FFXIV Adventures – 30 + 8 Days of Madness

I would usually apologise for my absence once again here at this spot, but the reason for the absence is always the same – school, real life, and while that’s true, I’m getting tired of explaining it. What I’ve been up to? The title explains it all. I recently got into FFXIV due to being introduced to it by a friend, and I’ll admit, I’ve been addicted, thus neglecting all my other games. I haven’t played that much, but just wanted to share my adventures and thoughts on the MSQ. There will be text + image poilers from 2.0 to patch 4.5, so if you are planning on picking it up eventually & do not want to be spoiled, do take note!

As a side note, I’m still working on finishing Dialovers VC, and that will be absolutely the next post. But for now, here’s a post about my adventures in Eorzea! Mild Warning: Post is pretty text-heavy as it turned into a novel.

The free 30 Days – MSQ Rush & Getting to know the game

I started the trial version of the game on the PS4 around August last year, and while the game was engaging, I dropped it due to, plainly erh put, “not feeling it” since the game was a bit dry at the start for me, with me not wanting to purchase the full game until there was a sale on PSN, and surely enough, that came during New Year’s. I didn’t officially start until about end-Jan, and that’s where I would say my journey in Eorzea began.

That said, despite the lack of road to 70 buff since it had expired, I choose not to “restart” my character since I was quite attached to her despite playing for a few short weeks in the trial. I’m in Gaia DC, and had made my character on Ifrit since it was preferred when I created my WoL. I had started out as an Arcanist, but couldn’t get used to the casting & having to stand still while, so I went with Marauder instead (which turned out to be a both a good and bad thing for my nervous ass later), but playing melee was more of my thing.

2.0 MSQ – A Realm Reborn, but Pray return to the Waking Sands

Had to take one at the Waking Sands with my early glamour

The base 2.0 MSQ was frankly, not the most memorable part of the game. It was a good setup for the overall plot, from the WoL going from a random adventurer to suddenly, the Warrior of Light. While I don’t remember much of it at this point other than the constant jokes & memes about it, I do remember being just as excited as any new adventurer in the XIV universe, and honestly had a good time doing random errands or just randomly helping someone off the street because it was just that excitement which kept me going. Some peeves I had with the base 2.0 are too many cutscenes right before an instance, which sometimes I felt bad watching because people would be waiting for the instance to start. Although, I still question why I was able to quietly keep reporting back to the Waking Sands without complaining. I also discovered the Limsa shortcut to Vesper Bay super late, and that’s one of the few things I immensely regret not finding out about earlier.

That said – playing WAR through the msq had given me a minor issue. I had never truly played collaboratively in any past MMOs I’ve played, and this was a first one for me that placed focus on working with others to complete content. Having to tank dungeons gave me mild anxiety whenever I had to do so, and I even watched guides for almost every dungeon before I started it so as to not be terrible. That paid off quite a bit and I’d say, I think doing fairly well tanking. JPN servers seem to be more patient with wipes and being new to roles and I’m glad. While I do make mistakes sometimes, I think I’m getting better with it since I’m still main-ing the job and I still enjoy playing as the role.

2.1 – 2.5 100 ARR Quests of Speaking with Alphinaud

Post-ARR + Heavensward Glamour. Limsa was my starting town and I still love the ocean views to bits.

This was the infamous quest section of the game which had a lot to go through, which I was warned that it would be long and dreary. Despite that, I remember enjoying this section a lot. Aside from the conspiracies happening in the Crystal Braves & having to do things for Alphinaud 90% of the time, it was nice. Having knowledge of past FFs, I was really excited to try out trials for different primals which I had known from other games in the franchise. The Moogle trial though, was an interesting one where I barely knew what to do other than, simply put, beat up the moogles. The music was hilariously chaotic too and was quite memorable. Other than the trials, I also found that this section had opened up a lot of plot points for future expansions – stuff I’m still seeing now and I’m glad I actually watched through all the cutscenes.

I did really enjoy the minor Ishgard section for this though, because one of the reasons why I did get into the game was due to the seiyuu choice & I’m very predictable regarding this wwww. I’ve also been a sucker for plots with dragons involved so this war between Ishgard and the dragons was interesting. Of course, the eligible bachelors available too did catch my eye :^), but I’ll leave that for the next story section. The 45min long cutscene at the end of 2.5 though. It was hard to watch, but it was an amazing climax to build up to Heavensward. A lot of shit went down and left me screeching over the plot, it was so good but I have to admit I’m still bitter about the villains of this cutscene and the results of this entire section. :”D

3.0 Heavensward – To Ishgard!!!

Zenith was my absolute favourite location for Heavensward. The ruins at night looked beautiful, but also sentimental especially with the BGM.

This was a high point for me. The main characters for this expansion already got me hooked and having the plot about Ishgard just got me bouncing a lot during the msq. Adding the plot about the dragons, that got me so excited to learn about the lore – and that was fulfilled with much better storytelling. The story about Saint Shiva & Hraesvaelgr definitely made me emotional. (but if you think abt it the end of the story was p morbid and emotional at the same time www) While the pacing of the story did come off a bit strange with the rescue Raubahn stuff being slotted in the middle of the plot, I would say it’s still solid. The journey with Alphinaud/Estinien/Ysayle was interesting though – good to know the lore of the Ishgard areas briefly, and character development for Alphi. There were also tons of funny lines from Estinien (playing with en text, jp voice btw) throughout this section, and it was nice to know all the characters better.

The emotional point of this would definitely be the infamous(?) moment where Haurchefant dies protecting you. I knew about this happening from my twitter back when HW released, and definitely had seen enough jokes about it too but nope, I still cried a lot. I’m generally pretty weak to emotional things but this one got me harder than usual. I played ARR in english, so a lot of Haurchfant’s eccentricness (or thirstiness www) kind of slipped by me until I did some googling on it. He was still a lovable dork though, being the only one who came to the WoL’s aid at the end of post-ARR, and really felt like a good friend so this part hit hard. Really didn’t expect to like his eccentricness during HW and have him die protecting the WoL, I cried way too hard over this.

What hit after this though – Ysayle’s death. There really wasn’t enough time to get to know her more, but her death got me too. There could have been a little more story with her but I guess they didn’t want to over-bloat the story. The King Thordan fight was crazy cool. I’ve heard of the Knights of Round being a cool summon but this would be the first time I’ve experienced this summon in particular. Despite the amount of AOEs you had to dodge, the phase where each one of the Heaven’s ward would attack you with a bunch of attacks was cool. But the worse part: the expansion ended with Estinien getting possessed by Nidhogg! (although i agree with the many jokes played – he should have taken a shower after fighting the dragon in the Aery, goddamnit.) So many sudden things happened and that just kept me wanting to keep moving forward in the plot.  I finished this part of the MSQ way too fast for my liking now that I think about it, but it was a huge improvement in writing and pacing from ARR so I can’t deny the excitement I had when I was playing it.

3.1 – 3.5 Ending the Dragonsong War + More hair-pulling moments

This was a short & simple cutscene. The lighting was the best for this location in this cutscene so I had to take a shot here.

3.3 was definitely the highest point of this section. A huge pile more of plot, this time I’d say it spotlighted Aymeric mostly, and probably the reason why he’s my most favourite character atm (other than the seiyuu ofc). I gotta say though, the man’s kind of way too pure for his own good – gets stabbed and still goes out to save hostages?! He’s too good. There was a shit load more drama in this section with angrier Nidhogg, along with a lot of building up to the climax. I have to note here that Sohr Kai is a beautiful dungeon. I was stunned the first time I played it, and when I managed to see it with graphics running on 60fps I was even more stunned. This was a wonderful dungeon and the cutscenes for it were good too! The Final Steps of Faith was cool, but more emotional since the room they threw you in to start the instance was playing Dragonsong and I love that theme to bits. I got hit by more waterworks at the end though, with that scene of saving Estinien. It tied up the sacrifices made, and I really felt Alphinaud’s character development come through. Adding on to the emotion – the series of quests they made you do to get the Haurchefant イイ emote was pretty sentimental. The cutscene at the end was really nice though, and having the WoL do his emote is hilariously cute. I was warned about the pretty famous dinner cutscene with Aymeric – and honestly that simply made me fall for the man even more.

Other than the Ishgard plot, I also felt that the other parts of it was basically “cleaning up” all the loose ends made at the end of the post-ARR plot. Finding the rest of the scions, starting with Thancred (whose cutscenes gave me a goodass laugh), and leading up to Stormblood. I’m still quite bitter about Minfillia’s death though, but it seems tied in with the Warriors of Darkness – all of which seem to be answered in Shadowbringers which I’m only at the tip of, so I won’t comment more on this part. The most bitter part of the was definitely the last dungeon where *big surprise*, the bitches who set you up at the end of ARR causing more trouble! I know there’s the trouble with Ala Mihgo but I was so pissed because that section literally brought back Lyse & Papalymo, only to have Papalymo die trying to hold off Shinryu! What the fuck! I was extremely mad at this section but after going through SB, I’ll admit it helped the plot there a little but I’m still bitter about Papalymo’s death.

4.0 Stormblood – *loud yelling*

Azim Steppe is my favourite location for Stormblood, the night view with the stars was too pretty.

Man thing in this expansion got intense. Contrary to popular belief, I liked this expansion over HW. While the buildup to things was really slow at the start, I enjoyed this quite a bit despite rushing through all of it in a week. Things got really dark and slightly real, and I actually enjoyed the characters and fights (a huge surprise for me). The buildup in Ala Mhigo was definitely slow, but I really liked how they basically just flung Zenos right there to stomp on everyone, leave, making everyone depressed and about ready to throw in the towel. Gotta have that good conflict at the start to keep everyone going. The Doma section was just as cool though, introducing Hien, who was a cute dork. The fighting in the Azim Steppe would be the most hilarious and memorable part of this for me, with Magnai being stupidly desperate and the whole mishmash fight against all the Xaela tribes on the steppe as part of their fighting traditions – that was cool. This moved on to liberating Ala Mihgo, and honestly that went down really faster as I kept playing. The plot was predictable, but still enjoyable for me.

Lyse was the main star of this, and while I already liked her from the start, this sealed the deal for me on liking her cuz she was generally so cool. Yes, she does have her faults and lack of confidence since she isn’t as good of a leader as Yda, but she’s trying her best. I think the entirety of the base expansion really showed her character growth, and I feel the whole section in Doma was to help her learn how to be a decently competent resistance leader. 

Another thing I loved immensely for this expansion – the villains. Yotsuyu was a brutal, horrendous dictator. For me, that really added so much tension to the plot with the high stakes. Her backstory was only touched on briefly during the base game, but I’m going to say she definitely has some level of depth. Zenos was more of a “wildcard” to me, similar to the many chaotic otome guys I’ve probably encountered while playing, but him being stupidly overpowered was cool. The satisfaction of beating him up at the final dungeon was huge. The insights about the crazy shit the Garlean Empire was doing, where you find out about them experimenting with test subjects to make people stronger for their invasion. A lot to take in, but some of that shit really sent chills down my spine like the Doma Castle boss, the many bosses in Castrum Abania, and even in the Ala Mihgo dungeon. There was just a lot of crazy shit which just probably got me hooked in. This expansion just had a load more up and downs for me that got me going through it really fast.

This ended my free 30 days as I decided to take a break from the game for school, but it was an overall crazy experience and I couldn’t stop wanting to go back to the game soon. That said, that came soon enough with the free play days!

8 Days of Free Playtime – The Post-SB rush and more

I decided to take my time with the plot this time – slowly piling through the post-SB quests and I did poke a little into Shadowbringers. I also took this time to farm another job, Ninja to 50, while slowly working on getting dancer to 70 too, which I picked up previously and only levelled a little. Also finally did my first alliance raids which were the Crystal Tower ones, after hearing that it was going to be compulsory to complete the upcoming patch 5.3. Ironically, I did this after the crystal exarch showed up in the MSQ so I did laugh quite a bit through the story. I also skimmed through this too since I had looked up summaries on the plot previously to prepare myself for Shadowbringers.

This one trial really made me cry, had to grab this opportunity to take a shot since this moment was scenario-locked.

The post-MSQ really started getting way more bloated here with so many cutscenes. Not that I hated it, in fact, they were really fun to watch (esp while eating since they were /that/ long). 4.1 was cool since it concluded Raubahn’s story and discussed Fordola, with the former being awesome but the latter just made me sad because you’ll only find out what happens to her in side story. 4.2-4.3 though – this one gave me a lot of mixed feelings. Firstly was about Yotsuyu who lost her memories. Really shows how Yotsuyu would have been an innocent girl if weren’t for all the crap that she had to go through like being sold to a brothel & being forced to marry some gross gramps. Good lord. What wasn’t good though, was Asahi who basically…was kinda just annoying 110% of the damn time. His obsession with Zenos was pretty ridiculous and the cutscenes with him staring into your soul with those closeups + expressions just made me uncomfortable if anything. The Tsukuyomi fight and conclusion just left me with so many mixed feelings. Yotsuyu got her memory back, but god her expression when wanting to end it all just got me, then deciding that she’s a monster who can’t turn back. I mainly cried in the middle of the fight (bad move when you’re trying to manage the black/white buffs + dodge AOE) because of the transitions of the music and phases – the battle was done so well in this aspect! I really don’t know how to feel about the end though, she got her revenge and died. While I genuinely want to beat the shit out of Asahi for all his crap, I think she deserved that kill. I have mixed feelings about this end – but I would say this is a more “quiet” ending in my books.

The last part leading up to Shadowbringers though – this whole section had me screeching a lot. This was mainly over all the new plot points they brought up about the Garlean Empire + the damn headaches all the Scions were getting. Gee, the Crystal Exarch really had /amazing/ timing. A nice buildup to Shadowbringers, but it got me really distressed. The Gaius reveal was pretty shocking – I’m hoping they discuss this more. The revelation about Zenos being possessed by an Ascian (im assuming its Elidibus) and the first emperor being an ascian (I know his ascian name since everyone’s talking about him, but for plot’s sake im not gonna use it yet until I get full into ShB.), this was all pretty shocking. The gas part was confusing too, like, what are they going to use it for?! Worse part, Zenos is back somehow due to artificial echo!? So many things unanswered. The Ghimlyt Dark dungeon was really cool though, with NPCs showing up to fight along with the player party. The compulsory instances you had to play as NPCs were really cool, and the final(?) solo battles against Zenos just concluded it well for me. 

I did poke a little into ShB until picking up one of the twins, so I’ve got a solid understanding of the setting of the First. I’ve got nothing but irritation for the Crystal Exarch for causing trouble in the last few strings of MSQ, but I’m hoping there’s really something more regarding the WoL since it’s discussing Ardbert who’s the WoL of the First, and possibly about Ascians? I’m really excited to see more plot unfold and venturing through the first to see how different it is from the Source. 

Playing the Game/Future Plans

An attempt at skill screenshots! This one turned out well so I really wanted to share it.

This is probably my first times getting into such an MMO and honestly, the experience has been extremely pleasant. Being on the JP data centres probably helps this, since people and mostly more polite and patient with wipes there. I’ve been main-ing WAR, and I genuinely hope I’m tanking decently in the game orz. It’s rather nerve-racking sometimes because I’m not sure if I’m over-reliant on healing, or might have missed mechanics because my brain switches off midway. I’ve picked up other combat classes as well such as NIN and DNC, but I definitely still feel the most comfortable tanking since I’ve played it through the last few expansions. I’m still hoping to get better at the combat sections!

That said, the game really does have a load more things to mess around with, esp with the glamour & emotes. Some environments are really pretty and good for screenshots, much so that I’ve probably amassed quite a bit from only playing for a short while. The glamour system is wonderful though, and probably one of the things I keep messing around with. Gposing has been fun too, but I’m still working on trying to get better angles and better screenshots over time!! Crafting looks interesting too, but I haven’t had time to look into it because it seems like a whole lot of work (and a lotta girl required), so I’m focused on getting the MSQ out of the way first. Really looking forward to finishing the rest of ShB! 

There’s been thoughts about what I’m going to do once I’ve hit level 80 on one combat class, and there seems to be stuff like high-level raiding. I barely have the balls to try extremes, so this is definitely a no-go for me. Probably the normal modes will be fine, but I’d rather not stress myself out playing Savage and just chill in the game in general. The Nier raid is definitely interesting since I’ve been following the series and this seems canon to the Automata plot, so I’m very curious as to what’s going to happen. Other than that, I guess I’ll be working on how to socialise in a JP Data centre? My JP skills are definitely sufficient to have a conversation, but I do get nervous and wonder how to even start one with people. If anyone could offer any help on how to interact, this would be great because my worries do really destroy any thoughts of wanting to try socialising and interacting. Next time I’m back on, I’ll definitely try some farm parties for lower-level content since I do want some items for glamour.

Final Thoughts

FFXIV has really been a fun game for me, and it’s welcoming to people who’d like to play casually. I’m thankful for that, since I’m not really big on “high-stakes” content like raiding high difficulty stuff with other people. I initially wanted to sub during this break of mine, but decided against it since I felt that the game is pretty dry when there’s no events running, and me trying to rush level jobs just gave me burnout. I’ll be taking this break to catch up on my Otome backlog, but this was what I’ve been up to, other than school. The post turned into a longass novel, but I had a lot of fun writing it, talking about my thoughts towards the game and discussing how fights were presented, and I’m hoping to write more about it, especially when I’m done with Shadowbringers! I hope you enjoyed reading me squealing about the game, and I’ll hopefully be back with a review soon!

At the same time, a tiny announcement from me if you’ve got to the end is that I’ve moved twitters – my new handle is @coldcagelord if anyone wants to keep up with me – but it’s mostly mild complaining, gbf screenshots and other mobage screenshots, and (possible) otomege livetweeting. The old twitter will remain on my sidebar here – for blog updates and archiving purposes.