Final Fantasy XIV Online finally launched its strangest crossover event yet — and it's unexpectedly making its players get better at the game.
Have you heard of the critically acclaimed Platformer Battle Royale game Fall Guys? Final Fantasy XIV players have gotten all too familiar with it in the past week, as the MMO launched its big limited-time Fall Guys crossover event just this Tuesday. And Fall Guys's amazing technicolor battlegrounds and bean-shaped characters look just as out of place in a Final Fantasy game as you might expect! What was unexpected, however, is how much value this crossover brings to the game.
This crossover is actually pretty elaborate with, XIV players basically getting to play actual Fall Guys matches and min games – custom arenas and all. Each match is divided into three minigames, and failing any one of them boots you out of the lobby and nets you less event-exclusive currency.
FFXIV x Fall Guys: The Raiding Tutorial Everybody Asked For?
What makes this event especially interesting is how the Fall Guys elements were implemented. FFXIV's veteran raiders noticed soon after the event was launched that the minigames use a lot of mechanics and visual indicators that usually only appear in high-end content. So, without even realizing it, casual players who are simply grinding the event for the rewards, will learn to dodge more difficult attacks than they are used to.
raid mechanics being in ffxiv fall guys like the "exaflares" on the last map feels like when you give babies educational toys to help them learn how to recognize colors and patterns
— gail (@_darkdragoon) November 2, 2023
Because of how fast a lot of hazards in the Fall Guys minigames are, one of FFXIV's more annoying nuances becomes more apparent. I'll have to get a bit technical with this, bear with me: Every interaction in FFXIV is actually resolved at certain intervals server-side, while things like animations are client-side. And since there is some unavoidable server latency for every player this leads to things like attack animations playing out later than the actual effect of the attack.
So if you're in the path of, say, a rotating hammer, you could narrowly avoid it on your screen but still be knocked out by it because your position on the server didn't update in time. In hardcore raids, where most attacks come with little warning and not getting hit is extremely important, players quickly learn to play around this delay and rely on other visual tells like ground AoE indicators. But for everyone else the Fall Guys event has been a very jarring introduction to the concept.
All this has led to another discussion within the FFXIV community about how the game desperately needs some kind of tutorial to bridge the gap between casual-friendly content and hardcore content. There are community resources that try to do that job, but the game has only made half-hearted attempts on that front so far. The Fall Guys event shows that more is definitely possible!
they should keep adding new stages to fall guys and turn it into a mechanic bootcamp. let's do limit cut next
— Lin 6.5 spoilers (@EENlX) November 1, 2023
FFXIV x Fall Guys: Get That Crown While You Still Can
But even if playing around server latency sounds annoying, there is actually a compelling incentive to master the event anyway: An event-exclusive achievement and the title "Queen Bean", which can only be obtained by winning 100 full matches before the event concludes on January 1, 2024. The FFXIV 6.51 patch notes mention that "[a]fter the initial collaboration event has ended, it will be held as a special event at irregular intervals." But if the Yo-kai Watch event is any indication it may take a long while before this event returns.
So if you're a casual player who really wants that title you'd better strap in, learn how to consistently dodge those Exaflares and get that crown before anyone else!