FFXIV: Little Things Add Up
I’ve been taking a bit of a break from blogging lately mostly because I’ve been taking a break in general. I’ve have a good chunk of holiday time, and still have up until the new year before I have to think about anything other than relaxing. So I’ve been doing that.
With so much time on my hands, I’ve actually dedicated a good bit of it to tying up little loose ends with my stable of characters in FFXIV. I’ve completely embraced the alt life at this point, with several different characters at different points of advancement. But there were a few things that I wanted to do for each of them that I rarely put the thought or time into.
Chocobo Color
A while back, I farmed up a big batch of fruit for our new FC to dye their chocobos. I have several characters who have been surviving on desert yellow vanilla chocobo color… more than I wish to admit — including my RP main!
It’s still somewhat tedious to feed all the fruit one by one, but really, it doesn’t take that much time. It’s just one of the things that slipped through the cracks. One of those things where I thought, “Yeah, I’ll get around to it one day.”
Well, I did, and I’m glad. Now I have many chocobos the colors of the rainbow.
Grand Company Rank
Before this holiday, only 3 of my characters had Second Lieutenant rank with their Grand Company. Some of them hadn’t even started ranking up at all.
Why is this rank important? Two reasons – it unlocks housing and squads. So without that rank, none of these characters could have a personal room, nor did they have squads to help level any alt jobs I might want to tackle.
This was a bit of a grind, to be honest, but as of now, only one of my characters do not have a personal room or squads unlocked now… and that’s because she hasn’t reached that part in MSQ.
Personal Rooms
This ties into the above. It’s a goal of mine next year to really think about housing and decorating for all of my characters. I want to consider a theme, something that fits them as an individual, and design their rooms around it.
But before I could do that, I had to unlock the proper GC rank, and I had to have the gil to buy it. I’ve managed to do that for all but one of my characters now. I have a lot of decorating ahead of me!
Squads
Another thing locked behind my GC rank is squads.
While squads aren’t mandatory, and for most of my characters, not even needed, it’s still something I want to work on for several reasons. There are achievements and emotes locked behind squads… also, Grand Company rank is tied to leveling your squad in the end.
I don’t know if in the future I’ll regret not ranking up with my GC. They might gate something awesome behind it… who knows. So may as well do it while I had some time.
Ranking up Squads chews through GC seals, though. And juggling this between so many characters who usually don’t go out of their way to earn GC seals means I have to put time into things like unsyced runs for drops.
It also means that GC seals are not a viable way to purchase ventures. Which leads to…
Allied Hunts
Allied seals are a nice way to earn things like ventures and aetheryte tickets. Sadly, I don’t pay them as much attention as I should. Ranking up in the GC unlocked hunts, and I took full advantage of the weekly B Rank for each of the characters who could complete it.
I turned these into ventures because…
Leveling Retainers
Most of these characters have retainers who didn’t even have a job yet. Some of them I’d leveled a little bit, but having run out of ventures and not farming GC seals… well… I just didn’t have the resources to keep leveling my retainers.
So, earning ventures through hunts meant that I could put resources into leveling my retainers again. A max rank retainer with good gear is actually quite a boon to have. I’ve made some good money from random venture returns. So it’s yet another thing that I am working on leveling across my alts.
On a positive note, doing all this has given the FC a boost in currency! Now I just have to figure out how to make a habit of checking on all of these things across my different characters. Hopefully, I’ll be able to sync them all up in a way that they coincide with each other for everyone.
Times like this you realize just how many systems are in FFXIV. I mean, I always am aware there’s more to do then I can ever really do, but… part of that is just the fact that I am, and will always be, an alt-a-holic.
