Aywren Sojourner: Gaming and Geek Life

Since both Syn and I were out of town the week that 4.4 dropped, I’m significantly behind on clearing much of the content for this patch, and not even close to capping weekly Tomes. Not that I’m all that worried about any of that this late in the expansion life — as long as I have the ilvl to get through whatever story is in patch 4.5, that’s all I care about.

I’ve been true to my promise to remain very lazy during Stormblood after heavily burning myself out in Heavensward. The gear grind has no interest for me, and I’ve had far more fun doing creative stuff and leveling alts lately than I did last expansion slamming my head against content that stressed me out.

I pretty much do things to see the story and then choose whether it’s worth the suffering to run them again. Lately, the intensity and speed FFXIV has been throwing mechanics at players just hasn’t been much fun for me, so I’ve been bowing out of a lot of end game content after a few clears.

Unless something changes drastically, Alphascape is heading the direction of “clear once, forget.” While I actually enjoyed some of Deltascape and most of Sigmascape, a lot of that was for the nostalgia. There were probably some pretty disappointed people when Alphascape didn’t include some FF7 battles. As of now, nothing I’ve seen spoiled for me has really interested me as a repeat battle the way Kefka and Exdeath did.

I was sure after watching the video of Alphascape V1 that it was going to be a miserable fight. Thankfully, though Syn, Amoon and I were all new to it, we had some folks in there that really knew what they were doing and we all performed well enough to clear it without any issues.

Our luck didn’t hold out for Alphascape V2. Just as many stacking mechanics requiring fast reactions as V1, but our team was pretty fragmented and we had to vote abandon after failing over and over again. We didn’t get any further than that, somewhat waiting for the weekly reset (we were trying on Saturday) and somewhat thinking that upgrading gear would be a big help.

So, we turned our attention to clearing the Arboretum Hard and unlocking Expert Roulette instead. Other than a few annoying mechanics on the final boss, Arboretum was a walk in the park next to Alphascape. I’ve got so much else I’m doing that I’m not too worried about when I clear the raid — it’s going to be here permanently from now on anyhow.

I did buckle down and start leveling my Astro last night through squad runs. I’m probably going to end up kicking myself for procrastinating on it for so long since I jumped from 42 to 44 in one run. Seeing that I have three jobs to nudge towards 50, I’ll be seeing plenty of action with my squads, I’m sure.

Aside from that, my RP alt, Amon, has finally finished Stormblood 4.0 MSQ this weekend, and is slowly gearing up to push through the rest of the MSQ soon. It’s pretty crazy to have two characters at end game at this point, and I’ve even been leveling gathering on this alt for some unknown reason. I guess I just really enjoy the feeling of leveling and progress, which is something I’ve missed (aside from leveling alt jobs) on my main.

We’re still having fun on Mateus, building up our airships and establishing our little Free Company, adding a person here or there with no desire to really grow beyond just friends. On top of that, I’m looking forward to the Halloween event and coming of fall all together. It’s a great time of year!

 

Last month was an odd bird in that I knew I’d be too busy to set up much in the way of goals. So I’m picking that back up again for this month. Happy October, by the way!

It also means that I only have 3 months left to meet my yearly gaming goals, most of which I don’t think are going to happen. There’s one particular goal – level all jobs to 50 on my main – that I do think I can accomplish if I tackle it one job each month, though. There’s just enough time to get Astro, Warrior and Dark Knight where I want them to be if I start now and hold fast to it.

Also, this is Inktober. I’m of a mind to try this art challenge again this year. We’ll see if I can complete it!

FFXIV Goals

• Level Astro to 50 ✓
• Gear up Red Mage
• Finish Ninja Job Quests up to Level 50
• Level Monk

I’m still kicking around those job quests I haven’t done yet. And now, with Dragoon at 70, it’s another job I’ve maxed out but haven’t done the quests for. I really, really need to finish these before the end of the year!

I’ll probably be gearing up Red Mage normally as part of my Expert Roulette. And Astro is the job I’d like to get to 50 this month. If I can fit in leveling another job to 70, it’s between Monk and Samurai. So I just up and chose Monk.

And that’s really it. I don’t have too much in the way of crafting or gathering goals, aside from weekly turn ins for scrips (when I remember to do them). And I’ve got lots I’m doing on my alts at this point, too. So, I have more than enough to keep me busy for October.

What’s the rest of your gaming year looking like? 

I know that last month, I marked the goal of reaching Level 70 Dragoon as complete. This was because I thought that with just a few days of dedication to it, I’d have it leveled. This part was true. Only, I haven’t had the motivation to actually put that time towards it until this week. So, finally, last night, I completed that goal and am now looking at what job to move on to next.

As you can see, I’m still struggling to do anything with my Astro and two lagging tanks. Despite the help of the Squad dungeon runs, I’ve been doing too much else between all my characters to focus on this. Maybe I’ll put that up front for next month’s goals.

As for leveling my next 70, it will either be Sam or Monk. This is because I still haven’t finished Ninja job quests up to 60 yet, and I don’t want to roll into a level 60 Alliance Roulette without all of my skills. This has been another thing that’s been on my goals list to fix for months. *sigh*

I’ve been really slack with working on things for my main. I didn’t even care all that much about running for Tome gear last cycle, and now that the new dungeons have come with 4.4, I’ve found that dungeon drops are sometimes replacing the current gear I have on my Red Mage. That’s sad.

I suppose I have all the way up to the expansion to work on stuff. But by then, none of it will matter that much, anyhow. So I’m not going to fret.

Doman Enclave

One of the new features that I really enjoyed in the last patch was helping to develop the Doman Enclave. I’m a sucker for content that changes over time based on your input, and FFXIV does this in subtle ways quite well. I don’t think the game gets enough credit for most of this, in fact.

If you’ve been dedicated to helping out the Domans, patch 4.4 brings a new round of donation-seeking. This time, the Enclave has expanded to the point of needing an aetheryte system and allowing for mounts. We start by helping secure rice fields, and then move into assisting with building up a school for the kids of the Adventuring Guild. Though, I have to say, the kids are far too excited about going to school.

The whole thing is fairly cute and feel-good, and that’s okay. It’s nice to see the Domans rebuilding after everything that’s happened to them, and to be a part of the process. It was also nice that if you’ve been diligent, as of this week, the payout rate has increased to 200% and you can now turn in up to 25K worth of goods.

Honestly, they keep thanking me for my donations, but they’re the ones giving me gil. Kinda mystifies me, but I’ll take it.

Warning: There will be story spoilers! 

I know it’s been a while since I last posted something to this blog. Between the week of hurricane readiness and my trip to Las Vegas last week, it’s been a busy time for me. In fact, it was so busy that I didn’t get to finish FFXIV Patch 4.4 MSQ until last night.

Seeing that this has been out for a week now, I’m going to discuss the story and the lore bomb that was dropped near the end of this episode. Spoilers will be everywhere, so please don’t read if you want to experience this for yourself! It’s worth it to go in blind.

Continue reading “FFXIV: Patch 4.4 Story Impressions” →