I’ve been making progress in the final (currently available) expansion of Final Fantasy 14 (Dawntrail) over my weekends lately, but I don’t really have a lot to say about it yet. There’s very little that has carried over from the previous chapters of the game, so I don’t have a building sense of what’s going on to discuss, and I’m only just starting level 94 quests (out of level 100), so I’ve yet to get to the midway point, much less what I expect to eventually be the inflection point or whatever twist might be coming. Things are just fine. They’re proceeding apace. I’ve reassessed my opinion of one of the main characters and am beginning to suspect so many people online seem to hate her because she’s a woman who is seen struggling with the mantle of potential leadership (I’m flashing back to how nonsensically people reacted to Keyleth of Critical Role’s first campaign) but I’m trepidatious given how many people react to that with something like “just wait” or “the story isn’t over yet.” Other than that, though, the only other noteworthy thing is that I’ve learned my favorite song from the expansion (so far) is called “Taco Delight” and I’m not sure how I feel about that beyond “mildly amused.” That’s fine, though. Most of my time and attention has gone to my various other activities: leveling crafting classes, working on leveling up my non-main combat jobs, doing side-quests with the job I’d set aside for that purpose, and doing high-end difficult content. The two raid series I’m still in, The Epic of Alexander (an “Ultimate”) and the Alexander Savage series (we’re now on A11S, the penultimate raid in the series), are what take up most of my extra time and attention since both require doing a bit of homework and preparation in the Savage series’ case and a LOT of homework in the Ultimate’s case.

Most personally noteworthy, I suppose, is that I finally accomplished something in the game that felt worthy of using as a title. I’d been avoiding using any up to this point because most of them were things I felt were unworthy of being constantly paraded next to my name. A lot of the titles you earn are from simply progressing through the MSQ, leveling your various jobs, or doing enough stuff with specific jobs or types of jobs. The sort of thing you’ll get no matter your level of skill as long as you keep playing long enough will never feel like much of an accomplishment to me, so I’ve just avoided using a title until I got one for finally reaching level 90 in all of my crafting jobs. That one took a lot of work, as did doing all of the the role quests up to level 90 and since I wrapped up both at the same time, so it felt like a proper accomplishment to earn it. Plus, it wasn’t gendered like a lot of the previous job-related titles were, so it was infinitely more appealing than any prior crafting-related titles I’d unlocked. So now I get to wander around with the title “At Art’s Horizon” attached to my name and that feels very appropriate. Very fitting.

Which is the other half of why it’s taken so long to pick a title. Almost all of the titles I’ve unlocked before this one just never really felt like they worked for me, even if earning them felt like a proper accomplishment. And the ones that didn’t feel weird weren’t good enough for me to get over feeling like it wasn’t something I wanted to brag about. Which is a silly way to feel, to be honest, since it’s not like I judge other people for using titles that were easy to get. I mostly just don’t want to use them myself. Maybe when I finish an Ultimate or two and get their respective titles I’ll feel like using one of them. I dunno. I did recently find out that having done all the job quests for every single one of my high-leveled combat roles, along with all of the role quests up to 90, is less common than I thought it would be, so maybe I’ll wind up using one of those, too. Perhaps part of the problem is, in my own inwardly-focused effort, I don’t actually have a sense of what’s a common or easy accomplishment. I don’t know of any way to address that other than polling my fellow players and that’s too much effort to provide some kind of extrinsic value to something I don’t intrinsically value. Which means I’ve got an open question I don’t feel particularly motivated to put in the effort to answer and should probably just stick to the things that feel, to me, like an accompishment since I’m going to be the person looking at my name and title the most. Besides, I still need to figure out if I can separate out the ones I like from the massive list of possible titles so I can actually swap between them whenever I feel like it without needing to go digging for whatever it was called.

The problem with titles in general, though, is that the rarest ones are not exactly something most people can appreciate, I suspect. It’s not like I know what any of the titles mean in particular. I barely even see them anymore, despite them being displayed on my screen, so I might not even recognize someone who has one of the titles I’ve unlocked and might want to use, much less ones I don’t even know exist (like whatever all the Ultimate raid titles are). That kind of swag or visual bragging has always kind of mystified me, but I understand that I’m the odd one out here. I do this kind of stuff for the sake of a challenge and to feel like I have accomplished something. I get nothing out of showing off whatever fancy rewards you get from doing these things. Part of that is because once I’ve done something and proven I can do it, it stops feeling like a difficult thing for me to do (I am mildly cursed, as always, by how quickly my sense of personal scale adapts to diminish my own feelings and accomplishments), but part of it is because I don’t really like that kind of attention. I don’t want people to be in awe of me or to treat me differently because I did something difficult. I just want to be taken as seriously as I’d take any random person. I know a lot of people like to be recognized for their rare or difficult accomplishments and I will gladly celebrate their achievements of course. I just, personally, don’t get anything out of it. I’m not that kind of competitive.

Which is why I don’t even know what the rewards look like for the Ultimate I’m doing. I’m not doing it for the material rewards of beating TEA. I just want to take on a fun challenge and gradually improve with a group of seven other people until we get good enough to clear it. After all, the real treasure is the skills I’ll develop by doing these challenges. Those will carry across characters, accounts, time, and maybe even games (to a degree) while the titles and whatever else you get will be locked to the specific character I performed them with. Also, it’s fun. It’s fun to do difficult things, get better at them, and eventually succeed thanks to your hard work and a dash of good luck. It’s difficult to find things in life where hard work and practice can directly lead to specific accomplishments and I treasure every single instance of that I can get my hands on. Getting good at difficult raids in Final Fantasy 14 is much easier (and much more within my control) than publishing a book or paying off my student loans. I only started playing the game this year and I’m already at a point in my skill development where I can compete at the Ultimate level, but I’ve been paying my student loans off for eleven years and counting. Kinda makes sense that I’d be a little hungry for any kind of accomplishment, regardless of the trappings that might come with it. Better to chase my own satisfaction than whatever laurels others might bestow on me since I can always revisit my own satisfaction and sense of accomplishment no matter what anyone else does to the laurel’s I’ve been granted.