Patch 6.01 is Up in FFXIV
Notes and improvements
Endwalker is still going strong even with the congestion issues and errors. Keeping new accounts from adding to the load helped a little with the congestion situation. There’s still a bit of a wait to log in to the game, but it’s way shorter than when the expansion went live. Paid players can now enjoy the game and keep up their FFXIV Gil stores.
About the FFXIVPatch
There are new quests, the Chronicles of a New Era. It starts with the ‘Where Familiars Dare’ quest, with the others hidden to avoid spoilers. Some adjustments were also made for the instanced battle in the ‘In from the Cold’ quest.
New orchestrion rolls have also been added, as well as Triple Triad cards for the Gold Saucer.
Along with that, the much-anticipated Pandaemonium raid is out. Players ready for the challenge can take on it with seven other friends. Successfully completing the raid won’t give you gear outright, however. You get tokens you’ll exchange for the armor you want. While that takes RNG out of the piece you might get, you’ll still have to run the raid a few times to complete the set.
Once a week, players have the chance to earn an ‘unsung blade of Asphodelos’ after completing Asphodelos: The Fourth Circle. This can be exchanged for discal tomestones and further exchanged for weapons through Mylenie or Djole. The chance to earn a blade resets every Tuesday, and weapons will become available about two weeks after. That coincides with the introduction of Allagan tomestones of astronomy. There’s no need to farm or buy FFXIV Gil for these weapons, just the tomestones.
All circles of the Asphodelos raid are added to the Duty Roulettes for Mentors and Normal Raids. The required item level to register for Duty Roulette: Mentor increased by 25 from 540. Pandaemonium: Asphodelos is now included in the Stone, Sky, Sea zone for testing out builds.
Experience gains for level 81-89 dungeons, as well as completing guildship mark bills are increased in this patch. New items have been added, and one gets renamed. Nothing is specific if these items are for the FFXIV store or not. Whether they’re FFXIV mounts, emotes, or cosmetics isn’t clear either, as the list of the added items will be released later.
There are also new achievements, trophies, and music. Take note that some achievements will require you to do some activities that haven’t been implemented yet, but will come in Patch 6.05.
Some combat noises and voices had their volumes adjusted. Players can also use the Character Rename service even when the server is congested. That latter one comes with a caveat that the generator won’t work if the servers are heavily populated.
Lastly, there is a list of resolved issues in the end, though of course, that doesn’t cover all the bugs that are in the game. There are a few new ones to resolve, too.
What About the Congestion Situation?
There’s still no further update on the situation, which means that suspended sales will go on for a little while longer. Even with new and free FFXIV accounts being blocked, there’s still heavy congestion in servers. The smallest consolation players get is the shorter queue times, but the queues are still there.
The situation is more under control, yet they can’t leave the servers closed to new and free FF14 accounts forever. An influx of new players is good and healthy for a game. Then again, they were exacerbating the congestion problem.
At any rate, this proves that Final Fantasy XIV is a really popular game that’s suffering from success.
Patience is a Virtue
The game’s longevity contributed to the growth of the community. While every community has a ‘dark side’ so to speak, FFXIV’s light side remains the more dominant one. Someone begging for FF14 Gil might find more success here than other MMOs, though they might offer to help level up instead. They have one of the most helpful and friendly gaming communities and that helps their numbers grow.
Well, now there are too many players for the servers to hold. The best solution to this is adding new servers, but with the pandemic going on in real life, this is proving easier said than done. After all, a server is a physical object that has to be housed at a physical location that depends on what region it’s going to be in. They have to find a good location, have the servers transported and set up there and do some other technical wizardry to get it up and ready for the game.
There could be problems with the supplies needed, the location, or something in transport. Many things are working behind the scenes, and a delay in any step of the process can set them back. With all of that going on, devs are also trying to keep the game running smoothly as it is. They are working on things, even if we don’t see it, so we can only wait patiently. A proposed roadmap is coming in January 2022, so let’s wait until then.