My First Two Days In FFXIV's Patch 7.1 - Crossroads

I've spent a couple of days playing the latest patch of Final Fantasy XIV, Crossroads. I normally refer to the patch number, in this case 7.1. I have to say I'm feeling better about the Dawntrail expansion, particularly the MSQ. After playing for two days I think I came up with a plan for the next two months or so, up to patch 7.15.

First, the MSQ. So far I haven't changed my opinion that the Dawntrail MSQ is only better than the A Realm Reborn MSQ amongst the expansion (and yes, I consider ARR an expansion). The feel of the story reminds me of the Shadowbringers expansion point releases, meaning the quality picked up in patch 7.1. The story also continued to drop pieces of alternative universe writing about the New World. For an example from the early Dawntrail MSQ, what would happen if, instead of Europeans bringing disease to the Native Americans, the Europeans picked up a deadly disease from the natives? We get something similar with the railroad story in Crossroads.

Of course I'm going to complain about the dungeon, Yuweyawata Field Station. The final boss had similar mechanics to the first boss of Alexandria, meaning a lot of dancing around telegraphs. I somehow made it through the final boss after about an hour. I agree with the comment from Alphinaud if you approach him after the fight: "I don't know how we made it through."

I did notice that the trial for patch 7.1, The Minstrel's Ballad: Sphene's Burden, is not required. The trial, as indicated by the mention of The Minstrel, is a harder version of The Interphos and thus is not required for the story in the MSQ. After all, The Minstrel is just providing an idealized story of what actually occurred.

The next bit of new content I started are the Pelupelu society quests. I really liked the little introduction quest required to unlock the feature. The Pelupelu are for combat jobs, just like the first society quest introduced in Endwalker. The experience points granted for doing the society quests is rather good. So good I decided to do society quests for Endwalker and Shadowbringers also. For doing the 9 quests I received a few points shy of 10 million experience points. I figure that reaching maximum level in a society will take 42 days. If so, I think I can not only level Dancer to 100, but Summoner as well. Once that is done, I just need to level a melee DPS and a tank job to complete all of the role quests for Dawntrail. I currently have Warrior to level 60 and no melee jobs started.

I do need to finish up one piece of patch 7.0 content. I still have to complete the quests for 2 of the NPCs in the Wachumeqimeqi district. Once those are done, I understand I can access an overall quest to finish off the area once patch 7.15 arrives, probably sometime in January. I have the feeling a lot of crafting and gathering content will drop in patch 7.15 so I need to finish up so I'm ready when the patch drops.

Looking at the above I have a lot of daily tasks ahead of me. But I really don't mind because I like running around the world and the new quests tell a bit more about the new lands I'm exploring.