At this point the story starts to go on for a bit too long. I'm happy I played this after the release of 6.5, as by itself I do think it would have been very, very disappointing. It teases all the goals of the Scions and the WoL are at reach, only to pull off a JoJo-style "you've pushed me to my limits and forced me to use my secret forbidden technique" and leave the story hanging for months.

Coincidentally, this is also the point when I start to feel burned out on the game again. Although I was initially having fun in my return to FFXIV, its gameplay once again has become aggravating. Playing it with random strangers takes its toll—though the majority of players are not overtly mean or hostile, they can still be petty and passive-aggressive. This increases the further one is close to the endgame, with this palpable vibe of "ugh, everyone should be at top of their game by now." I say this as more of an observer than a target—neither terribly bad, nor particularly good, I mostly fly under the radar.

I can't really say I'm having quite the same Lack of Content Malaise as a lot of people seem to, although as someone who tends to Generally Like Things I can... sort of see the problem? I feel like there's a lot of doomsaying about ah it's FF16's fault, it's Dawntrail's fault, the game is just on a general downward spiral... and I don't really think that at all, man. I think they're mostly doing a little experimentation that might not actually be working out 100% of the time and also unfucking the onboarding process so new players have more Options and an ARR experience that isn't quite as messy and also Covid happened. Ishikawa's mentioned they're trying to mentor new writing talent so this is probably where the jank is going to be.

Unfortunately this means that the endgame multiplayer experience isn't as good. I'm having fun because I mostly play solo, but people actually looking for a MMO are, perhaps, not enjoying things as much. I really love Variant Dungeons for their own sake but idk the rewards aren't the greatest maybe?? I still have minions to get and friends to help through...

Patch length also fucks with my perception of time. What do you mean Pandaemonium and the actual MSQ story were back in May... Pandaemonium was good as fuck, by the way. What an ending. I support women's wrongs. I had some extreme feelings about P11. I marked out at The Line. It's good stuff, is what I'm saying. I'm not sure where people are getting it but there's some scuttlebutt that the writer for Pandaemonium is writing for Dawntrail and man, I love his stuff, though? He's not all killer no filler (DNC's storyline had okay characters but otherwise sucked) but he's written enough top tier stuff (with Panda being the most recent) that I feel like he's gonna do Great, especially working with Ishikawa.

MSQ is a little weirder because it genuinely kind of feels like. A trial series that had too many important aspects to it that it had to be upgraded to MSQ. It feels both a little too ponderous and a little too rushed. There are, of course, things I am marking out over as a long time Final Fantasy fan but I feel like it genuinely would've worked out a little better as a trial series? Zero's great though. I appreciate that she gets to be goofy and I really hope she's being set up to be a more permanent cast member. It feels like her being in trusts suggests that but I still kind of have to worry...

As for the other stuff, Rokkon was great. I love Hancock. He sucks so bad. The fights were really fun and I love solving puzzles! Perhaps someday I will do Criterion as well (hahahaha I'm a filthy casual). Tataru's Grand Endeavor was the big disappointment which, like, I should've expected because it's Werlyt. But it was a disappointment in a completely bizarre way, which I also should've expected because whoever wrote Werlyt has the strangest priorities ever. I cannot believe Tataru wasn't even in her own questline??? Was she too hard to shoehorn into some kind of tortured mecha anime reference??????

I did not touch BLU yet because it's the one class I haven't gotten to max level because getting spells while being a primarily solo player is a real pain in the ass. I want to do it but they didn't even add duty support as a feature??? What on earth. Why would you do it like that...

Anyway, I'm still excited for 6.5 even if I'm not super excited for the giga lull between 6.55 and Dawntrail. It's gonna be... something, huh... well, there's always big fish and Eureka.