The widely popularFinal Fantasy 14had its latest large-scale expansion withDawntrailjust a few months ago, but players looking for even more content to play through won’t have to wait much longer. Despite high praise for the combat and gameplay mechanics inDawntrail, the expansion has had its fair share of negative backlash over its new story design. Featuring more self-contained stories with the protagonist taking a backseat, the upcoming Patch 7.1 will expand on this new storytelling style with a variety of new quests, raids, and trials for players to experience.
While there are plenty of unique directionsFF14’s overarching storycan go in future expansions,Patch 7.1 will focus on developing pre-existing areas and characters, while providing additional challenges to the bravest players. For those willing to test themselves against some of the hardest new raids in the game, Patch 7.1 has a lot of exciting content to offer. Taking advantage ofDawntrail’sgreatest strengths, the newest patch focuses on adding even more challenging Trials and Raids for experienced players, while building uponFXIV’sunique mechanics.
When Is FFXIV: Dawntrail’s Patch 7.1 Coming Out?
Answering The First Question On Many Player’s Minds
Players waiting to get their hands on the new content coming in Patch 7.1 won’t have to wait long, asPatch 7.1 releases sometime soon in November 2024. While Square Enix hasn’t given an exact release date yet, it’s planned to release in the middle of the next month, meaning players can already start marking down their calendars in preparation. Being the first large-scale patch since the release ofDawntrailand following the previous 7.01 and 7.05 patches, there are a lot of expectations riding on the success of its delivery.
Providing players with more variety without putting their team at a disadvantage.
On top of all the major content updates coming in the future patch,players will benefit from a variety of general quality-of-life improvements, including some buffs todifferent jobs inFFXIV. One area having some great additions is housing, with interior designs of any residential area being usable regardless of which plot a house is located in, with talk of potentially adding in larger house sizes within smaller plots.
The class buffs also make more classes viable when used in the higher level Raids and Trials introduced inDawntrail’slatest patches, providing players with more variety without putting their team at a disadvantage. The 7.1 patch also adds a plethora of updates to the Hall of Novices that let players train with even more advanced battle mechanics, being great for newer players getting into more challenging content or even veterans that want to refresh specific mechanic skills.
New Raids Confirmed For FFXIV Patch 7.1
More Difficult Raids Pushing The Boundary For High Level Players
Square Enix is keeping up the MMO’s tradition of incredibly challenging but rewarding raid dungeons, adding three high-level challenges for large-scale raid teams. The first is the new 24-player Alliance Raid, Echoes of Vana’diel. This raid is an entirely new experience forFFXIVplayers.
It’s a crossover withFF11that will see players battle through the lands of Vana’diel from the classic entry in the franchise, encountering familiar NPCs and enemies alike. Being thefirst-everFinal FantasyMMORPGin the franchise, its wide array of content is always a welcome addition toFFXIVand is tailor-made to the MMO experience already but with a unique style.
FFXIV: Dawntrail’s Arcadion Is The Hardest Normal Raid, But It Doesn’t Need A Nerf
Players cry out for easier content after a slight increase in difficulty makes normal content in Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail marginally harder.
The next raid being added is another first forFFXIV, which is Chaotic Alliance Raid, Cloud of Darkness, the first high-difficulty Alliance Raid for 24-player groups.Expanding the difficulty of the Crystal Tower Alliance Raid, the developers have hinted that it will test even skilled player groups, with its challenge level being closer to the unrelenting Savage difficulty.
The third and final new raid being added is the Features Rewritten Ultimate version, which adds one of the iconic raids from theShadowbringersexpansion up to the current difficulty and level caps forDawntrail.
New Quests & Quest-lines Coming To Dawntrail
Adding More Unique Stories To Experience
Rather than expanding on one area ofFFXIV’s story, Patch 7.1 will provide new quests for individual combat roles, new MSQ content, and even allied society quests for the new PeluPelu faction. Being first introduced back inFinal Fantasy X, the PeluPelu are natives of the continent Tural, easily identified by their unique appearances.The Allied society quests themselves are reported to be a great way to level up combat classeswhile learning more about the natives of theDawntrail’sexotic continents.
Players will also be able to replay job quests and role quests using the additional New Game Plus support for Patch 7.0.
For players that have completedDawntrail’s existing role quests,Patch 7.1 adds even more Role quests for each combat class archetype, alongside the Wachumeqimeqi crafting and gathering quests.These quests aim to provide a satisfying finale that will move the story on to new directions and districts in future content updates.
This latest patch also adds more main scenario quests to advance the story and prepare for future content, while adding a new way to experience the expansion’s story once again but with greater difficulty, thanks to the new game plus mode being added forDawntrail’s MSQ.
New Trials In FFXIV Patch 7.1
New And Upgraded Battles To Reward Brave Players
The first of the two Trials being added in the newest patch is the Byakko the Jade Stoa, making its grand return from theStormbloodexpansion. Facing off against this member of the four lords,players will have to use their knowledge of the first fight to survive this much more challenging version, being scaled to unreal difficulty for level 100 players.
Similarly to the raid being brought back fromShadowbringers, Trials like the Jade Stoa allow the developers to remix old content to provide a fresh experience for players, greatly benefiting from the higher level cap ofDawntrail.The second trial addedin patch 7.1 is The Minstrel’s Ballad: Sphene’s Burden, an Extreme-difficulty version of the final fight inDawntrail’sMQS.
The originalQueen Eternal battlewas already one of the more engaging 8-player Trials inFinal Fantasy 14, asthe Absolute Authority mechanic was highly praised over its creative presentation and challenge that strikes the perfect balance for rewarding and punishing difficulty. This enhanced version aims to take the fight to even further difficulty heights, requiring even more skillful teamwork while providing greater rewards for players up to the increased challenge.
Source:Square Enix,IGN
Final Fantasy 14 (2010)
Final Fantasy 14 (otherwise known as Final Fantasy XIV) is a widely popular MMORPG created and published by Square Enix. Taking place in the land of Eorzea, players create their own character from a variety of races and adapt to a series of jobs that they can freely swap between. Largely considered a failure at launch, Final Fantasy 14 rebranded itself as Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn and has managed to become one of the best MMORPGs in the world.
