Patch 4.4 in review

I'm pretty happy to say this has thus far been a much, much better experience then the previous patches for Stormblood. Better fights, better variety in music, more going on and generally it just felt more focussed than it has since Heavensward. Again i have to say i believe in part this is because with the Ala Mhigo and Doma stories wrapping up they are no longer so divided in terms of workload in this regard. We are back to the Empire/Ascians and that focus allows for a more linear creative process that allows most of the work to flow better. Though that said i do have to comment on just how many spelling and grammatical errors there are in the English translations on screen. Not only do they often not match the voice actors but there are straight up misspelled or duplicated words like "they were were" as the VO says "they were" for example. Its the first time i've actually seen an mmo do it this much beyond beta testing. Perhaps there were issues with the team, some were sick and the rest got overloaded i dont know. All i can say is it was noticeable on more than one occasion and this many years in you would think the scions names would be spelt right in conversation text.

 So onto the content. I've got it all out of the way bar the Savage Omega fights, and any Eureka content because i simply refuse to waste my time on it, and all in all i can say its good but like usual i'm going to break it down a little below.

The Story
 Quite honestly the story hasn't interested me in Stormblood much at all. They could afford so little time to both regions that Yotsuyu was really the only standout and beyond that most of the story was forgettable and completely paled in comparison to ARR/HW in general. This still suffered from a lot of "walk to this person to start a cutscene" just like SB has in general but much like the finale of the last patch did with Alphinaux this patch gives other characters some time in the spotlight and it was very welcome. As time goes on i find Lyse and Hien increasingly uninteresting. Likeable characters to be sure but storywise what are they bringing to the table compared to what the likes of Nanamo or Ameryic in their storylines in the last few outings they had? so far not much and since they were the focus of so much i found it hard to care. Here we return to familiar characters and give more time to folks like the Xaela tribes on the Azim Steppe and it was a very welcome change of pace.
 Beyond that, without heading into spoiler territory, this saw a refocus of the story on what i consider the 'core' story to Final Fantasy XIV rather than just the contained story of the expansion. The Ascians are making their moves, we get some character reveals and a tease for what i assume is a certain Big Bad we haven't seen mentioned since like The Chrysalis or earlier. Overall it felt a little more substantial even if it does still suffer from 'talk to the cutscene npc' syndrome a little too much still. I was invested in the events, exclaimed out loud at certain reveals and was genuinely bummed when it ended because it left me wanting a lot more which is always the sign of a story patch doing its job well. Something i found myself really saying for the first time for this expansion so all in all not perfect but a total improvement and step back to the quality HW taught us to expect.

The New Dungeons
 Now these were interesting. Overall they are fine dungeons, MSQ one is a bit too linear feeling and the other a bit too flat in terms of layout, but other than that i've done both multiple times and enjoyed every run. Compare that to previous additions like the Drowned City which i did once and its another case of the update feeling less simple. Like they saw complaints things were too easy, people were bored and not bothering to run the content and they spiced things up again which is great.

The Arboretum Hard Mode is honestly easier than its Normal Mode if i'm honest. Copperbell HM it is not! but the bosses, second and third in particular, are good fun and there are a fair few great new mechanics both in battle and out. For example all the mobs are covered by a mud based formula making them hyper aggressive but if you hit switches for water valves it swap the mobs model out for a clean version thats less aggressive and easier to fight. That kind of fight control thats entirely up to the players to shift difficulty should they choose reminded me of the similar systems in WoW's critically acclaimed Ulduar raid. Something people always lamented was never really brought back. Its nice to see them experiment with that here. Along with some new ideas like telegraphs not for damage but for effects that physically move you around could really lead to some interesting fights in the future if the ideas prove popular enough. Its a nice enough dungeon but the music, a broken scratchy version of the original like a run down malls spooky intercom still playing old ambient shopping music when its long abandoned, does add flavour to the scene but also gets pretty annoying as the dungeon goes on. Still its a fun if easy run i would compare to Xelphatol or The Vault.

The MSQ however is great in a very different way. As a dungeon its basically "take X boss and their mechanics and spice them up, but its still very much like fighting the same boss" -a theme that ran through the whole patch but more on that later- and its very point A-B as you clear a lot of trash that only really serve to pad the place. Where it shines is the visuals. You go in knowing theres a giant monster on that part of the world map, you go in seeing teasing signs of said monster, you are sure knowing SE its just that and its a lame attempt at surprise but then you crest a hill and the party just stops dead. Its exactly not what you expected and then when you realise what IS waiting at the end the reveal is all the more exciting because it set up your expectations then completely pulled a 180 on them. Its a eye candy dungeon thats great but trash heavy i would compared to The Fractal Continuum or Amdapoor Keep HM. But boy is that final boss Stone Vigil 2.0 in terms of a hard story wall for people with bad connections i tell you what!

Suzaku/Pheonix
 A lot of the stuff is just described with a shrug and "hey its signs of improvement" but good lord this is the best trial since Nidhogg hands down. Great looking boss, great arena, great music. Throw in some Rythmn game style mechanics -a sadly dwindling genre i adore- and this was all around a delight to run and i can't wait to do it again. Story is still completely barebones and uninteresting for the Four Lords stuff but but is this a step up compared to everything but Shinryu in the Trials category for Stormblood. Totally worth running just to see it. Unlike Byakko or Tsukuyomi this didn't just feel like the "storymode for dumb babbys" and it was easy to wipe in and people had to do the mechanics rather than get carried through by a healer. Fantastic fight and can't wait to try the harder version.

The Raid
 Omega has been a mixed bag for me. Yeah its great fan service but a lot of the first while visually cool are a bit too simple. For every Phantom Train theres 3 or 4 thats just 'a thing in the middle of a flat area' and after so much of that in Alexander i preferred the stuff that stands out. Thankfully -and i will not spoil the reveals- the fights for Omega's final ark are very satisfying. An easier final fight than Alex but on the whole the difficulty spiked up to a more satisfying degree. Making it feel less like a chore and more like a challenge which i the longrun is what feeds that need to conquer content and chase gear to increase your power an MMORPG needs for longevity. Part of why so many people seem to have dropped off in 4.1/4.2 was because the content was all pretty damn easy so there was no need to gear up much. Here across the board theres a minor but noticable increase to what i would consider closer to 'just right for an rpg challenge' instead of the previous 'dont pay attention its here for the cutscenes really' monotony of the difficulty in previous pre savage difficulties.

 The first fight is A pretty simple stance dance i would compare to Titan HM but with a faster beat to it. The second is the same for Nidhogg while the third feels like a lot Alex mechanics tied together and the finale is just kind of Kefka meets elements of Sephirot and Cruise Chaser. It starts simple, ramps up and up and then gently inclines down with a victory lap finale. It was just challenging enough for a blind pug to 2 or 3 shot everything but feel accomplished rather than checking off a objective when you did. I don't feel there are any like the Gravity fight in Deltascape that i simply just don't want to do after clearing because its anti fun for me. It was all a bit rounded in mechanics but fun. Sometimes you don't need a gimmick fight in a tier and thats just fine.
 As for the story? well its mixed. Its not as satisfying as all of Omega's build up was but at the same time feels a bit more thought out and deep compared to the earlier sections or parts of Alex. It almost felt like an episode of an anime, the ending in particular and while its a shame they don't expand more on Omega's origins some characters show up you don't expect and it really feels like a nod to the people who have been pretty vocal about missing the themes and tones of Heavensward ever since it finished.
 Still it left me wondering: Where the hell did Estinien go?

So overall i'm happier with this patch than the last two. I had a lot more fun and i think thats because of a number of things. The story is no longer split and as such can focus again, theres are new mechanics being experimented with -no doubt for the expansion being revealed at Fan Fest- that freshened things up and personally it feels to me as though there has been something of an ethos shift in the design team. They seem far more comfortable with challenging players a little more at the entry difficulty levels which is just fine by me. The content felt more satisfying to beat and i found myself going 'okay when i come back with better gear-' which is music to an MMO devs ears as thats a subconscious commitment to play more, because you want to.
 It also feels both in story and mechanics a lot more like "lets try to reinvent what we have" compared to Stormbloods thus far "lets try and make up new gimmicks". So many fights in this patch are "Oh this is Titan, but better", "Oh this is isgebind, but better" or "Oh this is Nidhogg, but better" and happening so many times feels a little too common to be just coincidence. It feels like they are looking at what worked and what players enjoyed more than throwing extremely casual content out and telling us we need to enjoy it wether we like it or not.

 For the most part 4.1 an 4.2 left me somewhat worried about the future of the game and my interest in it. 4.4 and to a lesser extent 4.3 has reinvigorated my interest and i am not alone. Its still a shame Eureka is getting so much focus and we never got a true relic questline to go on an adventure to get rather than a reskin from a mob grinder but on the whole this is the perfect time for this when buzz about the next expansion is starting to show. How many patches do we have left? personally i'm guessing 2 majors. One for the final Ivalice, the other for the end of the Four Lords and the story trial. Perhaps one in early December and the other in late March with another summer release for 5.0 in 2019?

 Its all speculation really, we don't even have the job conspiracy theories doing the rounds till we see the shirts Yoshi wears at Fan Fest in a few months of course, but people are back playing, people are enjoying the content again and personally i'm logging in to cap tomes, do my roullette dailies and i'm having fun doing so. Something i really burnt out on doing for the last few months PS4 meltdown or not. This is a hopeful sign of better things to come and if you have burnt out or taken a long break i recommend maybe paying for a month of sub time to check all this stuff out for a good time. The quality of life changes were nice, the new GATE at the Golden Saucer is fun but probably not for too many repeat tries but i'll still take it over the damn jar one thats not thankfully been replace with this one. As a RDM it was great to get buffs, not so great to see the FOTM crowd naturally jump on it and need all the gear i'm chasing in the new dungeons while bringing back the 4.0 "ummm, ya, no im a mage? why would i ever do melee attacks? lol" stuff that means i can be with 3 others in a trial and i'm the only one casting Verholy/flare because they simply don't know how. Thats not so fun. Overall its mixed but satisfying. Hopeful but still wanting more. Little more vague overall i know, but boy are we getting into end of ARR level spoiler stuff with this one folks which is making it real hard to talk about some of this stuff, but i guess that shows its still investing folks in the material, right?

Coming back from my Azeroth vacation

 So not only did it take forever to get my PS4 repaired but then i had to redownload the client, the hard drive died, then i had to redownload it again on crappy country wi-fi, yeesh!
 Downside is i missed my first seasonal event, upside is it was a jumping puzzle which on a PS4 is a goddamn recipe for frustration so i cannot say i'm that bothered. It was a change however to try the new World of Warcraft expansion to compare and contrast.

Overall Battle for Azeroth was 'fine' but really just fine. I never missed dropping the faction conflict idea when i picked up FFXIV nearly 5 years ago after Mists of Pandaria felt like the end of my interest in WoW as my main go to mmo and revisiting it now i can say my opinion hasn't changed. The questing was neat, certain elements like Wavecrest Manor almost certainly influenced by a certain Gridanian Manor house falling to ruin were a case of Blizzards infamous 'take successful ideas and make them your own' design ethos but on the whole? not a lot to do really. I outgeared most of the content that wasn't a weekly lock out and just kind of felt like the game wanted me to swap to another character after a week. Throw in crafting being something you can effectively be done with in about an hour or less depending on if you use the AH or rely on mob/node drops and that was completely uninteresting compared to the lauded crafting system in FFXIV where you actually feel like you are making something. Shame all my UI and macros were lost in the hardware failure so i gotta set that up to get back to it but you get the idea.
To sum it up i had some fun, but not enough to warrant a sub fee so i got my loremaster and pathfinder achievements in a week and considered it done. Maybe an interesting update can pull me back but i still left it feeling like FFXIV is my main MMORPG.

 That said of course i can't say its all sunshine and roses in my 'home' MMORPG now either. Upon logging back in i discovered the Rising event was on! Fun times and a complex event right?

...Right?

 Sadly no. The Rising this year was a quest where you talk to 3 npcs then turn it in for a thank you cutscene starring Yoshi P. Not to sound ungrateful or disingenuous but half a decade in this is starting to go from 'touching outreach from the developers to a userbase they are grateful for the patronage of' to 'uh, yeah dude, we get it' and the lacklustre nature of the event kind of felt like one more in a tiny list of disappointments that i think are why i've been playing -and obvious writing- less about FFXIV even before my hardware issues. In short i think the game is being spread to thin right now.

Look at everything we have gotten in Stormblood and a running theme for the most part is 'more stuff than HW, but less of each option'. Less dungeons, less floors in Deep Dungeon even, less quests, less story, less content for crafter/gatherers. In short the way it feels is like the Golden Saucer: Theres lots of things to do but depending on the person each person has only a little to do. You like Triple Triad? great. But that means nothing if Lords of Verminion and Chocobo races don't interest you at all.
 A lot of people argue that this is a problem because the Doma and Ala Mhigo stories should have been their own expansions and by trying to do both they split the art teams into twice the story, twice the art assetts, twice the everything, right?
 I can agree to a degree. Personally? i don't think its just that, or as others said the devs running out of new ideas. If i have to point an accusatory finger at any aspect of the game that i consider a detriment right now it has to be at Eureka.

 Now you should know by now that i love me some stupid grinds. I got all my Relics and Deep Dungeon weapons. Surely i should be eager for the grind right? its totally a nostalgic throwback to FFXI right? right??

 Wrong. Holy shit its so wrong. Think back to playing FFXI. Using switches to open hidden doors, guessing numbers and solving riddles to open chests, exploring to see whats hidden around every nook and cranny and so on? nope. You just kill mobs on an instanced island. Thats it. I cannot stress how much this shit is not made for me.  It is soulless, hollow, mind numbingly dull. Worst of all? I think this was designed as the structural backbone of the entire expansion and if thats the case? whoo boy they messed up.
 Remember me ranting about where the hell the new relic questline was? turns out its here. But its not a questline. Its farming one item. Forever. You just keep turning it in for upgrades. This is a horror show of monotony. I'm not doing X number of dungeons then X number of hunts then X number of raids. I'm killing mobs. Forever. I think i got to level 4 in its unique levelling system and straight up said 'sorry, i'm out' and never returned. To this day its had a new update with Eureka Pagos and i have never even visited it. I'm the typical 'heavy user' MMORPG player that consumes content voraciously and i simple wrote this off as redundant and not worth my time. I did Kuja 7 times instead, got my RDM weapon and that was that while my friends and people i know online were lamenting this hours of suffering where a death cost xp and reinforced this negative feedback loop. Constantly.

 I know its now how everyone plays but i play MMORPG's for exploration, crafting and working with a world of players together. Not sticking in one place and farming something forever. I play these games for fun and enjoyment. Not to pay to act like a farming bot which is essentially what Eureka is in execution.

 Now look at the last year of content and what if the reasons its spread so thin and numbers are dropping (last night i saw 2 people in Rhalgar's Reach and 3 in Kugane, the lowest i've ever seen in an mmo hub including current year FFXI Windurst and Bastok!) is because Eureka has been an experiment in design that was a mess behind the scenes, a mess in execution and everything outside the raid team have been hampered to facilitate this hot mess.

 I know its coming back on a bitter note but hey man, if you don't love the game you leave, if you care you voice your worries right? For me this is the first time i have worried about FFXIV. I considered it totally stable, chugging along as the 2nd place sub MMORPG to WoW. But now? what few people i know that are still playing either just gear up from raids, have nothing left from crafting to do and so chase achievements or are simple still logging in to keep their virtual house. Everyone else -and im talking people that have their Encyclopaedia Eorzea and Job Stone key chains and everything- have just stopped and said 'i hope they learn from this and improve or i'm just not coming back' and all i can think is 'hope do you burn so much goodwill in a single year?'

 Personally i'm still playing. I'm waiting for 4.4 where hopefully i can get back into it in a big way after the current period of trying to remember 20 odd classes hotbars, macros and subtleties again. That said i am really worrying if they are expecting Eureka to be the backbone of Stormblood that keeps players busy till 5.0 because personally? i'm never touching it again and don't know anyone personally who will either. Which is genuinely sad that this world we all love is chasing us away like that.

 All we can hope for really is that the team takes notice of any significant drop off and sees what is pushing people away. If not i don't think Eorzea can stand another Calamity and neither can the dev team.

-but hey at least they reverted that bloody Awful raid loot change. Did that even last two lockouts?