April 2021 Version Update

"The visual effects of Utsusemi: Ichi and Utsusemi: Ni when used as an area of effect ability would be incorrect when equipped with the Yagyu Darkblade.
*The abilities non-visual effects have been properly applying."

Known issues at the bottom of the patch notes. I guess they didn't fix it? I don't know what they're going to do with that.

-Edit: What does that mean for San?

Items that sparked my curiosity a bit:
Green Mog Pell Items:Key that 100% won't give you a Flint Stone, until it does:

Arch Dynamis Lord pop:

Abridged Fiendish Compendium -- An ADL pop? ( Since there's a PW pop. )

The Deeds rewards are particularly disappointing...
After Monberaux on the first year and additional WSs the second year, I certainly was expecting something better than just "200 Free job points". I mean wtf.

Yes. That is what tome 26, 27, 28, 29, and 30 are used to pop.


Right? I've been really hoping for some Wyvern dye for nearly 2 decades. I want to color my wyvern green or red. Blue is cool, but Aern's white wyverns and Kindred's black wyverns make me want more (without dat-modding). Random thought and random place for such a thing to be, but they could really do better than "3x Copper Vouchers", for f***'s sake.

For as annoying as "Grow and Harvest" is...

The rewards for the monthly Records of Eminence seem to be comparably very meager this time around, e.g. smatterings of copper vouchers and a monthly Maat's mix to save you 10-20 minutes of CPing.

970-1120
1130-1280
1290-1440

They're probably trying to keep it semi-rewarding for veteran players, but not as mandatory to do to get stuff like Monberaux and the Martial Treatises.

Imagine someone coming back to the game and being told they can't get a particularly important reward unless they grind for 3 years straight. Since it has gameplay implications unlike FFXIV's subscription cosmetics that'd be downright insane (even moreso than current deed lockouts are).

Yes that makes sense, but they could've put something "non mandatory" that's more useful.
I would've apreciated more if they gave us more books for even more Weapon Skills, for instance.

What use is getting 200 free Job Points? Do you really think someone who has 3 years of gameplay to do monthly deeds really needs 200 job points? C'mon... that's being very cheap and very lazy on their end.

so ambuscade is a little weird they have tonberry ws's

I can definitely agree with making the decent rewards more accessible to new or returning players, but throwing a small amount of copper vouchers, job points, and extra hallmarks/gallantry at veteran players falls largely short of even semi-rewarding by comparison, in my opinion.

Keys/Year	Year 1	Year 2	Year 3
SP Gobbie Key	20	20	10
Dial Key ANV	30	30	10
Dial Key Fo	0	5	10
Total	50	55	30

The only thing that's slightly improved is the amount of Mars/Venus orbs available, at the cost of the Themis, Phobos, Deimos, Zelos, Bia, Micro, and Macro orbs.

Beyond all that, if SE was especially concerned about preventing people from catching up to current content, they'd start removing the three-person minimum and/or time lockouts on older content like coalition imprimaturs, Delve, Dynamis Divergence, Omen, etc. This just feels rushed or like they couldn't be bothered.

Granted, the monthly RoEs weren't exactly demanding in the first place (with the possible exception of the time requirement for gardening), so I guess this round of rewards is more in line with the level of effort. It would've been nice to get some free 109 and 119 Empyrean armor to round out the free 109/119/+2 Artifact and Relic armor from years one and two, respectively.

At least we get another free pulse weapon. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So is it really the Ifrit HTBF? I have to ask every month.

was it easy intense? i saw the same thing there

Yeah, its pretty reassuring that they arent adding anything gamebreaking in a 3 years time gate.

Time gate is cancer.

Yes

Ooooh missed that Voucher W-Pulse.
Well I won't complain about that, I'm happy about that at least.

Should I get a Khonsu this time? Mumble mumble.

so which part of the northlands to go after the cs? xarcabard beacudine maybe we go kill jorum for a ki :O who knows

We are also getting tonberry moves, so far we've seen:

light of penance = thunder
sigh = ice
words of bane = fire
latteral slash = stone
Pierce Vitals = wind
Vertical slash = water

everyones rancour = thrashing assault (def down)

Deeds were just a bonus for regular players then SE *** this up like usual giving very good rewards from it and not just a bonus (a bonus is a pulse weapon, time saver but not "mandatory" like monberaux or extra merit ws).

Btw even if they *** up Deeds...there's a way to give great rewards to veterans and being correct to casual players. They should just set higher monthly caps up to 480 that decrease up to 960 and that is the normal 40 points/month up to 1440. Next year the same...increase cap for previous years rewards and keep normal cap for new rewards.
Like that people can catch up and veterans can get nice deeds.

That's all folks. SE, wake up.

Make deeds purchable for 100 crysta.

Perhaps you're focusing too much on the JP items. Free PW and ADL pops are potentially an easy 4-8m+ gil for little effort; there's another Pulse weapon as was pointed out; 18 bonus Abdhaljs seals for even more easy gil; useful Mars/Venus orbs instead of old BCNM ones and so forth.

It's honestly quite a lot of extra gil for maybe 30 mins of work per month. Arguably something most vets would care about more than other rewards.

Edit: Also, if the upcoming job update this year adds more "job advancement" stuff as promised, we might welcome a free 200 JP on top of everything else.

game seems snappier.

I think Ridill drop rate went up too!

OMG I can FINALLLLY pop ADL....-.-#

Probably going to need to visit him once again for some reason that will tie in to Dynamis Divergence. Will this be his... 7th form we've fought? 8th? I lost count. I can think of at least:

1. Normal 5-2 Shadow Lord fight.
2. Dynamis-Xarcabard Dynamis Lord LV75 zone boss fight.
3. Dynamis-Xarcabard Arch Dynamis Lord LV99 fight.
4. Fiat Lux Campaign Ops.
5. ★The Shadow Lord Battle HTBF.
6. "Unafraid of the Dark" 250 merit pt fight for a Irradiance Blade.

Am I missing one? I know he showed up in the Magicite mission cutscene under the name of "Shadow of Darkness" and his head sometimes rolls around in cutscenes after the Ark Angels hand his *** to him in the Zilart story, but those aren't a fight and are just cutscenes.

I mean... the Galka in this art is wearing his armor so we're probably going to get another version of him again at some point.

There is nothing mandatory (or "mandatory") about Monb or the extra merit WS for casual players; They're not even mandatory for hard-core players. The two rewards serve as unique, moderately useful rewards for accumulating a lot of Deeds and remaining sctive.

This idea that casuals should be granted this handicap to grind their way to those thresholds more expediently because "Oh, no, I don't get the same rewards as someone who has been active for several more years than me" is just silly and more of an issue than the Deeds system itself. If a new player quits because they cannot access a non-obligatory trust and extra merit ws points thst they cannot even use yet, then they were not going to make it long on the game as it is. But sure, devalue the time of those that are committed to the game as a way to drive new players toward rewards that they do not need.

Play the game, reap the rewards. This is not a difficult concept, and these sob stories about Deeds are awfully due to be put out to pasture--they should not have been led out of thr barn in the first place.

While not necessary, in the isolated case of the extra WSs I just cannot agree to calling them "sob stories" if that's the sentiment you refer to.
Locking something that is such a simple quality-of-life change behind this system is just backwards to any modern design paradigm (except perhaps some mobile game genres).

man those new missions are catching up nicely now