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.
