FFXIV: Identity Crisis & Progress
With only 100 days left until Heavensward’s Early Access, I’d be lying if I didn’t say I’m feeling a push to get things done. With the announcement of Heavensward’s upcoming FC crafting and airship project, I’ve also tried to double down on leveling my crafting the best I can. I’m not sure if I’m going to make it in time, but I’m going to try!
Progression
A quick Triple Triad Update! I haven’t had a whole lot of time to dedicate to card playing, but I’m happy to announce that I got the Squall card, which you earn with the achievement for winning against 30 different NPC card players.
FFXIVTriad.com only lists 32 NPCs to play against, and I haven’t unlocked the rank with the Ixali to play their representative, so that means I had to ram my head against the wall to get wins against all but two NPCs (darn you, Marcette!). I currently only have 34 cards in my deck, but that’s going to have to wait, because I have more than enough tugging at my gaming time to keep me busy.
Our Free Company <Guard> continues to grow – I think the Heavensward announcement, coupled with the welcome back week, brought back a lot of folks. Most of these are finding us from my forum and Reddit recruitment posts. I’ve discovered these folks tend to be much closer in alignment to our FC’s vision than the few that answer to in-game /shout recruits. So, I’ve stopped advertising us in game and hope that the forums will do their thing. We’ve had a little turnover (to be expected), but are still nearing a comfortable 50 member mark, with our first anniversary just on the horizon!
I’m like a sliver of experience away on Alchemist from having all my crafting classes to at least level 30 on Zuri. This has been a long road. Oh, and fishing is now level 49 – so close!
This weekend, Syn and I finished World of Darkness for the first time, and did the weekly CT run for the Carbon-whatever item. Not that I have anything Poetic to upgrade yet! :/
My Identity Crisis
So, I have a problem in most MMOs: I roll way too many characters. I have a hard time settling on one race/class/look and tend to have all kinds of alts to experiment with things.
With the class system in FFXIV, the game actually discourages rolling alts, mostly because you really don’t need them. But what do I do? Roll an alt anyhow. To my credit, though, I actually have a lot less alts in FFXIV than any other game. XD
When I started playing, I was by myself, and rolled my “main” Bard, Zuri Nimat. I tend to play her when Syn is not around, and use her to scope out new content first and get comfortable with it. Bard allows me to stand back and absorb the mechanics – when I play raids, I like to know every little trick, which is not something as easily learned for me on a melee DPS.
When Syn decided to join me in FFXIV (yay!), I rolled my duo alt, TsuYa Tai. I did this in order to play the story along with Syn, so we could stay in stride. I rolled him as a Dragoon, a class I struggled to play up until they gave the Dragoon some love after the Ninja was released. Since then, I’ve enjoyed playing him a lot more, and even completed his Atma and purchasing all of his ilvl 100 gear.
Part of my identity crisis comes from the fact that as our FC has expanded, the number of folks playing Bard has also increased. Bard is just that awesome that everyone seems to like to play it! In fact, I think Tai is the only high level Dragoon we have, and one of a handful of melee DPS. It’s really odd since it used to be flipped for a long time – Dragoon was a favorite DPS.
I think folks should play what they like – it’s part of what our FC stands for. And I really love Bard, so I understand the Bard luv. But I feel that I should start branching out with other classes to help round out our FC parties. I’ve been pulling Tai in more than Zuri lately, and they’ve become pretty equal in all things, including ilvl and story progression.
I’ve been trying to level Scholar on Zuri to provide some variation in healers available – we have quite a few white mages (which is always cool). I’ve even been using my tomes and lucky healer drops from ST to stow away ilvl 100 gear for the class once I unlock 50.
However, the road to leveling another class has been slow for me. Especially since I’m working on leveling Paladin on Tai, who finally reached level 47 last night. Tanking has been another slow, nervous learning process for me. Some days, I’m all gung ho about it (yay, I tanked Cutter’s Cry a few times!). Other days, I shiver at the thought of having to tank stuff to unlock the Paladin relic, or tackle something like ST.
My last few ST runs (On both Zuri and Tai) have only seen lousy rolls on oil and sands, leaving me with no upgrades at all for days. I’m not even close to picking up my first poetic item, because splitting time between the two characters has slowed down tome acquisition – and even if I did get enough to buy something, I’m not sure which class to use it for anymore!
In the meantime, Syn’s upgraded Zeb’s items all the way and even has an ilvl 130 ring now. She wants to start relic books, and I want to do them with her, but I’m trying to save tomes for alt class armor (haven’t even started that on Tai’s Paladin yet). I’m not even sure which class is going to end up my main~!
Augh!
I feel so behind! See? Crisis! (First world problems.) :'(
I’d like to pick one thing and stick with it, but that’s not so easy. Zuri has all my crafting and gathering progress, as well as my Gold Saucer progress, and is known as my main (when people talk to me in the FC, they call me Zuri). Plus I adore the character and really enjoy playing her. So, I can’t just leave her in the dust, either.
(Oh, and that’s not including the poor Cactuar server alt I made – I’m really sorry, nice Cactuar people! Not enough hours in the day!)
This is what I get for waiting this long to make end game progress, I suppose.