Weekend Snapshot: FFXIV, Cactuar Kitty, GW2, TSW, Majora’s Mask
This weekend saw a lot of various things going on for me in the gaming world. Just a quick summary!
FFXIV: Further Progression
I’m still trying to make some progression with Zuri before the Gold Saucer sucks all my time releases next week. I finally finished her set of ilvl 100 armor, and completed her Atma bow. With all that done, I’ve been at a loss for what I want to work on with her (though I have a million things).
Not running dungeon roulette has helped significantly with the burnout I was feeling for a while. I cut those out and have started working on beastman dailies, including focusing on building faction with some tribes I haven’t completed for Zuri yet. But when it came to running hunts and unweathering her armor, I’ve kinda decided to take a break on that. I also considered working on getting armor for my healer class (I’m very, very slowly leveling Scholar and have a level 32 White Mage), but I also chose to take a break instead.
I did run through the final Hildibrand quest so that I was up on story for most of that series. Those are always fun. I haven’t yet tackled the Battle at the Big Greg (as I like to call it), because looking up the fight, it seems really complex, and I just wasn’t in the mood to deal with another Ultros type fight this weekend.
I’ve focused my hunts and dailies on Tai instead, working to piece together his ilvl 100 weathered dragoon armor set. I don’t like the way it looks very much (sorry), and really miss my wyrm gear. He doesn’t even look like a dragoon anymore, and the armor is shaped so oddly. I doubt I’ll put the money into glamoring it, though, because with an expansion on the horizon, I don’t know what’s going to be happening with armor progression in the future.
Tai is still working on gathering all his Atma (he has half of what he needs now). However, Syn and I worked through the quests to finally unlock Crystal Tower (I also did this on Zuri). We haven’t run it yet, but it’s an option to explore later.
FFXIV: Cactuar Kitty
I’ve been reading about the fun many blogger folks on Twitter have been having by rolling on Cactuar and joining a very nice FC there. I’ve been trying to resist the call of Cactuar for a while (because of duties to my FC on Midgardsormr), but it was really something I wanted to be involved with. I discussed it with Syn this weekend and she encouraged me to try. So I rolled another alt on Cactuar to hook up with the fine blogger folks at <GREY>.
I was indecisive for a bit on what race and class to roll (though I knew I’d use my Aywren name for sake of easy identity), and ended up just taking Zuri’s base design and giving her a different haircut and freckles. I’m too attached to Zuri, and no matter what I tried to roll, I kept coming back to my moon kitty. 🙂
So my Cactuar Kitty was created, I hooked up with fine welcoming folks, and started burning through content. This isn’t very hard for me, seeing this is the 4th – 5th time I’ve rolled a character in Gradania (due to restarts, alts, etc). I chose Archer/Bard again because it’s my favorite low-stress class.
I pushed through to 15 so that I could complete the Valentione’s Day quests (which I did). Ended up at level 20 at the end of the weekend. I blasted through the first two story dungeons with really strong PUGs. With my eyes on my mount pretty soon, I’ll be continuing to speed-level whenever I have time.
It was somewhat refreshing to roll completely fresh on a new server for a change. It makes you appreciate what you have on your main, though! 🙂
Thanks to kind folks for giving me a home on Cactuar! 🙂
GW2: Level 80 Again
So I’ve been loyal in logging in just about every day to earn my daily rewards in GW2. This weekend, my mesmer, SoYa, whom I’ve been leveling since 48 on daily rewards alone, reached level 79-and-some. I have other characters who are in more need of the free level tomes, so I decided to grind out the last of SoYa’s level through personal story instances (which I’ve hardly even touched on him).
Once that was done, I spent some time kitting him out with nice armor, working on the Lazy Mesmer build, and finally equipping him with that Bonetti’s Rapier that I’ve been holding on for him for over a year or so now.
Next up for daily leveling tomes will be my engineer, Kip, who has a ton of cosmetics taking up storage as I wait for him to reach end game before I give them to him. Since I already have a level 80 engineer, I find it hard to want to do all that over again, even if engineer matches him best as a class.
Sometimes I really do miss those old Living World events, back when they used to allow sub-level 80s to uplevel and take part in them. That’s how I used to level most my alts. Since they’ve took that away, and my interest in grinding events has dropped, I’m thankful these dailies provide an alternate leveling path for my stable of alts who would otherwise never get leveled.
Ah well.
TSW: Long Road Ahead
Syn and I decided to pop into The Secret World for a short bout this weekend. We were so happy to see that a mission we’d sent a bug report for back before Halloween was fixed, and we could finally complete it. However, trying a “hard” mission in the Besieged Farmlands knocked it home for me that my so-called build is super lacking, and that blades is not supposed to be a DPS weapon. 🙁
We started looking around at builds, and I found something more tanky that I’d like to try, but I’m severely lacking on AP and SP to achieve it anytime soon. Especially with the super casual way I play TSW.
The good news is that with upcoming changes to the pre-Tokyo content, I may delve into this game more often to build up those points and make a more solid build. I’m really looking forward to all the changes that are coming. And I bet if I could get my character to the point I want her to be, it would be even more awesome!
Zelda: Majora’s Mask
Friday saw the release of Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask for the 3DS. I never played this game when it was first released, and actually never finished TOOT, either. But both have been on my lists of to-finish since I now have them on my 3DS.
Majora’s Mask has been somewhat of a curiosity for me. I remember when it first came out, I wrote it off as strange looking, a bit creepy, and some weird spin-off of TOOT. So I didn’t give it a chance.
My real interest in this game came from the Majora’s Mask creepy pasta and ARG that took place a few years ago online. I got really, really engrossed in this while it was happening, and I still shudder when I see one of those statues of Link. So, when I heard this was being released for the 3DS, one of the few newer-gen systems I own, I knew I had to try it out!
I’ve been really impressed by what I’ve seen of this game, both story and mechanics-wise. I knew that people said it was a good game, but so far, I’ve found it to be much better than I even expected it to be. I’ve completed the first cycle of 72 hours, and working on puzzling through the second at the moment. I like how the game just dumps you in the world and expects you to figure things out on your own. At the same time, it does a good job of balancing out information for someone totally new, like me. What I thought might be overwhelming (the time limit), really wasn’t once I realized I could go back in time and keep reliving the series of days over and over until I achieve the things I want to do.
In fact, this was a really genius way to framework a game and story. I love how you slowly build on your achievements, so even though you’re going through the same three days again and again, you always have different objectives.
Anyway. Great game. Looking forward to puzzling this out – I’m going to have to make some free time for it!
