Bold, Stupid Predictions for Final Fantasy XIV

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content, content update, expansion, final fantasy xiv, future, i can see the future woooo, MMO, patch, predictions

I’ve been spurred on by a thread on a XIV roleplay forum I frequent to post this blog entry. It started with a megathread talking about the coming Final Fantasy Fan Festival (appropriately acronymed “FFFF!”) and the fun speculation that sprang up from it. I replied to the thread itself, but I also wanted to go ahead and run with the thoughts that came forth.

As we near the point of FFFF! and its expected announcements for the next expansion to Final Fantasy XIV, it’s become common among players like me to try to divine the game’s future. So, let’s take a moment to throw the runes and read the tea leaves as I make completely baseless and wild assumptions that I’ll try to spin in to a facsimile of convincing clairvoyance.

Basically, I’m about to Miss Cleo this shit.

We’re Going to Ala Mhigo Right After Ending the Ascians

The 3.x series is going to wrap up the Ascian nonsense. I’m not sure how, to be honest, but the Warriors of Dark are going to be our next series of Primal fights leading in to the next expansion, and after that the Ascians will have no weapons left to throw at us and will be finally killed off.

Now I call it “Ascian nonsense” because, quite frankly, the Ascians are the sorts of villains that I despise in storytelling; the moustache-twirling, “master manipulator” overlord sort who weave threads of deception so convoluted they make Mumm-Ra look like Sun Tzu. So I’ll admit that some personal bias is leading to this prediction, but let me try to further qualify that.

I come to this prediction by virtue of the fact that we’ve killed the Primals already, and the Beast Tribes are all but sated as far as I know. In fact, the Beast Tribes causing Primal problems ended with the Vanu-Vanu and Bismarck. And as far as single individuals transforming in to Primals, we’ve got only two such people who pulled this off – Ysale and Gilgamesh. Both of whom are already taken care of.

…I’m sorry, that was mean.

This will lead us in to meeting up with Papalymo and Yda as they’ve marshaled the resistance against the Garlean incursion of Ala Mhigo, and we finally get to attack the way more interesting Garleans. Who have way more intriguing motivations, frankly.

The Next Tank Class Will Be Corsair

The Musketeer Guild has been a thing that has sort of existed but not really in Limsa Lominsa for a long while now, but the next expansion will introduce the Corsair, a brigand that wields a sword and flintlock to assail single enemies or entire groups.

The Musketeer Guild’s existence isn’t the only piece that leads me to this conclusion. It’s the final boss of Hullbreaker Isle HM, Mistbeard.

Seeing him in action wasn’t just a cool little bit of Lominsan lore, it also made me feel like the Corsair could be a thing that’s coming. He was capable of a variety of individual as well as AoE attacks, which would be perfect for a tank class. Paired with the idea that pirates are threatening, we could see a tanker that could both intimidate foes and motivate allies. A Corsair not only fits within the lore, it also makes mechanical sense as a tank.

Also…y’know…bitchin’ outfit.

Samurai Will Be A DPS Class

Samurai is coming. It’s a question of when, not if. Frankly, I’d be shocked if it didn’t get announced as one of the new Jobs coming with the next expansion. So with Corsair as a tank, that makes Samurai the new DPS.

It makes mechanical sense, once again. The art of a samurai’s fighting style is about cutting down an opponent as quickly as possible. I can think of no keener edge on the field than a samurai’s katana, especially given the over-reverence to the weapon in fiction already. I assume that the Samurai job will be Doman in origin, and perhaps are a contingent of elite warriors that have joined the Ala Mhigan resistance looking to swell their ranks.

Personally, I’m not super interested in the Job, but I know many are, and it should be fun to see them in action.

Hopefully not in this outfit.

The Palace of the Dead Will Usher In More Randomized Content

We’re getting Palace of the Dead sometime in July. It’s also likely a test for whether or not the system that generates stuff for Palace will be applicable to later content.

We’re not going to see the end of crafted dungeons or raids, exactly. Far from it. The dungeons are one of the pieces of content that XIV is very good at. But if they can come up with a modular piece of content generation that (generally) is fast and easy to put together and put out, then why wouldn’t they?

That all rather hinges on whether or not Palace is popular, and I don’t expect any variations on this type of content until 4.1. But I have no reason to believe that PoD will be anything but embraced by XIV’s players, and it will usher in a whole new series of goodies for future patches.

Edda-faced goodies…

My crystal ball is becoming hazy, and I cannot see any further. The future, of course, is yet to be written. It’s up to time to see if anything I’ve scryed here will come to pass or is sheer and utter claptrap. Either way, it’s gonna be fun when FFFF! drops that knowledge on us all.