The Mog Log: A patch called quest

When I sat down at my computer on Thursday, I was honestly feeling a real sense of trepidation, and not just because it meant that my column would be in later than usual. (I really dislike being late.) Patch 1.16 is important, after all, not just because of the changes it brought but because it was the first proof-of-concept for Naoki Yoshida's plans for the game.

I've never doubted that Yoshida had the brains and the genre knowledge necessary to make a great game. I have been very pleased with everything he's said about Final Fantasy XIV and have been an ardent admirer of the public face he's put on. But 1.16 was the first time we'd get to see what it was like when he actually put content into practice. Would it be awesome? Would it be lackluster? Or would it be outright awful?

So I was nervous when I logged on. A good patch would be a huge draw, but a lackluster one would destroy a lot of player confidence and a lot of slowly accumulated goodwill. So what are the actual net effects of this addition to Final Fantasy XIV?

Go forth, brave hero

Of course, logging in and just saying "I'm going to test this new patch out" did not wind up producing quests in my log straight off. I had to actually find them first. Fortunately, the exclamation marks made that simply a matter of dashing about Ul'dah and looking for the small icons. While I know more than a few people were concerned about the floating marks and the minimap blips, I can say with confidence that they're both unobtrusive and appropriate, though a little icon right next to the character's name might have worked better.

For the edification of fellow seekers: As a rank 20 gladiator, I picked up a quest from the ring around the gladiatorial arena, inside the Phronistery, and inside the Miner's Guild. It's very possible I missed one or two; I was in a hurry. All three were prefaced by the requisite wall of dialogue from the questgiver, and true to form, it was both charming and personal. U'bokhn's quest concerning her pet environmental group charmed me the most, so it was first on deck for completion.

The target area was just a quick jaunt north of Black Brush, so I decided to hoof it to get a clearer look at some of the new enlarged enemies and to play with the new targeting modes. The latter was kind of unintentional — I hadn't realized that up and down were now cycling through targeting modes. It seems useful enough when you're trying to target something in a party and you don't quite have the mouse precision to click on the target. Or, you know, if you're using a gamepad.

Quest on mark

I arrived at the designated area to find a sight that's harrowed many a player: a pile of corpses and three other players dashing about. Yes, the quests are wholly non-instanced, and this particular quest took place in an area that would fit comfortably into the backseat of a Yugo. This was not the most thrilling introduction possible to the new system.

Fortunately, either the spawn rate is reactive based on how many players are active in a region, or the dodos we were attacking just repopped at insanely high rates. I had to wait only a few seconds between battles at most, and more than once I was chain-killing quest targets. The wait also gave me a chance to play with the new MP regeneration, which is tuned probably at just the right level — you fill back up pretty fast, but it's not an instant recovery. Heavy casting will remain a tactical decision, but you're not going to feel so locked out of casting if you're a Disciple of War or low on MP.

I was also keeping a close eye on my falchion, and the decay rate does seem to have been rather aggressively slowed. So chalk that one up in the win category.

On the other hand... there are no drops from the quest targets, no skill points, no experience, nothing. After I'd finished with my wholesale genocide of the dodos to help the filthy hippie drink vendor, my reward was a Brass Choker, which would be a lot nicer if I weren't a Goldsmith and already wearing one. No gil, no experience, just a necklace and a bit of storyline to chew on.

Perspective is a beautiful thing

The operating philosophy behind the quests doesn't seem to be to give players something to do for advancement aside from guildleves; rather, it's a chance to get some equipment and get a clearer picture of the world you're playing in. I've been turning this over in my head ever since I started running them, and I still can't decide whether it's a good thing with some big disappointments or a big disappointment with some good things mixed in.

I'm not down on guildleves — they're not the best idea in the history of design by any means, but they're functional as repeatable leveling bursts. Still, as I said when I talked about the idea of repeatable content, we'd be better-served by having alternative content to go through for advancement. Quests as they stand don't provide that. Your rewards for completing a quest are pretty sparse, and while that's not going to matter at rank 50 and level 50, it's going to matter in the lower parts of the game. And the actual format isn't all that different from guildleves, either, except that anyone can claim the moles you're trying to kill.

Of course... quests didn't grant experience in Final Fantasy XI, either. They were just there, and you did them for other reasons, usually related to fame and the rewards. And it's not like the quests are giving out slouch rewards, either. The way each of the quests was introduced made me smile, and it felt right. It gave the NPCs some genuine personality, gave a sense of the environment you were working in, and managed to unobtrusively drop some lore into the mix. All of those are wins in my book.

So it's a missed opportunity to have some more engaging advancement content... but it's definitely a positive addition to the game. I'm not really sold on this, though. The missed opportunity is so immense that it's almost inexcusable, something so close to the mark but not quite there. This needed to be a straight-up home run out of the park, and instead it's a base hit at best and a foul at worst. It's not bad, but it's not what it should have been.

There's a lot of good things going on in the patch, of course. But the quests were the big component, and as it stands, they're just not where they ought to be.

Considering how important this patch is to the game as a whole, I'm interested in hearing what everyone thinks about the quests — agree, disagree, or have an entirely different tack on the matter. Leave your thoughts in the comments, or mail them to eliot@massively.com.

From Eorzea to Vana'diel, there is a constant: the moogles. And for analysis and opinions about the online portions of the Final Fantasy series, there is also a constant: The Mog Log. Longtime series fan Eliot Lefebvre serves up a new installment of the log every Saturday, covering almost anything related to Square-Enix's vibrant online worlds.