Heavensward

Oh, how things have changed since I wrote my last few posts about Final Fantasy XIV.


On June 23rd, the first expansion to the game came out, though since I had it preordered, I got to play early access starting on June 19th. I finished the main story of A Realm Reborn that day, and made it into Ishgard, the setting of the expansion.


First, though, I want to write about the endgame of ARR, as it was prior to HW. I still main WHM, and spent most of my time leveling that class, and two gatherer classes, primarily Miner. I still haven't done any end game mining, so I don't have much to say about that, really.


As for the WHM stuff, I worked on getting better gear by running low level and main scenario roulettes to get Allegan tomestones of soldiery and poetics, as outlined in my last post. Using those, I upgraded my gear to about item level 108, at which point HW came out and I started getting new gear very quickly (as of this post, I am iLvl 146). There was a ton of level 50 content (50 being the old level cap, prior to HW). New primal battles, new dungeons, remixed hard versions of old dungeons, and to this day I still haven't completed all of it (I have yet to beat Syrcus Tower and the World of Darkness, which are raids, and Ultima Hard Mode, just because I haven't bothered to queue up for it yet).


With regards to raids (giant 24 man dungeons, basically) - I want to get my thoughts on them down now, because I can see my opinion of them changing in the future. I think I've just had some bad experiences so far, some of which is my fault, and some of which is the fault of some assholes who don't have an ounce of patience. What I mean is, I like to go into new content fresh, and try to learn it as I go. Raiders take issue with this, since they want to blow through the content, get their item, and run it again or whatever. I sympathize with this! But when they get players who are new, they either drop right away, or do not take a second - can't even spare a single sentence - about the mechanics of a fight, even after a wipe. That's all I ask - if I can't learn a fight after an explanation AND a wipe, then get pissed at me, and drop or kick me or whatever. I'd be fine with that. But instead, we wipe, I ask a question, no one answers, and then we wipe again, and someone in my party will say (and I quote!) "why healers no heal." Because healers no know how fight works, idiot! Again, I understand someone doesn't want to jump into a raid, and then spend five minutes typing a novel about how to beat a fight just for the new guy not to really read it and wipe anyway, but come ON.


However - and here's why I think my opinion on them might change - a new raid is coming out in a week or two. It is against Alexander, another legacy Final Fantasy boss/summon. I am working on getting my ilvl up to around 170-180 so I am ready for it, so I can challenge it on day one. This way, no one can get mad at me for not knowing the fight, since no one knows the fight then. I'm sure by the time I queue up after work that day, several Free Companies on my server will have already farmed it to death, but at least it's still day damn one and I can /shout that all I want and not feel guilty at all. So, I'm looking forward to that.


Early this week, I bought a solid state hard drive for my PS3. This has improved the run quality of the game by a TON. Teleports now take single digit seconds, instead of taking more than 30 or 45, as was normal once HW launched and the servers got hammered harder. Hunts now load a LOT better - there are still issues when there are a TON of player characters around, where the hunt, when pulled, will disappear for a second or two, even if you've Focus Targeted them. This sucks because since everyone is doing hunts now, they all die in less than 10 seconds once pulled, typically, even the new HW hunts. I also take issue with people pulling the hunt early, but there's not much I can do about that, really. Being able to teleport somewhere quickly and get to the hunt as quick as I can is my only chance at getting those sweet, sweet Centurio Seals (the new hunt currency that is used to upgrade i170 gear, of which I only have bracelets as of this post).


The nice part is, once you hit level 60, you can get 100 seals per day doing your own personal hunts, which consist of finding regular enemies and killing 2-4 of them. So while it would be INSANELY slower, you could still make progress with seals this way, if you're, say, playing on a PS3 with the stock HDD, or a crappy PC or whatever.


I don't know when I'll get around to it, but I plan on leveling Dragoon as my second class (and primary DPS class, I think). I already have a lot of gear in the level 50 range for it, since some of the sidequests I took as WHM only gave Disciples of War gear (non-magic user gear, basically), so I took the DRG stuff for future use.


But I still love WHM. The new spells in HW are pretty useful, and while I'm still figuring out the best times to use them, they add a lot of utility, and I miss them when I'm running low level content (Assize specifically - does AoE damage around me and gives me 10% of my MP back instantly - quick cooldown, too. Love that spell).


No need to get into the main story or anything here, other than to say I really, really enjoy it. It's nothing super deep or anything, but I like the characters, and really enjoy the world of FFXIV. I actually care about what is going on in an MMO! Fancy that.


One last thing for this post - Tam Tara Deepcroft Hard Mode is an incredible dungeon. The fights aren't anything too special, but the scenario surrounding it is probably my favorite in the game. Early (very early!) on in the main story of ARR, you meet a party of adventurers who are just getting started, having been inspired by you. You wish them luck, and they take off. You run into them again later, and find out that their tank died before the healer - the tank's lover - could save him. The party is dismayed, blame the healer (which rings true to me, since I main a healer!), and disband. The healer is, as you can imagine, absolutely devastated. Then, hours and hours and hours of gametime later, you see the mage from that party. He received a wedding invitation from his former teammate, the healer - who apparently is marrying the dead tank! You go off to investigate, and it turns out she is trying to resurrect him or something, but as you'd expect, he comes back as a demon or whatever. The whole dungeon is really creepy and you're fighting ghosts pretty much the whole time, and one fight, you have to prevent the aforementioned mage from being possessed. The final boss is the summoned tank, who is basically a giant skull thing. The healer is there, ostensibly aiding him. When you win, the depressed, insane healer, in despair, inches away from you, and purposely falls to her death. You then leave the dungeon with the mage, who, shaken, is remorseful about how he treated his former comrade, only for him to see her in spectral form, glowering at him with an evil smirk on her face, pretty quickly after exiting the dungeon. He runs off, terrified, screaming apologies, while your player character looks around and sees nothing.


Creepy.


My favorite part of the whole thing, though, is that some nights, in New Gridania, her ghost has like a 1% chance of appearing in a creepy corner of the town. I haven't seen it in game yet, but have seen screenshots online. It's little touches like this that show how much the FFXIV team love the game they made.