1.19 - The "Monster Patch"

[Loony BoB]

Okay, so the patch went live last week and, during the weekend just past, Danielle and I have spent a lot of time playing FFXIV. And by a lot, I mean pretty much all weekend. The game definitely feels a lot better - well, the parts I've played so far. I still need to do a bit more in the way of battles, although we've held our own for the most part.

Battle: My understanding is that it is now a bit more difficult for solo players to level. Levels are much more realistic when it comes to guaging enemy strength. My personal experience of this is fighting an enemy one level above me as a gladiator and getting my butt kicked. It used to be that I could defeat something a fair few levels above me without difficulty. I can, however, annihalate things just a few levels below me with ease. So basically close to your level = good. I've experienced links and chain bonuses which are a lovely thing. Especially when Danielle was playing mage to my tank. We dealt with enemies pretty effectively and got up to 80% chain bonus, which was very nice, naturally. I can only imagine that with a large group, you could really rack up experience quickly.

Grand Companies: Danielle and I have joined the Immortal Flames, the Grand Company of Ul'dah. The game forces you to do every 'initiate' quest of all three grand companies before you choose and I can see why. Before doing the quest, I was without question going to sign up to the Immortal Flames, as was Danielle. We were annoyed that we had to do the other GC quests. However, upon completing them, we were genuinely reconsidering. The game forces you to do this but it is with excellent reason. The three companies have very different outlooks and we had a very difficult time deciding which to go for. All three appealed to us for different reasons. We eventually 'eliminated' the Limsa GC and had to pick between the very nice Gridania scenery, leader, NPCs and general 'cause' vs. the convenience of Ul'dah and their respective 'cause'. The convenience swayed me in the end and I opted for Ul'dah. Convenience being that I have Ul'dah set as my permanent home point so I can Return (teleport) there for free. I am sure that someday, some year, they will allow us to do the quests of the other GC's so I can experience them myself, however for now, I am happy that my anima can be spent a little slower.

Quests: We've done one instanced dungeon now along with a number of quests relating to materia and the grand companies. The instanced dungeon was alright. I don't see the massive appeal of instanced content, to be honest, but then again this dungeon was simply that: A dungeon. Going by the map and the fact that there was no boss of any sort, I suspect that there is a massive amount more to do in the dungeon that we have not yet done and that will be touched upon in further quests. But yeah, no big deal for me. The quests for the grand companies, overall, were alright. It's a shame that they were relatively repetitive when it comes to the quests for each of the grand companies. You could predict exactly what was to happen. Given that the entire set is compulsory before you join a grand company, I think they could have done a lot more to balance things a little less evenly. At least the storyline behind them was different, it was just the enemies you faced, the result of each of the quests, etc. - all the same, really. But on the flipside, they are just one-off initiation quests and therefore not of great importance. Also, they take no time at all to hammer through if you're a pair of level 32 characters, since the mobs are all around level 19-23.

Crafting: Oh man, has this been improved. Not by what you do, but by the additions to it and the simplification of recipes. I spent pretty much an entire day doing crafting leves, learning about the materia system, turning my equipment into materia, crafting and buying new gear with Danielle, collecting dyes with her as well so we could turn the equipment into better gear (I'll note further on this soon) and making use of the extra 100 inventory space by setting up two different sets of gear - one for crafting and one for fighting. The end result is that I am now awesome. I have yet to level up my crafters enough to fit materia into my own high level fighting gear, which is annoying to say the least, but I'll find someone who can help eventually and then go from there. Crafting is a very effective way to level up your gear, I've found. I look forward to seeing the materia economy grow/evolve.

Gear: Okay, one downside to the above. Square-Enix have cocked up by making it so that gear, upon being dyed in a certain colour, will have it's stats improve in one direction or another. This is really annoying for those out there that want to just colour up their gear the way they want without having their stats affected one way or another. To be honest, this doesn't include myself all that much, but the community is pissed off. I can see the upsides and downsides, but overall it's mostly one big downside. If they want to have the gear be improved at a risk of losing the gear, they have materia and they can always just upgrade the overall gear, but they shouldn't have to change the colour at the same point. As someone has pointed out in the forums, at level 50 it's generally expected that people will all have the same colour gear purely for stat reasons, which is stupid.

Other: It's nice to see the story evolve a little more, even if I have yet to get to the higher level main story quests. I'm getting a decent amount of lore and storyline info so the game feels a bit more real now. I've yet to try out Ifrit but I understand that even a few days after release nobody had managed to get him lower than 8% health, and I've not heard yet if anyone has managed to finally best him. Everyone is challenging him constantly to try to be the 'first'. I look forward to having my lunch break so I can see if anyone has finally managed. Oh, and it's nice to see some goblins and whatnot, and to be forced into new areas. Speaking of which...

Maps/Landmarks/etc: I'm discovering landmarks I did not know existed. All this time I was going "Man, why don't they have landmarks in FFXIV like those windmills in FFXI?" and they have windmills - they are just off the beaten track. You're forced into seeing them during one of the GC quests. Say what you like about how FFXIV is boring and exploration is boring because the landscape is boring... it's quite the opposite. You have to explore if you want to find the interesting bits. There are still more obvious landmarks being put in all the time, like beasttribe strongholds and little orchards and camps (not aetheryte camps - other camps) and whatnot, but there is much more to be seen if you actually make the effort. I would be spending much more time exploring if Danielle had her way. Unfortunately for her, I'm desperate to improve my Armorer to the point that I can make gear for my Gladiator, so it may be a little while yet! She'll probably force me eventually.

[*Devore*]

I'm liking a lot of the improvements that they made in the patch, but my Archer definately packs less of a punch. Which at first I didnt mind, but my cure ability has gotten weaker as well (Not while I'm a conjurer though). So anything on the same level as me to three levels below has a good chance of doing me in. I cant see why Archers lack a method of self healling. They're not like gladiators, they cant take a beating.

[Loony BoB]

They do - Cure, Second Wind, etc. They work with Archer, and therefore are in some ways an 'Archer ability' because an Archer can use the ability. To say that every weak character should be able to heal a lot would make the game very boring very quickly.

Archers were overly powerful before the recent patch (I don't know this from experience, I'm just going by what the masses were saying on the forums) so I can only imagine that this was a balancing act. It should be noted, though, that gladiators do not pack much punch at all. They can take a lot of hits, but they are surprisingly weak in attack.

So long as you are using Cure and have gear that is suitable for your level, then you should be able to kill an enemy that is of the same level as you. I do think, however, they are definitely trying to make grouping more and more attractive. While I don't group very often at all, I think this is a good thing... the more the community is forced into working together, the more the game will feel like an MMO. I think people should have the ability to solo, but it should not mean that they get the same amount of experience from soloing as they do from grouping. Hopefully it will force Danielle and I to get to know a few more people, too. =x

Archers would, however, benefit greatly by stopping the 'long range' attacks that pretty much every single mob has. I hate how this is the case and really do think that archers should be able to attack from a longer range or that the range in which mobs can attack back should be lowered. The point of an archer is to remain out of range from attacks from the enemy, but at the moment this is not really the case. You can never really outrun an enemy.

[*Devore*]

Yeah, Archers definitely need more range, but thats impossible to get when your going solo. Although I find that the range is fine after the initial, start battle, shot. I don't know why, but i always have to get a lot closer to land that first hit. And if I'm on a hill then I pretty much have to be on top of them.

Going back to the patch. Has anyone found a random treasure chest yet?

[Loony BoB]

I think so... not sure if I was on a leve or not, though! I'm pretty sure I was around Camp Drybone looking for quarry points and passed a chest and got something. I forget what, I think it was just money. But yeah, yay for random goodies.

I think archers just aren't a class that is designed for solo. I don't know about giving them a healing spell, one thing that might make a little more sense is making them more likely to be able to evade attacks, but I thought that would already be the case.