After barely playing Final Fantasy for a week (especially if you exclude the time I spent making alternate characters), I returned to it last night for a few weekly tasks and my weekly Ultimate Raid event. Our group had advanced through the first portion of The Epic of Alexander well enough that we started hitting the second portion, known as Limit Cut, that requires a huge amount of coordination and practice to execute well and doing it poorly will quickly get everyone killed. Last week, when we couldn’t do much practice due to weird lag and connectivity issues between literally everyone and the game’s servers, we turned instead to a simulator that lets you run mechanics with a group of other players in order to get the coordination down without having to fight your way through the whole thing every single time. That way, if you messed it up, it wouldn’t hurt as much to have to re-do it. We spent a bunch of time practicing it last week (as of writing this) and were still struggling to get through the mechanic since it requires a decent amount of situational aware, perfect execution, and consideration of where your allies are placed in relation to yourself. Now, the simulator isn’t a perfect recreation since some parts of the mechanic didn’t function properly and not accounting for the extra steps you needed to take could get you killed in the simulator while it wouldn’t hurt you at all in the real thing, so there was a little bit lost in translation when we finally made the jump from the simulator to the real thing yesterday (as of writing this), but we managed to get through the real thing much more easily than we did in the simulator.
Continue readingFinal Fantasy 14
Mixed Emotions About Doing Different Activities Instead Of Final Fantasy 14
Not playing Final Fantasy 14 for a few days has been a weird experience. I wrote Monday’s post about taking a break from FF14 before I actually put it into effect. I stayed up pretty late on Sunday night to wrap up the Dawntrail expansion and solidified my decision to take a break betwen then and writing my blog post the following day during breaks at work. Then I left work early so I could participate in my Monday night Ultimate raid practice, spent a few hours making alternate characters on my now-open server to combat my anxiety, spent a few hours last night working on the final raid in the Alexander Savage raid series my group is doing, and then spent another hour and a half after that hanging out online and unlocking an activity that I was planning to do tonight. I haven’t really played all that much less than normal, at least looking at it on the basis of daily participation. I did, however, stop playing FF14 every night with time enough to still do other things before bed, which I didn’t used to do. And tonight I’m not actually doing the activity I unlocked because I was at work until my personal cut-off time (8:30pm, a time I will not work past except in the case of emergencies) and had to do my grocery shopping after that because my car is going to be trapped in my apartment’s underground garage for a few days while the parking lot is filled up by the roofing company that will be spending the next few days replacing the rooves of my apartment building and the one next door that shares a parking lot. So I got home super late, ate dinner late, showered late, and was too miserable and tired to want to hop online for thirty minutes or whatever. So I’m writing this instead.
Continue readingWeird Anxiety Spikes Are Still Less Trouble Than My Depression Was
Two months into my current dose of antidepressants and I’m pleased to say that my old misery/constant depression has stayed consistently gone. I’ve had my ups and downs during this period, my sleepless weeks that make the whole world seem darker, but it has been a weight off my shoulders to not have to fight myself every step of the way. Well, mostly. I’m still fighting myself occasionally, in ways that I was only sort of prepared for, and that by only one weirdly intense interaction with someone and the constant refrain of people complaining about weird increases in anxiety. Turns out, one of the side effects I’m experiencing is irregular but intense anxiety spikes. My brain will pick one specific thing and get incredibly bent out of shape about it no matter what that that thing is or what I tell myself. The first one was about a weird experience I had in a discord server and how I should have responded, where I worked myself up like I haven’t in a decade despite my best efforts to calm down and work through it myself. The second one was about my birthday, though I didn’t recognize it for a strange anxiety spike given how negatively I normally feel about contemplating my birthday. Currently, I’m struggling to contain the anxiety I feel about knowing that the world population status on Final Fantasy 14 has changed as part of today’s update (the day I wrote this) and the intense feeling that I need to take this time to make alternate characters because there’s no telling when the world will close again or how long it will be until it opens up again in the future. I’ve had a couple other spikes here or there, but they were all easier to work through: things that took a few calming breathes or waiting a few minutes for my mind to calm down rather than the day or days that these other ones are taking.
Continue readingTime To Mix Things Up A Bit And Play Less Final Fantasy 14 Before I Burn Out Completely
Well, I did it. I finished the base expansion of Dawntrail in Final Fantasy 14. I’ve got a few patches worth of Main Scenario Quests to do yet (twenty-five quests, according to the wiki that has a little quest progress bar on it) and plenty of other content on my immediate to-do list (some big “Alliance” raids, various exploration zones, whatever it is you do to get good gear once you’re basically “current,” and tons of crafting stuff), but I think now is the time for me to take a break. I’m very tired, if I’m going to be honest. Not of Final Fantasy 14, just in general. I have had a lot of fun and continue to have tons of fun, but I need something without the sense of urgency that comes with most Final Fantasy 14 stuff. I’m not going to forbid myself from playing it or anything like that, I’m just going to give myself a nudge to do other things instead of constantly pushing myself towards Final Fantasy 14. Part of me wants to take a complete break–stop playing altogether–but I don’t want to bail on the people who’re depending on me for various group activities. Sure, static groups sometimes need to replace people temporarily, but things rarely go as well when they do and it would just be temporary. I doubt it would last more than two weeks before I felt the urge to log on for one reason or another. Plus, I actually want to keep doing that stuff, even if it isn’t the most fun or the most rewarding and is, perhaps, the most tiring stuff I do in the game. I want to do it. I am just also very tired.
Continue readingHitting Level 100 In Final Fantasy 14
After putting it off for about two months, I finally got my first job to Level 100 (the current level cap) in Final Fantasy 14. I also got three more to level 100 in rapid succession (one each day since then) [for a total of seven by the time I’m editing this the day before it gets posted], as I’ve shifted gears back to focusing on progressing the Main Scenario Quests of Dawntrail and needed to get one of each of the job types to level 100 for the Role Quests. With all that done, I can now focus entirely on the MSQ and getting as far as I can in whatever play time I’ve got most days. Everything else, for at least the next four evenings after I write this, will sit on hold [it did not, in fact, sit on hold, and I wound up doing a lot of side work] as I try my hand at getting through the main portion of Dawntrail in time for the new Deep Dungeon coming out the day before this gets posted (the day after this gets posted is the day there’s a group of people in my Free Company getting together to do said dungeon [but I will not be joining them because I’m taking a break]). I’m not going to skimp on sleep or avoid doing my weekly chores and whatnot around my apartment (nor am I going to cancel my D&D session for this reason, but it IS looking like I’ll be cancelling it for other reasons), but I did clear as much of my weekend as I could because I’m getting the good ol’ double-vax Flu-And-COVID combo on Friday. I am giving myself the space to crash super hard if I need it, but I have typically dealt with the double-shot combo without too much trouble in the past, so I’m hoping to see how much Dawntrail I can get through.
Continue readingTrying (And Failing) To Spend More Time On My Switch 2
Two and a half months in to Donkey Kong Bananza (it turns out that games take forever to play through if you mostly ignore them and play Final Fantasy 14 instead), I’m almost to the end of the game. I’ve gotten almost all of the Bananas, most of the fossils, and almost all of the unlockable cosmetics/stat boost items. The only things I’m missing are from the area I’m currently exploring so it’s only a matter of time before I get those as well and then fight the final boss. There was a bit of a twist at the end that changed a bit of where I thought the game was going and how it was going to end, but I’m here for it. I’m ready to dive into whatever is coming my way, regardless of whether or not I expected it from the start (though there were hints if you knew enough about the Donkey Kong franchise). Plus, once I finish that, I’ll have the freshly released DLC to play, too. And the Kirby and the Forgotten Land expansion to play, too. Plus Final Fantasy Tactics (which comes out the day before this is scheduled to post) and then probably some other games after that. I’m going to really need to start splitting my time more if I’m going to play all these games! That, or focus down my Final Fantasy 14 stuff, wrap that up, and then take a break from it [which is where I’ve landed as of editing this the day before it posts]. Both are probably good ideas for my well-being, but the latter is growing more and more appealing as time goes on. Not because I’m not enjoying myself or anything, but because I’ve spent nine months sitting in my “office” (a walk-in closet) and it would be nice to spend some time in a more open sapce.
Continue readingI Finally Picked An In-Game Title For Myself In Final Fantasy 14
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.
Continue readingTEA Time In Final Fantasy 14
After finally clearing the Alexander 8: Savage (aka A8S) raid, the core of our Difficult Content group decided that we’re gonna go into Ultimates now. Specifically The Epic of Alexander (TEA) as chosen by a poll. We’ve proven our abilities on A8S and now we’re ready for the big time. We recruited two other experienced players to replace the two of our A8S group that weren’t interested in doing Savages, and spent a hectic weekend preparing for our first session as what I thought was a planning session for sometime in the more distant future shoved everything else aside in order to start on the one day everyone had available. Which means, as of writing this, our group is down to one weekly “Content Rewind” session since the Monday one was displaced by Ultimate practice and we’ve had our first session. Things went pretty well, as far as Ultimates go. We’re making slow progress as we adjust to the new level of demands placed on most of us, each time getting a little bit further or messing up on something new, but it’s not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. Probably because I’d doing DPS for this group rather than the healing I was doing in the other group, but it’s like any other raid at the end of the day: you study the mechanics, work on getting your part down, and slowly move forward as the group comes together. I do miss the added complexity of healing on top of all that–having a challenge to throw myself into that’s constantly fluctuating and will likely never become rote–but there were people in our group who don’t have the versatility of skillset that I do, so I knew from pretty early on that I wasn’t going to get the chance to heal.
Continue readingFinally Digging Into Side Content In Final Fantasy 14
One of the quirks of essentially chugging Final Fantasy 14 is that there is a huge amount of the game that I just don’t understand, and perhaps even more that I don’t even know about. The focus on crafting, making money, story progression, and specific activities means that I’ve largely ignored significant portions of the game that showed up to fill in the gaps between major expansions. Sure, I’ve spent quite a bit of time on some of the side activities, like my Island Sanctuary and the Ishgardian reconstruction crafting activities, but I’ve mostly avoided the special activities of Stormblood, Shadowbringers, and Endwalker. I dipped my toes into the first two, but never really spent the time to figure out why I would want to do any of them in the first place. I’ve been told the Cosmic Exploration stuff from Endwalker is fun and a great way to get some crafting experience, but I’ve enjoyed my current method of doing projects so I’m not sure I’d enjoy a new side activity, especially now that I’m finally moving forward in Dawntrail. The other two areas, though, are their own beasts. The Eureka exploration from Stormblood is a pretty significant time sink, even when you’ve got people to help speed up the process, and the Bozjan Southern Front in Shadowbringers has some really difficult barriers to cross in order to progress and no amount of bringing in my level 70 jobs to level them up will make that go any faster. Still, now that my Free Company (the FF14 equivalent of player guilds) is putting in some focused effort to completeing these activities, I’ve begun spending my thursdays desperately trying to stay alive as we all fight endless swarms of enemies to get the XP we need to level up the “elemental” level thing specific to the Eurekan exploration zone. It’s not the most fun, but it’s a refreshingly straight-foward activity so far and having a large group of other FC members to play with is enough fun for me.
Continue readingFour Months Of Effort And Zero Regrets
Finally, after approximately four months of at least weekly (often twice-weekly until fairly recently) attempts, my group of Final Fantasy 14 Savage Raiders has cleared the raid we’ve been struggling with. The Burden of the Son (Savage), also known as “A8S” is now behind us and we can all claim a very specific and probably pretty useless expertise given how this expertise is tied to a nine-year-old fight. That said, Brute Justice (the name of the final boss of A8S) is infamous for being a difficult fight in the “Savage” tier of raids, often referenced as the prototype of what would eventually become the “Ultimate” tier of raids and clearing it without the Echo (which gives you a boost to damage and HP for every failure until clearing the raid is a given) is a fairly rare accomplishment often claimed only by most serious of raiders. Well, there’s also the “Minimum Item-level No Echo” (or MINE) variant that is truly the most difficult version of the Savage raid, but the thing that makes this raid special is that actually winning the fight isn’t that hard. What’s difficult is getting the mechanics perfect because anything less than that can either immediately result in a party wipe or start a slow spiral towards a party wipe as additional resources are needed, focus is drawn away from the mechanics, and things aren’t killed as quickly as we’d like (forcing the group to face more mechanics). Any kind of clear for a Savage raid is brag-worthy, but we’ve got a special claim beyond even clearing it with No Echo: we did it while it was (and still is, as far as I know) bugged.
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