FFXIV: Namazu & Swallows Compass
After spending two posts grouching about the difficulty of the trial and the new raid in FFXIV, you might be wondering why I’m even playing the game if I’m not enjoying any of it. Truth is, I still enjoy plenty in FFXIV… it’s just easier to write about what’s frustrating me. 😉
So let’s talk about happy things today!
Namazu
I’m really, really enjoying the new Namazu beast tribe quests! I generally really like beast tribe quests, though I was a little iffy on how this one would be. Turns out, the team funneled a lot of time and humor into these quests, and I totally appreciate it.
Add to that the fact that it’s helping me level my left-behind crafting jobs, and it’s a complete win-win. I dusted off my Leatherworker, mostly because the mats for it are annoying to get for leveling, and have moved from level 60 to 65 since the patch dropped. That’s… five levels in a week!
I also spent some time going back and working on some of the gathering and crafting quests that I’ve overlooked. This was part of this month’s goals.
I discovered that I’d left off at level 55 with my Leatherworker quests. I’m probably going to be seeing that a lot across most of my crafters since I really disliked most of the requirements for the crafting quests in Heavensward. I’m so glad they changed how they do the crafting quests at level 60+.
I admit that I bought my way up to 60 and then started those quests in earnest from there. I’m really not looking forward to getting the rest of my crafters on par, but it’s got to be done.
Swallows Compass
Another thing I unlocked over this weekend was the new dungeon – Swallow’s Compass.
I know that I said I was going to keep this post positive, but one catch that really annoyed me was that they forced you to complete the Byakko fight in order to unlock Swallow’s Compass. So, essentially, the trial gates your ability to take part in this round of Expert Roulette.
I found it off-putting that my choice in that was taken away, especially since in Heavensward, the trials were totally optional. I never did any of them, and all was well with the world. I thought that would be the case here, so I completely dropped the quest to unlock Byakko… only to find that I had to redo it all from the start (including a run of Hell’s Lid) to unlock the primal fight.
The fight itself wasn’t bad at all. But that’s going in with a full FC party of helpful people who mostly knew how to do the EX version well. I’m actually enjoying the storyline around the funky group of talking animals in the cavern, so I can forgive them for forcing a primal fight on me. I guess this is just how it’s going to work from now on.
Swallow’s Compass was a walk in the park after the struggles with the trial and the Lighthouse. In fact, Syn, Amoon and I went in blind and only really had a few moments of trouble with the second boss. Even then, it was mostly stumbling around learning mechanics.
Each section of this dungeon was really well designed. You have an underground temple area with lots of oriental flair, a neat underwater area with glass domes to view the fish above, then a windswept mountain area that’s above the clouds. I wish I’d taken more screenshots of it, but I was more involved in looking and fighting than I was snapping shots.
I can’t say that I actually look forward to specific dungeons in the roulette, but I hope to get to play more of this one in the future. Actually, most of the dungeons in Expert right now are pretty laid back, so I really have nothing to complain about in this area. I just need to actually start running it more so I can get Tomes of gear! 😉
This month is almost over with, so it’s near time to take a look at what all I did accomplish with my goals… tomorrow!