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.
To complete it, you’ll need to brave the Cheap Dungeon (It’s like the Deep Dungeon). It’s a little hard to describe, but remember those old Windows maze screensavers? It’s a bit like that. Hidden amongst its corners are dev notes, and successfully completing it will allow you access a slightly more fleshed-out version of the Cheap Dungeon from inn rooms.
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Like last year, rewards include Minions and Orchestrion rolls, including a roll for the Stormblood theme. I’ve always disagreed with locking the title theme Orchestrion roll behind an event because it seems central to any collection, but whatever — it’s here, and it’s basically free, so get it while you can.
More 4.1 news
New details about the next major content patch are starting to circulate on Japanese and Western media. (Thanks to /u/Elevenmile for translating!)
More has been revealed about the forthcoming Beyond Savage mode. Difficulty wise, it’ll be roughly on par with Second Coil of Bahamut Savage, with Sudo Kenji (the guy who designed Titan) saying it’ll be the hardest fight since he joined the team. There is no word on what the rewards might be, but if you remember SCoB savage, you’ll remember that it only rewarded titles, not gear.
It’s been confirmed that this will not be Omega 5, or a continuation of that raid series, but something entirely different — and it’s designed to be so difficult that most players will be unable to get through it. This is to satisfy the people who think Savage is too easy, or that odd-numbered patches (which are typically for the rest of the playerbase to catch up) offer nothing for the raiding community. You’ll probably find it too hard, but if you do, that’s okay — this content probably isn’t for you.
Lost Allagan (creation tomestone) gear will be upgradeable with hunting rewards in 4.1, making getting your best-in-slot gear much easier and offering an upgrade path for those not interested in Savage or who have hit a wall with it. And don’t throw away your level 70 job quest gear yet either — the dev team is toying with the idea of making it upgradeable in future, too. Annoyingly, you still can’t put it in an armoire, but the team has said they are focusing on overhauling the glamour system soon. GW2 style wardrobe, please?
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The Royal Menagerie will get the extreme-mode treatment after it was confirmed to be the next big trial. I’m pretty excited, although I’d wager that all of those who called for the normal mode version to be nerfed are shaking in their boots. Given that it’s coming in the same patch as Beyond Savage, I’m not sure how hard it will be — but I expect it will reward i335 weapons so as not to undermine those who have done O3S and to help along those who haven’t yet.
This is on top of the other stuff that’s been confirmed — such as a new 72man PVP mode and housing in Kugane. So when can we expect it? Probably mid-October, or early November at the very latest, based on when the first patch after Heavensward came out. I’d expect it earlier in the year than when 3.1 released because there doesn’t seem to be the same huge holiday taken by the dev team this time, but there’s been no solid indication yet.
Three final notes
Patch 4.06a came out earlier this week. It only addresses PVP balancing. I’ve written a lot about PVP lately, so I won’t get back into that, but if you’re interested, you can find the notes here. This will be the last patch before 4.1.
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Also, there’s a sale on at the Mog Station to celebrate the game hitting a record 10 million registered accounts. There’s 30 per cent off pretty much everything until September 26. If you’re the kind of person who wagers that they’ll ‘go lala’ if your group manages an unexpected kill, now’s the time to stock up on Fantasia.
Finally, the yearly 14-hour anniversary broadcast will be held tomorrow. The full schedule is online now. You’ll notice that it’ll encompass Yoshi-P’s monthly Letter from the Producer, and promises to offer the first video preview of patch 4.1. It’ll be in Japanese, but expect plenty of preview images and translations a few hours later.
