An Evening with Square Enix – FFXIV Patch 7.3 and 7.31!
It’s been a month since patch 7.3 for Final Fantasy XIV dropped and gave us more main scenario story and a new alliance raid – San d’Oria: The Second Walk, as part of the tribute raid series paying homage to Final Fantasy XI, the previous MMO in the franchise. Now most recently, patch 7.31 released as well, giving us some updates to old content as well as additions to new content to tie us over until the next big content drop. I was lucky enough to be invited for a sit down with Jamie Nightingale, Senior PR Manager at Square Enix Europe to play some of the new patch content!
Below content will contain spoilers for Dawntrail Alliance raid series and other side content
Patch 7.3
Patch 7.3 added new Main Scenario quests to complete the post Dawntrail story and start pushing the story towards a new direction, sowing the seeds as it were, for the next expansion. This patch also features a new Alliance Raid and a new treasure map dungeon to explore!
While I won’t touch on the Main Scenario Quests just in case of spoilers – I know it’s been over a month since the patch released, but many players have yet to experience it – I will point out that it’s probably been my favourite bit of MSQ content since the main chunk of Dawntrail concluded at the end of 7.0, so I’m really curious to see where the story goes from here and even more where the next expansion might take us as we start bridging from post Dawntrail into the next bit of story leading up to it! If you have completed it, you’ll know exactly what I mean, if you haven’t started the patch 7.3 MSQ, then I hope you enjoy it when you do!
San d’Oria: The Second Walk
The second alliance raid in the Echoes of Vana’diel series, where more echoes are recreated using electrope and it’s up to the Warrior of Light and their compatriots to thwart Sareel Ja’s plans to take the Dawnthrone for himself!
I’ve only completed the new alliance raid a few times, but I’ve been impressed with the series thus far. I never got the chance to play through Final Fantasy XI myself as I was young, without a job and no means of paying for a subscription at the time. So getting to experience even just a little of it here in what is probably my favourite game, is somewhat of an honour. Without the success of XI we probably wouldn’t have XIV. It still has a dedicated fan base and the fact that it is being represented in XIV just goes to show the passion that the dev team still holds for its predecessor.
The raid itself is equal parts fun and interesting. The mechanics of the fights try new variations of tried and true mechanics and experiencing them all for the first time is like a badge of honour for players. There’s nothing quite like the first foray into new content and Alliance raids are special because you get to share that with 23 other players. Watching for the cues and correctly guessing a mechanic is a wonderful feeling, but failing them can be a hilarious experience, especially if others make the same mistakes!
I’m pretty invested in the story itself and am excited to see where it goes and the climax and conclusion of! And it was incredibly fun to play alongside Jamie who’s been a passionate FFXIV enjoyer long before his time with Square Enix! Big thank you to SE London and Jamie for inviting me to play some of the new content with you!
Vault Oneiron
The new treasure map dungeon is here and it’s as flashy as Solution 9 in all its techno glory! There have always been two types of treasure dungeons throughout the game, a more traditional style; involving three waves of small enemy groups followed by your choice of two or more doors to choose from. Pick the right one and you progress to the next room, succeed 5 times to complete the dungeon. But choose the wrong door and it’s goodbye! The second is a roulette board, each incantation spins the roulette, 5 successful incantations to complete the dungeon, failure results in expulsion!
Vault Oneiron takes the roulette method and changes it up! A set of slots appear in front of the group and each incantation spins the slots! 5 successful spins and you win! Three broken hearts and you’re out!
Treasure maps are some of my favourite side content to run and there’s plenty of goodies to be won by doing so. It’s also a great way to earn gil in game with very little effort! One map can be gathered with a Disciple of the Land job role each day, simply find your way to Living Memory and adopt your chosen role. If treasure maps aren’t for you, but you like money, you can sell the maps themselves for a decent amount too!
I’ve run the new map dungeons a handful of times but my luck has never been great, so I’ve yet to fully complete a full run of the dungeon.
Patch 7.31
While patch 7.31 doesn’t offer a huge amount of content and that which it does add, is relatively welcome niche content; Cosmic Exploration has been expanded to a new planet – Phaenna – Full of new wonders to explore and more gathering and crafting to complete! Phantom Weapons, Dawntrail’s version of the relic weapon grind has also been expanded with the next phase. This is great for those who like shiny new weapons! But be prepared for a grind, those shiny new tools of war don’t come cheap!
Phaenna – Sea of Stars
Cosmic Exploration is done with the moon, players of all Disciples of Hand/Land have worked hard to explore the surface of the moon, learn new gathering and crafting experiences and expanded their base of operation! Now it’s time to journey the sea of stars and see what new expriences await!
Phaenna is the second of four planned Cosmic Exploration zones, it’s a new planet never before seen, full of new flora and fauna. With all new objectives to complete, bases to build and rewards to earn. I’ve not ventured into the new area myself – spoiler alert, I’m not really much of a crafter/gatherer – but I’m very interested in some of the new rewards. Like it or not, I’m gonna have to throw myself into it sooner or later. Some of the rewards I’m most interested in are the new outfit glamours and the cosmoboard, a hoverboard mount that I’m super excited to get and fly around on.
The whole space adventure aesthetic that this mode has going for it makes it a little easier for someone like me to get into, since I’m so heavily into space exploration and what lies beyond the stars. And the new glamour items are hard to pass up on, it’s no secret amongst my FC and friends that I love to take cool and cute screenshots of my character in all kinds of glamours. So I will definitely be getting my hands dirty with some hard space labour very soon!
Phantom Weapons
It’s time to strengthen your relic weapons! Phantom Weapons can now be enhanced through a handful of quests, culminating in Aether, Aether Everywhere. In this quest, the player is tasked with collecting aether by completing various daily duties. These duties are in the duty roulettes; High Level Dungeons, Trials, Alliance Raids and Normal Raids. By collecting 10,000 from each of these duty roulettes, the player can enhance their Phantom Weapon. Subsequent attempts will only require Tomestones of Heliometry, making them a lot easier after the first grind is complete.
By now even new readers will all be aware that I love glamours. So it is without question that I am itching to get my first glowy relic. That is as soon as RNG favours me and drops the Demiatma I still require for the first stage! The Phantom Weapons are sort of a return to form for the game, as players were relatively unhappy with previous relic weapons feeling a little cheap and easy in the previous expansion. Anyone that has played A Realm Reborn might harken the new relic grind back to the days of old and it does feel like they’ve maybe gone back to their roots a little here, which is great to see.
I’m really excited to see how the rest of the quests expand upon the grind and I’m always dying to put new cute and cool glamours together so I can’t wait to see what the final weapons will look like. One thing I would really love to see though, goes all the way back to the first iteration of Field Ops; Eureka. I’d really love to see something similar done for armour, some new kind of armor forging questline that ends in a relic armor that is entirely stat customisable like the weapons, complete with it’s own fancy glow!
A small note on Deep Dungeons
It is well known by now that we’re getting a new Deep Dungeon in the near future. A requirement to unlock this content has already been established. Complete floor 50 of Palace of the Dead. The first iteration of Deep Dungeons in the game. Up till now, it’s been relatively abandoned content that not many new players delve into. It’s also been described as long, grindy and relatively difficult to progress through the content. One of the methods to increase strength and defence is to find and strengthen your Aetherpool Arms and Armor. This is done through finding chests throughout the deep dungeon and by defeating bosses every ten floors.
With patch 7.31 this system of improvement is getting significant buffs overall, especially between floors 0-50, in order to help new players get to floor 50 to unlock the new deep dungeon on release. But this will also greatly assist players who’ve struggled clearing up to floor 100 and beyond, someone like me, who’s only ever made it to floor 90 with friends. I’m really excited to go back an reattempt my run from 0-200 both in a party with friends and also solo for the first time!
With several quality of life changes being implemented, like chat bubbles, I really like the direction that FFXIV is going and I always look forward to new content and new ways to enjoy old content, with players new and old! A huge thank you again to SE Europe for allowing Jamie to take a few hours out of his busy schedule to play some of the new content with me!
About the Author
Daniel Hi I'm Dan! 33 and Non-Binary. When I'm not writing reviews. I like to get deeply immersed in the lore of an mmo or rpg, cruise the forest or coastal roads of Victoria, watch anime, read manga, build model kits and do a bit of sketching on the side.
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