wasn't some world ending cartoon monster. His sister had been murdered and the outrage and need for revenge consumed him. He wasn't right to do so of course, but how often can you say an evil fantasy dragon has understandable motivations behind their actions?

The dungeons related to the story up to and including the new Sohr Khai addition were all at worst very enjoyable and the variance in locations and types of boss mechanics were pretty solid overall. Nothing felt like a cutdown tutorial for later fights bar The Vault basically being a mini taster for the Knights of the Round. Even Niddhog is vastly different in the Final Stepps of faith than in his original dungeon fight.

His final fight in particular is worth commending. It is mechanically pretty simple really. Dont stand in anything, dps the shadow dragon first. The usual stuff. Yet it feels so much faster than any other fight i can think of other than the finale of T13 in the Binding Coil of Bahamut. The addition of Dragonsong by longtime series composing legend Nobou Uematsu adds a sense of urgency and tension you dont expect from such a melancholy song. Definitely a highlight in terms of fights for this expansion.

Overall the story was enjoyable, the characters memorable and it took a few twists i did not expect yet greatly enjoyed. That said...

The Bad

So. Niddhog. Where the hell was he buggering off to? How did he arrange this horde of dragons? We know they are all sentient, some were even human/elezen heretics. So they are not mindless monsters he could assemble with some magic power. He just shows up with an army and we assume he rounded them up, but why do we not see it?

This is the biggest weakness of the Dragonsong story arc. The crescendos are amazing, but the buildup is barely there. The story has these highs and then it feels like nothing happens for ingame time weeks or months until suddenly everyone shows up and its go time again. To the point in this patch they outright say something to the effect of "and how do we know when Niddhog will attack?" followed by an off screen roar and guess what? hes attacking right now!

Its an issue in pacing. When it gets going it goes and doesnt stop till the end of that patches content. But theres never a sense of building escalation with the story. It feels like im reading a fan edit of A Dance of Dragons with only the 'important' chapters kept and the rest is cut. So you feel this sense that the story jumps and you love whats there, but feel like you missed something inbetween.

To be brutally honest i am going to take a shot in the dark and make the assumption that something was cut for time. Next time you go back to The Aery to fight Nidhogg stop at the ramp up to his platform and look down. Notice anything? if you look hard enough you will see the whole thing is floating on top of Allagan tech straight out of Azys La. We know the Allagans were experimenting with dragons AND there is a very important cutscene near the end of the base 3.0 story where we meet Tiamat who is chained up in some mini binding coil and we get a long talk about the Allagans dragon binding technology.

I can't help but feel there was some other plans involved for Niddhogs finale other than 'fight him on a flat stone bridge' originally. What we got is great and adds a sense of capping off what started with the Steps of Faith fight that began the story back in the final patch of A Realm Reborn, but unless there are more plans for the Empire beyond the Triad involving this dragon binding tech so heavily focussed on earlier i think there was some more allagan story planned that we arent going to see. It happens in ongoing games development to be sure. But that stuff is always going to be there tempting the imagination to wonder isn't it?

Then we have Niddhog himself. The biggest bad of the expansion and honestly? one of the weaker ones. Quickthinx may be a cliche douchebag, but hes a cliche douchebag with a plan. Diablos is.. well he's Diablos. You know what you are in for with him by this point in the franchise.

Nidhogg was the chance to break the mould a little. Not make another raging lizard in the vein of Warcrafts Deathwing but a calculating, methodical villain whos understandable grievances make him a victim of his own weaknesses and bad choices instead of another monster to put down. Yet at the end thats all he is, worse than that actually. he's the ghostly shade that needs putting down again.

At the end of it all Niddhog ends up being a bit of a damp squib. He never really does anything beyond hurt a couple of other Dragons and feels more like a nuisance than the adversary he should have been tonally speaking. 

But thats not a very long list of negatives so i suppose so all in all i would call the story a relative success in terms of multi patch story arcs in MMORPGs.

All in all the good outweighs the bad and there are so many fights, cutscenes and story moments that can actually stir an emotion in the player and thats very hard to pull off in a game with ideas like "threat" and "global cooldowns" to do so. Was it perfect? honestly no. It felt a little rushed and could probably have used another patch inbetween to flesh out the story further and show Niddhog actually do some evil things that warranted such a buildup and reaction to him.

Though this doesnt diminish the impact of the other character arcs mentioned above and in the end they made the story for me and those will be the characters i remember fondly long after this expansion is over. Lets hope this is the start of a trend of fleshing out a bigger roster of characters. Hopefully 3.3 is also a trendsetter for them all surviving for once!