I haven’t really posted much about Final Fantasy in the last two weeks, since my post about Capitalism finally getting me in Final Fantasy 14. I wrote about it tangentially a week ago, but that was mostly in the context of working a long day from home, but I haven’t really written about the game and its story. Mostly because I wound up letting myself get incredibly side-tracked over the past few weeks–long enough that I’m not exactly sure how long it has been. Instead of focusing on the MSQ (Main Scenario Quests), I’ve been working on a bunch of side-content and leveling up my skill-based jobs. I helped rebuild a city that was actually rebuilt years ago (the costs of running through old game content years after it was released), helped a bunch of people settle into a post-war life, visited a fantastical floating island chain that provides a specific type of resources used only in building and maintaining the aforementioned rebuilt city, and used the bonuses from that to drastically boost my own abilities. I also attended another Roleplaying Wrestling event, did a “Savage” raid, wrapped up a tiny bit of the MSQ so I could start the next expansion, and built myself an entire set of crafting gear so I could say I’d done it. As you can see, it’s not like I’ve stopped playing the game. Even when I deviated from this to play other games (more on that next week), I used the nights I’d normally take off from the game to do that. I have stopped spending as much time on capitalistic gain, though, just because I don’t really have anything to spend the money on yet and have been trying to use my evenings a bit more specifically.

The thing I’m probably the most proud of was the savage raid. In order to prepare for that, I had to do the entire chain of normal raids, finish gearing up my characters for the part of the game I was at, and spend a whole lot of time watching cutscenes–mostly framed around the chain of raids–but it all paid off in the end. We only made it through a single part of the 12-part raid, but given that the word “savage” refers to the difficulty and we further enhanced that difficulty by turning off the boosts people normally get when doing those raids, which means we had to buckle down, learn boss mechanics, and just repeat it until we cleared it. I didn’t count the number of tries it took to do so, but we wrapped up after about two and a half hours of playing, even though that was thirty minutes past the point that we’d planned to stop. We just wanted to get the clear and we’d just gotten super close to finishing it just before we hit the end of our scheduled raiding time, so we all decided to push through it to the end.

What made this a big deal for me is that this was my first time doing something at the sort of expected peak difficulty of the game–with the important caveat that only the latest stuff really sits at this point in difficulty. The rest of the time I was doing level-appropriate content, I benefited from some kind of boost thanks to having gear that was never meant to be used for the part of the game I was in, the guidance of my friends, or just the power creep of the game in general. This raid, for the first time, was a test of my ability to play the game at something resembling it’s intended difficulty and I’m happy to say that I passed the test I’d set for myself. Which isn’t to say that my performance was perfect or flawless, but that I was almost never the problem. Specifically, my performance as a healer was never the problem. I made a couple loud mistakes (erroneous callouts), but we didn’t wipe on either mistake so at least I have that going for me. Honestly, I’m not sure anyone was the problem last night, we just needed to work on communication, reaction timing, and learning the raid mechanics, which we all clearly did given our win at the end of the night. I got to enjoy feeling useful as a healer, pulled off a couple slick plays, and really just enjoyed playing the role I’d wanted at the start of the game.

Other than that, I think I’ve spend enough time puttering around the game that I’m ready to do the next chunk of the story. I will say that grinding through the MSQ can be a little exhausting, which isn’t great for my burnout, but it will unlock the entire next tier of game content… I really should get moving on that so that I can unlock all the class and skill abilities that are currently locked behind game progression. As much fun as it is to just putter around the game, there’s so much on my to-do list that it feels a little overwhelming to think about some days and focusing in on something like the MSQ or a crafting goal makes it all a little easier to ignore. Plus, I’m told the expansion AFTER the one I’m just about to start is where things get particularly interesting–such that my friends have respectfully demanded that I refrain from starting that until they’re back from their honeymoon in mid-April, so that’s a pretty enticing glimmer on the horizon I’d like to get to as soon as possible. I do love me some story. So, for now, it’s back to the MSQ grind for me and maybe a little crafting here and there, when I need a break. I have plenty of stuff set aside to craft thanks to the gathering work I’ve done, so it’ll be pretty easy to just chill and make things when I feel so inclined. Unless, of course, Wanderstop (which came out a few days ago) really captures my attention and compels me to play it more than Final Fantasy does. It’s difficult to imagine that happening, but I have to admit that I felt this same way about Dragon Age: The Veilguard when I dipped into FFXIV for the first time at the start of the year and look how that turned out.