Shadowbringers Review

The hotly anticipated Shadowbringers finally dropped worldwide on Tuesday 02 July 2019. I finally finished the main story, levelled up a few jobs and had a taste of the newly dropped Savage mode for the new Eden raid. I think it is time to share some of my thoughts on this latest expansion of Final Fantasy XIV.

The Story

So far I personally feel that the story got me more hooked than Stormblood. Heavensward for me was a benchmark so Stormblood coming right after it was a hard job to beat. However for me there just aren’t enough characters that I could seriously care about in Stormblood. Lyse as a protagonist was quite bland and I personally prefer a myriad of lesser characters than her doing the Cloud like sulking all day long. Without Papalymo on her side to feed on each other’s cynicism Lyse became quite one dimensional. 

However with Shadowbringers, I was drawn into the story quickly. Even for really small characters they left an impression on you and whatever happened to them you would have an ‘Oh Shit’ moment. I felt that character development was a lot better in Shadowbringers so they actually came to life in the cut scenes (and as per usual lots of them). The fact that through the story we are actually delving deeper into the relationships between the Scions and the Ascians was refreshing. There was period I thought how long do we need to deal with this nuisance called the Ascians? At that time they were getting old for me. However, Square Enix managed to refresh the storyline and presented a completely new angle to it was extremely impressive.

The Artwork and Design

For me one of the downfall of Stormblood as it soldiers on was the need to stick to its Eastern roots. This has gravely shackled the creativity of its artistic direction. 

I am not saying they are not good, but because of the need to stay true to the Eastern theme, it became extremely homogenous as time passed. Heavensward has a strong gothic theme but then the opening up of flying and the vertical dimension put a twist to the environment. Also the Dravanian territory provided a creative canvas to further build on without the need to stay true to any style. However for Stormblood, everything was just so...Eastern. The introduction of swimming was good but the novelty wore off after we all discovered there is not much you could do apart from spear fishing. If you are not into fishing then really they are just wasted polygons. Pretty sure they are but wasted they were too. And to be honest with you I am still waiting for a 20 minutes Emerald Weapon Savage raid to happen here.

But with The First in Shadowbringers, it is a completely new world they are not bound to any aesthetics. As a result really the world is their canvas. From desolated towns to desert ruins to the great woods and swamps or even fairy lands, Shadowbringers offered a greatly varied and beautifully crafted world to its players again. The change of the world as the story progressed kept the environment fresh and for the better of it. 

Music

I love the music in Shadowbringers. Again without the need to stay true to the Eastern theme Shadowbringers brought back the great diversity in the musical style that we once came to know and love in FF XIV. From the dungeons of Holminster Switch to the fight with Titania and the tranquilising chants of the Greatwoods, Shadowbringers skilfully brought different musical styles back together under one roof. Also we can have more variety of instruments to tell the story instead of keep up with those Eastern strings and winds. The Stormblood tunes grew on you and then grew out of you, but Shadowbringers’ music made an impression on you and then stays there. From first time we heard the new music in the trailer we knew we are in a treat but at a stage I did worry whether it would just go full one dimensional metal and electric. I was pleasantly surprised when it was not the case as I entered The First for the first time when early access was opened. And the surprises just keep coming.

Game Mechanics

Square Enix has revamped all the classes and jobs in the game to streamline the gameplay in Shadowbringers. Stormblood was the first major attempt to do so, with mixed results but building on the experience from Stormblood, Shadowbringers took the change to the next level. 

I am a healer at heart, and trying to take advantage of all the healer bonuses because of everyone flocking to the new Gunbreaker tank and Dancer dps, I have had all the healers levelled up to 80 now. Since then, Square Enix had introduced minor adjustments that I personally think should be there in the first place, so I think the healer jobs are quite solid now. The shift to healers as healers in the gameplay could make them a bit less interesting when assisting with dps in Savage and Extreme raids, but I can see where they came from.  As a White Mage main, I did like the changes although I wish they didn’t take away the AEO Damage over Time (DoTs) skill as it really feels the dps is lacking any punches now. Also the shift to pure healing for the healer jobs means all the healers have almost identical dps skill sets that only differ in name and aesthetics. For me that’s kind of a letdown as there is really no maximising skills and utility that can speak of now in the dps space for healers.

I only have one dps levelled up thanks to the share base class between Scholar and Summoner. So far I think Summoner is more intuitive and streamline to manage, though I am still sceptical about the Aetherflow change that only allows you to use the skill as you engaged. For me the experience is that a lot of time the skills is not available until you actually participate in an action instead of as soon as the fight starts. But that’s minor. Red Mage is still a great fun to play but that’s all about battle jobs for me at this point. 

Nonetheless I think the changes have mostly become better but I just hope there is no more watering down of mechanics as if they started to make everything feel homogeneous, then the fun of the game will be greatly impacted. 

Overall Impression

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All in all I do think this is the most solid content package Final Fantasy XIV had offered thus far. I do think the game is heading in a correct direction so far. This can be reflected in the fact that more than a month after early access, I still needed to queue to get into the server (grant you Tonberry is one of the most popular servers). Also I really like how all the mentors in the Novice Network are actively helping newbies (sprouts) and returners (flowers) to get up to speed and catch up with the contents. This kind of supportive environment and player base is what really separate Final Fantasy XIV form a lot of other MMOs. I just hope that Square Enix could keep up with the momentum and hopefully avoid another convoluted but uninteresting plot line like Stormblood did.

The Shadows of Shadowbringers

So all three fan festivals are done and we’ve got quite a preview of what’s coming with the new expansion Shadowbringers.

I was initially quite excited about Shadowbringers when it was first announced back in Las Vegas last year. The prospect of playing as a Gunblade wielding character was extremely promising as FF VIII was my first FF game and being able to live through that nostalgic feeling was, priceless. Also the prospect of having Viera, one of my favourite races in FF XII and Tactics Advance was exciting and I was genuinely looking forward to the first peek of the urban myth in the form of the male Viera. Then came the Japan fan fest. Dancer was announced as a DPS job and then boom, no male Viera but the male gender locked Hrothgar. While Hrothgar might be playing homage to Kimari in FF X, it was a disappointment for me (I don’t need my FF XIV to play like Champions of Norrath or Baldur’s Gate). In fact the most disappointing announcement for FF XIV for me.

I was very happy when in the reboot they introduced male Miqo’te because I like cat people but I cannot relate myself playing as a female character. So was very glad that they introduced the male cat people when A Realm Reborn (ARR) was announced. For me that was one of the reason I got back into FF XIV after they rebooted the disastrous original game (I couldn’t even get myself interested after trying my friend’s game during the trial). As such expectations for me being able to play the masculine yet agile male Viera as in the Advance Tactics lore were high and I was looking forward to see how they would look like in super high definition. Then the bombshell dropped, Viera is female locked and instead they have the male locked Hrothgar. In my opinion this is a huge step backward. Taking away the choice of gender for new races took a huge chunk of customisation freedom from the player, and for me it is a re-surfacing of arrogance on Square Enix’s part.

Over the last few months, Square Enix should have sensed the temperature and expectations from players on having male Viera in the game as, similar to myself, a lot of people were looking forward to see and play as this mysterious beings that they were never able to encounter in FF XII and Tactics Advance, despite reading about them at different occasions. Even in the FF XIV lore male Viera were mentioned by the dramaturg in Prima Vista. I am not disappointed with them introducing an additional race but the decision to gender locked both races means taking away choices from players. And choices for me was such an important part to enjoy FF XIV as a game. It is not a complete deal breaker but it did leave a bad taste in my mouth, and my trust level for Square Enix to listen to their players who finance their games had significantly dropped.

Some people were disappointed that Dancer is not a healing job. For me that was not a disappointment although Dancer was a healing job in FF XI. Having said that Blue Mage was not even a full fledge job that you can play in most contents anyway and people seemed to be ok with that now (though I suspect the initial interest had dropped of quite significantly as you don’t see that many people around the Blue Mage arena anymore). Also Dancer was never a hard core healing job in Tactics and Tactics Advance. They are mostly buffing DPS jobs similar to Bard. And also if we look at FF XIII, Vanille, whom performed partly as a Dancer role is a DPS not a healing job, as her healing is nothing compared to the likes of Hope. So I personally was expecting Dancer to be a DPS job right from the beginning. If there is another healing job announced, most probably if so would be in May during the last Live Letter event, I would expect it to be Geomancer, in which the Astrologian questline in Stormblood had repeatedly mentioned.

As for not going into the heartlands of the Empire but going to The First, some kind of parallel dimension that believes in the Warrior of Darkness, I personally think that it adds an interesting plot point for the FF XIV story arc without exhausting materials too early (seriously what else can they do if they finished of the Empire in the next expansion?). However, seeing Minfilia again for me was a damper although this could be a parallel dimension Minfilia. But for me it really is a ‘come on her again?’ moment. I am not sentencing her already as FF XIV had again and again proved that they can shock us with their narrative. I was just looking for more new interesting characters and for me Minfilia is extremely bland as a character. I would prefer they bring back Ysayle, Papalymo or Moenbryda any day. The other thing that I have questions over was how is the player as the Warrior of Darkness different from the Warriors of Darkness in Soul Surrender during the Heavensward period? Because apparently their worlds were flushed by light and destroyed so how does The First of the Dark Dimension come into play and then round up that part of the narrative?

So far for me the gender locked new races was one of the biggest disappointments for me. It is not a deal breaker but just affirms that I will be saving my fantasia potions yet again. I do hope there will be a new healer in the form of Geomancer, but to be honest how can they make another healer distinguished from the current trio is the question. Even Dancer looks like a different aesthetic version of Bard to me at this point. As for Gunbreaker I will certainly try my hands on it despite I am not a tank by heart at all.

There are only a few more months before Shadowbringers drops. So in the mean time I still have a huge chunk of Eureka I need to finish so my glamours for the expansion are ready :D

Return to Ivalice

The Return to Ivalice Alliance Raid in the Stormblood expansion has gone from being hotly anticipated two years ago to now done and dusted. So how does it stack up to the hype it generated when it was first announced?

The Return to Ivalice story was penned by the same creative director who gave us the Tactics series and Final Fantasy XII. The story was extremely engaging and the fact that it was filled with lore from both the Tactics series and XII, it created a lot of nostalgic moments for XIV players who had once in the past spent lots of time in Invalice in the good old days. For me at that time I was wondering how could they incorporate the Ivalice lore into Eorzea? They are very different worlds and they were seemingly different, so any kind of forced marriage would probably wreck the XIV lore while disappointing the Ivalice fans.

To my surprise, it was done brilliantly.

The fact that it first started off as a play being developed and staged by the a travelling theatre company based on some long lost Garlean Empire folkore “The Zodiac Brave Story” (yes that Zodiac Brave Story) was a great way to introduce this seemingly alien story. At this stage in XIV we don’t really know a lot about the Empire itself and thus it was a great introductory point for something so alien to Eorzea or Orthard. As we slowly progress through the story and the raid, the two worlds slowly met and assimilated, and by the end of the Return of Ivalice questline, everything made sense and the two seemingly different worlds became one.

The final boss in Ridorana Lighthouse from the Return to Ivalice storyline. I think Yiazmat was the end game superboss in FF XII.

For me one of the brilliance of the Return to Ivalice storyline was it managed to use the Ivalice raid to lead us into the world of the upcoming expansion Shadowbringers. This is a departure from the usual approach of just having the main story quest leading into the new expansion. In the past, with both the Crystal Tower in A Realm Reborn and the Shadow of Mhach in Heavensward, the Alliance Raid, though enriched the lore, are just stand alone stories that once you finished them bear little relevance to the future events in XIV. Return to Ivalice completely changed this dynamic, which I felt breathed a new life to the XIV narrative.

As mentioned earlier, the Return to Ivalice raid brought the Tactics and XII world into the XIV. However, while doing so, the story producer Yasumi Matsuno still managed to craft a nostalgic storyline that reminded us of all the history and struggles that Ivalice experienced in the Tactics series and in XII. The appearance of relevant races throughout the quest’s storyline brought joy to all the Ivalice fans, and not to mention the brilliant handling of iconic locales and creatures throughout the Ivalice lore. It is usually these simple homage that caught you by surprise and brought you back for more. I still remember how excited I was when I first saw the Red Chocobo showed up in the mob fight and cast the famous and deadly Choco Meteo on all the alliances. We nearly got wiped by it but everyone was excited to experience the death by Choco Meteo (which was something extremely frustrating in Tactics and XII).

As mentioned, the Return to Ivalice raid brought us back to a number of iconic locations with some iconic enemies. The first series started off in the Royal City of Rabanstre from XII and then morphed in the Legendary City of Lesalia in Tactics via the complicate underground Garamsythe Waterway featured in XII. In the second part, it took us to the famous (infamous) Ridorana Lighthouse (or Cataract) that gradually climbed up into the Clockwork City of Goug (Goug was the place where Moogles in Ivalice originated). Finally we returned to the Orbonne Monastery, where everything in the Tactics world first began. And it was a fitting end to the Return to Ivalice raid as it came a full circle both for the XIV storyline and the world of Ivalice.

The final boss in the Return to Ivalcie Orbonne Monastery raid. The legendary Ultima, also the final boss in Final Fantasy Tactics.

As I said, the Return to Ivalice raid brought huge nostalgic factors to XIV, more so than any other contents with Ivalice being so rich in lore and references. Apart from iconic bosses such as the Espers including Mateus, Famfrit, Belias, Hashmal, Ultima and the infamous Yiazmat from XII, we also have iconic characters such as Ramza, Delita, Alma, Mustadio, Agrias and Fran from both the Tactics series and XII popping up here and there. Even mob enemies were designed according to the enemies in the Ivalice world such as the Red and Black Chocobos, the Golems and Barmuus. Most of the races in Ivalice made an appearance too, including the Bangass, Seeqs and the Vieras (which most people were most excited, and even more so when it is going to be a playable race in the new expansion Shadowbringers). Further because of the integration of Ivalice into the Garlean Empire’s lore, it completely explained why the Garlean armour designs looked so similar to the Judges in XII and the Tactics Advance series, which to me is another brilliant reference.

Return to Ivalice has gone from just a standalone Alliance Raid quest to a full blown canon portion of FF XIV. Probably a lot of people, including me did not see that happening. I initially was just looking forward to a walk down the memory lane, but now we got a continued experience of Ivalice, which I think most Ivalice fans like me will have no objection to. For me FF XIV had outdone themselves with Return to Ivalice raid, so now the question became – what more can they do moving forward?

Five years in Eorzea

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It’s been 5 years since Eorzea was reborn like a phoenix from the ashes, the ashes of chargrilled disappointment from the Final Fantasy fan base.

I tried the initial 1.0 and couldn’t bring myself to play it after the first hour or so and returned as a beta player when 2.0 was available for testing. I eventually jumped back on board when 2.0 was launched as A Realm Reborn (ARR) with a new director and completely new gameplay.

Along with the new game I switched to a new role – no longer as a bow wielder now I am a healer.

In the past 5 years there were ups and downs with the game for me. It is a MMORPG, so there is no way you can avoid other players. Your co-existence with other Warriors of Light brought variety and sometimes hostility, especially when you are a new healer or simply a healer trying new contents. Mostly though, the community in FF XIV is very helpful. And because of this there are more players willing to pay it forward for new players. What I learnt from other mentors in my Free Company (FC), I passed them down to newer players in the FC and sometimes players in the Novice Network (a chat channel for more experienced players (mentors) to help out newer players (sprouts) and returning players (flowers)).

Player base has no doubt expanded each year with the game and naturally expectations from players are getting higher and higher.

There were talks of the game getting formulaic and boring as it marched past its 5th year. Certainly there are times that I felt lost about what I want to do. But to be fair to the development team, they had tried a lot of things, some more successful than others, but they had tried a lot of things. Sure every patch or expansion is about new dungeons, new primal fights, new alliance raid and new high end raid. But along with the extremely well written story, these are the core features. If we look pass this and look into the different attempts the developer made in the last 5 years, there are lots of new additions to the game that people have forgotten because we are starting to take things for granted. For instance:

·         The relic weapon questline (initially from ARR)

·         The Gold Saucer (ARR)

·         The Hildibrand adventures (initially from ARR)

·         The postal Moogle questline (ARR)

·         Beast tribe quests (Initially from ARR)

·         Riddle quests (ARR)

·         The new job Ninja in an ARR patch

·         The start of PvP instances (Initially from ARR)

·         Treasure hunting (Initially from ARR)

·         Hunts (Initially from ARR)

·         Flying mounts (Initially from HW)

·         The crafting and gathering scrips system (initially from Heavensward (HW))

·         The collectables (Initially from HW)

·         Side story primals (Initially from HW)

·         Deep dungeon (Initially from HW)

·         Company workshops, airships and voyages (Initially from HW)

·         The Diadem (HW)

·         The Aquapolis (HW)

·         Grand Company Squadrons (HW)

·         Custom Deliveries (Initially from HW)

·         Wanderer’s Tales (Initially from HW)

·         Swimming (Stormblood (SB))

·         Fashion Reporter (SB)

·         The Land of Eureka – start of relic armour (SB)

·         Doma reconstruction (SB)

·         Grand Company Squadron Command Missions (SB)

·         Ultimate tier high end raid (SB)

·         The new Blue Mage job in an upcoming SB patch

And these are just some of the playable contents that the development team added bit by bit throughout the 5 years. That does not include tweaks, additions and consolidation of gameplay related to these additions to keep the experience fresh.

Certainly, we all want more and certainly not everything added was our cup of tea, but to be fair a lot of work was put in to make the in game experience as unique and varied at the same time for its subscribers.

My time in Eorzea was quite solid and I enjoyed it every time I logged in. Of course there will be days that are quieter, especially when there are new games being released of a patch is approaching the end and players are waiting for new contents. But for me I can confidently say that my last 5 years in the game were well spent, especially through the game I get to know and meet a lot of great people that I wouldn’t have met if I was just playing some solo offline game by myself.

With the new expansion being announced, I am sure the development team has a number of tricks up their sleeves. People might criticise it as more of the same old thing but the fact is that throughout the five years there were lots of innovations and new ideas being implemented. As for all games and all genres there will always be a core structure, but simply focusing on the core structure and forgot about all the other additions or just taking these new additions for granted and complaining about nothing new in the game would not be a fair assessment of the game or the development team.

I am planning to stay as long as I continue to enjoy it, and probably try out things that I haven’t tried out before. I hope that my friends would stay too as FF XIV will not be the same without them. I look forward to marching into the uncharted lands in Shadowbringers and I hope I would see everyone there too.

The musical world of Final Fantasy XIV

With the latest soundtrack released for Stormblood and Square Enix running a poll for the best 10 tracks out of the over 200 tracks for the whole Final Fantasy XIV world so far, I think it is also the time for me to select some of my favorites in the game.

I have always been a big fan of a lot of Final Fantasy music. I was converted from a sceptic for video game music to a follower of video game music because of the magnificent tracks I heard in Final Fantasy VIII (my first Final Fantasy game), especially the epic opening music. Since then I went back to played most of the other Final Fantasy titles (if not all) and learned to appreciate the time and effort spent in crafting the music from Nobuo Uematsu and others.

Final Fantasy XIV had a rough start, and thus I didn’t really pay much attention to the music when I was trying my friend’s game on his computer. But then weird things happened when I was playing the game it was given a phoenix down. Whenever a 1.0 track came up, I found myself immediately able to identify it. Such was the impact of Nobuo Uematsu’s initial composition for XIV. It crept into your system without you even noticing. A lot of tracks were later composed by Masayashi Soken but strangely works of both composers complimented each other perfectly. Even when they were being played one after the other in the game, you don’t actually feel like they are from the hands of two different composers.

So below are some of my favourite tracks in Final Fantasy XIV so far:

Footsteps in the Snow

Without a doubt Shiva is one of the most iconic summons in the Final Fantasy series. The fight against Shiva in A Realm Reborn (ARR) was as epic as ever for me.  From the start of the fight when this tracked lit up the white and blue environment, my blood was pumping. For me it has one of the most hollowing chorus with a cold classical touch that still haunts me to date. I even have it as my ring tone on my mobile

Ultima

One of the major encounters in the ARR story, this boss and its track stands out on its own with the gothic sub-tone to a rich chorus and completely demonstrated Ultima Weapon as the weapon of choice for the Empire to pursue its dream of conquering the primal worshipping savages in Eorzea. The great thing for me with this track is it plays to the dance of the mechanics that you really feel like the fight are phases of eloquently choreographed dance routines.

Forever Lost

This is a generic track for a lot of emotional scenes in the main story and side quests of the game. It still breaks my heart every time it played on my iPod as the simple keyboard structure adds an unusually heavy weight to the tune. Every time a chord strikes, it strikes a chord in me. Not to mention that every time you heard this tune played in the game, you know there is a sad back story.

A Cold Wind

This is the short repetitive theme for Heavensward (HW) before you log into your character screen. Every time I saw that screen when I logged in and when the music is playing with the HW logo at the back and snow falling in the front, it gave me chills. This was later placed by the Stormblood (SB) theme when SB was launched.

The Primal Timbre

The music you encountered when you first ventured into the Binding Coil of Bahamut. The peaceful introduction was deceptive as when you proceed and got thrusted into one deadly encounter after another, you then wonder whether you could make it to the end of the tunnel. The music perfectly reflects what the Binding Coil of Bahamut is about.

The Great Gubal Library

When this dungeon came up in the main story quest in HW I was so excited. How cool is it to have a library full of books as a backdrop for a dungeon. But even cooler was the smooth jazz background music the dungeon deployed for this not so cruisy dungeon. It contrasts the tension with appropriately smooth music. For me both the original track and the re-mixed track (which feels even more like a smooth expresso coffee) are both highlights of HW.

Locus

The first tier of Alexander demonstrated what is to come with the high end raid in HW. The famous A3S broke a lot of statics after the same group of players demanded heightened difficulty raids to force players to prove their worth for the rewards in the high end raids (probably they forgot the craziness of the initial Turn 5 in Binding Coil after 2 years). However the music in the first tier Alexander raid is the most leisurely yet deadly.

Equilibrium

As you try to survive against the oscillating platform of Sophia, this music plays in the background. Moving around dealing with Sophia’s varied attacks, minions and scale balancing choices was not an easy feast at the beginning. The seemingly upbeat and sweet voice of chiming belted out some of the bloodiest lyrics disguised as a lullaby. Before you knew you might have literally fallen off the balance.

Revelation

Every time this piece of music played on my iPod I could vividly remember the memorable dance with Susano. Once of the funniest primals in the whole game so far. That kind of let’s play but for life attitude to the challenge was reflected in some of the over the top mechanics built into the fight. For me there aren’t a lot of memorable primal music in SB except for this, and at times I still do the fight again just for the sake of the music.

No Quarter

In my opinion one of the best tracks in the ill-fated 1.0 era. It is a close tie between this track and Under the Bloody Flag in 1.0 (which was brilliantly deployed again in Halatali (Hard)). But No Quarter represents sharp no bull fights that required your full attention. I was quite surprised that this favorite track of mine was never recycled. But the brilliant minds of the XIV development team finally dug it out from the vault when The Forbidden Land of Eureka  was released for the new relic weapons quests.

To be honest, there are still a lot more tracks I would like to talk about but then these tracks will no longer feel special anymore. Let me know what tracks are your favorite in your comments and if you want to take part in the Best Tracks poll, you can go directly to their poll site.

The Unending Coil of Bahamut

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So finally people are starting to clear the newest “Ultimate” tier of high end raid “The Unending Coil of Bahamut”. This super tier raid is Square Enix’s answer to people asking for higher end difficulty raids after the current “Savage” raids are completed. In fact you have to clear all the current “Savage” tiers in Omega to even enter the “Ultimate” tier.

A group in our Free Company is currently attempting it and I watched the live stream once. It is as crazy as you could expect and they have, if not all of them already, maxed out their gear currently available after having cleared Omega Savage some time ago. Two weeks later, the first group in Japan cleared and I watched the YouTube video of it. The difficulty for me, as a casual player still stuck in tier 3 of Omega, is beyond crazy. Also with the current quietness in the Omega Savage raid (I couldn’t even get a pug group on reset nights in the last few weeks) I believe I will never be able to even experience that myself. But that’s ok.

I understood some people were annoyed because they were locked out behind the high walls of Omega Savage, but then the fact for me is that, if you are not equipped with the skill you are just going in to die two seconds into the fight, so what’s the point? Ok there are people like me who can’t even get a group to finish Omega either because of life interfering gaming or because they lost interest, but I personally do believe that the “Unending Coil of Bahamut” is a reward for those who put in time, effort and commitment to clear Omega Savage. So I am at peace with the fact that I will never be able to enter the raid. I don’t get sour grape over that.

I wish I could commit myself to raiding regularly but the fact is I cannot because of all other things I need to share my limited free time with. I still log in everyday and do things I like in the game (which is still a lot) but for me if on a reset night waiting for more than 30 minutes as a healer just trying to clear the first two level of Omega without even having the queue popping, it forces me to divert my attention to other areas of the game. Do I want to clear it? Yes. But do I care if I never got to clear it? Not really.

Static groups are required to clear these high end contents, and I don’t have one. I tried several times joining one or organising one, but unless you run into a group of people as committed as you are, like the group in our Free Company, progression in high end raid tiers will always be just a dream for me. I accept the fact that I will never be an elite player in the game so I enjoy the game in other ways. If the opportunity presents in the future, then I will attempt again.

The “Unending Coil of Bahamut” judging from the footage I saw is without a doubt a spectacular fight. But then judging from the fact that only around 10% of most servers managed to clear all tiers of Omega Savage that means there could be even a lower percentage of players clearing “Unending Coil of Bahamut”. But that’s what Square Enix trying to address, trophy fights that keep elite players in the game while casual players like me continue to enjoy other things that we can do in our limited play time.

I personally think this is a right direction for the game. Square Enix had worked very hard to provide new contents that are not just rehashing of old formulas (those exist too but they are necessities for even more casual gamers than I am) but new experiences. Over the years, they introduced seasons of PvP, Free Company exploration in the form of Diadem, Free Company Workshops, Aquapolis, Palace of the Dead etc. All these showed that Yoshi-P and his teams are happy to reinvent themselves to provide interesting or even exciting experience for their subscribers. The “Unending Coil of Bahamut” is a progression of this approach so I hope more players, casual or elite will appreciate those efforts and be as supportive as possible. In the meantime I will just carry on with my dailies in the game with a hope of moving up the ladder someday.

Stormblood

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I have never been a content burner for games. So it took me some time to try most of things offered in the new expansion Stormblood.

The hype of Stormblood was real and so was the long queuing time during early access. It was revealed that they were caused by DDoS attacks, which was fair enough but that inevitably stained my experience with the early access (there was once I got disconnected from the server, then went back into a queue of beyond 5,000 to get back in only to get disconnected again when I proceeded to 265 in queue. So I gave up for the day).

That said once you managed to get in the experience was worth it. A lot of people said the story was much better than Heavensward, the previous expansion, but I personally feel that it was extremely ambitious that sometimes I didn’t know whether I would feel what the characters felt. I am not saying the story is not good. It was in fact very good and I got hooked, but on the character level, I just didn’t feel the connection I had with the characters in Heavenward, e.g. with Ysayle, Estinien and even Papalymo. I personally felt the gut wrenching feeling they experienced with their adventures as compared to the events in Stormblood, which is a bit too uplifting for me (in the sense of “you know it will happen in the right direction” not the journey itself). But that is just my personal preference and has nothing to do with the quality of storytelling per se. That said, I felt the Omega storyline for the high end raid was a lot better than the Alexander storyline as you really felt the urge to go in to “save the world” and the lore with Omega was so intriguing that I was looking forward to the future patches already.

Square Enix had completely overhauled the battle system and streamlined that drastically. Without sounding too much of a whiner, I personally did not like it as a main White Mage. But latest adjustments made in the minor patch had addressed some issues that made White Mage more playable than it was when the overhauled was first dropped. Basically my complains were all previous White Mage utilities became role skills now, which means in the past I have access to those utilities while can bring on 5 extra cross class skills to assist better healing. Now I can only reclaim those skills but then won’t be able to take other skills with me. Also the random triggers of effects made healing a lot more uncertain as you can just hope that it “procs” to allow you to perform healing better. Further the fact that you lost positive status when you performed certain skills made me felt that I am being penalised for just doing my job. Finally the loss of Stoneskin and Stoneskin II was beyond my comprehension as that was one of the most heavily used skills for healers (not just White Mages). Replacing Stoneskin was a high level skill that relies on procs and have a much longer cool down time, which is for me is less helpful. At the moment I have both White Mage and Scholar at 70 (the new level cap). I am still using White Mage for harder contents but have already started shifting to Scholar for other instances as they are more fun to play (and thank God with Miasma II now back too!)

The overhaul of the battle system made everyone to relearn their jobs and I think that’s one of the reasons for Square Enix to do so, so it still looks fresh to long term subscribers after 4 years. I have only tried the magic users job gauge so far and I must say apart from Astrologian, Summoner, Black Mage and Red Mage that the job gauges are actually meaningful, White Mage and Scholar gauges felt tagged on to fulfil the need to have job gauges. The White Mage lilies thing was just boring and apart from tell you that now you can use certain abilities risking slowing down your spell speed, they really do nothing at all. The Confession stacks that provide the ability to use an MP free skill has nothing to do with those bloody lilies at all and you still have to check your party status to see whether they have the Confession stack effects. As for Scholar the Faery gauge really did nothing much apart from telling the draining of the bond between your faery and your tethered party member. I just felt that for these two jobs Square Enix should further enhance their gauges so that they actually become meaningful in fights instead of just visual stuff that took up space on your cluttered HUD.

Dungeons in Stormblood for me are joy to play as they all look different and played out differently. There were a lot of surprising moments that you haven’t thought of they would do dungeons in such ways, and the twists all made sense. I still remember when I first fought a boss that immediately put your command bars out of action I was thinking “what the hell?” But once you understood the mechanics it was a joy to play with a different pace. Fights in the new high end Omega raids were interesting too as they built upon the new dungeon and trial bosses mechanics and implement them with their own twists. Requirements such as timing your levitation using the newly introduced duty abilities, when to get attacked so you gain advantage in the next mechanic, and even a mini puzzle game that throws you into a different pace of the fight were extremely enjoyable. So far I have only managed to clear the first raid in the new savage mode (as my gear were not high level enough to go further) but it was already a lot more enjoyable than Alexander. Further the thrown back FF V nostalgia made you even felt more at home with these “new bosses”.

Stormblood introduced swimming and diving as Heavenward introduced flying. General critics were that swimming seemed more like a gimmick for the game instead of making it more interesting, for example having water combat. That for me was quite an unfound criticism as Yoshida-P had reiterated many times there will be no underwater combat. The fact is there was no aerial combat when you are flying around so what is the big deal of no underwater combat when you are swimming and diving? The comment about not really opening up the playing field is unfound too as if you are a gatherer, especially for me as a Fisher, I enjoyed the fact that now I can spearfish and enjoy the aquatic lives in Eorzea. As for further additions to the game, you never really know, as one day Square Enix might surprise you with a trial there with maybe you know, Emerald Weapon, putting a time factor for your survival underwater while fighting it.

Stormblood also introduced a vast new number of areas varying from desert landscape to salt lakes, to vast seas and oceans to nomadic rolling highlands. The most impressive was Kugane, one of the major hubs in the game and in the story. The Japanese feudalistic style of the city and lore of the area stood out quite significantly making it one of the most unique setting in the expansion. But for me it was the Azim Steppe that took my breath away. The nomadic feel of these vast grasslands completely opened up the space in the game. It also helps that it has some of the most interesting story duties in that area. Another thing is, which could be my personal view only,  every time I visited, I couldn’t help but felt that Azim Steppe has a very strong FF X feel.  What I am referring to is the area where you race your chocobo for Tidus’ ultimate weapon and fought in the Monster Arena to crazily reconfigure your sphere grid? For me Azim Steppe can easily be one of my favourite locales in the whole of Orthard.

Hopefully this blog didn’t spoil anything for anyone, but I personally enjoyed Stormblood. I think as a casual but long term player, I still have a lot I can do every time I log in and there are still a lot of goals I can achieve. I just hope everyone else will just enjoy the game instead of burning it in 3 seconds and start complaining about nothing to do.  But at this rate, Square Enix seemed to be pacing in contents with good intervals, and there are still a lot of contents to look forward to. So if you are thinking of either joining or getting back into it, I hope to see you all in Eorzea one day.

A Healer's Life...So Far...

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As in the real world, you will always need a job to survive in Eorzea. You started out in a class of your choice and then as you gain more experience and become worldlier, such as, being able to juggle two classes to a certain extent, you can pick up a real job. A real job is what everyone wants right?

With the new expansion Bloodstorm looming, speculations about what new jobs are available heated up again. Following the tradition from the last expansion, the T-shirt Yoshi-P wore at the last Live Letter broadcast fuel the fire of speculation further. Last year he wore a Batman T-shirt and then a 007 T-shirt, which turned out to be, unsurprisingly Dark Knight and Machinist (aka Gunner in traditional Final Fantasy lexicon). Astrologian was not really teased before it was announced but then the job was present everywhere in the A Realm Reborn storyline associated with Ishgard in the Coerthers Central Highland. This year with Scarlet Witch being prominently displayed on Yoshi-P’s T-shirt at the last Live Letter, it seems quite obvious that his all-time favourite Red Mage is really coming. Also the movement of the girl in the teaser video also set of the fire off the Dancer class. Whether these became real jobs in this ever expanding world is still too early to tell, but perhaps it is a good time to look back at my own jobs.

Since I started A Realm Reborn on the Tonberry server I have been a Cat Man White Mage. Although before that I had a small and short appearance on the Shiva server as an Elfish Archer but I hated the look of that character and found archery not as interesting as I would have thought at that time. White Maging was my calling since I started on Tonberry when a friend tried to convince me back into the game. As a squishy healer the initial adventure was not easy at all. This is particularly true for me when I need to engage in solo battles. Being a newbie to the MMO genre it took me some time to understand my role as a healer main in this world. Eventually “I got it” and then it became a lot easier.  

Healer has always been my main role in the game. I have all three healers – White Mage, Scholar and Astrologian – fully geared and levelled up. I switch among them according to the contents I am playing (and sometimes according to my mood on that day). While White Mage and Scholar have great strengths, but nowadays if I am just pugging in public queues I will go as Astrologian to provide a bit of flexibility. I enjoy healing in the game, and it gives me a lot of satisfaction when I managed to time my heals and conserve my magic point pool to get through tougher contents. I personally feel that if I haven’t chosen a healing class when I attempt the game again I would probably have stopped playing a long time ago.

Of course everything has two sides. As a healer I had copped my fair share of abuse and name calling when fights went south. Usually when a party wiped in new or more difficult contents such as high end raids you could expect at some point in some parties someone will say “What the x are the healers doing?” whether it was the healers’ fault or not. I still remember I was once being called an invalid in a practice party when I first went into Turn 11 of the Binding Coil of Bahamut because I was not expecting mobs (the videos did not mention anything about the mobs! XD). I have also experienced abuse from tanks when they died because of pulling too many without employing defensive cool downs. Such is the life of a healer. When that first happened, I used to feel scared and unconfident to do those contents again. But as I have more experience as a healer, I understood quite well when is my fault and when is not. So I just pay no more attention to these explosive comments in the party chat anymore. Though to be fair, I did have experience that after the party disbanded because of the tank’s abuse on me, other players, usually DPS (the attackers) or the other healer reached out to me to stand up for me. So I think that in a way is a comforting and encouraging experience.

Nowadays, I still take my healing duties seriously but then now with a lot more experience I can sometimes even take control of the party through healing. There a multiple occasions that I just purposefully let irresponsible tanks and disruptive DPS die because they are not working with the rest of the party. Because I did it in such a blatantly obvious way, everyone in the party understood what I was doing and eventually complied and work together. As a healer I don’t usually do that very often because healing is my job. But then sometimes a healer just needs to do what a healer needs to do.

Many people told me healing is so stressful but for me it is therapeutic. And at times it is extremely rewarding when you timed your heals correctly and they saved the day for the party. Recently in one of the Alexander floor 10 raid, everyone except the two tanks were dead at the boss’ 10% health. I managed to keep the two tanks alive long enough to wait for a Limit Break 3 and triggered the Limit Break at the right time to revive and fully healed everyone. We managed to clear the content and got all 7 commendations from the party. This is when healing is really satisfying for me. I no longer really freaked out with situations as because if you are a healer and you freak out, then you won’t be able to heal effectively so it defeats the purpose of that job. Do I have my blonde moments? Yes I do. But mostly I stayed green with a clear head. J

So what do you think of your jobs? What do you like about it? Leave your comments below :D

Find Me If You Would

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As an adventurer in Eorzea, it is a known fact that you can’t save the realm all by yourself. As a matter of fact you will need to band together with other Warriors of Light if you want to fend off wave after wave for threats from all sides.

The Duty Finder has long be the token personal assistant for Warriors of Light to get together to fight against the evil. Well at least most of the evil. It has been a long tradition that if you want to explore the harder parts of Eorzea, you will need a consistent circle of friends whom would like to explore with you relentlessly. These static groups develop skills and bond together and thus were able to take down one extreme threat after another.

However, as a plankton adventurer, I didn’t usually get a chance to tackle these threats until much later. The fact is that most of these harder contents were locked for preformed groups. So if you have a static group, as long as you meet the equipment level requirement you can jump right into them. But if you don’t have a static group, it is much harder. Since I came back into the game 3 months after it was first launched, I have been a plankton adventurer. I float around waiting for chances to tackle harder contents. Whenever there is a new patched, the Party Finder will be flooded with practice groups one can join. However, even for practice groups sometimes you will encounter some players more explosive than the Bombs and Grenades near the Camp Overlook area. I certainly had my fair share of experience being a healer (yup that if I die it is the healer’s fault thing). As a result for harder contents, it is just quite common that I am usually two patches, which is around 6 months, behind. I needed to wait for the lock to be removed because new harder contents were released so I could jump into the old ones using the Duty Finder.

However, as the tension between the Dravanians and Ishgardian begins to melt away, so does the frozen vault of high end raids. In one of the earlier Heavensward patches the Raid Finder was introduced. For the first time I can queue up to practice fights that I wanted to try with a view or hope of clearing them without waiting for 6 months. Also since the Raid Finder allows player to indicate their level of experience, the chances of running into explosive players that burn you more than the boss are much lower. For example, if you queue for a practice group that are trying to learn the first phase of the fight, it is a pretty good chance that the whole group is new players. Because of that players are more willing to work together to learn instead of pointing fingers across the continents and then rage quitting. As you progress then you can learn more and perform better, then you can sign up for more advanced practice groups, and eventually farm groups. Of course in order to participate in the Raid Finder you will still need to meet the minimum equipment level, after all they are high end raids. But the prospect of being able to try without the need to cry is extremely enticing.

In the latest patch Soul Surrender, I finally had a taste of the benefits brought about by the Raid Finder. In around two weeks after the patch dropped, I was able to practice through Raid Finder and then eventually cleared the latest primal extreme mode Sophia Ex. Two weeks might still be a long time for most players but then considering I can usually only play from 7.30pm to 10.30pm on weeknights (and sometimes not all week nights) and a longer bit of time on weekends, for me this is pretty cool, because there are a lot of other contents I wanted to do at the same time too. For me this is a big deal as I had never been able to finish this kind of content that early since Shiva, when I had some raiding friends in the game who could go in as a practice group with me.  Since Heavensward dropped, I had never been able to clear high end primal raids as they come along. So I was extremely happy about the achievements I could attain with the Raid Finder.

Sometimes adventuring in Eorzea could be a bit lonely because it is a big big world. However, with a bit more effort and a bit more help from the developer, adventuring has been made a bit friendlier. I surely enjoyed the benefits the Raid Finder brought to me. So if you are interested in trying harder contents but do not have a raid group, I would encourage you to give it a go. There is no harm trying after all.