The content decisions in Final Fantasy XIV‘s latest patch are… odd, in a way. I don’t mean that they’re hard to understand by any means, but I find they have an interesting dichotomy insofar as the patch is centered around not having new content for the relic weapon and offering an entirely new map for what is basically the same kind of Cosmic Exploration content. You might expect the two to be the other way around, at least based on usual priorities, but here we are.

However odd the content distribution may be, it is what we’re dealing with, and that means considering the patch as it exists rather than as I might expect it to exist otherwise. And hey, it also means we now know what the relic content actually looks like in lieu of anything new to do for the next step. So how does it measure up and what do I think of this patch in total?

Roulette the day you started

In some ways, I think this particular relic step is simultaneously an improvement on the prior drop farming and potentially the lowest-effort step possible. It’s just doing roulettes. It’s literally just doing roulettes, and what I find particularly ironic is the number of people who are happy about this step despite it being different from farming tomestones only by virtue of being slower. Although to be fair, that’s just the second new step; the first is actually rather novel.

I’m not fond of the first step requiring a chunk of gemstones to buy an item from the FATE vendor, but that’s honestly a minor quibble and not a huge problem. The addition of crafted materials is frankly great. They’re not difficult crafts to make and odds are good you can either do it yourself or you have friends who can craft it, but it requires engagement with the crafting mechanics and it feels like an extra gumball for people who just do that as part of the overall experience.

Collecting aether, though… on the one hand, it’s just running roulettes on the regular. On the other hand, it’s also very specifically designed to require you going out of your way to run less-common roulettes and fill out that population, which is a good thing. I feel like some of the numbers are a touch undertuned, but that’s also pretty minor and not a big deal. Unlike the randomness of the first step, this one is fully in your control. If you stick with it, you will get the wells filled up.

And while it’s a bit of a grind, it’s only for the first time around. I do honestly feel like this is a solid enough compromise. One of the bigger problems that relics have always had is that getting multiples can be an unnecessarily convoluted process, but this keeps the sense of progression and a larger commitment while also making subsequent steps a simple tome sink. It’s a reasonably substantial investment, too, since you need prior steps of the weapon to upgrade, but not such an investment of time or effort that getting more than one or two feels foolish.

Ultimately, it’s better than atma grinding and it’s a decent compromise solution, even if the roulettes in question feel somewhat arbitrary. I think a compromise solution is always kind of the nature of relics that don’t exclusively tie into new content, to boot. While I may not see this as an inherent improvement on the relic process as a whole, it’s a solid step and inoffensive in its design, so ultimately I’m pleased with it. And hey, it’s a chance to see some content a lot of us haven’t had reason to go back to for a while now.

I do wonder how we’re going to flesh things out further for 7.4 patches considering that the next section of Occult Crescent isn’t coming out then, but we are getting a new set of phantom jobs. Makes me wonder if, as mentioned, the Variant Dungeons are going to tie in somehow, although right now it’s all unalloyed speculation.

It’s a whole new world that’s very familiar

You may recall that I did an entire column about why Cosmic Exploration hasn’t really connected, and I have to say that while Phaenna feels like a step forward, it still doesn’t feel particularly engaging. It’s still plagued by the same basic problems. We’re given an expansive area we don’t actually have reasons to interact with on a whole, and the story even outright says that the bunnies are doing this because they’re basically immortal and have to do something with their time.

That’s not to say that Phaenna is the same thing all over again. It has new crafts and new objectives. The problem is that the mechanics do not, broadly, feel any different from how they were before. It’s Ishgardian Restoration without the sense of rebuilding a place that we are actually invested in, and while the planet definitely looks different than the moon, it still winds up looking similar enough that it’s hard for players to glance at it and say, “Ah, this feels profoundly different.”

Now, some of this is just how this kind of content works, but I remember how well the Diadem felt like a unique bit of content for gatherers and the fact that we have nothing similar in these new zones is kind of sad. Basically, these zones feel like they exist primarily to be places to level up your crafting or gathering tools, and the process is kinda arbitrary in that regard. While some usability improvements here are nice, none of them really disrupts the core of the formula, and I still find myself struggling to care.

The result is still a big map that feels largely empty and quests and events that don’t really grab you by the throat, and that’s weird when we now have two maps for this content when the first one feels barely used. Heck, that’s also a trick that Ishgardian Restoration got; it felt much more interesting to have a core area being built up and then an ancillary area as things slowly expanded.

It’s still kinda disappointing, to be frank. I think this is a reasonable experiment, but it just isn’t landing terribly well, and it ultimately feels more like crafting and gathering busywork than something unique and fun. That’s not to say that I’d rather have another zone of grinding FATEs for relic upgrades while we’re stuck on the moon; I think this one was a solid idea that just still hasn’t really stuck the landing. Pity, but that happens at times.

Or, to put it more cleanly, I would rather have more island adventures than this.

Feedback, as always, is welcome in the comments down below or via mail to [email protected]/topic/y. Next week, I want to actually talk about relic weapons as a concept and look at something the older Final Fantasy MMORPG has done with its relic equivalents… while also explaining why that wouldn’t necessarily work with this game even as I’d love to see it.

The Nymian civilization hosted an immense amount of knowledge and learning, but so much of it has been lost to the people of Eorzea. That doesn’t stop Eliot Lefebvre from scrutinizing Final Fantasy XIV each week in Wisdom of Nym, hosting guides, discussion, and opinions without so much as a trace of rancor.