FFXIV: Patch 6.5 Complete x5
Posted on October 9, 2023 by Aywren
No spoilers here, but I’ve completed the major content (MSQ and the Alliance Raid) for FFXIV as of last week. In fact, as of last weekend, I’ve finished the MSQ five times, in order to complete it on all the alts that are also at current MSQ ilvl.
Starting with last patch, I’ve been pretty good at keeping up with the MSQ on my alt characters. Being a crafter, I’m able to make them current level gear.
Also, since most of them are crafter/gatherers, they can support themselves, as well, through either map gathers or daily crafting leve turn-ins. This has paid off since it allows them to buy gear when I don’t always feel like crafting it. Crafted gear has come down in price this patch, so it wasn’t a huge hole in the wallet, either.
My Thoughts on a Completed 6.0 Series
While I know that patch 6.5 MSQ is broken up into two parts, this patch certainly brought closure to all the post-6.0 patch storyline we’ve been working through. Overall, despite being a HUGE FFIV fan who should have been overwhelmingly excited about the characters finally making it to FFXIV, I thought it was just all pretty alright.
I think delving deeper into the realm of the void, coming to understand better the nature of voidsent, and moving towards a potential betterment of the 13th shard are all important and good things to explore. I’m happy to see the four fiends, Globez, and Zeromus as prominent fights – none of which are pushovers either.
I will note that it was really strange to hear Zeromus talking in dragonspeak (though it’s fitting for this story arc).
The closure of the story for Zero and Golbez was obvious and easy to guess for anyone familiar to FFIV’s ending. I don’t think that’s a bad thing, to be honest, and I’m content with how it all wrapped up. In fact, I’m looking forward to seeing how the 1st and the 13th overlap will work towards balance in the future. I feel like we’ll revisit some of this on down the line, as FFXIV tends to do, because they’ve left a lot of doors open.
All that being said, even as a FFIV fan, I didn’t find this stretch of MSQ to be absolutely captivating as I probably should have. From what I hear from others, this is the basic overall consensus. The MSQ is viewed as fine, but not super exciting. I’m not sure how a non-FFIV fan weathers it all.
I know there’s some disgruntlement, especially about not having a more involved relic quest line, and some folks are drifting away because they are bored. It seems a deep dungeon (which was far too difficult to be fun, IMHO) and the variant dungeons are not the same as a more open world collaborative area, such as Bozja.
I’ve long wished that FFXIV would do more open world content in the areas they’ve already created to be open world (overland). I know that they try with things like boosting up FATEs, but the years have shown that people run FATEs, get their gems, and then drop that content quickly when they’re done. There’s something about FATEs that just doesn’t keep people in the open world, and I don’t have an answer on what to do to change that.
But, that’s a conversation for a different time.
I suppose, what I mean to say is, I’m a bit sad that my favorite game in the series (FFIV) was finally highlighted during a time when the general community are bored-ish with the formulaic approach of FFXIV content. Going forward, I worry it’ll be considered a slog, similar to the post-patch MSQ for ARR.
Who knows. Maybe I have nothing to worry about with that.
Mechanical Struggles
I mentioned this on Mastodon the other day, but I find the new MSQ dungeon to be fairly tricky. Trusts are not a huge help with it – I even saw someone on BlueSky talk about wiping 5 times with Trusts on this dungeon before giving up and asking for a party.
My first time with Trusts, I wiped about 4 times – and this was after I already ran it (blind) with a real party, and kinda had an idea what the mechanics wanted me to do. However, since learning a bit more about the mechanics, and with the help of Syn’s observations about one of the bosses, I have been able to clear with Trusts without a wipe since then.
It’s still very tricky, though, and very easy to die – especially if you’re not well-geared. Keep in mind, most of my alts are only geared to have the ilvl to pass MSQ, but don’t have materia or anything.
While I won’t say too much about the Alliance Raid because it all hovers over spoiler territory, I will note that watching the video beforehand was quite overwhelming. It feels like a LOT to remember and it also feels like mechanics flow really fast.
In actually doing the raid, though, it wasn’t as terribly overwhelming as watching the video led me to believe. Still, there’s the case of it’s easy to die, and if you trip up on one mechanic, it’s sometimes hard to recover for the next mechanic.
Onward!
As for me, as I always say, I have lots to keep me moving forward.
First, there’s the new series of PVP. While I have no desire to go all the way to rank 25 for a glamour I’ll never use, I do want to get both my Bun and Amon to rank 15 for the minion. There’s also the new PVP glamour you can earn through trophy crystals.
I already had so may trophy crystals piled up that I was able to buy the bits of the outfits I wanted the moment they dropped. I know a number of new folks are poking their heads in just for the sake of picking up some of that glam, though.
We also got a new custom delivery series that I’ve been working on across all my current-leveled crafters (all 5 of them). I realized this week when I went to do this that most of my crafting alts do not have the highest level scrip gear yet. Not sure how I overlooked that, but I’ll be working on fixing that for them, and maybe even upgrading their gathering gear, as well.
I have a hunch that the ultimate reward for this series of custom deliveries is something I’ve been hoping to see put in game. Poking around, I think I’ve confirmed that, and because I really need this for Ben, this has motivated me to start leveling him again, too.
I have had a goal of getting Ben up to current content before the next expansion drops, despite still being in Shadowbringers. Last night, I just finished up LA HEE for him, and now he’s on to Twine and fun with trollies. I’m pretty confident I can speed level him to end game, maybe even before the holidays, if I really try.
Then I just have to level his crafter to 80/90. So, I have a lot to do for him going forward.
Overall, this is my current status in FFXIV! What did you think about Patch 6.5 if you’ve played?