One of the interesting parts of looking back on a year of playing Final Fantasy 14 is seeing just how disparate everyone’s experience with the game is despite how similar some of our activities and motivations can be. I mean, of course the person who plays every possible scrap of game available in the free version of it before they buy the game proper is going to have a different experience from the person who, a month in, gets frustrated with the cap on their wallet, inability to buy things from other players, and inability to do much social engagement at all such that they use the excuse of being fully bought-in on the story to buy the base game and every expansion as well. A difference of that magnitude describes not just a method of play or preference for a style of play, but an entirely different approach to what play even is or how one engages in play at all. Neither one is better than the other, of course, but there’s no denying that those two people will have incredibly different experiences with the game. It is, however, also very interesting that two people who appreciate the same styles of play, who like engaging in the same activities, and who are similarly motivated can still have such wildly different experiences. This was highlighted for me incredibly recently, as I’ve offered to help a player who has just returned to the game after a long absence. He was playing during my initial months, but he dropped off before long and returned to find a dramatic shift in what our Free Company was doing, not to mention how he’d been left behind by the advancements in gear that occurred over this period. By all accounts, he and I should have similar game experiences to hear our FC leader tell it, but in talking to this other player to discuss getting him geared up, it is clear that we are in incredibly different worlds.
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This Is Going To Be An Entire Week Of Final Fantasy 14 Posts
It’s funny to think back to my early days of playing the game. Putting around with side quests, gathering whatever random crap I could, crafting more random crap with what I gathered, fighting low-level mobs, and generally just not being super focused on the game. Then I slowly dialed in more and more as I started to run into the boundaries of what I could do with a free account and, a month into my playtime, bought all the expansions and a subscription. From then on, I was basically all-in. I still had occasional nights off and spent time doing other things on the weekend, but I mostly stopped playing other games and completely stopped being “relaxed” about the game. I had to catch up to my friends, after-all. I had so much stuff to do in order to make up for the months they’d been playing while I was off in Dragon Age Land, playing through that franchise and it wasn’t going to happen if I didn’t focus. Plus, it gave me goals to pursue and I love having goals. I love having targets to aim for. So I spent a lot of time driving myself forward in the Main Scenario Quests for weeks at a time and then took a break to do crafting and gathering stuff before ultimately returning to MSQ. The cycle repeated itself for almost six months when I cleared the final pieces of Endwalker hand-in-hand with my friends and then we all collapsed in exhaustion. I resolved to get back to puttering, my friends resolved to pace themselves, and the rest of our Free Company hinted at what exciting stuff awaited us in Dawntrail whenever we finally got to it. Which, for me, took about four or five weeks. I was content to rest for a while, catch up on some leveling of other jobs and personal projects, explore my island sanctuary, and mess around in a variety of other types of gameplay, but eventually I felt the itch to get moving forward again and let that lead me into the post-Endwalker patches, Dawntrail, and not to being caught-up with the Dawntrail patches.
Continue readingI’ve Been Playing Final Fantasy 14 For Over A Year Now
If, one year ago, you had told me that I’d spend a year almost exclusively playing Final Fantasy 14, I’d have laughed it off. I don’t get obsessed with games like that. I tend to bounce off of things after a while and need to change up what I’m doing often so I don’t burn out or just lose interest. Or at least that was true for the first thirty-three and a half years of my life since I think the only game I’ve played for more than 500 hours, prior to FF14, was The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and The Legend of Zelda franchise is an important part of my life. And now I’m approaching 2500 hours in this game, struggling to make the time to play anything else, and really not bothered by it since playing only this MMO means that I’m saving a lot of money on my entertainment every month. I’m also, you know, having a good time with it. Unfortunately, that also means I’ve got growing to-play and to-read piles that desperately need some amount of attention (I also need to get back to playing Wanderstop for the second time since I hit a moment in the game that made me want to stop playing and think about it for a while, but more on that once I’ve beaten the game) and I’m struggling to want to do it because it’s just so much easier to spend more time on Final Fantasy 14 than to spin up something else. Easier to stay invested in what has my attention in a chokehold than to need to tear my attention away from it every time I think I should do something else. I mean, after all, if I wanted to do something else, I’d do it. I’ve got so many unfinished or unplayed games still that I could probably play a similar amount of video games this year and not need to touch FF14 even once, all without spending any money. And yet the only thing I want to do is go home, cycle my retainers, do some daily roulettes, work on some crafting stuff, and maybe hang out with some folks while doing that. It’s nice to spend time with people and FF14 still remains my main means of access to others.
Continue readingMy First Final Fantasy 14 Post Of 2026
As you might have guessed from what is now over a year of precedent, I spent a lot of my vacation over the last few weeks playing Final Fantasy 14. It was a pretty busy time because there was a major patch that included some new raids, main scenario quests, and a pile of new craftable items. Lots of stuff to do for folks like me who had been champing at the bit to make new gear (most of which looks good enough that I haven’t wanted to glamour over it) and for all the raiders out there. Between that gear, a new set of raids, a new set of savage raids (that unlocked the day before this posts, which is also the day I’m writing it), and a new tier of consumables for those raids, there’s a lot of demand for supplies and people to produce it all. So far, I’ve managed to make a tidy little sum crafting gear for people, some of which disappeared into making sets for my friends now that they have jobs at level 100 (which is necessary for using the gear in question), but much of that particular demand appears to have dried up. There really aren’t a lot of people who wanted it and most of those people seem to have gotten their gear by now. I’m sure there will always be a steady trickle of demand since the gear looks pretty great, but the market is glutted right now as a bunch of crafters have produced things and very few people seem to be buying them at the moment. I’m sure more people will buy once the price drops low enough, but I don’t think there’s been all that much to be made in the market since the first few days of the patch, where crafters could basically name their prices.
Continue readingIt’s Tough To Beat The Appeal Of Social Connection
I’m in a bit of a weird position with Pokémon Legends: Z-A these days. I really enjoy playing the game and have plenty to do yet since I’m not even halfway through the game, but I stopped playing it after my trip and haven’t gone back. A significant part of that is, of course, being sick and spending all my time and attention on Final Fantasy 14 in prepared for the patch that dropped yesterday since it’s not like I wasn’t having a grand ol’ time with Z-A. As my discord friends can tell you, I have been enjoying that game immensely (and was providing regular fashion updates for a while). So what about returning to my home has left me unwilling to even boot up the game? I think a part of it is that it was a replacement fixation for Final Fantasy 14 and, now that I’ve got that back, I don’t need something else to do especially now when there’s so much going on. Part of it, though, is that my brain has filed it into “Handheld Pokémon Games” territory since I have spent 99% of my playtime for that game in handheld mode and now it only pops into my head when I see my Switch 2 sitting out (which I never do because I put it back on it’s dock every time I’m done with it) or when I’m going to sleep since I used handheld Pokémon games as my fall-asleep activity for a very long time. It no longer pops into my head as a waking-time activity or something to do to fill time between other activities. I’ve played it a bit while doing crafting stuff, but having to swap my attention back and forth meant it was really difficult to focus on the game and, even worse, difficult to avoid misclicks on my crafting macros. So now it just doesn’t have a time or a space in my mind since even my “stay in bed on Saturday/Sunday morning” time is being subsumed into “play Final Fantasy 14” time. Even with all that being true, I don’t think that’s the main reason I’m having a difficult time focusing on playing the game.
Continue readingAnticipation And Preparation For Final Fantasy 14’s Next Patch
When this post goes up, there will only be a few more days before the next Final Fantasy 14 patch. This will be the first one where I’m actually IN the parts of the game impacted by the patch. I’ve got my crafters all set for the new gear, I’ve got almost all of the main scenario quests done, and I’m just going through the last steps of completing stockpiles, acquiring supplies, and making sure I have everything ready that I can possibly think of. I have no idea what to expect and while I’m sure I could ask people for the information I need to know it all, I kind of want to go in without knowing. I want to experience the bleeding edge of it all. I want to chart my own path through unknown territory. I want to be driven into the systems of the game because none of the outside resources have the answers yet. I want to experience what it’s like to not know something along with a whole bunch of other people who also don’t know. I want to experience a massive game and the way the world of players within it shift to respond to changes. It’s possible I’m building up anticipation for something that will be ultimately disappointing. It’s possible nothing I imagine will come to pass and it will just be another Tuesday marked by the ability to more freely glamour everyone’s gear (using off-job gear now). I have no idea what to expect and I’m very invested in finding out what it will be, roses and thorns together.
Continue readingPokémon Legends: Z-A Really Has It All
I started playing Pokémon Legends: Z-A over the weekend. I made a file sometime last Friday and wound up turning to the game for entertainment as I clicked through a bunch of crafting macros in Final Fantasy 14. So far, it’s been a lot of fun! There was quite a bit of preamble and introduction as seems to be the case in the more recent Pokémon games, but the only restrictions on me where invisible barriers to prevent me from entirely wandering off while I was still going through the tutorial and early missions. Once those opened up, though, I was able to roam as far and as wide as I liked, taking on side quests, catching Pokémon, blowing all of my money on clothing, earning more money by battling at night, and then blowing even more money on yet more clothing items. It has been quite a rewarding experience, so far, and it’s been fun and engaging enough that I’m only sticking with my nightly forays into Final Fantasy 14 because I’m good at making myself do my chores (and I have a LOT of those to do in the next couple weeks yet). This is the kind of game I could lose myself in for a few weeks to a month, if I could tear myself away from FF14 long enough, and I might yet do that while I’m on my trip to visit people over the holidays (I am writing this before the trip and it was published after the trip, so I’m in a bit of a weird place vis-a-vis timing). I think it will help balance out my Final Fantasy 14 time a bit, though, even if I don’t entirely lose myself to it, so maybe I can start building a more healthy variety of activities. I have so much I still want to play, even beyond Pokémon Legends: Z-A.
Continue readingFinal Fantasy Tactics Isn’t Bad, But I Keep Forgetting It Exists
A few weeks ago, I started playing Final Fantasy Tactics. I’d bought it for something to play during my 2-week break from Final Fantasy 14 and while it certainly kept me occupied, it didn’t really hook me. I don’t have the nostalgic tie to it that many other people do and have to admit that it left me feeling a little underwhelmed even after applying a correction to the expectations set by all those people for whom this game was a significant part of their youth. So many people spoke about the impressive story, about some of the subversive lines, and the way the game supposedly flips the bird to authority in a way that was supposedly unheard of in games at the time. I just don’t see it. The writing isn’t bad, of course, but it’s still pretty normal. It’s on the positive side of neutral for a video game, but I think my penchant for reading a lot has worked against the idea that this is excellent, unheard-of writing even for when it originally came out in the late 90s. I mean, there was a lot of subversive media in the 90s, depending on what you consider subversive, and the idea of fighting authority or turning against family in the name of justice is a classic trope in heroic storytelling. I know I was probably just oversold on it to the degree that it has warped even my ability to dial back my expectations, but I have to say that I’m just not hooked by the story in the way so many of my contemparies seem to be. The gameplay is pretty good, though, so it’s not like I’m having a bad time. I am just having trouble sticking to it.
Continue readingCrafting Burnout And Lines I Won’t Cross
I spent the last weekend (well, two weekends ago as this is getting posted) doing pretty much nothing but crafting and a deep dungeon run in Final Fantasy 14. It might have taken eleven intense months, but I think I’ve finally gotten tired of crafting. I’ve been making gear for people and the amount of mind-numbing macro-clicking involved in it is driving me more and more rapidly insane. I have done nothing but lose myself in crafting, the grind for various currencies, and trying to get new gear for the last month or so and it is burning me out like nothing else has. I’m not at risk of no longer wanting to play the game or anything like that, but it made me kind of glad that I had to take a week off for holiday travel. I don’t know that I’m going to be changing much in the next couple weeks as we run up to the release of the next patch, but I’m really hoping I can at least take a break from crafting a few hundred materials and gear pieces every week. I mean, I’ve still got a lot of stuff to do as I’m writing this two weeks before it gets posted: crafting and gathering food to make, a couple gear sets to wrap-up, one more set of gear to entirely produce, limited currencies to earn, and so much questing to do in order to be fully caught up for the start of the whatever comes with the next major patch, but I hope I can get at least another week away from all that before the update drops so I can do other stuff like level other jobs and work on finding some roleplaying opportunities or do literally anything other than constantly grind away at preparations for whatever the next patch is going to require of me to make the next gear sets.
Continue readingTeamwork, Bonding, And Growing Frustration
Yesterday, while talking about the final steps of my Final Fantasy 14 crafting project in our discord, I joked about a bit of bad luck on my part traumatizing another player and myself. You see, the final step of making my top-notch crafting and gathering gear in Final Fantasy 14 was putting little stat-boosting things called “materia” into the gear. Most gear has one or two slots that you can place materia in without a problem, but it is also frequently possible to add more materia to a piece of gear via a process called “Advanced Melding,” which is how you wind up with gear that is “pentamelded” (meaning it has five materia melded into it, which is the absolute cap on melding). The reason most people don’t do it is because there is a decreasing chance of success with every subsequent Advanced meld, with the 4th advanced meld having only a five percent success rate, and that innocent little five percent number only means that you have a low chance of success, not that it will happen five out of one hundred times. Everyone who has done pentamelding has a horror story of burning up a huge chunk of materia in an instant (you can check a box to make the game just keep trying until it succeeds so you don’t have to click through the activity so many times) as your luck turns bad and you go from spending one to twenty on an attempt to spending over a hundred. Which almost always means that a significant amount of money also just vanished into smoke. Which is why, when I burned through 1,260,000 gil (FF14’s in-game currency), my friend (who was crafting other stuff next to me and had helped me acquire all the materia) and I simply froze and stared at the chat window’s little read-out. It was so much. Fully a third of what I’d bought in that round and I burned through it in an instant.
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