Final Fantasy XIV 6.4 Impressions and Fan Fest Thoughts

Endwalker 6.0 was an experience that really, profoundly hit for me. Sure, as time has wound on from the initial shock of it in December 2021, there are elements of it that have aged poorly, but overall, I still really cherish that experience, the story it told, and how everything tied up neatly there.

So it has pained me, slightly, to see how Endwalker’s patch cycle has developed.

Dramatic lead-in sentence aside, I want to say that nothing about the Endwalker patch cycle has been truly awful or bad. It’s still quite good, the game is still quite fun, and the story still often has hits and good moments that pull you into it. However, I think as 6.4 has rolled out and we’ve gotten to see the path it has taken across 80% of the story of the patch cycle, well…I am underwhelmed.

Let’s talk through it.

The Gameplay Is Great Mostly

Endwalker has kept a core element of FFXIV alive, in that the puzzle-based mechanics of a lot of the PvE content are quite strong and differentiated sufficiently from other competitors in the MMO space. Job balance is relatively good, and encounter balance against the job design is also pretty good, slight tuning errors last tier notwithstanding.

The biggest issue, as I see it, is straightforward – too much of the content this time around is single-play, do it once and you’re done, or at best, do it for the reward you want and done type of content. There’s not really a lot here that sticks around or is worth delving that much deeper into, and while that’s fine to a point (certainly I think a strength of FFXIV is that it doesn’t create nearly-limitless content loops to keep you playing and paying), I also think it makes the time between patches feel longer than it actually is.

Secondly, I think the community has some broad complaints about the two-minute meta that I find compelling. Personally, I can’t speak to prior state much, as I only started serious, optimized endgame play in Endwalker, but there is definitely something that feels weird with how synced-up jobs are in endgame, high-end content. It creates a couple of issues – firstly, that a single player missing or delaying a two-minute window can be unduly punishing, and secondly, that encounter design around this has often taken the shape of deliberately drifting your two-minute burst windows through forced downtime or high-movement phases to keep you on your toes. It’s not a bad design element done once or twice, but almost every raid encounter on Savage this expansion has used even-minute mechanical overlap to punish improper burst or to force you to sit on cooldowns until a mechanic resolves and you can reopen. It has become predictable to a high degree and that makes it feel worse than it is.

But still, I think overall, Endwalker is strong on the merits that have made FFXIV strong in the first place. It’s use of puzzle mechanics is something the community overall seems to enjoy, and Endwalker Savage raiding has been defined by a lot of fascinating and difficult puzzle mechanics like Act II, High Concept, Levinstrike Summoning, and more. Likewise, the hard DPS checks for much of the expansion have made playing high-end raid content satisfying for the amount of optimization that requires, while having normal mode content that satisfies the majority of the playerbase. Likewise, gathering and crafting have had a good amount of updates, albeit not quite as thorough as the Firmament in Shadowbringers, and the world content remains stocked with tasks like Tribal Quests and Hunts. Add the return of Hildibrand and the additional side-story quests like Beyond the Rift and Tataru’s Grand Endeavor, and the game is in decent shape!

Patch 6.4 so far follows that formula – there’s a patch and raid storyline, side content like more Tataru stuff, and the promise of more to come in the halfway-patch with Hildibrand and another relic step in the Manderville Weapons. In terms of gameplay areas, we get the 4 new raid encounters and our standard one patch dungeon, alongside the modest revamps needed to bring Stormblood’s base dungeons up to use Duty Support.

Endwalker continues to feel a little content bare because of the decisions made in earlier expansions to pare down and then remove non-MSQ Expert dungeons alongside the revamps to existing dungeons. One of these is an issue I think the team should look to revert (at least go to the Stormblood patch cadence of 2 dungeons/1 dungeon alternating), and the other is something I think is good since it will end soon anyways and will help the game with new player acquisition (getting players into the game, even if it means they can solo through most things in it, is Good Actually).

I think the only genuine disappointment I have on gameplay content is the lack of more of it – I wish there were a few more Endwalker expert dungeons, I wish the level 90 roulette was more full, I wish the storyline questing didn’t feel so one and done – but it’s pretty good overall.

Content Rewards and Chases Are Hurting A Bit

One of the things about the content structure of FFXIV that has been iffy in Endwalker is rewards. Most content is built in Endwalker to be done once, or to be done until the reward cycle is exhausted and then never looked at again. Tribal quests are great – but eventually you get the end-of-chain story conclusion and move on. Variant/Criterion dungeons are great fun – but you run out of routes and finish the Savage mode eventually, getting all your rewards and having no incentive to run it short of just playing it for the sake of it. There’s no field exploration zone like Bozja, but there is a deep dungeon.

FFXIV’s core rewards philosophy has not changed much, if at all, over the game’s nearly 10 year run, and that is a blessing and a curse in Endwalker with longer content cycles. For more casual players or those trying to gear and play every job to their best ability, there’s a long-tail in the chase, but for most players, you have a minimal set of weekly tasks you want to ensure you cross off, 8 weeks of full clearing the current Savage raid is enough to gear out completely (near completely if your tomestone gear burden is high), and the game is okay with you kind of just fucking off at that point. And, coming from WoW, that’s actually a kind of nice option – but coupled with the elongated patch cycle of Endwalker and the reduction in new stuff to do per patch compared to past expansions, it can kind of feel bad. I love the world of FFXIV, the characters in it, and the stories told in the space – but Endwalker has just had less of them and the ones we have gotten are shorter.

To be clear, this is a personal preference – if you’re happy with the amount of content coming, that’s great! I think, objectively, there is less than we’ve gotten in the past, not even distant past but like Shadowbringers as the past, and while a chunk of that is for understandable reasons that are good, some of it is a decision and the game doesn’t feel as full of life for that decision, to me. A big part of it has also been that content that used to be more fleshed out independent of the MSQ, like the trial series, is now integrated in Endwalker with the MSQ, which allows the MSQ slightly more development at the cost of, well, the entire side story that would come with a trial series. Which is as good a prompt as any to switch to the real meat of my concerns with Endwalker’s patch cycle…

The Story Is Good, But…

I can (and probably will) write a whole piece on the topic I am about to introduce, but let’s do a short version now. FFXIV’s crossover with other franchises, including other FF titles, is at its best when the story is an excellent FFXIV-centered story that happens to weave in these elements of the other title or franchise. Crystal Tower was a home run because the story is so FFXIV it became the only required Alliance Raid series, but it started as an homage to FFIII. It’s got the presence of those FFIII elements, but if you never played it, there’s a lot you can still enjoy and the story fits FFXIV and feels like a native element of the story of XIV. At its worst, the crossover stories can be forgettable, flimsy constructs that barely deign to make an effort to integrate into FFXIV before barging into the crossover stuff – NieR raids, sorry, I’m looking at you.

Endwalker’s patch cycle story has been a retelling of Final Fantasy IV, and that’s fine enough. My concern is that a lot of the story development of the FFIV native elements just…isn’t there. Golbez is getting breadcrumbs, and there’s clearly going to be some difference between XIV and IV versions of the character, but XIV is, still, leaning on people sort of already knowing his specific characterization from IV and hoping that’s enough to spice up the trail of crumbs we’re left. If you’re familiar with FFIV’s story, this is a tantalizing bit that leaves a lot of options on the table for next patch and makes you question his current presentation, but if not, he’s just kind of a villain. Like, he’s fine, but FFXIV has had some exceptional and relatable villains in recent memory, and Golbez just does not reach that echelon in this state.

Like, I haven’t played FFIV, but I know the overall story beats, and it’s interesting to try and connect the dots, but the game isn’t doing that, at least not yet. But now there’s one patch to go, and so this has shifted for me from being a curiosity to a concern. Either Golbez’ XIV version ends up being deeply characterized through a last-patch sprint of storytelling, or he goes mostly under-written, feeling a bit devoid of character and backstory. The same goes for the Four Archfiends – they get such small slivers of story that it is difficult to have much to think about them, even though that’s also inconsistent (Barbariccia’s backstory told to us by the voidsent is neat, and I wish the others got more of that detail).

And now, four patches in, we can get to the meat of my worry with this story – it’s not a well-integrated plot that feels like XIV. It feels like the story of FFIV has intruded into FFXIV, and the elements from IV originally feel inserted and foreign, lacking in detail, motivation, or much interest, with only a major and minor patch to wrap their story, and it has cost us the addition of a side-story trial series to get even that faint sample of story. The XIV-native elements are quite good – I like Zero as a character, and her naming and actions have kept the FFIV copy and paste feeling interesting (until 6.4 undermined the obvious play based on her name), I like the way that Vrtra and Azdaja have melded into the story and served as the main source of forward momentum, and while the Scion stuff has been a little mid for me, it still hits the notes and has a lot of interesting leads for where we go past this point, with a lot of options on the table.

Overall, I wouldn’t even say the story is bad – FFIV has a highly praised story and the XIV-original elements are quite well done. It’s just that they don’t fuse together very well – it feels like I’m getting a XIV-made narrative about gates between worlds and then Final Fantasy IV comes in to interrupt, never explaining its whole thing but expecting me to know still. Where fusion is attempted between the two, it feels like a sloppy welding job – obvious seams, unfinished edges, just overall not particularly well-combined. I just think that an opportunity was missed, and we now have such a small amount of time and content to cover the remainder of the expansion. It just feels like an anime filler arc – nothing feels that consequential and it feels like in 7.x, we’re not even going to so much as hear Golbez’ name or allusions to this story – it happened, it’ll be done, moving on. Endwalker patch cycle is the DBZ Warriors of the Dead arc – and I only slightly intend that as an insult.

The thing about XIV’s storytelling is that it still anchors the story well enough that people not even aware of how many elements are borrowed from FFIV will see it as a mostly-complete story, but I also think that right now, it gets a slight pass because it’s not finalized yet. Obviously, this a topic to revisit after 6.5 and especially 6.55, when everything should be on the table and we can discuss fully on the merits of what XIV presents. But given that small amount of story between now and then, I am genuinely concerned that what started as one of the best RPG narratives I’ve ever played has turned into something of a plodding nostalgia show, taking too long to get here, with so much still on the table. And hey, maybe that’s the point too – maybe it deviates from FFIV, maybe Golbez isn’t a good guy actually, but then he just feels like a thinly-written villain who leans too hard into tropes, and if we do take the FFIV route, then it’s derivative and also needs to be explained incredibly fast. That kind of actually fits the way his façade slides away in FFIV, perhaps intentionally, but I still feel concerns that it won’t stick the landing.

My other concern at this point is how poorly this story has integrated the existing lore of the Thirteenth that is native to XIV. We have Cylva and Unukalhai sitting in the First, we’ve sussed out the nature of travel between shards (it would seem), and there is still a patch for us to move to bring them in. However, the game is also extremely hesitant to use optional content as main story content without making it required for all players, and the real challenge with the full depth of these two characters is that you have to complete a trial series, every role quest in Shadowbringers, and the capstone quest for those role quests just to even see that these two unite on the First and are contemplating how to “fix” the Thirteenth. I think that presents a real conflict for the finale of this story coming up – either they force the integration without requiring the content be done, and a huge swath of players are left in the dark about all of the origins of that story, or it all becomes required, and then you make players who haven’t done all of that stuff do, well, all of it, which means leveling every role to 80 and completing a (now-easily soloable) trial series from Heavensward. Both solutions have problems, and there is also the chance they simply leave them out of it – which then shortchanges their characters and the genuinely interesting bond between them. At least they have something to say if you go and visit them as the Thirteenth narrative begins, but it’s rather thin for what it should be.

For 6.4 as a standalone narrative? It’s fine. I enjoyed it overall, and the tension of Garlemald coupled with the light humor of the opening stretch served as interesting bookends, but I found the stuff with the Thirteenth a little light and underdeveloped for the reasons I listed above. Additionally, the introduction of Zeromus has felt a bit anticlimactic, as we don’t have (at present, at least) the intermediary steps that led there in FFIV, so it just kind of happens and now Zeromus is a threat. This worries me that a big chunk of 6.5 is going to be exposition-dumping about the nature of Zeromus and the real nature of Golbez, rather than actual forward motion through the story.

On the other stories front? I think they did great. Pandaemonium has a great ending and the way it tells the rest of that story while tying in the Heart of Sabik (at last properly explained!) is good, plus it leaves a fairly obvious trail open to some potential expansion stuff. It also neatly ties a bow on the remaining bits of the Ancients lore, giving us the development of Lahabrea and Elidibus we’ve been hungry for since the raid series started and invoked both of them right at the start. I’ve heard good things about Tataru’s Grand Endeavor (I need to catch up on them!), and the overall presentation of a lot of elements of the stories this patch are handled well. I just find myself wanting a better-integrated presentation of FFIV story elements instead of the sort of intrusion that is happening now.

Looking Ahead to 6.5 and Fan Fest

So next month marks the first of the 3-event Fan Fest cycle for 2023-2024, intended to unveil and bridge us into the 7.0 expansion of Final Fantasy XIV. I’m even going to be at the first stop in North America next month, which is something I am very excited for!

What can we expect? Well, if we look at the prior Fan Fest cycles outside of Endwalker, which was a unique one due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the three events each bring in their own elements. For NA Fan Fest, first on the calendar, it’s probably not going to be a lot. Normally, we’ll get our expansion logo and name, the initial trailer (cut length to exclude spoilery elements and with a Soken-mumblecore theme song instead of the finished product), and some basic gameplay notes. I wouldn’t expect a job reveal at all until EU Fan Fest, and we won’t see multiple added jobs until the JP Fan Fest happens. Likewise, while the trailer will be growing with EU Fan Fest, we probably won’t see the whole thing with the real theme song until JP Fan Fest. At most, I expect we’ll get a light job teaser in the form of a Yoshi-P keynote shirt choice in both NA and EU, teasing the job to be unveiled at the following Fan Fest event.

But, we could be in for some surprises. After all, the trial being offered for play at these events is actually a future piece of content, not an existing trial, and the team has been changing up a lot of how they handle things in the wake of COVID delays and the game’s evolving playerbase. I do still think that we’re going to get a more standard schedule of unveilings, which means the NA Fan Fest will be an initial shock of details, but also light on specifics.

My suspicion is that we have a fair few places we could go next, based on what is around the lore now. Meracydia remains my frontrunner – the dragon nation has always been this looming thing that is so interesting and we’ve been talking a lot about dragons, about Meracydia in general, and about how Azdaja even ended up in the Thirteenth (the conflict in Meracydia where the Ascians summoned untold numbers of voidsent). After the Pandaemonium story and the stuff with Erenville in 6.4, I think Dalmasca/Ivalice are actually high on the list too. P12S in particular makes the link of Athena and Ultima, the High Seraph very specifically, so we could explore the Viera, Ultima, Auracite, and the link to the Ascians there. Corvos is high on my list after the Garlemald stuff this patch, because it would make sense to see the remaining Garleans, with a fresh trade deal in-hand to receive goods from Thavnair, moving from their ruined, snowy desolation to their ancestral home – and that would also likely push along some manner of conflict. Lastly, if we end up letting the void story breathe a lot more (and establish some original roots outside of nostalgic throwbacks), then I could see the Thirteenth as an actual place being the setting for an expansion. I have my doubts there, to be honest – I don’t think it serves the direction of the story that well – but they could make it happen, I suppose.

In terms of job additions, I expect to see a new melee DPS that uses Scouting gear as a way to close up single-job gear types, and I think another caster DPS would be good as well. Corsair as the Scouting job feels like a lock to me, but caster is a lot more open both to franchise references but also to original job offerings. I think we’ll still see two new jobs because the open set of options is pretty large, the way they feel as added content is always pretty good, and the game still has some balance questions around gear types, similar to how Reaper is on Maiming gear so that gear is no longer solely for Dragoon.

Longshot gameplay hopes, I think they could aim to do some de-homogenization, mainly by moving away from the two-minute meta, at least partially. I don’t hate it or anything, but I do find myself agreeing more that it does limit how unique jobs can feel and also finding that I dislike how the encounter design always hits it by just doing a mechanic flurry or forced downtime at even-minutes in the fight.

Overall

I’m still really quite fond of FFXIV, and Endwalker overall has been a strong expansion. I do think that the patch cycle has deviated a bit far afield of the game’s strengths in content and narrative, and these are things that I hope can be remedied in 7.x. Only time will tell, but Fan Fest will be our first window into how seriously the team is looking at that kind of feedback and acting on it.