In a few days we are going to get a new feature in Final Fantasy XIV – Island Sanctuaries. These are “Instanced Housing” in the form of a large island for every player. Here’s the FFXIV official page and here’s an article with some details.
How disappointing. I had assumed that they would be available at, oh say, 30 or 50. So I could take my friends who are new to the game and show them my Island Sanctuaries. Or as an alternative activity for my 2 dozen alts. But no. The Island Sanctuaries are locked behind a tall, tall ladder of level 90 and Endwalker. Current housing is locked behind scarcity and high cost in Gil and Island Sanctuaries are “End Game Content” at least now. In a couple of years it won’t seem like End Game any more.
And of course the other obvious question would be why can’t the whole account share the same Island? All the alts could work to progress the same island.
All of my Alts are 50+ and about half have completed Heavenward that’s 3.0. And my friend started more recently and of their half dozen alts they only have a couple beyond Heavensward and one at Endwalker which is 6.0. Are you seeing a theme here?
Garden Simulator Anyone?
Island Sanctuaries are Garden Simulators. So if you want a Garden Simulator or to build a settlement, try another game where you can do that from the beginning I guess. I’ll bet many of these games from Steam allow you to start gardening right away. Or you might build a whole city in City Skylines.
Let’s Dumb Down the Dungeons
And do I hear that the Steps of Faith is going to be a solo duty? How epic! [sarcasam intended]. But I guess the “warrior of light” can take down a two story tall Vishap solo with no problems. But it’s just not going to be as fun as it was with 7 other folks. My preference would have been to make it a 24 or 30 player event rather than a solo one.
Guild Wars 2 Takes Another Approach
In Guild Wars 2, yesterday I did the Dragon’s Stand event with 50 or 60 other folks that was originally released in 2015. They didn’t make that epic event a solo duty and despite the fact that there were no Flying Mounts in the game in 2015, the event was still fun and relevant for players today most with flying mounts and some gliding like back in the day. Meta Events from all previous expansions are done several times a day. Also, every so often, the daily event roster contains “Events in Dragon’s Stand” or another map containing a “Meta” event as an alternative, which leads many players to the older maps to take part in the previous content.
FFXIV Glamour Dresser Changes
FFXIV Path 6.2 will increase the size of the glamour dresser. Sure, we could have more glamour dresser slots for each alt separately or we could just make the dresser hold all the glamour in the game, for the whole account – all the alts could get any glamour seen by any alt. That would be another way to go. It’s not a new idea. That’s the way things work in World of Warcraft and Guild Wars 2.
FFXIV New Jobs
New jobs appear just a rung or two below the End Game. Why is this a thing? With Heavensward [ 3.0] new jobs [Dark Knight, Machinist, Astrologian ] required a job at level 50 and the jobs started at level 30. With Stormblood, new jobs started at level 50 and required a job at level 50. And why do Alts have to climb that ladder to unlock those jobs too? If a job is going to start at 50 then I understand why the character needs another job at that level. But all the jobs work fine at lower levels. So an alt might start a Samurai at level 30 if the “Main” character on the account has already unlocked that job. It could work that way. So for the next expansion the new jobs will unlock at level 90? or 80? And any alt on the account has to climb that whole ladder to unlock that job?
The Tall, Tall Ladder
How soon before the FFXIV developers see that the ladder is just too high to put all the new content at the top and that it’s not a service to new players to dumb down all the rungs along the way? I would hope that Final Fantasy XIV would find new ways to make previous [ I’m not saying old here] content relevant for all players rather than putting all relevant content at the end of a long long climb?
Dumbing Down Content
I was completely bored with running only level 50 four man dungeons for moogle tomes for moogle treasure events? I didn’t even bother. Praetorium and Castrum are the primary way to get the tomes for these events. Each nice reward required running the Praetorium dungeon 7 times. For each Alt.
The Praetorium and Castrum Dungeons were changed from 8 player to 4 player dungeons. These are the primary way to get Gear Currency and Tomes for special events. Despite the un-skippable cut scenes, the eight player was more fun that these four player replacements. And they could have been 24 or 30 player just as easily. Why was that not a thing?
Yep. More than one subject here. But they all seem related somehow. I hope that Final Fantasy XIV sees a more interesting way forward. One that is more player friendly, Alt friendly and is more respectful of player’s time.
:ww
Windy Weather 