#oneaday Day 52: To Be Forgotten is Worse Than Death

I finished Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail this evening. Or its main scenario, anyway; I haven’t gone into any endgame stuff such as the Arcadion raid series or level-cap dungeons as yet, but it’s late and that’s stuff best saved for another day.

I’m going to write something big about Final Fantasy XIV on MoeGamer at some point in the next few days, incorporating my thoughts about Dawntrail and the game as a whole as it exists in 2024, but for now I thought I’d share some immediate impressions.

On the whole, I liked Dawntrail. I particularly enjoyed how it felt like a proper “sequel” to the Final Fantasy XIV story that was told between A Realm Reborn and Endwalker rather than just a continuation of the story. This was always the stated intention, but it would have been easy for them to try and weave in stuff that had come before like the Ascians. They actually do weave in some of that past stuff in the latter hours of the story, but in a way that you would in a sequel, rather than a straight “next episode”.

Dawntrail’s main scenario felt quite long, which is probably a mixed blessing for some people. I went back and forth a bit on it as I played — there were days when I didn’t fancy playing it, so I turned to something else then came back fresh a few days later — but on the whole, I think its overall length and structure works effectively. Since it’s a “sequel”, it’s fitting that it is quite considerable in length — and even has a structure quite akin to PS1-era Final Fantasy games, with a notable tonal shift halfway through that absolutely would have been a “Please Insert Disc 2” moment in the Good Old Days.

One thing I think I’ve touched on in previous entries is how I feel Dawntrail’s narrative is curiously timely, given the overall state of our own world. And this feeling didn’t go away as I progressed into the latter hours of the story — but for different reasons. Without getting into spoilers, the first half of Dawntrail is about achieving mutual understanding and cooperation with people from disparate backgrounds and belief systems, while the latter half concerns what happens when it’s not quite possible to achieve that mutual understanding, based on the enormous gulf in culture (and technology) between the two parties.

It also touches on matters such as the energy and environmental crises we’re facing down — particularly if the techbros in Silicon Valley insist on jamming AI everywhere it isn’t wanted — as well as matters of life after death in an age of technological innovation. It’s no coincidence that the latter half of the game is heavily inspired by Final Fantasy IX, one of whose characters’ iconic taglines was “to be forgotten is worse than death”. I’m actually kind of surprised no-one actually said that line at any point in Dawntrail, because heaven knows several characters had multiple prime opportunities to do so. Perhaps they thought it might have been just a touch too on-the-nose.

I’m actually a little annoyed that the patch notes and promotional material for Dawntrail spoiled a significant feature of the game’s overall setting and tone, because I feel that reveal would have been far more effective had it simply come up without anyone knowing about it beforehand. (I won’t mention anything further about it for the sake of those who have deliberately avoided all promotional material for precisely this reason.) And there wasn’t really even a good reason for them to spoil it, either, aside from, presumably, the expectation from the fanbase that everything is laid out for them well before release. And I guess if Square Enix didn’t spoil it, the dataminers would have done so anyway.

Anyway, on the whole, Dawntrail was A Good. I enjoyed that it was possible to play the entire main scenario, including 4-player dungeons and 8-player trials, with NPC sidekicks rather than having to rely on other players, though it’s a bit of a shame that the final boss is a multiplayer-only affair. This resulted in me spending a good 50% of said boss fight lying on the floor while the two surviving tanks finished it off because the healers were also both dead. Not quite the climactic conclusion I had hoped for, but at least I got a good look at the mechanics without having to actually do them.

So yeah. Good job, Yoshi-P and company. You did another great thing.

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#oneaday Day 41: Dawntrail Ponderings

I’m probably going to do a “big” writeup on Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail when I’ve actually beaten the main story, but I thought I’d post some musings this evening.

For the unfamiliar, Dawntrail is the fifth expansion to Final Fantasy XIV after Heavensward, Stormblood, Shadowbringers and Endwalker. It was in an interesting position before it started, because Endwalker, as the name suggests, brought the story of Final Fantasy XIV, as it had existed right from the abandoned version 1.0, to a very definitive conclusion.

Without getting too much into specifics for the sake of spoilers, I’ll say that they handled it in probably the best way they could have done: treat the new storyline as basically a complete fresh start. You cross the ocean to be far away from the landmass and surrounding islands the base game and previous five expansions (mostly) took place on, and come to learn about a territory we, as players, have previously not really heard much about.

One of the interesting things about Dawntrail is the timing of its release. I don’t know how much of it was deliberate, but given that the first half of the game is very much about overcoming prejudice and standing together for the good of everyone, it feels… timely, given the various things that are happening around the world right now. It feels like it’s going “this is how things could be if people would just stop being dicks to each other”, and it’s honestly nice.

Again, without spoiling things, this is just half of Dawntrail, however. I would forgive anyone for thinking that the first half of Dawntrail is a bit “slow” in comparison to previous Final Fantasy XIV expansions, but that’s entirely deliberate. Since the overall story is basically something of a “reboot” — or perhaps it’s more accurate to call it a “sequel” — it makes sense that there needs to be plenty of work done to establish the new setting and its important characters. Sure, plenty of old favourites crop up, because it wouldn’t be Final Fantasy XIV without them, but you spend a lot of your time with the new cast.

Stick with that relatively “peaceful” first half, though, and things get Very Real beyond that halfway point. If you were concerned that Dawntrail wouldn’t conclude with some sort of earth-shattering cataclysm for the Warrior of Light to avert in cooperation with her trusty companions, then rest assured that cataclysmic happenings are very much in evidence, and they hit all the harder for how long you spent getting to know everyone in the first half.

Again, this feels timely. After the game goes “this is how things could be”, it then goes “and this is also how things could be”, working on the assumption that something goes horribly wrong somewhere. The message of mutual cooperation and overcoming prejudice is still very much in evidence, but it takes on something of a new meaning in the context of the game’s second half.

That’s all I’ll say for the moment, because I’m a relatively short way into that second half, and I feel I stopped this evening just before what is going to be a fairly critical moment. (It is late and the cat is bugging me to go to bed.) It’s definitely living up to the standards of its illustrious predecessors, though, and I’m glad about that. I’ve spent so much time in Final Fantasy XIV now, it’s like a long-running TV show; I want to keep following these characters, learning about the world they inhabit and see them overcome all sorts of challenges. And there are clearly plenty more challenges ahead.

#oneaday Day 21: Catching Up

Yes, I missed yesterday. I could have predicted that was going to happen, what with it being a Friday, and with Final Fantasy XIV’s new expansion Dawntrail launching into its “early access” period for those who preordered. So I’m catching up now, and another post for “today” later and we’ll be all square.

I could just not bother, because no-one but me cares how well I stick to the whole #oneaday thing, but it’s the principle of the thing. Last time around when I did this, I handled “missed” days like this and I don’t feel like it compromised the integrity of my run of daily blogging, so my own self-imposed rules still stand. So there.

Anyway. Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail seems good so far. I haven’t gotten into the new storyline as yet, because I thought for a change I’d dive into one of the two new jobs included: Pictomancer. For those unfamiliar with Final Fantasy XIV, new jobs introduced with an expansion tend to start ten levels lower than you need to be to start the new storyline, giving you ten levels to get to know your new job by playing dungeons and boss fights you’ve (presumably) already done on other jobs.

I’m actually quite grateful for having to go through this bit of levelling, because it gave me the opportunity to catch up on some sidequests I’d somehow missed on my run through Endwalker. I’ve played all the previous Final Fantasy XIV storylines by thoroughly progressing through all the available sidequests as they came up, but several groups of them apparently unlocked after I’d already passed by their respective areas. I’d held off completing them because it felt wasteful to do them and not get any experience points for them, and none of my other jobs were high enough level to take them on. So they’ve been used to get Pictomancer up to scratch.

Pictomancer seems like quite an interesting job. It’s a ranged magical DPS, which means you stand back from enemies and pelt them with “stuff”. The unique selling point of Pictomancer over something like Black Mage is that there are several sets of abilities you can use to pelt enemies with stuff. Firstly, there’s a sequence of chromatic/elemental spells that function as basic single-target or area-effect attacks, and these also show off the interface’s new ability to automatically switch icons in your hotbar rather than you having to map everything individually.

Secondly, Pictomancer unlocks access to three “Canvases” as it levels. One is for painting creatures, one is for painting weapons and the third is for painting landscapes. “Painting” is a fairly lengthy spell if cast in combat, but it’s instant outside of combat, so you can sort of “pre-load” yourself ahead of time if you’re thinking ahead.

The creature paintings can be unleashed as attack spells, and also contribute to a larger combined spell which can be cast once you’ve set off the previous creature paintings. For example, first you’ll paint a moogle’s pom, then set that off as a spell, then paint a pair of wings, and set that off as a spell. This then allows you to immediately set off a spell in which you fling a completed moogle at your enemies. As Pictomancer levels, it looks as if it gains the ability to paint more different creature parts, which trigger in sequence, so weaving that into your attacks is clearly going to be a key part of its strategy.

The weapon painting, meanwhile, can be set off in combat to trigger a status effect known as “Hammer Time”. While under the effect of Hammer Time, you can trigger a three-hit combo using a big hammer. This always hits a critical and direct hit, which means it does significantly more damage than most other abilities; the trade-off is that there’s quite a long cooldown before you can use it again, though higher level Pictomancers can store a couple of “charges” before having to wait.

The landscape painting, finally, initially acts as a simple damage buff, but at higher levels also makes an area on the floor which, while you stand in it, causes your spells to cast more quickly. This is very helpful for the chromatic/elemental spells, particularly if you use the Subtractive Palette ability to change them into more powerful but slower versions.

If this all sounds a bit complicated, I thought it would be overwhelming at first, but upon starting the new job you have a nice little instanced mini-quest to get to grips with things, and just experimenting with the job in various dungeons and boss fights means things soon become second nature. I’m sure someone is theorycrafting all the fun out of it as we speak, but for now, I’m enjoying just playing it how it “feels” right.

Right, that’s enough for yesterday. Time for dinner. Back later!

#oneaday Day 17: Abort, Retry, Fail?

Last night I once again spectacularly failed to get a good night’s sleep. I had trouble getting off to sleep in the first place, then my cat decided to be sick twice in the night — thankfully not on the bedsheets this time, but she managed to coat a significant portion of the bedroom floor in cat vomit. She’s fine, by the way; she just has a bit of a weak stomach and a tendency to wolf her food down. And once again I am grateful that most of our house has laminate floor rather than carpet.

Still, this unfortunately meant that getting out of bed at 7am to go for a swim felt out of the question. My body just refused to get up, and I didn’t think pushing myself on that little sleep would do me any favours, so I slept in a bit longer. I’m having an early night tonight, though, so hopefully tomorrow will come after an uninterrupted sleep. I can hope, anyway.

Aside from that, today was one of those mostly uneventful days where not a lot of note happened. So, what to talk about?

Later this week sees the launch of the Early Access period for Final Fantasy XIV’s new expansion Dawntrail. I’m looking forward to playing this, but I’m also a bit sad that my relationship with Final Fantasy XIV has changed so much since my initial enthusiasm for it. Back when it launched (and indeed before that, when I was playing in open beta) it was a delight to play alongside some people who eventually became close friends, but for various reasons — including my wife and I moving to a European server instead of the North American one we were playing on — I drifted away for quite some time, and it’s been difficult to get back into the same groove I once had.

Part of the reason for this is that I am very conscious that when I was “in the groove” with Final Fantasy XIV, I played it almost to the exclusion of everything else. While that was rewarding in its own way, it was also a little frustrating; I found it difficult to strike that perfect balance between enjoying Final Fantasy XIV often enough to keep the fires of friendship kindled with the people I liked to play alongside, and saying firmly to myself “no, tonight you are doing something else“.

Previously, I’ve attempted to set aside time for Final Fantasy XIV by saying a particular night of the week is “Final Fantasy XIV night” — in fact, I chronicled one such experiment of this sort here. That didn’t really work for me, though, because I’d often find that by the time I got to the evening in question, I didn’t really fancy playing Final Fantasy XIV, so instead ended up doing something else anyway.

Social anxiety has also entered the picture a fair bit. In line with what I talked about yesterday, whereas I was once a pretty confident Final Fantasy XIV player, I no longer feel that way. I feel uneasy about approaching strangers, talking to new people or asking for help. There are a few reasons for this.

Firstly is the fact that the community changed a bit over the course of the original A Realm Reborn run and onwards into Heavensward. We started to get the typical western players’ “efficiency at all cost” mindset taking hold, with people arguing that “the best way to play” was to spend half your time looking at spreadsheets and the other half exploiting the game structure to your own benefit. Not cheating as such, but definitely deliberately making the game less fun in the name of being more “efficient”. I got frustrated with that, and not being into playing that way put me very much in a minority — a minority that I certainly felt wasn’t listened to.

Secondly is just my own overall sense of unease with online interactions these days, which I talked about yesterday. While I once felt entirely comfortable “being myself” while playing Final Fantasy XIV, now I feel a lot more “guarded” and hesitant to initiate interactions. This is almost entirely a “me” problem rather than anything else, and it is something I can probably work on, but it’s a big part of why the game isn’t as fun as it used to be for me.

There are a few things I want to do in an attempt to recapture the past magic, but hopefully without the game taking over my life. In fact, I’ve already taken one major step; I’ve returned to the original server and Free Company (group of players) that I previously played with. I haven’t seen my past friends around as much as I’d like, nor have I had much chance to interact with them, but that’s something I can work on — particularly as I’ve always remained in that Free Company’s Discord server, even when I moved to the European game servers.

What I need to do is regain that confidence I once had. I need to get some practice in at playing and interacting with others — and really, there’s no other way to do that than to just jump back in and do it. So with Dawntrail, I’m going to try and be involved with things a bit more. Ahead of Early Access, I’m attempting to level another type of job (White Mage, a healer) on top of Samurai, the DPS job that took me through Stormblood, Shadowbringers and Endwalker. That way, I can have a bit more flexibility when it comes to group activities.

I have played as a tank in the past — for non-MMO aficionados, the “tank” is the de facto “leader” of a party who stands at the front and lets the monsters hit them while the other party members heal them and stab the monster in the back — but I haven’t quite got my confidence back up to that level. Tank anxiety is a very real thing, because in that quasi-leadership role, you control a lot of things — including if the party as a whole survives encounters.

There are a lot of things I need to work on if I want to recapture the same magic I once felt from this game. And I do want to try and feel some of that again; some of my favourite gaming moments and happiest times with friends were spent particularly throughout A Realm Reborn. I guess it remains to be seen if Dawntrail will feel the same way — or if I will end up playing through the main storyline (which I’m going to do regardless) and then setting the game aside.

We shall see!

2482: Palace of the Dead: Solo Guide

Been soloing a bunch of Palace of the Dead in Final Fantasy XIV over the last few days, so I thought I’d assemble some tips for those who are looking to challenge it.

General tips

Take your time on the early floors. You want to equal or exceed the boss’ level when you reach it, so clear each floor thoroughly rather than rushing through. You can safely avoid enemies once you hit level 60.
Stay aware of your surroundings at all times. Most floors have patrolling monsters; keep an eye out for these and engage them in the corridors between rooms before pulling the monsters in the rooms themselves.
When fighting on the normal floors, DPS as hard as you can. Summoners, use Garuda-Egi. Tanks, use your DPS stance. The quicker things die, the easier a time you’ll have. In most cases you’ll probably want to concentrate on one enemy at a time — pull from a distance whenever possible.
When fighting bosses, the priority is on doing mechanics rather than DPSing as hard as possible. Summoners, get Titan-Egi to tank for you. Tanks, use your tank stance.
Drink potions whenever you can if you’re not at full health. The last thing you want is to die to a landmine or exploding chest.
Save Pomanders of Serenity for floors where Auto-Heal is disabled. Most of the other floor effects aren’t really anything to worry about, but Auto-Heal not working can really fuck you up.
Don’t use Pomanders of Safety and Pomanders of Sight on the same floor because they’re redundant. Safety removes all traps on the floor, and Sight allows you to see traps and thus avoid them. There’s no need to use both.
Pomanders of Alteration are a gamble best used before you hit 60. If they spawn Mandragora-type enemies on the next floor, that’s free EXP. If they spawn Mimics, however, you’re in for a miserable time.
When using one of the transformation Pomanders, remember that you’re not invincible. The Manticore may be able to kill everything in a single hit (assuming Knockback isn’t disabled by a floor effect) but its HP and defense are the same as yours in your regular form.
Transformations are immune to Toad traps, and Pacification/Silence doesn’t affect the transformation’s ability. Landmines are still very dangerous, however, particularly as you can’t drink a potion to heal yourself while transformed.
Save Pomanders of Resolution for the floor 100 boss. You’ll need all three during the fight.

Enemies to watch out for

Hornets, found in the 1-10 block, have Final Sting, which will do a shitload of damage if you let it go off. You can actually run away from it and avoid the damage if you get far enough away, but it’s best to try and kill the hornet before this happens.
Slimes, found in the 11-20 block, cast Rapture if you take too long killing them. This will almost certainly kill you, so kill them as quickly as you can.
Gaze attacks — marked by a very obvious glowing purple eye over the enemy model while they’re casting it — can be avoided completely by simply turning your back to the enemy. It’s particularly important to do this when dealing with Palace Cobras (petrification), Palace Deepeyes (powerful paralysis) and Palace Pots (Mysterious Light, which causes heavy damage and Blind).
Morbols will show up in the 11-20 block towards the end, complete with Bad Breath attack. Run towards them for the easiest path to avoid the large cone AoE.
Wraiths have a huge AoE attack that causes Terror. If you can stun it, do so. Otherwise, run for dear life as soon as you see the marker appear.
Palace Skatenes will cause Sleep on you shortly after they cast Chirp. This isn’t a huge issue, however, since you’ll wake up immediately upon taking a hit.

Boss tips

Floor 10: Palace Deathgaze

Pretty easy, and if you’ve fought basic Deathgaze-type enemies in the game you’ll know what to expect. It has a heavy attack called Whipcrack that will do a chunk of damage, so pop a potion after it does this. Stormwind (a large cone AoE) and Bombination (circular AoE) can both be avoided. Aerial Blast covers the whole arena and causes Windburn (damage over time for a few seconds). It will cycle through these abilities until one or the other of you are dead.

Floor 20: Spurge

The Easy Way: Level to 35 or 36, pop a Pomander of Strength and a Pomander of Lust and then just go ham on Spurge and you’ll probably kill it before it summons its first set of Hornets if your gear is up to snuff.

The Proper Way: There are two main phases to this fight, and they simply cycle around and around. In the first, Spurge will twat you for a chunk of damage with Bloody Caress, then fling two circle AoE attacks at you — one around itself and one aimed at you. During this time, keep your HP topped up and wail on Spurge as much as you can. The second phase starts when Spurge moves to the side of the arena. At this point, two Hornets will spawn, and Spurge will stay in place, occasionally shooting a large linear AoE attack called Rotten Stench. Avoid Rotten Stench while knocking the Hornets down as quickly as possible — otherwise they will use Final Sting on you — before returning to the punishment on Spurge.

Floor 30: Definitely-Not-Hydra

Pretty easy. When it hits you with Ball of Fire or Ball of Ice, immediately move to avoid the effect of the circular area the attack causes — damage over time for Ball of Fire and slowed movement for Ball of Ice. Keep hitting it while this is going on, and try not to bait any Balls of Fire or Ice into the very middle of the arena. When Definitely-Not-Hydra moves to the centre of the arena and starts casting Fear Itself, stand inside its hitbox to avoid the attack completely. Then repeat the process.

Floor 40: Ixtab

Ixtab will spew void crap over the ground every so often — move out of this to avoid damage. He will then summon two Bhoots which you should kill as quickly as possible to avoid being caught in their attacks. He also has an arena-wide attack that causes Terror, often causing you to stumble into the Bhoots’ area of effect if they’re still up. Aside from this, not a lot else to say.

Floor 50: Edda Blackbosom

Pay close attention to what Edda is doing. If she uses Cold Feet, turn away to avoid its Terror effect. If she uses In Health, you’ll either need to get well away from her or stand right on top of her — react quickly to the AoE marker, but you have plenty of time to get from one extreme to the other if the cast goes off. If you get hit by In Health, one of the letters on the floor will light up. The more of these lit up when she casts Black Honeymoon, the more damage you’ll take. Aside from this, she’s pretty straightforward. Watch out for In Sickness, which causes Disease and slowed movement; cleanse this off yourself if you can.

Floor 60: The Black Rider

A few things to watch out for here. Firstly, keep out of the large purple circles he drops on the ground at all cost — they cause Bleed, which deals heavy damage while you’re in them. Secondly, watch out for the aether sprites he summons around the outside of the arena and don’t get caught in their blasts, as these deal extreme damage. Their appearance will often coincide with his charge attack, a linear AoE marker that follows you around. While this is casting, make sure your back is to a “safe spot” away from the aether sprites to avoid being knocked into their blast radius.

Floor 70: Big Snake Thing

I can’t remember Big Snake Thing’s name, but it’s a big snake thing. The most important thing to do in this fight is move Big Snake Thing out of the watery patches it drops on the ground when it casts Douse. While it is in these areas, it gains Haste, which makes it nigh-impossible to avoid Electrogenesis when it casts. Aside from this, Big Snake Thing should cause you no real difficulty.

Floor 80: Definitely-Not-King-Behemoth

This is a daunting fight, but fairly straightforward if you know how to handle all the mechanics. Firstly, when DNKB casts Charybdis, move well away from the AoE marker because it will drop a tornado. Said tornadoes inflict a heavy damage over time debuff if you get sucked into one, and periodically they will suck in everything around them — there’ll be a very brief AoE marker to show the effective range of this when it happens, so to be safe don’t be anywhere near the tornadoes. Next, when DNKB walks away from you, follow him, because he’s about to use Trounce, a massive conal AoE attack that is much easier to avoid if you’re right next to him. Thirdly, at around 10% HP remaining, he will begin channelling Ecliptic Meteor, and unlike the other times in the game where this happens, there’s nothing to hide behind. Try and kill him before it hits, but don’t worry too much if it does — it hits for about 80% of your HP, so if you’re topped up before it happens, you’ll be safe and free to finish him off after the attack.

Floor 90: The Godmother

This is a bit like the final boss of Pharos Sirius (Hard). Attack The Godmother until a red bomb spawns, at which point you should stun its Blast ability if you can and kill it as quickly as possible while avoiding the AoE markers from the untargetable smaller bombs that spawn around it. When it’s down, return to wailing on The Godmother. When a blue-grey bomb spawns, hit it with an instant ability while facing The Godmother to knock it towards her. You want the blue-grey bomb’s Hydrothermal Combustion ability to hit The Godmother and interrupt her ultimate attack. From here, simply repeat these two processes until The Godmother is down.

Floor 100: Nybeth Obdilord

Try to make sure you have three Pomanders of Resolution by the time you reach floor 100 — block 91-100 seems to throw them at you, but save them up from earlier blocks to be safe if necessary. Nybeth himself isn’t too much of a threat if you take care to avoid his AoEs, particularly the large cone-shaped Doom attack. The important mechanic in this fight is the adds that he spawns at roughly 90%, 70% and 30% of his HP remaining. As soon as they appear, pop a Pomander of Resolution and use Kuribu’s attack to firstly kill the enemies, and then use the ability again on their corpses to remove them permanently from the fight. Click off the transformation before you turn your attention back to Nybeth. Repeat two more times and you’re home free.

2479: Palace of the Dead, Solo

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One of the things that had me most interested in patch 3.45 for Final Fantasy XIV was the ranking system for the Palace of the Dead dungeon I talked about yesterday. This tallies a score for you whenever you play with a fixed party (be it solo or up to four players) and thus allows you to compare your progress against other players from around the world.

Alongside the introduction of this ranking system came a few rebalancing changes to make soloing Palace of the Dead a lot more practical than it was when it was first introduced; previously, anything above about floor 20 at a push was very difficult if you were by yourself, but now, you can theoretically go up to floor 100 and beyond if you’ve upgraded your gear enough and your skills are up to snuff.

One of the things I’ve appreciated about Palace of the Dead since its launch was the fact that since it’s largely impossible to “outgear” it — your regular gear has no meaning inside, only your Aetherpool upgrade levels, and even those are capped and synced if they’re too high for the floor you’re on and the level you are — you had to actually play properly. That means no cheesing mechanics, no standing in AoEs because you have enough HP to just soak them up, and swift punishment if you don’t know how to play your job properly and effectively, sometimes in an unconventional party lineup.

Today, I made it to floor 60 solo, initially using Arcanist to go as far as floor 50 (my Arcanist hadn’t yet reached level 30 and thus couldn’t be upgraded into Scholar or Summoner, but the experience point rewards from completing these floors were enough to get me from 23 to 30 without too much difficulty) and subsequently as Summoner.

Arcanist/Scholar/Summoner aren’t classes I’ve played much in the past, though I found Palace of the Dead’s accelerated levelling to be quite a good way to learn how they work. In particular, levelling Arcanist to 60 without Summoner’s extra Job abilities was a solid way to learn the basics of how the class worked, then upgrading to Summoner built on that foundation. I am now regretting the fact that I haven’t levelled Summoner prior to today, because goddamn, that class is fun.

The reason I picked Arcanist and Summoner to run solo is that they seemed the most naturally geared towards soloing in that they have the option of summoning a tank pet that can maintain the enemies’ attention while you cover them in festering boils and fling magic at them. The tank pet doesn’t get a lot of use in party play — largely because you normally have an actual human-controlled tank there that can perform the role better than an AI routine — but in Palace of the Dead, Topaz Carbuncle (Arcanist) and Titan-Egi (Summoner) have both proven invaluable, particularly when it comes to the bosses.

And speaking of the bosses, soloing floors 1-60 today has given me a new appreciation of these fights. When tackled in a party of four, they’re mostly rather easy (with the possible exception of floor 80’s boss, which has been the source of many a party wipe so far), though from floor 60 onwards they do start to have some more interesting mechanics. Solo, however, they all present a pretty formidable challenge as you have to dodge their mechanics, chug potions to keep your health topped up (assuming you’re not a healer) and somehow in the middle of all that find time to fling a few damaging abilities in their direction. I’m sure you can already see how helpful a tanking pet would be in this situation!

Thus far the secret to successful soloing seems to be having decently levelled gear — currently mine is around the +64 mark, which has seen me safely to floor 60 so far, and from this point onwards the upgrades from the silver chests are less likely to fail, too, so repeated runs will eventually push it up towards +99, which I suspect will be strongly recommended to tackle floor 80 and onwards.

According to the leaderboards on The Lodestone, no-one on Primal data centre has made it to floor 100 solo yet. I have little doubt that will probably change by tomorrow — I think someone on Reddit from another data centre had done it already — but for now it’s fun taking aim for the top spot. And if I don’t attain that top spot, well, at least I’ll be able to say I’ve done it.

2478: All About Palace of the Dead

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For the benefit of my Twitter friend @FinalMacstorm, who is contemplating returning to Final Fantasy XIV once he’s done with Final Fantasy XV, here is everything you might want to know about Palace of the Dead, one of Final Fantasy XIV’s newest pieces of content.

What is it?

A 200-floor dungeon with randomly generated layouts. The first 100 floors are its “story mode”; the second 200 floors are intended to be very challenging 4-player content, and as such can only be attempted with a preformed party.

How is it structured?

When Palace of the Dead first launched, there were 50 floors, which you tackled in blocks of 10 at a time. Every 10th floor, there is a boss. Beat the boss and your progress is saved, allowing you to pick up from the following floor either immediately or the next time you want to challenge Palace of the Dead. On floor 50, there’s a final boss — a familiar face who has been well and truly put through the wringer since you first encountered them.

Floors 51-100 of Palace of the Dead were added today and are known as the “Hellsward” floors. They work in mostly the same way. Once you’ve cleared floor 50 once, you can start at floor 51 instead of floor 1 any time you reset your save data. Floor 100, again, has a final boss — this time it’s Nybeth Obdilord from Tactics Ogre.

Floors 101-200 of Palace of the Dead were also added today. They can only be entered if you start from floor 51 with a preformed, fixed party and clear all the way to floor 100 without any full-party wipes.

What are the bosses like?

The bosses gradually ramp up in complexity as you go deeper into the dungeon. The first boss is very simple — essentially fighting a normal Death Gaze that has a few more HP than usual. The second is a heavily simplified version of the Raskovnik fight from Sohm Al, which in turn was a simplified version of the Rafflesia fight from The Second Coil of Bahamut. The third is a slightly simplified version of the Hydra fight. Later bosses incorporate mechanics from Odin, Anchag from Amdapor Keep (Hard) and King Behemoth from Labyrinth of the Ancients. Floor 80’s boss — the aforementioned King Behemoth-inspired fight — features a pretty brutal DPS check against a slowly casting, insta-wipe ultimate ability. This is arguably the most difficult boss in the first 100 floors; Nybeth is a relative walkover by comparison, though his fight does require the DPS to be on their toes to deal with frequently spawning adds.

Is it endgame content?

While the main rewards for Palace of the Dead are level 60 weapons — item level 235 weapons that can subsequently be upgraded to item level 255 — you can actually start it as soon as level 17. It’s best to wait at least until you’ve reached level 50 and have cleared the sidequest dungeon Tam-Tara Deepcroft (Hard), though, because Palace of the Dead’s storyline follows directly on from that dungeon’s narrative.

How does it work?

Your level inside Palace of the Dead is different to your level outside. Upon entering for the first time, you’re reset to level 1, but the experience required to level up within Palace of the Dead is considerably less than in the main game. You can reach the level cap of 60 by about floor 40 if you’re reasonably diligent about killing enemies on the lower floors. Each block of floors takes about 20-30 minutes to complete depending on how quick you are.

Your level inside Palace of the Dead can exceed your level outside Palace of the Dead, so it’s a good way to “preview” how classes play once they reach level 60. Starting at floor 51 will immediately boost you to level 60 in the class you entered on while you’re inside.

When you clear a block of 10 floors, you receive experience points for your level outside Palace of the Dead, making it quite an efficient way to level classes. If you’re already level 60, you will instead receive Allagan Tomestones of Poetics, Lore and Scripture, the endgame currencies used to purchase high-end equipment and quest items. If you’re level 50-59, you will receive Allagan Tomestones of Poetics and experience points.

What about gear?

Normal gear is irrelevant in Palace of the Dead. Instead, you have an aetherpool weapon and armour, which can be upgraded by collecting silver chests scattered throughout the dungeon. The maximum the gear can be upgraded to is +99, though on the lower floors there is a cap and level sync on upgrades to prevent you being too overpowered.

When your weapon and armour both reach +30 upgrades, you can “spend” these points to acquire an item level 235, level 60 weapon that you can use elsewhere in the game. When your weapon and armour both reach +60 upgrades, you can “spend” these points to upgrade the item level 235 weapon to an item level 255 weapon. If you allow your weapon and armour to upgrade to +90, this means you can get the i235 weapon and immediately upgrade it to i255.

Do I have to play in a party?

No. There are several ways to play. Firstly, entering with a matched party uses Duty Finder to seek out other people who are on the same block of floors as you and put you all together. Note that Palace of the Dead does not adhere to the usual party construction in the rest of the game, meaning it’s entirely possible you may have runs with no healers, no tanks or all DPS classes. Each block is clearable with such a lineup, but you will need to make use of items as well as your abilities.

Alternatively, you can play with a fixed party, which simply takes the party lineup you choose to start with — from going solo to a full light party of four — and registers that as your group on your save data. To continue progressing, you must take the same group of people with you on the same classes, though if you need to disband you can convert fixed party save data to matched party save data at any time.

If you play solo, when you wipe you’ll be presented with a score calculated as a combination of the highest floor you reached and the number of kills you got along with some other bits and pieces behind the scenes. Your high scores are recorded for each class, and you can also record a high score for a fixed party, too. Personal high scores can be reviewed in the game, while global high scores will be available on the Lodestone website from tomorrow.

What items can I use?

You can access your inventory in Palace of the Dead, so you can use any potions, elixirs and ethers that you might have collected, though note that there is a cooldown on these so you can’t just chug them repeatedly. It’s a good idea to hotbar your best potions as well as status-curing formulae.

Besides these items, golden chests inside Palace of the Dead drop single-use items called pomanders, which are collected in a shared party inventory. These have a variety of different functions. Some provide buffs for individual players, others benefit the whole party by revealing the whole map, removing traps on the current floor and others still allow party members to transform into various monsters with unique special abilities.

If you’re playing with a matched party, your pomanders are lost when you clear each block of 10 floors. If you’re playing with a fixed party, however, your pomander inventory is saved along with the rest of the data and will be waiting for you when you challenge the next block of 10 floors.

What do I get out of it?

Besides the weapons, there are hidden treasures called Accursed Hoards scattered throughout the dungeon. These can either be uncovered by chance by standing in the right place, or located using a pomander of intuition. You don’t know what Accursed Hoards are until you appraise them back in Quarrymill, at which point they will be “drawn” and revealed to be whatever they are. Common items available through Accursed Hoards include fireworks and Grade IV materia. Rarer items include Grade V materia and glamour items. Super-rare items include a hairstyle and housing decorations.

2467: Encylopaedia Eorzea

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I’m going to do a more detailed write-up on this over on MoeGamer when I’ve read and thoroughly digested everything in this massive tome, but I thought I’d give some initial thoughts here.

Encylopaedia Eorzea is here! Yes, for a long time the Final Fantasy XIV team had been suggesting that a lore book might be on the cards, and at FanFest last week, it was finally revealed. It was put up for sale at the start of this week and seemed to develop a waiting list very quickly; fortunately, I managed to get in early and snag a copy.

£34.99 gets you a formidable hard-backed book over 300 pages in length, printed on gorgeous thick, parchmenty paper and presented in full colour. The book is heavy enough that it would probably do some damage if you smacked someone with it — and you all laughed at Arcanist, Summoner and Scholar’s auto-attack!

The tome as a whole is split into eight different “books”, each dealing with a different aspect of Eorzean lore.

The first, and shortest, concerns “the basics” of the planet Hydaelyn and what makes Her tick, including geography, the relationship between Hydaelyn’s light and Zodiark’s darkness, the Twelve gods in the Eorzean pantheon, and the basics of “aetherology” — the underlying (fictional) science of how the elements interact with one another to create life, magic and other effects.

The second, and one of the longest, concerns Hydaelyn’s history, reflecting on the world’s cycle of Astral and Umbral eras, with the latter’s arrival being heralded by a Calamity of some description — each elementally themed in the case of the first six, and the seventh (used as the initial story catalyst for A Realm Reborn) covering all elements in the sheer magnitude of its disaster. This book is particularly interesting because it gives some background reading on the mysterious ancient civilisations of the Amdapori, the Mhachi and the Allagans, all of whom are explored to a certain degree in the game itself. It also provides a good primer of the storyline for Final Fantasy XIV 1.0, which is no longer playable, but which is concluded through A Realm Reborn’s cycle of raid dungeons, The Binding Coil of Bahamut, The Second Coil of Bahamut and The Final Coil of Bahamut.

The third book provides a primer on the different people of Eorzea and where they came from. It only explores the playable races of Hyur, Elezen, Lalafell, Miqo’te, Roegadyn and Au Ra — those hoping for some information about the Padjali or a hint as to whether or not we’ll ever see Viera in the game will have to keep theorycrafting.

The fourth book is the longest and concerns the geography of Eorzea, including all the zones from A Realm Reborn and Heavensward as well as short look at Ala Mhigo (subject of the upcoming expansion Stormblood) and the Garlean Empire (recurring villains).

The fifth book concerns Hydaelyn’s “servants”, and explores the various characters that you come into contact with throughout the game, right from the main “protagonists” the Scions of the Seventh Dawn to the recently introduced Warriors of Darkness. This section also includes information about groups involved in sidequests in the game, too, such as Hildibrand’s Agents of Inquiry, the organisation NOAH who spearheaded the investigation into the Crystal Tower and a section entirely devoted to more minor NPCs such as those who served as the face of the Relic quests, and poor old Edda, who has had a rough ol’ time of it both during life and in death.

The sixth book looks at Hydaelyn’s “disciplines” — in other words, the playable classes in the game. Interestingly, the book makes no mention of the base classes on which the more familiar “Jobs” are based; the focus is entirely on the higher-level incarnations of the Jobs.

The seventh book concerns Hydaelyn’s “burdens” — the various beast tribes of the realm, and the Primals associated with each of them. This section also looks a little at as-yet underexplored groups such as the gigants, as well as the eikons of the Warring Triad, which we’re halfway through the story for in the game at the time of writing.

The eighth and final book is a bestiary of monsters from around the realm, divided into the various “-kin” categories. It also incluides a look at voidsent, elementals and chimeras.

There is a lot of information in this book, and it’s presented in a clear, enjoyable to read manner. The thing I’ve found most beneficial about it is that it provides a good summary of the various storylines that have unfolded during the game since its launch; this is several years ago now, so it’s not surprising that some details may have slipped many players’ memories! The lore book acts as a good reference guide for those who may have forgotten some of the finer details.

Above all, though, Encyclopaedia Eorzea is clear evidence that the team behind Final Fantasy XIV have built more than just a game. They’ve truly built a world for people to inhabit, which has its own history leading up to today, as well as many more stories yet to tell. And if you flip through it’s pages, you’ll understand just why so many people still like to call Eorzea home.

2464: The Palace of the Dead (Savage)

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Final Fantasy XIV’s patch 3.45 is coming in early November, and bringing with it an additional 150 floors to the game’s current Deep Dungeon, The Palace of the Dead. I am excited.

Palace of the Dead is a great piece of content that I’m pleased has remained popular since its launch. It flips most of the conventions of MMOs on their head and provides something different for people to do, with meaningful rewards and a decent shot of experience points for those levelling alt classes.

Palace of the Dead, in case you’re unfamiliar, is a 50-floor dungeon that you tackle in blocks of 10 floors at a time, with a boss on each 10th floor. Each floor consists of a number of rooms arranged in a randomised layout, with an exit portal in one room and a resurrection gizmo in another for if things happen to go south and you don’t have a healer. Both of these things are inactive at the start of a floor, so you have to kill enough enemies to turn them on before they can be used.

Some rooms have treasure chests and occasionally monsters drop them too. These come in three different varieties: bronze chests hold consumable items such as Phoenix Downs to resurrect fallen comrades and potions to heal HP; silver chests have a chance to upgrade either your weapon or armour (with the chance getting smaller as they get more powerful) up to a maximum of +30; gold chests reward you with “Pomanders”, which are items that have immediate beneficial effects such as increasing your damage, turning all enemies in the nearby vicinity into chickens or frogs, temporarily transforming you into a manticore or removing all the hidden traps on the current floor.

In the last major patch, the Accursed Hoard was also added to Palace of the Dead; these are hidden treasures that have a chance of spawning on each floor. Standing on a spot where a Hoard is hidden reveals it, and if you successfully clear the block of 10 floors, you get one sack per Hoard you found, each of which contains a randomly drawn item from what seems like quite a large selection, ranging from the useless (fireworks) to the very useful (grade V materia) via formerly expensive glamour items.

The thing I like about Palace of the Dead is it takes almost everything the rest of Final Fantasy XIV established in terms of gameplay and throws it out of the window. Item level doesn’t matter, stats don’t matter and even conventional party composition (one tank, one healer, two damage-dealers) doesn’t matter. There’s some variation in individual performance according to the upgrade level of your aetherpool gear (which you can only use in Palace of the Dead until it reaches its fully upgraded level of +30, at which point it can be exchanged for a level 60, item level 235 weapon that you can use in the rest of the game) and your character level in Palace of the Dead (which is different to your character level in the rest of the game; you level up at a considerably accelerated rate in the dungeon, but have to reset to 1 every time you restart from floor 1) but otherwise, how well you do in there is entirely down to how well you know how to play your class.

It’s interesting to see people realising this for the first time. You can’t just ignore mechanics in Palace of the Dead because it’s literally impossible to outgear it. You can’t stand in area-effect attacks and soak the damage because, again, you can’t outgear it. And you can’t pull 30 enemies at once and hope to survive because, you guessed it, you can’t outgear them. It’s all about careful use of your abilities, consumable items and the Pomanders; you have to be constantly aware of the situation of both yourself and your party members, as an unfortunate mistake could lead to a wipe — and if you wipe in Palace of the Dead, you fail that set of floors immediately and have to start again from the last “checkpoint” you reached. (This is particularly heartbreaking if you reach the final boss on floor 50 with 5 Accursed Hoards in your pocket and then wipe because you forgot to pay attention to mechanics.)

The reason I’m looking forward to Patch 3.45 is that it promises not just more of Palace of the Dead, but that its last 100 floors in particular will be very difficult. And not “very difficult” in the sense that the current Savage raids are very difficult — i.e. they get quite a bit easier if you take the time to buff up your gear level — straight up difficult in that you’ll have to pay attention, dodge shit and play your class effectively, perhaps in an unconventional party formation.

I’m interested to see quite how they’re going to make it difficult. People have been clamouring for difficult (“Savage”) four-player content for quite some time now, and Yoshi-P and the team specifically said during the last Live Letter that the lower 100 floors of Palace of the Dead were designed to be just that. What I find particularly interesting is that this is (hopefully) super-difficult content that you don’t need to have spent ages preparing to be ready for, because your gear level when you go in doesn’t matter; everyone in the entire game, assuming they have Palace of the Dead unlocked (which they can do as early as level 17 rather than having to reach the current cap of 60), has the potential to be a “world first” clear, which is something that has never happened before. Previous “world firsts” in the game were by raiders who were at the absolute top of their game with the best possible gear available, so in most cases it was fairly predictable who the acclaim would go to. With this, however, the title is anyone’s.

I’m also intrigued by the proposed ranking system and how it works, since that hasn’t been explained in much detail before. We know that there will be rankings for both individuals and parties, and that rankings are stratified by class/job, but we don’t know exactly what causes you to score the “points” that determine your place on the rankings. Progress through the floors is a given — the mockup leaderboards we saw during the Live Letter displayed both the floor the characters had got to and their score — but what else will contribute to it? Clear time? Damage done? Kills? Accursed Hoard finds? Treasure chests looted? All of the above?

If they handle this properly, Palace of the Dead has the potential to become an enormously compelling metagame in its own right within the wider context of Final Fantasy XIV, not to mention a great way to learn and level alt classes that you perhaps haven’t used much before. I’m very much looking forward to challenging the lower floors of this Deep Dungeon, and hope that it provides a suitable alternative to raiding for those who seek a challenge but perhaps don’t have a group, have difficulty getting everyone together at the same time, or simply aren’t geared enough.

I guess we’ll see soon enough! (Also, I really want to see what happens when you sit on that bench…)

2445: The Best Music of Final Fantasy XIV

Since I appear to be on a Final Fantasy XIV roll at the moment thanks to the excellent new patch, I thought I’d devote today to some of my favourite tunes from the game as a whole.

I respond very strongly to music that I enjoy — so much so that any time I think about hanging up my Eorzean adventurer’s shoes for good, it’s pretty much always the music that gets me coming back time after time. Or, if it’s not the only reason, then it’s certainly a leading reason as to why I keep coming back.

So let’s look at some great tracks from the game.

“Patch 3.4 boss theme”

I don’t know if anyone knows the actual name for this theme yet, but it’s an excellent one. It seemingly became tradition with A Realm Reborn that the last couple of patches in a cycle would use different boss music from the ones we had been enjoying previously, and Heavensward is continuing — or, perhaps more accurately, confirming — this tradition.

This boss theme mixes two important themes from the game as a whole: Heroes, which we’ll come to in a moment, and Penitus, which we’ll also come to in a moment. To put it another way, it mashes together one of the most recognisable musical motifs from Heavensward with one of the most recognisable musical motifs from A Realm Reborn to produce a track that very much feels like a “reward” for people who have at least been playing since 2.0.

Heroes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cZHfOs2XOc

This theme, played during vanilla Heavensward’s final boss fight against King Thordan and Knights of the Round, brought the already exciting story of FFXIV’s first expansion to a climactic head. While the fight was a bit easy even when it first launched, people still enjoy running it today just to enjoy this music and the spectacular graphical effects throughout the battle.

Penitus

I was already thoroughly wrapped around this game’s little finger by the time I got to level 50 and was faced with the two 8-player story dungeons that wrap up vanilla A Realm Reborn’s storyline, but getting into Praetorium and hearing this wonderful piece of music — snatches of which had been heard in a variety of different styles right the way through from level 1 all the way to 50 — got me absolutely hyped to see the story through to the end.

Ultima

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZZDnlAg3Pk

And then the game goes and throws this incredible track on you for the Absolutely Definitely Last Boss, Yessirree (Not). I’ll let this one speak for itself.

Thunderer

Ultima is followed by this little wonder featuring one of the best key changes ever. Sadly the first time you hear it, it doesn’t last anywhere near long enough because everyone absolutely obliterates the Real Final Boss, Definitely Totally For Real This Time in a matter of seconds these days.

Thankfully, Square Enix clearly knew they were on to a good thing with Thunderer, as it was reused in a couple of places — most notably in the Chrysalis trial which was added in one of the content patches, and, for many people, its most iconic appearance in Turn 5 of the Binding Coil of Bahamut, in which you fought the dread dragon Twintania, and which in the game’s vanilla release acted as the “true” final boss. (Of course, this later all changed with Second and Final Coil, but still.)

Footsteps in the Snow

Shiva was one of my favourite Trials to be added to the game almost entirely because of this excellent piece of music that opened the fight and ran until the phase change. This music was first heard in the trailer for patch 2.4, Dreams of Ice, and got everyone well and truly hyped.

From the Ashes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mM-nHCieSI

Raid dungeon The Final Coil of Bahamut was, for many players, a highlight of the game due to its fascinating story — which, unlike the narrative of A Realm Reborn itself, which span off in a different direction, followed up on how Final Fantasy XIV 1.0 ended. Turn 12, the penultimate turn, is often cited as a particular favourite by many players simply due to this unique music, which was a highly dramatic, spine-tingling take on A Realm Reborn’s main theme song Answers. The whole of The Binding Coil of Bahamut had featured music based on Answers, and this track felt like it was bringing everything to a dramatic conclusion.

Answers

And, having mentioned Turn 12, it would be remiss of me not to mention the way Answers was used in Turn 13, the absolutely definitely positively totally final boss of the game, or at least of the raids. I present it here in context, including battle sound effects, to show how it is used in the fight itself. The incredible crescendo during Teraflare is made of goosebumps.

I’m yet to do the new Alexander raid — my item level isn’t quite high enough yet — but I understand the grand finale is suitably spectacular. T13 is going to take some topping, though.