FFXIV: Making the Hard Choice & Setting Goals

In March of last year, I wrote about my problem with alts in FFXIV. After the release of Heavensward, I feel like that problem got much, much more difficult for me.

The thing is, I love both of my characters. Zuri was my first, and my main. She has overall more classes leveled and all of my crafting progress. I just haven’t unlocked the classes I enjoy most on her, including Dragoon and Paladin. She’s also the character who leads our FC, and is what I’d consider my main identity in our guild.

Tai is my duo character, created after my beloved fiction character, and is usually the one I play along with Syn’s character, Zeb. Overall, he has less classes unlocked, but some of the classes I enjoy most, including Dragoon and Paladin. He also has the Eso armor and a lot of time invested in him.

For a while, Zuri sat on the sidelines, not even making it to level 60 while I ran dungeons for Eso armor for Tai. I thought I was going to end up retiring Zuri for a bit, but now things are swinging back the other way. I started crafting again on Zuri, and leveling White Mage, and though I’m still not happy with Bard, I’ve been overall enjoying playing her again.

As patch 2.3 starts to loom over us, I see the promise of new Tomes of Lore, new raids, new armor and the new mentor system. And instead of feeling excited about new content, I just feel stressed. I started to think about it, about what really makes me feel spread thin in this game, and I realized it’s the fact I’m trying to juggle too many projects spread between two characters.

So, I’ve come to the conclusion I need to try to focus on one character for this upcoming patch. And I’ve decided that is going to probably be Zuri.

Setting Some Goals

At first, I was annoyed at the announcement of the Mentor System’s requirements. I looked at my paltry number of dungeons run and tiny number of commendations and the fact that neither of my characters have the trinity leveled completely (it’s spread between the two of them), and thought there was absolutely no way.

But then I discovered unsycned dungeons count, and I think about how Leveling Roulette will allow grouping… and how many classes I still yet have to level… And I thought, well, maybe, if I work at it, Mentoring could be a long-term goal for me. I know that running as DPS rarely get the commendations. Or maybe it’s just because I’ve hardly run low level dungeons lately, and that’s where you get the most, rather than at end game where no one even looks twice at DPS (it seems).

So, I’m setting some goals to achieve, because there’s a lot I want to do on Zuri, and writing it all out might help.

End Game Stuff

  • Level White Mage to 60 ✓
  • Collect all crystals for second relic and make the first-stage relic for White Mage ✓
  • Complete the second-stage relic for Bard
  • Gear up White Mage enough to play Void Ark ✓
  • Gear up Bard accessories from Alex 1 Nah, nevermind. Esos will be easier to get soon.
  • Gear up White Mage accessories from Alex 1 ✓

Crafting/Gathering

  • Level Weaver to 60 ✓
  • Meld end game cloth crafting gear with materia  ✓
  • Level Carpenter to 60
  • Meld end game crafting accessories with materia
  • Level Leatherworker to 60
  • Level Miner to 60 ✓
  • Level Botanist to 60 ✓
  • Level Fisher to 60 ✓
  • Get Blue Script Gathering Gear ✓

Leveling Stuff

  • Level all jobs to 30
    • Monk ✓
    • Paladin
    • Warrior
    • Ninja
  • Level Dragoon to 50 ✓
  • Level Machinist to 50
  • Clean up old quests

As you can see, I have a LOT I want to get done. But I think focusing on one character for now will help me alleviate that scattered feeling I get with this game. I can always come back to Tai in the future if I want to. Usually patches make it so that it’s not too hard to play catch up.

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