Category: Final Fantasy XIV Columns

There’s a lot of content in Final Fantasy XIV I’ll never see. Of course, everything’s on YouTube, but stuff that my character will actually reach is another matter. That comes from someone who has seen far more than many others — I’ve been in and out of savage and extreme primals for a good few patches now, and that’s content most of the playerbase has never touched.

FFXIV’s annual 14-hour anniversary stream was last week, and with it came a deluge of information about the game’s past, present and future. We learned that the team is considering adding Blitzball or Snowboarding to the Gold Saucer. Yoshida, enjoying a glass of wine, seemed to agree to re-enable the Yo-Kai Watch event on a whim. And it was confirmed that Patch 4.1 — titled ‘The Legend Returns’ — is scheduled to come out early October. (Beware: Minor spoilers ahead.)

FFXIV turned four last week — and that means The Rising, the annual celebration of Eorzea’s rebirth, returns for another year. This time, you’ll be rescuing the Wandering Minstrel, producer Naoki Yoshida’s in-game alter ego, who went missing after a bug-hunting expedition.

It’s been about ten weeks since Stormblood came out — and man, maybe it’s just me, but it feels like years since Heavensward was current. I had to go to Ishgard for something a few days ago and my girlfriend, who was playing in the same room as me, said: “Where ARE you?”

A new season of ranked PVP launched earlier this month in FFXIV. I’ve only touched upon PVP pretty briefly since Stormblood came out, mostly to say that it has drastically improved, so I thought now would be a good time to actually sit down and look at it properly.

It’s summer in Eorzea, and that can only mean one thing: the Moonfire Faire is back for another year. The event has always had a special place in my heart because it was active when I started playing the game, and, as a British person, summer is a season I see very little of.

One thing that’s really hit home with FFXIV raiding is how much of a pain the loot system for Savage raids is. Previously I wasn’t in charge of organizing events — I was just lucky enough to be taken along by my FC — but now I’m scheduling things myself, the main problem I’m coming up against is trying to make sure everybody gets a fair shot at loot.

The first raid of Stormblood is here! Omega went live a couple of weeks ago, and this Tuesday marked the opening of Savage mode, where both the loot and difficulty are cranked up beyond anything else in the game. I’ve played normal to death and I’m on the second Savage encounter, so I thought I’d put down some of my thoughts. Beware: spoilers ahead.

Shortly after the launch of Stormblood, it became apparent that Dragoon was in a terrible position, both in terms of its DPS potential and its fun factor. The changes made to the Job did indeed streamline Dragoon, but it’s damage dropped, intentionally in part because Square Enix appears to be positioning the Job as a “support” DPS (a’la Bard),but also due to some frustrating changes to the Job’s mechanics.

Anybody who plays Final Fantasy XIV knows that the easiest way to get stuff done that Duty Finder can’t handle is to find a static — a term unique to FFXIV and its predecessor, XI, that’s basically just a fancy term for a set raid group.