4.1 Goodness (MSQ Spoilers)Follow

So I'm a little late to the party, sue me.

I just finished 4.1 MSQ this morning, and wow.

Okay, so there was a minor annoyance in the insta-fail conditions in the solo duty... I am NOT a fan of insta-fail get-kicked-out-of-duty conditions in solo duties, but meh. I wouldn't have minded so much if it weren't such a long fight (for a solo duty) and allowing 1.....ONE..... orb to touch a person means insta-fail and you gotta start all over from the very beginning. Woulda been nice if they had a midway checkpoint, like, when Fordola comes running in.

But other than that, let's talk about the awesomeness of the 4.1 MSQ.

First off, we have that kick rear (sigh, ZAM....) cuttscene in the prison. I love it when FFXIV makes you feel like your character is ridiculously overpowered, either mechanically or emotionally, or just being the WoL in general. It's one of the things that makes me love FFXIV, same reason I loved Mass Effect 2, they did very similar things with Shepard there. You are playing this ludicrously powerful character that nobody can understand how they can do what they do... but for me it was just Tuesday kinda thing. I love that stuff! Others might not, but I do lol. Fordola's reaction to what she sees and how she's just floored... there she is whining about her bad hair day and then she takes a peek into the WoL's memories... well now... who again has no idea what it's like? lol. I do hope to be seeing more of Fordola in the future... drag her along for some more eikon-slaying, I think.

The little jaunt with the sultana was nice too, I love how this game's MSQs will sometimes take you back to earlier areas you've not stepped foot in for hundreds of hours. Can't remember the last time I had ran clear out to that tree in Thanalan, wow that brought back memories of when I stood next to Papashan and helped him out last time I was there.

And then we got the Lakshmi battle, the aforementioned Solo Duty. Did anybody notice how the AI beats your common party member in dealing with simple mechanics? Stacking, standing apart, the AI performs better than human players usually do, lol. Of course it's probably scripted to do that, but hey. Scripted or not, the AI controlled characters actually did what they were supposed to, lol. Next time I fight a primal, can we just take them along and forget about this whole Duty Finder thing? lol. Just need to grab Krile or somebody that can cast a heal, Fordola can tank (just give her a shield), and I can just do my thing and we'll be fine.

And then there's the new dungeon which I found to be.... OK, I guess? Nothing special, but it wasn't bad per se. I found it to be rather easy mechanics-wise, though the last boss was somewhat difficult to dodge if RNG chose the wrong directions/abilities in succession. But failure to dodge was usually rather a light penalty, minor damage + vulnerability debuff.. as long as you didn't eat too many of them (usually only eat them if RNG is bad) you're still fine, not gonna die or anything.

I do like the fact it drops 315 though, need to run that place some more, hopefully there's weapons in there.

Overall, I rather enjoyed 4.1 MSQ.

Edited, Nov 11th 2017 10:09pm by Lyrailis

Wait, your squadron actually does stuff? *blink* Other than WoW Garrison Style missions? When did they add That?

And yeah, I kinda figured that dungeons would be rather sparse, though over time the list will get bigger as they release more updates, even if it is only 1 per update, though it's kinda sad that they seem to be going the way of WoW and relying upon raid raid raid raid raid to do everything. Sometimes I enjoy the 4man team content more than I do the 8-man, especially as a healer. 8-man healing is either too boring because the content is so easy that one healer can handle it and the other is basically a DPS, or it's too hectic and both healers are spamming nonstop and oftentimes overlapping (but still expected to DPS anyways somehow)... never seems to be in-between.

As for the story... well, FFXIV I think is just meant to be a power trip game. Power tripping is fun sometimes, right? So every now and then new MSQ stuff is released and you get to do some more power tripping with your favorite demigod character. Same kinda deal that was in Mass Effect, where Shepard was just one big power trip. Some people loved it (like me) other people loathed just how ridiculous some of the stuff Shepard could do and get away with.

FFXI... well it lacked the technology to really deliver anywhere near as good of a format (don't get me wrong, there -is- story there) but the general feeling I got from FFXI is that your character is simply weak because they constantly need help from NPCs, especially in Adoulin and RoV (which is all about your PC building an army of NPCs) where you can't seem to do anything without someone saving you every other cutscene (like the first cutscene in Adoulin, for example). That's kinda.... eh. I prefer XIV lol.

That, and you know... 15 years is a long time to wait to get any kind of coherent closure on all the storylines in the game. FFXI seemed like this... jumbled mess of a story with lots of threads but nothing holding the threads together until RoV finally came out to finish it all off.

FFXIV, however, has a beginning and it flows logically from there, even if some of the fetch quests seem a bit gratuitous at times, there's at least a nice flowing story where one thing leads into another, which leads into another in a logical progression.

Huh. I did not know that about the squadron. Mine's been sitting at 50 and well, the only missions I saw were stuff for XP scrolls and such and I was like "meh" because the requirements to GET those scrolls, well... after like 3 failed missions in a row, despite me trying various different setups, I was like "this is not worth it..." and I forgot about them.

Never saw/heard where they made any changes to the system... so basically they're to just help you solo old dungeons then? I solo'd Arboretum as my 70 PLD... it was mildly difficult, mainly because of lacking DPS. Never got close to dying, it just took about as long as a full group back in the day would have lol. Maybe even longer.

Edit: Damn wonky Zam servers.

Edited, Nov 13th 2017 7:36pm by Karlina

Different strokes and all I suppose.

I get what you're saying, I suppose I just enjoy power trips now and then and XIV delivers on that front in spades and does a pretty good job of it too.

I never meant to say that XI's story was bad or anything... I just enjoy being the hero.

So I'm finally able to play the game again and I've just finished the 4.1 story tonight. My take is a bit different.

I was falling asleep.

There was definitely important stuff going on. Forming a new government, figuring out the refugee situation, helping Nanamo mature as a ruler and as a character. All very important and worthwhile things to do. And dear GOD was it boring. If it weren't for the bit at the end with Lakshmi I'd probably have lapsed into a coma by the end of it.

This was definitely stuff that had to be sorted out and it IS interesting watching the Ala Mihgans build a country out of the mess they've got. The political nerd in me is interested in that sort of thing. But at the same time I literally sat through 3 cutscenes of tax policy discussion in a row. Give me something to DO once in a while. I'm the warrior of light, not the policy adviser of light.

The Lakshmi fight I didn't have a problem with (though I did have a couple close calls). It did make me want to keybind the Duty Action button for the first time, so I'll try to find a place for that to go as clicking it is just far too clunky when I have to be running around at the same time. The dungeon was... a dungeon. Nothing really special there. And Rabanastre was, imo, much better than Dun Scaith and I'm a sucker for Tactics' soundtrack so the music was welcome as well.

EDIT: The squadron dungeon system is interesting. My classes are all at least 60 or approaching 60 so the exp isn't that amazing for me. But I have to say that the squad members themselves do a pretty good job at doing their jobs. I'm actually surprised at how well they work. Honestly they're better than half the low level parties I end up in during roulettes. The tank keeps aoe hate. The healer doesn't let you die (mostly). And the dps pewpew's the right target. Can I just run with these guys for my roulettes going forward?

Edited, Dec 12th 2017 11:17pm by Callinon