FFXIV: All Saints’ Wake 2018
All Saints’ Wake, the Eorzean Halloween event, is currently running in Gridania until November 1st. So if you haven’t had a chance to visit this event, you still have some time to try it out.
This year, it’s somewhat of a conglomeration of elements that made up the past events. The haunted mansion returns, transforming into fiends return, pumpkin cookies return, and transforming into NPCs return. Everything’s centered around a re-purposed Haukke Manor, which you can now hang around in as a haunted house instance.
This year’s main rewards are a pair of cute ghost minions. There’s also some nice housing decorations, including much-needed wall hangings.
Yeah, the rewards are a little underwhelming after the last couple years — one that gave a spiffy broom mount and one that gave a full werewolf costume. It’s kinda hard to follow up on great rewards like that, but I have a feeling the team rotates the kind of rewards we get across all the year’s events.
So, the base quest is quick and easy to do and nets you one of the minions. Of course, the first thing you say is, “I can only choose one?” Well, that’s where earning pumpkin cookies comes in.
The housing decor and the second minion are all for sale on the vendor for pumpkin cookies. You earn the cookies in one of two ways — doing the Haunted Manor instance (4 players through duty finder) or running the repeatable quest inside the instance over and over again.
I opted to do the solo repeatable, even if it’s a bit more grindy. We tried the 4 player instance once, and while that rewards 5 cookies a pop, it feels like it takes longer… and it relies on other people being able to communicate and navigate the puzzles. There is a timer and there is a chance at failure.
So all of that combined meant I was going the solo route. I’m glad that they offered a repeatable solo quest — I don’t think they did last year, and I never got any of the housing decorations due to that. I just put on some tunes and go about my business, mostly earning the second minion for all my alts.
The other, almost hidden aspect of the Manor instance is the costume party part. There’s an imp within the main room of the Manor that allows you to select from a multiple choice question that eventually transforms you into a popular NPC.
Here, I’m transformed into Nanamo while Amoon is Raubahn and a couple of Ameryics dance in the background. Yeah, this could get pretty wild sometimes.
Anyhow, that’s this year’s All Saints’ Wake in a nutshell. I thought the little quest was cute (especially the ghosts) and was happy to earn some decorations for our little FC house since we’re lacking on Halloween stuff. If you’ve not done it yet, it’s worth a shot for the minions at least!