As stated in the title, there will be no spoilers in this post. In fact, there will be little to no talk about MSQ or the Alliance raid – both which I’ve completed.
The one note that I want to make about the MSQ is something I’ve heard another player say – they kept calling it “cozy.” In light of what we just experienced pretty much from 2.0 all the way through 6.0, I’d say this is by far the most cozy and least pressured story content we’ve seen.
Not that exciting and tension-building story is bad. And not that there wasn’t anything exciting or tense in the MSQ for 6.1 – I’m quite excited about a number of directions the game is taking us, in fact!
It’s more that it’s just nice to be able to explore concepts and locations because it’s something we want to do and not a response to a world-ending threat. Maybe taking it down a notch has also allowed me to enjoy the game even more as well. For me, the most important aspect of a MMO is feeling like the characters I build matter and they have a living, breathing home in an online fantasy world.
Previous Gaming Rut
If I haven’t been writing much about my day-to-day gaming in FFXIV, it’s not because I’m not logging in every day. I do. Just about every day – if for nothing else, to gather maps to sell.
Other than gathering maps, I do my weekly crafting turn-ins because it’s a laid back way to make a little progress in leveling my crafters. Not the fastest route, but I just don’t have the energy to put towards crafting leves now days.
If Syn is around, I usually run an Alliance roulette and maybe an Expert. Previously, that was to get Tome gear for Ben. But I’ve capped on Tome gear on his main class, and don’t feel the need to do it all over again for another job. So now days, if I run Alliance, it’s mainly to level alt jobs.
That has been my extent of daily play in FFXIV pretty much since I finished 6.0. Even before 6.0, that was pretty standard for me. Maps. Crafting weeklies. Alliance. Maybe some Experts for Tomes.
With the coming of patch 6.1, however, I’ve found myself in game longer doing more things than I have in a long time. So why is that?
A Bit of This, A Bit of That
Coming along with that cozy feeling I talked about before, there just is the overall impression of being able to take things easy and at my own pace. I don’t really know why – that was always the case, and I know it’s just my perception.
But when the world slows down a little in MSQ, it becomes a bit more enticing to me. I find myself cleaning up loose ends that I keep meaning to, but just haven’t focused on. Also new things catch my eye.
Adventurer Plates – I’ve spent some time exploring this new feature and setting up a plate for each of my characters one at a time. I’m not done with this yet for every character as I’ve just been doing this as I’ve logged into a character and had the desire to work on the plate.
PVP Season – I haven’t tried the new PVP map as I’m not normally a small group PVP player. But I have been running a Frontline roulette every day since 6.1 dropped. I’m not great at it, but it’s been fun to do something different.
I’m earning wolf marks for various things (and one character needs a Garo title), I’m earning Crystals to buy other things, ranking up my seasons for the emotes and plate aesthetics, all the while making a good chunk of experience per daily alliance. One Frontline gives about half a level – and it also gives Tomes if you do it on a level 90 job.
Not to mention this is finally the motivation I needed to start PvP on Amon, for whom I really want to get the Node mounts.
FATE Runs – I like FATEs and I like the bi-colored gem system. I just haven’t worked on any of that for Endwalker yet. I’d fully finished all my ranking in every zone for Shadowbringers, but I didn’t go back and earn more gems for additional rewards they added over time.
The addition of Welcome to our Town (the music that plays in Bestway Burrows) as an orchestrion roll was my motivation here. I had to have FFIV music for the FC house, of course! And so, I started working on my FATES for the Moon – and surprisingly finished them all far more quickly than I expected.
I kept running into other folks working on FATEs, and that sped it all up. It’s kinda hard to walk away when there’s a strong FATE group getting things done. So though I would go out there thinking, “I’ll just do ten more today.” – it always turned out to be a lot more than that.
Now that I have one zone done, I want to keep the momentum going and finish other zones, too!
Housing – Yeah, I know there’s a big kerfluful going on with the lotto system. That’s not the housing I’m talking about. I’ve been emptying my retainers of housing items that I’ve been holding on to for quite some time now that there’s people wanting to decorate again. I haven’t made a ton of gil, but I’m happy to rehome things that I know I’m not going to use.
With new housing items in game, I’ve also been inspired to work on some decorating myself. Namely, I’m re-doing Ben’s FC chambers because I was never fully content with the concept. Also, because it was designed back when this character was Aywren, and I want something that reflects a more Bennish style.
I also possibly have my eye on a medium lot that’s come open in Shirogane for our FC house. Once the lotto system gets worked out, I’m fairly sure I’ll be dropping an entry on this place to see how our luck stands.
Random Crafting & Beast Tribes – This was something I didn’t mean to do, really! Last night, I logged into Tad in order to make progress in MSQ for him. I noticed he had a crafting quest where you unlock the soul stones and pick crafting jobs to become your specialist. I went to turn that in, and discovered that I had one job just shy a level in order to specialize in it (you have to be level 55 in a crafting job).
I already had the three jobs picked for Tad that I want to level – I don’t need another omnicrafter since I already have two. His Goldsmith was at 90, but Armorer and Blacksmith have been left in the mid 50s for a good year or more.
He also had a bunch of Diadem materials sitting in his bags from when I was leveling those two jobs. So, last night, I sat down and finished turn-ins for both Armorer and Blacksmith to get them to level 60.
I then got him all his level 60 tools and gear and went to look at the Namazu beast tribe quests. Interestingly, I’d unlocked them already (I didn’t remember this) but only ranked them to 6. I’m going to guess I leveled from 60-70 on Goldsmith and forgot about them from there.
So now, I have another daily to add to the bunch as I work in casually leveling Tad’s remaining two crafting jobs. I also need to finish leveling his Fisher sometime.
New Player Experience – And before I forget, I’m also exploring the new player experience on a low level character. I want to see what it’s like leveling through ARR with the new trust system as a new player would experience it. So far, I’m very happy with what I’m seeing.
I will post about that soon! I just want to do a few more dungeons to get a feel for it first.