Would You Surrender Your Soul? (Patch 3.4 Initial Thoughts)

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The much anticipated patch 3.4 had finally dropped and boy there are really a lot happening in this patch. So far I have only taken advantage of a few things but I couldn’t wait to share my initial thoughts for the patch.

First up is the main story quest. With the close of the Heavensward Dragonsong War storyline it is back to the Ascians and the Warriors of Darkness (snooze). I might be too quickly to judge but I think they did make it a bit more interesting that the main quest is now in some way tied to the Binding Coil of Bahamut (yes, whether you finished the Binding Coil of Bahamut will affect your story here). So I would expect the Coil scene to be lit up a bit again, and also time to farm those coil outfit crafting materials.

Unsurprisingly there are two new dungeons one with the story (not going to mention anything about this to avoid spoilers) and the other in the form of The Great Gubal Library (Hard). The Great Gubal Library has always been my favourite in the original Heavensward expansion but I was a little bit surprised that this fan favourite dungeon got a make-over so soon. Luckily for me the dungeon did not disappoint and I quite enjoyed my experience running through it the first time. I particularly like the name of the quest that unlocks the dungeon – Let me Gubal that for you. And also the mentioning of an upcoming Final Fantasy XIV publication within the quest itself is an ingenious product placement.

The Alexander storyline is also coming to an end with patch 3.4. In this patch we can finally take a look closely at this unique elder primal and understand its relationship with the world of Eorzea. As usual as soon as you finished the normal mode you can unlock the high end raid Savage mode. It seems that Square Enix had really toned down the difficulty or changed their Savage mode design this time round with the Savage mode being cleared quite quickly already. Alexander Savage was notorious for breaking a lot of raid groups leading to the dying down of the high end raid scene. Looks like Yoshida-P is determined to get these players back with the Creator Savage mode. Judging from the normal mode fights, the Creator section of Alexander is purely mechanics heavy. Also from a friend I understood that the damage per second (DPS) check is not as demanding as the previous two sections. Looks like the high end raid scene could be re-ignited again with Creator Savage.

The other new fight is from the Warring Triad storyline with Sophia the Goddess as the new elder primal after the exhilarating Sephiort. For me the fight initially looks tricky but once you understood the mechanics it was quite straight forward. After I cleared it for the first time I ran into is again in Duty Roulette Trial but this time round I did not have any difficulty staying alive at all. The Extreme mode of this fight is similar but added a few more mechanics that mixed up the patterns, making it a bit harder to manage for pug groups initially but once everyone has a bit of experience it will not be an issue to clear.

On top of that we have the more light hearted storylines with Hildibrand and Scholasticate, which I personally have not done. I did the Hildibrand quests in one burst back in the A Realm Reborn era so I didn’t need to wait for patches story bit by bit. So I intended to do so again with this one.

One of the things I did do was purchasing an investment apartment on my own hoping to sell it at a profit later. However, from what I was told by my Free Company friends, Square Enix will increase the number of apartments when required to. So it seems my investment plans have fallen apart before they even came together.

The other item I have unlocked quickly was the Wondrous Tails that requires you to accomplish certain tasks to unlock goodies related to the completion of those tasks. I found it quite a good way to actually get users to go back to earlier contents so new players can get help from experienced players. Square Enix has already implemented the mentoring system, which I think is quite good, but with Wondrous Tails I hope the queue time for new players for older contents can be significantly shortened, encouraging new players to soldier on, even when they are playing on their won.

In this patch they also implemented the Squadron system with the Grand Company, which in my opinion is quite an overdue addition to the Grand Company system. The system seems to work like the retainer system but in a Grand Company way. So far apart from the initial three recruits that came with the unlocking of the system, I have failed to attract any new recruits to my enlistment papers, so really can’t tell much. But I look forward to explore this further.

So far from the contents that I have touched on in the last two days, I like this patch a lot and hopefully this patch will draw back a number of players who went on leave. I do think this patch has strong potential to draw back high end raid players who had left the game because of the super high difficult level inflicted by the previous two Savage raids. If any player is thinking of coming back to the game, this could be a good time.

Primal Instincts

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With a new patch looming there is a new primal fight in the form of Sophia the Goddess from the Warring Triads from Final Fantasy VI. The interesting part for the Warring Triads is that now it commands its own story line, which is pretty cool. The previous patch set up the scene further so that when the new patch drops there is a purpose for fighting this new Goddess.

Since A Realm Reborn, the Warriors of Light had engaged with numerous primals for countless number of times, some even in hard and extreme conditions (puns intended :P). Some fights were enjoyable and some were chores and some were just outright controller or keyboard throwing. Looking back saving Eorzea from primal threats had been quite an important part of the Warriors of Light’s life. It just seems that even when the Scions were on full scale operation, none of them were capable of fighting any of those primals but leaving them to the Warriors of Light to pick up the pieces. That said maybe it is a good time to look at my good, bad and ugly primals in Eorzea.

Talking about the good ones, I still personally maintained that Shiva is my favourite fight so far. Yes the frozen Akh Afah Amphitheatre was just another round stage for us to run around but the change of stance, the slippery frozen surface and the confusing hail storm patterns in the sky and on the floor made it a joy to learn and satisfying to beat. I spent a lot of times pugging learning parties to find a way to learn the mechanics so that I can time my heals to meet the needs of the party and that was nothing but thrilling. Also the satisfaction of just timing all your cool downs to protect your party to minimise the damage from that invigorating finger snapping from Diamond Dust was chilling in all sense. Shiva is one of the few fights that I enjoyed going in as a Scholar as it was the timed mitigations that gave me most satisfaction. Also the prologue music in the Shiva fight is one of my all-time favourite tracks in the whole game. I once looped it over 70 times in one morning while I was doing my housework – and each loop it about 7 minutes.

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Bismarck in the Heavensward expansion is another one that I have always enjoyed playing. For me it was just quite relaxing once you learnt and understanding the mechanics. As a healer all I need to do was to time my heals so that I won’t pull aggro from the tanks and to make sure the tanks and everyone else stayed alive. The only slightly annoying part was the tornadoes at one stage that made it really hard for casters, but once I got some tips from a FC member, it became a non-issue to me immediately. Also the soundtrack in Bismarck is quite funky and different from most of the other tracks in the game so it made it stands out further. Further the Bimsarck fight is one of the few fights that you were not fight Bimsarck most of the time and you saw that huge whale flying next to your island, which was pretty cool, not to mention the chances of being thrown off the island and went sky diving.

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As a healer, I hate any extreme primal fights that cast debuffs on healers, as if keeping everyone alive is not hard enough. The first time I ran into this was with Ifrit that places an explosive searing wind status on healers so you constantly needed to move around and away from the party to ensure they were not affected. Although once you got used to it, it became second nature and became a non-issue. And seriously after completing Quake Me Up Before You O’Ghomoro, (the Titan extreme quest), Ifrit is nothing but a piece of cake. Those rushes were nothing compared to the 5-way landslides in Titan extreme. However, the worst offender for me was Leviathan extreme when you got healing debuffs that target on your healing range and you cannot escape it. As in Ifrit extreme both healers need to work together to calculate and share the debuff to minimise the impact but unlike Ifrit extreme when the other healer is not doing the part everyone could see, if your healing partner in Leviathan extreme is not the cooperative kind, you are doomed and probably nobody would notice that and started point fingers at you asking you “Why no healing?”. After I beat it the first time I only went in as damage dealers (DPS) from that point onward (still that waterly mount is still a myth to my collection).

I mentioned about Titan extreme earlier. I believe most players, if you are still playing now, would have gone through the Rite of Passage of Titan extreme at some point. It was once a huge road block to most players as it was unforgivingly hard. The thing with this fight is everything you knew were built upon the previous fight but stepped up in terms of craziness and hecticness. When you are trying to rescue a captive raid member while trying to avoid multiple landslide passages and weights bubbles on the ground on an even smaller platform; that bound to have casualties...and lots of them. However, it was an addictive fight that you just kept on going back because you wanted to best Mr Rocky to show that you are not a softie. And when you eventually cleared it the immense joy and satisfaction is nothing words can express. The Sephirot fight in the Heavensward expansion was designed by the same person as Titan. Although I still enjoyed that fight it never reached a land sliding status as Titan did for me.

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High and mighty and annoying

I think the Good King Mog extreme fight for me is without a doubt one of the most tedious and annoying one. This is not because of the fight was hard but it was utterly deflating when you finally reached the last stage and you couldn’t finish the fight before the countdown completed, then wiped and needed to start all over again. The fact that those cute moogles were so deadly was beyond comprehension and the requirements for finishing the fight made it one of the longest and most tedious fights among all primals. But then I was still willing to farm for that elusive but nice looking collar for my Bard at that time. Then came Ravana. For me the only thing that is good about that fight was the music. It is one of the fights that after I beat it I couldn’t even be bothered to go back and farm despite drooling all over that deadly looking Summoner grimoire. That said I knew a lot of player who actually loved the fight and spent time farming it. But I just dislike all the constant movements required for that fight as a healer and then at the same time over such a small space where you can fall off accidentally in certain parts of the arena. It was just too exhausting for me and I just didn’t want to waste my time on it. The music was great just I couldn’t deal with the fight itself.

I haven’t covered all of the primals Eorzea has had in this article but then I am sure everyone has his / her favorites and nemesis. What are yours?

Two is Enough Three is Too Much?

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Eorzea seems to be pretty quiet these days. There are not a lot of people online including our Free Company. Even as a healer when I tried to queue up for dungeons and raids the waiting time has become unconventionally long.

It has been some time since the last patch dropped so it is natural for the new patch rush to drop off. It seems a number of players have run out of contents to keep themselves interested. With some big games like Uncharted 4 launching and Overwatch went into beta, it is not surprising that a number of people are taking a break from Eorzea.

I still log on regularly and I still have things to do regularly but then nothing is too exciting for me at the moment. Don’t get me wrong, I can still entertain myself as I still have a lot of things I want to do and can do, but as for what we called the “Dailies” I don’t do them religiously after I capped my tomes for the week. Even for Alexander normal, the Random Number Generator (RNG) factor to roll for specific pieces of drops seemed to have taken the toll. For the raiders the raid scene that I know of seemed to have died down quite a bit. I do not know the reason behind this but then it seems currently Alexander raid groups are not as active as I thought they would be.

But for non-raiders like me the land of Eorzea is about living a daily life by doing our dailies. Well at least it used to be. One of the reasons I don’t do what we called the Duty Roulette Expert religiously anymore is because I got quite bored with it. The new dungeons were quite interesting when they first came out – the whole understanding the mechanics, dealing with enemies that are higher level than you are and figuring out how to survive boss fights etc. etc. That was all exciting back then as the thrill of surviving and completing was real. However as you geared up and got familiar with the dungeons, they become less interesting. The situation got even more off putting when you start to have players trying to just speed run everything just to “get things over with”, whether they are able to do so or not. This is a sign of doing things in the game became chores for players.

In the time of A Realm Reborn (ARR), when every patch introduced three new dungeons things were a bit better. Doing the roulette means you have one in three chances of getting the same dungeon, it added a bit of roulette feel. Also it still stayed a bit more interesting as you are not doing the same dungeon day after day again every day most of the time. However since Heavensward (HW), Square Enix had changed the number of Expert roulette dungeons to two. This means you have one in two chances of getting the same dungeon. The fact is for me it feels that one of the dungeons just kept on showing up more regularly than the other. Sometimes I can have the same dungeon 7 days in a roll that I just couldn’t help but felt extremely bored.

I do not know why Square Enix made the decision to change this but for me this is a huge let down. The success of ARR had atoned the mess the original Final Fantasy XIV brought to the franchise. In one of the ARR anniversary events they even had a side quest to apologise to the players about the arrogance they had in the past. However, what they were doing here in HW seemed to be completely working in the opposite direction of ARR. While other aspects seemed to be a result of wavering and adjusting to players’ demands and then got themselves nowhere, the reduction of three dungeons to two dungeons seemed to be entirely Square Enix’s executive decision.

I am not a developer so I do not know how hard it is to build an additional dungeon for the Expert roulette, but what I thought was if it was possible in ARR why it is not possible in HW? What happened between the original game and the expansion that Square Enix had decided to reduce the number of new dungeons with each patch? Did they run out of lore for tie-ins (yes all the previous dungeons represented side quests and side stories in the world of Eorzea). For me side quests and side dungeons are great opportunities to open the world further. What about telling us more about the background of the Au Ra race through a new dungeon? Then the world of Eorzea can be expanded further and at the same time keeping us interested in the dungeons.

Maybe I am really asking too much but sometimes I did feel like if I am paying the same subscription fee and a year ago I got more contents with every new patch that matters than now, is it a form of cheating from Square Enix? I do not know what direction the game is currently going. Certainly it still has a great story and some interesting contents but if the basics for most of the players are shrinking is Square Enix slowly developing sink holes in Eorzea? That only time could tell.

The Binding Effects of The Binding Coil of Bahamut

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In the recent Producer Live Letter, the chairman of Level 5 asked Yoshia-P (the person who successfully rebooted Final Fantasy XIV from a disaster to a success) whether he would consider reintroducing the high end raid style like The Binding Coil of Bahamut into the game. That certainly hit the sentiments of a lot of players.

Currently the high end raid belongs to Alexander (Savage). They are basically the same bosses you experienced in Alexander (Normal) but with more complicated mechanics and more deadly. Story-wise it does not have a separate storyline. The storyline was played out during the quests of the Normal mode and you found out and progress with the story as you complete the normal mode. There are now totally eight floors for Alexander (Savage) with the notoriously difficult third floor (A3) that destroyed a lot of raid groups and causing server jumps for high end raiders to find parties that can clear it. The difficulty of the Midas section (floor 5 to 8) was toned down but then people still complained about the difficulty of floor 6, which had been nerfed in the latest patch.

I am never a really high end raider or regard myself as one. A lot of people would even regard me as a casual player (although I don’t know how casual you can be if you log in everyday for several hours) because I do not do high end raids. The fact is, it is not that I am not interested in high end raids but I am usually locked out because I do not have a static raid party. I tried twice to join one but did not really go anywhere as some people were not committed and so they just died their natural deaths when people stopped showing up at raid times. So without a static raid party and just relying on haphazard kind of party finder to try the raids, I soon lost interest.

However, this was not the same for me during the time of The Binding Coil of Bahamut. I was eager to get my hands on to The Coils (as we called it) because I want to know the story. I was first introduced to The Coils by my ex-Free Company (FC) leader and with their patience and help they got me hooked to the story. I would watch YouTube strategies, read about the mechanics and then just kept going back through party finder. Sometimes I even put up my own call for parties just to practice and practice until I cleared them and moved on with the story. The attraction of The Coils was that the story was tied in tightly with the lore of Eorzea and the whole Calamity story arc that ended the first Final Fantasy XIV (as now known as 1.0). So it added a huge value to the whole Eorzean experience when you finally found out what happened in that Calamity and that battle, and how Eorzea avoided complete destruction from the wrath of Bahamut. It was the story that kept me going back no matter how many times I failed. It was not only an accomplishment of skill but also a rewarding experience because you knew the Eorzean world better after The Coils.

In Alexander, however, we had already experienced the story (which was a decent one I must say) so it is only about testing your skills and strength as a party. Sure you get better gear from clearing them as they are high end raids, but then I really did not find much incentives to try it if I didn’t manage to get a party. I still wanted to clear it if opportunity presents as there are gear that I do want, but then if I couldn’t even get a party to practice for future clears, I am not fuss about it either because apart from gear and maybe a bit of satisfaction I did not find it too compelling to stress myself through that. I still enjoy watching other people play and I still hope that I could try and clear as I did with The Coils, but it is no longer a necessity for a complete experience as The Coils was.

Also the Savage mode is kind of too similar a pattern to the Primal Extreme mode, which I still enjoyed so there is really no new experience here. I personally cannot see the difference between Primal Extreme mode and Alexander Savage as they are just both tuned up version of the normal fights, which were still hard at the beginning.

Alexander Savage was a response to people wanting to clear the story as they would want to in The Coils. But for me able to clear The Coils meant I would be rewarded for a new important storyline, so if I already had that done in Alexander Normal why would I care about Savage that much? Also the Savage mode that was introduced to The Second Coil of Bahamut was challenging and fun because it makes a difference to that particular experience. But for Alexander Savage, the appeal was not as great because it just felt like it is just more of the same thing, or maybe even a bit too much of the same thing.

Final Fantasy XIV is an online game that continues to evolve, so I am sure it is hard to please every single adventurer in Eorzea. Yoshida-P had successfully resurrected Eorzea but now it is about continuing to evolve so people who like the old still have something to hold dear to and people who like only new stuff can also have something to keep them interested. It is a hard job and I don’t think I envy them at all. Nonetheless, one of the elements of the future success of the game is whether they could re-engage high end and “casual players” alike to try harder contents such as The Binding Coil of Bahamut, so adventurers will keep coming back and keep the world of Eorzea alive.  

Fishing is no fishy business

I have never been into fishing in real life. I had only tried it once when I was a kid and found it extremely monotonous and patience testing, and patience was never a forte for me as a kid.

Even with my love of video game, I still could not deal with fishing games. I always wondered “why would people spend time fishing virtual fishes?” “What kind of satisfaction can come out of that when real life fishing is already a bore hole?” Then came Animal Crossing, a game that you do nothing but running errands, decorating houses, catching bugs, gardening and not to mention fish. Nintendo had made fishing so intuitive that it became an addiction to me. I would even make sure I get on to the game at different hours of the day and at different times of the year to “catch them all”, as certain fishes only show up under certain conditions. And completing the fishing log and the museum collection is so important that it became something obsessively compulsive for me.

Life after Animal Crossing is a life without fishing again. I have been playing Final Fantasy XIV for over 2 years now – yes that’s how long I have been playing it without even noticing it. Fishing is one of the things that the game offers but I had never got into it. Firstly because it is fishing secondly, well because it is fishing. That is until I started the Culinarian class (the chef class in the game) and needed a lot of fishes to make stew, grilled dishes etc. etc. I attempted to get into fishing but was bored in two seconds. I resorted to just buying stuff off the market or through in-game vendors. It is just another case of “couldn’t be bothered”.

Before the current expansion came out there was a period in the game most player would agree as a drought. There were no new contents for players who had already burnt out everything in 3 seconds and for regular players like me, I was just attempting contents just opened up for non-static groups while finding things to do to kill time. So I decided to level up a Blackmage. But as a DPS (a damage dealing) class, most players in Final Fantasy XIV will know that queuing time is hell. So in order to kill time while waiting for queues, I picked up fishing again because that is the most minimal effort thing you can do while waiting.

This is when I started getting into the whole obsessive compulsive behaviour again. First of all I must say I do not enjoy fishing in Final Fantasy XIV as I did with Animal Crossing. However the complex of refusing to be defeated by a game and the infamous RNG (random number generator) factor in fishing made me persist and persist. The thing is, whether this is good or bad, fishing had become a daily activity for me in the game now. The satisfaction of finally maxed out the class against all the RNG odds was so great that I forgot about the painful journey I went through to get there.

Does that mean I am a good Fisherman (or Fisher as they called it in the game) in Eorzea? No definitely not. I still loath the RNG and still have issue carrying all the different kinds of baits and lures to just do one thing in the game – to fish. But I do become a more seasoned Fisher and appreciate the effort the game had put in to make it a very unique experience. And I do enjoy the experience a lot better than I used to. It became a pretty good pass time for just chill and chat with friends in the game. When there is not enough time to run a dungeon before attending other real life engagements, I can just sit and fish. It is still reasonably enjoyable. Also I am willing to invest a bit more time to complete the seemingly impossible fishing log across the lands of Eorzea.

A lot of players said fishing, especially in end game (that is after you finished the class quest and maxed out your class in this case), is an own game of itself. I must say I do agree with it. As much as fishing in Final Fantasy XIV seem quite straightforward in terms of commands, it is a lot more complex if you really want to nail it. It is something that is easy to learn but requires a lot of patience, practice and researches to master. Despite having maxed out the class, I am still a novice in the fishing business in Eorzea, but I must admit it does not look or sound as fishy as I thought it once was.

Eorzea: One Year On

It’s been just over a year in Eorzea. During this period, much has been achieved for a new adventurer like me who had never played an MMORPG before.

I started as a newbie Conjurer who conjures elements of the nature to heal my allies. It hasn’t been an easy journey and I nearly gave it all up if not being helped by my previous FC 7th Heaven and my current FC Order of the Phoenix. Now I am a full fledge White Mage who tries to improve himself through relentless questing and adventuring, while helping others in dungeons and trials. I have also moved from a novice FC member to recently taking up the rein for my current FC Order of the Phoenix as the leader. It is challenging and exciting at the same time but the FC does have some good members who play respectfully. Also all the Council members are extremely good and helpful players.

Final Fantasy XIV had come a long way from being critically panned to now being critically acclaimed. It was a wakeup call for Square Enix that they cannot take their fan base for granted, for people will desert the franchise if they were being treated disrespectfully with one bad game after another. The game code named 2.0 was interestingly titled “A Realm Reborn” and it was Square Enix’s own Phoenix Down for the franchise. Since then, there were several major patches that added huge chunks of contents to the world of Eorzea and not to mention paying homage to a lot of pervious Final Fantasy or Final Fantasy related games. The Crystal Tower quest line has strong Final Fantasy III references throughout, the Ascians that extend the main quest story line lurk in the shadows of Organisation XIII from the Kingdom Heart (a Final Fantasy and Disney cross breed franchise), designs of the Garlean Empire characters look exceedingly similar to the Judges introduced in Final Fantasy XII, the Magitek Armour from Final Fantasy VI, dungeon bosses such as the Yeti and Fenrir in Snowcloak, Diablo in Lost City of Amdapor, Tonberry King in Wanderer’s Palace and the recently introduced Gold Saucer from Final Fantasy VII that conveniently slotted in Chocobo Racing from Final Fantasy VII and Triple Triads from Final Fantasy VIII. On top of that you have extremely popular summons from past Final Fantasy games as primal trial bosses including Ifrit, Titan, Leviathan, Ramuh, Shiva and Odin. All these made adventuring in Eorzea so much more familiar yet new.

Final Fantasy XIV might not be something that could topple World of Warcraft from its throne but it has shaped up to be a very solid experience itself. The fact that I continued to see new players (marked by a cute sprout icon next to their usernames) coming into game means Final Fantasy XIV continues to raise gamers’ interest (although I hope it would stay as a civilised playground unlike World of Warcraft). Square Enix also introduced mechanisms and quest lines that make more experienced players going back to older contents to help newer players, which was nice in my opinion. That said from my experience higher end raid dungeons did not have that treatment making it extremely hard for new players to proceed, as good parties are hard to come by if you don’t have a group of friends from your FC or linkshell to help you.

Of course with all the praises it doesn’t mean the game is faultless. A lot of people were complaining about the prices of real estate and lack of new estate lands. Probably Square Enix has underestimated the popularity and desire of purchasing housing in Eorzea thus accidentally turned their residential regions into virtual Tokyo or New York. They have been continuously addressing the issue, which is commendable so hopefully potential and budding home buyers in Eorzea would be happier. The other most complained issue is the long waiting time for instances when one plays as a DPS. For me my main job is White Mage so I am not that affected by this problem, but whenever I play as my alternates (Summoner / Bard) I did experience such issue and this is particularly obvious when I was trying to level up my Dragoon to get a cross class skill for my Bard. The situation was aggravated by the introduction of Ninja that added a bigger pool of DPS to the job roster. I basically at that time took advantage of the situation and levelled up both tank classes (Warrior and Paladin) for future dungeon grinds for my Zodiac Weapon quests. With the new expansion there will be a new tanking (Dark Knight) and a new healing (Astrologian) class so hopefully that could rectify the issue a bit. But with my and some other friends’ experience as tanks, professional tanks will still be a rarity in Eorzea as they are at times quite underappreciated (second to healers) and thus do not always provide satisfying gaming experience. Also the emergence of groups of elite DPS that pride themselves stealing hate / aggro from tanks did not help the situation at all. For me when I encountered this kind of DPS I just let them die.

Eorzea is not all about questing but also about crafting and gathering. Crafting and gathering are things I used to enjoy immensely in the game. I have all my crafting classes maxed out and only one gathering class still in development. However there was a point where Square Enix had suddenly pulled up the curve for crafting and gathering that got me stuck very long time in terms of progression. I have an experienced crafter and gatherer since the 1.0 days in the FC quitting the game because of this. Square Enix had since admitted the fault and attempting to rectify the situation but the previous change had discouraged a lot of people and now there emerged another set of elite crafters and gatherers that just capitalise the situation on the market board. For me, as a player who does not have unlimited resource and time to play the game, it became a constant struggle and juggle between improving my battle classes to progress or improving my crafting and gathering classes to seek satisfaction in crafting. This at times became extremely frustrating and taxed my enjoyment with the game. I believe once you went through that threshold it will be fine but this is, in my opinion, still a deterring and discouraging factor for new players to enjoy the experience.

The current main story in Eorzea will come to end with the upcoming patch before the expansion pack Heavensward drops. I am sure Square Enix has a lot up their sleeves. I do hope they continue to make adventuring in Eorzea a rewarding and varied experience so time spent in Eorzea is not time wasted. For me I still have a lot to do in the game and plotting along slowly. As someone who does not have a lot of time to play I need to prioritise my tasks when I log on but the feeling of I can always do something such as questing, trialling, gathering, crafting and even just stay idle chatting to my FC and linkshell friends on silly topics or getting tips from them is extremely enjoyable. If you haven’t pick up your gears for Eorzea yet, I would still recommend you to do so as it is never too late to start adventuring there. If you happened to go on to the Tonberry server, you can find our friendly FC bunch welcoming you to this exciting land.