#MSQ Progress on Alts

[verflares]

mankinds first hero and his final hope or whatever it is he said. whatever.

[mintglacier]

i think a lot of the criticisms towards ffxiv right now are pretty valid and makes me hope they will start to add their bigger patch things in the beginning of the expac, or at least one or two of them cuz yeah why ARE we in a content drought so early on into the life cycle of this expansion

i also have a feeling that they WILL freak out and overreact to the player count drop, so who knows what theyll do

[delta-chan]

Thoughts about Dawntrail map six

Needless to say, very heavy spoilers beneath the read more!

I was initially a bit wary of Living Memory's telegraphed "reverse Ultima Thule" structure until I got the prompt that the scenery would be irreversibly altered at the first terminal. I panicked because like a lot of people I thought "oh nice, I'll come back here later for some nice gpose shots". That this beautiful place would have to be taken away for you to progress was almost incomprehensible to me and in that moment the genius of it clicked. It wasn't just a reverse spin on Ultima Thule's structure--it was a reverse spin that was going to back it up to an extreme.

The ephemerality of life is something FFXIV has touched on many times before, including as one of the chief themes of Endwalker. But while in Endwalker this was on a grand scale as a part of radical acceptance as a whole, Dawntrail's second half explores this idea in a more focused, intimate fashion. While the WoL has no one they are close to that they can engage with in an experience with like Erenville, Krile, and Wuk Lamat--they have the environment. And being that you're the person behind the WoL with an investment in that environment on some level the finality of moving forward hits you like a sack of bricks.

I spent a lot of time being kind of awed by this--it's a very, very solid gimmick. I sort of paused at the first prompt going "haha there's no way, right…?" before going "wait" and immediately setting out to take a bunch of quick shots. That place wasn't going to exist anymore, and I wanted a memory of it. That beautiful place--a painstakingly detailed and gorgeous bit of gpose bait if I've ever seen it--wasn't going to exist if I wanted to move on. It was… weird. I took so many nearly identical shots trying to get perfect ones because there was only ever going to be that moment. In the future there'll be new game plus. You might have alts. But in that moment, experiencing it for the first time... it's… really effective. Startlingly effective.

The fact that when I was watching the map introduction and thought about how Living Memory was an almost tailor-made gposing space (and let's face it probably is for exactly this reason) that I would have a lot of fun taking screenshots at later made me think about how many other people thought, are thinking, and will think the same thing not knowing that they're taking it for granted. Who would...? It's absurd. Why would the map be altered to such a degree that it'd be rendered gone all but in name...? It hasn't happened before. So why would it happen now? Why would it even come to mind?

And the thing is--even if someone warns you, even if you're spoiled, even if you have someone fly you from place to place--the terminals are still going to have to be shut down eventually if you want to move forward. You cannot keep it. Living memory is made to be seen once then destroyed by your own hand.

I mean--at the end of the MSQ I thought, perhaps naively, that Living Memory was going to be restored because the threat was resolved. I mean--everyone's gone. There's no need for the environment to stay gone as well, right...? I mean, they put so much loving detail into it!

Wrong.

In the immediacy of when I first finished Endwalker during its early access I wrote that I never wanted to return to Ultima Thule because it creeped me out. The map was emotionally fraught, and my first experience with it was being released into an incredibly dark map with a discordant soundtrack, jumping out of my seat at another player passing by. But returning to it for hunts and the Omicron quests I saw it for the vibrant, beautiful place that it was. It changed for the better and stayed that way.

In spite of how much I've talked up Living Memory's beauty and how much it inspires the drive to capture the moment before it leaves you, it's also far more disconcerting than Ultima Thule from the very beginning in an altogether different manner. Living Memory is something that you want to be that shouldn't be. Both in the context of the MSQ and as a map in general--you want to take screenshots, you want to linger, but the unchanging weather effect and languidly pleasant music begin to push against you if you stay too long.

When everything's said and done Living Memory becomes a featureless husk that now has natural changing weather. At night there are motes of light, golden remains of the once oppressive reminiscence. And in the background as if being piped from distant speakers, the languidly pleasant and slightly warped BGM echoing through the nothingness like an amusement park's PA system playing music for no one after closing for the last time.

It's something you didn't want that needs to be.

[autumnslance]

New Game+ Tutorial

"I don't remember this part of the story." "It's been so long since I played X expansion." "What happened during that raid again?" "Who was this character?" "I story skipped the MSQ/job quests so I don't know what happened and who these people are!"

There's answers to this, friends. Not only is the game's own Unending Journey (in inn rooms, or as furnishing in your FC or private rooms/homes) able to replay many cutscenes, and there's the completed quest log, but there are places online, such as Garland Tools and the FFXIV Game Script, that keep most (not all) of the quest text handy.

But if you want to relive those quests, and/or get the side dialogues and replay (or first time play!) the experiences, as of Shadowbringers 5.1 there's a feature called New Game+ to allow that.

New Game+ (or NG+) will let you replay past questlines, at your current level (which makes it go pretty fast in a lot of cases). There is No experience or rewards to gain through this feature--no using it to level alt jobs. It purely exists to allow experiencing, or re-experiencing, completed content.

Once defeating the Ultima Weapon and Lahabrea at level 50 in ARR's finale of 2.0, you can go to Vesper Bay and find the Wistful Whitebeard.

More info and images below the Keep Reading cut...

(image taken from gamesconsolewiki and their article on this feature.)

Once you've unlocked the feature by talking to him, you get a new menu option in your Duty menu (the exclamation point icon), right between Duty Recorder and Hall of the Novice.

Once you select the feature it brings up a menu of options; it usually defaults to Main Story Quests, but I also have a paused replay under "Suspend" in progress. There are also options that match other quest interfaces, like your Journal or the Unending Journey; Chronicles of a New Era for raids and trials, Side Story for quests like Hildibrand, the Scholasticate, Role Master Quests, Void Quests, and Chronicles of Light (story important side quests, like Tales of the Dragonsong War, Tales from the Shadows, Tales of Newfound Adventure). Tank, Healer, DPS, Crafting, and Gathering quests also have their own categories.

Each Expansion MSQ is broken into parts; usually 2 parts for the x.0 main expansion, and then 2 parts for the patches. They're only available after x.0 or the patch stories are complete.

Also notice the "Help" icon in the top right of the NG+ overlay; it opens a pretty comprehensive guide, divided into menu sections, about how the feature works.

ARR is split into 6 parts, and I do think 2.0 could use a rework in how they're split but for now, I'm selecting Part 6 to look for specific side dialogues that only exist in this timeframe.

Selecting Part 6 opens the description; the Crystal Braves have just been formed, to help the Scions with the turmoil still facing the realm--from refugees, to Garlemald's continuing threat, to primals and Ascians.

Once you do, the NG+ quest info shows up, usually around where ever you keep your MSQ quest marker. I hide my MSQ tracker once it's done, so NG+ fits in that same spot in the upper left for me.

It tells me to "Relive Past Adventures!", which expac and part I'm in, and which quest is my starting point in this case, "Traitor in the Midst", the start of the Ivy spy plotline in Patch 2.4.

From here it progresses as if I am back in that patch and on those quests, but without any experience or rewards. Aeryn's in her current level 90 appearance and skills, making it easy to skip past and handle level 45-50 enemies in these zones.

So long as I am in NG+, I cannot do current quests, plots, or other content; I can't complete new current level duties (duties new in NG+ itself are fine), I can't access the MB, my retainers, or the Unending Journey. I can manually Suspend my current playthrough, or performing some of these actions (like duties) will automatically suspend my NG+ playthrough. You also cannot start NG+ while doing certain things (like some quests, such as leves).

This also will not let you play through the start of other city-states, only your original starter town. Solo duties will let you choose their difficulty immediately, without having to fail them first like in normal play.

If I want to drop my NG+ save before I've finished the replay--maybe I found the info and screenshots I wanted--I can delete the save.

This is an extremely helpful feature that can be used to replay events and quests, either for the fun of it, or because you want to find specific dialogue or lore information that only exists in a specific point in game. Maybe you want to visit old friends lost along the way, or take new screenshots of your WoL as they are post-fantasia.

Maybe it's just been a few years, and you've found you've forgotten some things and want to remember how the story actually went, especially knowing what you know now.

[oh-hecate]

☽ Welcome ☾

Oh hey! If you're reading this, that means you stumbled across my FFXIV WOL blog, so let me introduce myself! I go by Hecate Starling on EU (my main), and Artemis Lune on NA but ooc, I prefer Lexi.

I'm your run-of-the-mill witchy bun-haver who spends the majority of her time between Light & Primal doing MSQ, roulettes and an excessive amount of gposing, lol. I decided months ago to create a side blog to dump my gpose creations in, in order to avoid clogging up my main and to be able to have a creative outlet for storytelling and art related to the game that has completely stolen my heart over the past year. 🖤

Anywho, in the meantime feel free to come check out the screenies I've lovingly and painstakingly put together and say hello if you'd like!

Some small notes here-

🖤 Anything that may be a spoiler will be tagged with the appropriate "(expansion name) spoilers" tag as long as I remember, so make sure to blacklist any MSQ content you haven't gotten to yet 🖤 This blog is absolutely WCIF friendly, be it vanilla glams or other bits and bobs, so don't hesitate to ask! 🖤 Yes you can absolutely tag me in things as long as they're appropriate and relevant to this blog! I encourage it even. If it's an ask or a prompt, I'll do my best to answer it when I'm able but bear with me (mun is a busy bee irl). 🖤 I prefer to stay away from most NSFW content with the exception of artistic nudity/suggestive work purely out of personal preference. 🖤 This is a safe space and I will absolutely not tolerate any form of racism, transphobia, homophobia, etc. Try it once and you get the boot. 🖤 I'm totally down to collab with others on gposes, so don't be afraid to ask and we'll talk about it! (and as you'd expect, it depends on my comfortability with the subject/person/etc) 🖤 While my WOLs have canon lore, family, partners, etc, I'm not immune to the appeal of wolships, so don't be surprised if you find some alt universe content of them smoochin' certain npcs lol. 🖤 This blog is a continuous work in progress as I've added more ocs and plan on making some official posts/links/whatever for their lore. 🖤 As of late, I've been bouncing back and forth between lore-friendly glams/aesthetics and more modern ones, so expect a mix of that here. Any story-related content ofc stays true to game (or as close as I can get while still keeping my magic lmao) however. 🖤If you get the wild urge to follow my main, you can find that at @opieghoul! (be warned, I admittedly suck at tagging on that specific blog solely bc I'm lazy, so if there's ffxiv spoilers, my bad)

[alicesadventuresinffxiv]

Telling "The First Step" as Background NPCs

One of the interesting quirks of the FC I'm in is that we often help a Youtube Let's Player record his FFXIV videos. Last year is when he did the Stormblood patches, and when I and a dozen friends got together for a special project!

Since the Lodestone short story "The First Step" would otherwise not be in the Let's Play (nor would the SMN 80 quest) we wanted to convey the plot beats of that story in another way. Specifically, we designed a handful of "scenes" that the Let's Player would naturally run across as he progressed the 4.x MSQ.

The goal was to make it look as though "Arenvald," "Fordola," and the rest of our cast were overworld background NPCs who changed position after every patch, much like the B-Team Scions do in the Rising Stones!

Our first scene could be found in Rhalgr's Reach at the tail end of 4.3. Here, Fordola and a few other Garlean prisoners are being conscripted into the Ala Mhigan Resistance. The idea was Raubahn’s, so Arenvald and Pipin are on hand to pass along the details as various Resistance and Alliance soldiers chat and train nearby.

(Credit to @halcyonlioness - here playing a Meteor-lookalike Garlean prisoner - for the first screenshot!)

.

Come 4.4, this same mix of soldiers could be seen early on in Ala Mhigo. The Resistance and the Alliance are collaborating on something, it appears...

(This screenshot by @shepspencil, with his character Anri as an Immortal Flames soldier! You can also see the Let's Player's Lalafell samurai in the background, where Alisaie and Thancred would appear for a quest at this point in the MSQ.)

Later in the same patch, more "NPCs" could be found by approaching the steps to the Royal Palace. Here, Fordola and Arenvald are being introduced to the Immortal Flames' Summoner squadron from the SMN 60-70 quests:

(More screenshots by @halcyonlioness!)

Of course, in the real short story, the scene where Fordola meets the summoners actually takes place outside Forgotten Springs. But the Let's Player wasn't going to pass through a random ARR village, so we picked a different location… albeit one that required getting our alts through a good chunk of the MSQ. It was quite the journey!

(Double Pipin shot by Pipin's player, who is a delight but does not have a tumblr!)

.

By the 4.5(6) MSQ, things might be looking dire for the Warrior of Light, but our "background NPCs" managed to defeat Ifrit offscreen, so they could be found celebrating in the Seventh Heaven bar...

And what a celebration it is! A few people were called away for Savage raiding important military errands throughout the day 😉, and we also had some random other players go AFK in the middle of the Rising Stones. As a result, the tableau actually evolved quite a bit as the Let's Player ran in and out a few times for the patch quests.

Here's where we ended up by the finale!

Some fun little details I’d like to highlight (with thanks to @halcyonlioness once again for all these screenshots):

-The summoners and the thaumaturge are all using Ifrit weapon drops now, and Crispin has his Ifrit-egi out to further emphasize the point of what we were up to.

-The Resistance thaumaturge was wounded in the fight and saved by Fordola, so she and Pipin are checking up on him again here.

All in all, it was an extremely fun creative challenge to "adapt" a written story to this unusual storytelling format. It was also quite an intense undertaking to organize! Even before the actual Let's Play recordings, we had weeks of rehearsals where we worked together to come up with our "stage blocking" and determine when in the MSQ each scene would be visible.

Ultimately, while I might have been the instigator of these shenanigans, I couldn't have pulled any of it off without such an awesome and talented cast.

Some of whom are also on tumblr! In addition to @halcyonlioness (Hyal) and @shepspencil (Anri), I'd like to shout out @darquingdragon (Arenvald) and @newsiesgirl (Alexia)! Thanks for putting up with my wild ideas. :)

As for me, I haven't done a project this involved before or since... but who knows what the future might bring?

[roegadynroost]

Hello! I'm really impressed with you speed running all of your alts to get the Regalia! Would you mind sharing any tips or tricks that got you through so much ARR fast? - A fellow alt-happy Eorzean

Oh wow hey! Thanks for the ask!

One REALLY big help is doing stuff on the New and Prefered servers because the Road to 80 buff is just WAY TOO GOOD. I'm working on the story on some alts and by the end of ShB, only doing the story, I can get about 3 jobs to 80. If you have character on congested servers that you don't mind moving around you can move them to a new or preferred server for FREE and get the Road to 80 buff for 30 days (It lasts longer on characters made directly on those servers tho.)

There are some bits that I like to watch on every run through, but skipping the cutscenes is an obvious must. I play on PS4, and put on a show while I grind most of the time.

If you have the road buff, when you get to dungeons, instead of queueing in the Dutyfinder set up a Partyfinder for your dungeons. I always set them to one slot other that myself, and then set the minimum ILV to 500. This will ensure only higher level players will join.

Into the description type: "Unsynced for MSQ progression." or "Unsyned, help me get my alt through MSQ?"

Players are usually happy to help folks working through the MSQ. This works on every Datacenter.

If you don't speak Japanese and you have an alt on the JP servers and you want quick clears, use the auto translate feature for the phases "Unrestricted party" and "Main Scenario Quest". Also if you don't speak Japanese, Auto translation "Nice to meet you" at the start and "Thank you" at the end of duties.

Make sure you set your DF to Unrestricted before you queue so you don't accidentally queue up regularly instead and always \readycheck before you go in.

Most dungeons with a LV 90 player are less than five mins and a lot of the time they won't even roll on the gear so you get good upgrades along the way. If they rush through and you don't have time to grab all the chests you can always \return at the end to get the chests that were not grabbed. If there are mobs still in the dungeon, don't worry, if you sprint and kite them you can grab everything before they kill you, then respawn and leave through the exit at the start or the menu.

The ONLY duties I don't do Unsynced for is for Castrum Meridianum, Praetorium and Porta Decumana, because with they force cut scenes even if you do it unsynced I don't like to ask people to sit through them so I just do them normally.

IF YOU HAVE FRIENDS JUST AS THEM FOR HELP UNSYNCING. I love helping my friends unsync stuff. Hell, I love helping anyone unsync stuff. Takes very little time.

If you don't have the road buff, make sure you do your leveling roulette, and queue for the dungeons. Unfortunately, the end of ARR has a LV jump around the time you get to the Rhytahtyn solo instance and if you skip duties you'll likely be underleveled.

A few characters I ended up having to run through Aurum Vale to get to 50 just so I could get through the final strech of stuff. I love Aurum Vale personally, but I know it's not everyones jam.

Buy a stack of cheap food early on so you can keep your 3% exp buff going. My personal favorites are Eggs, Orange juice and Plums.

DON'T FORGET We get Vesperbay tickets on new characters now to returning to the waking sands is no issue. They recently updated it to you get 99 total over the course of ARR. If you made a character BEFORE they added the Vesperbay Teleportation Tickets, don't run from Horizon, Teleport to Limsa Lominsa, go to the Arcanist guild via the aethernet and then take the Ferry to Vesperbay. It's pretty quick on PS4, if you're on a Toaster it might be faster to go from Horizon because of less loading.

I recommend stopping by Camp Tranquil to get your Chocobo the ability to fight (My Fiestly little Chocobo) when you hit 30. Also grab a stack of 99 Gysahl greens when you're at Bent Branch doing that. You don't have to finish the quest to be able to summon you chocobo, so if you're in a rush there is that. I always level my chocobos in Healing first. IMO Choco cure is the most useful chocobo ability early on.

Don't forget to do your job quests, a lot of them will sync up with stuff you're doing in the MSQ, and when you get to 45 the gear boost is substantial even if it's only useful for those few levels to 50. DPS can probably get away with ignoring it, but for tanks and healers GEAR IS SO IMPORTANT, especially if you're not unsyncing stuff.

You get some upgrades from the story but the ARR stuff is all normal quality, it's not the greatest. There is a Jeweler NPC in Ul'dah that I recommend grabbing accessories from, cause I've had times where I'm 50 and still have dang LV5 ring cause the MSQ doesn't give any accessories and if your RNG is bad in dungeons it can be pretty bad. (you will get a acessory from unlocking AV though, that is nice!)

If you have some of the preorder earrings, make sure you visit your the mail moogle for that. If you've been playing a long time and have stuff like the Tidus and Yuna outfits from fanfest that get sent to every character, Grab those outfits too. They're good at the early levels and give a pretty good EXP boost to lvl 30. (Don't recommend wearing them in dungeons past like the first three though)

Of course, most important of all. Take care of yourself. I've been dealing with long-covid for years now and if causes me no end of issues, but I can get into the zone and focus hard with MSQ grinds. Self care is so important. I'm pretty good about getting up and stretching and getting myself what I need, but sometimes I'm in the zone and it gets bad. I am lucky I have a partner that helps me keep up with that stuff too. If he gets up to move around and go somewhere, I usually take that as my time to give myself a break.

Setting myself a little 3 hour timer for water breaks is something I'm working on and seems to be good. I try to not keep too much food around my gaming area because if I'm going to eat something I'd like to get up and move around too. If I do keep something nearby, I try to have fruit and not like snacks. Doesn't always work but trying is important.

I hope that in here somewhere you find something useful! HAPPY ALT-ing!!!

[trans-emet-selch]

I sundered your wife and turned him into a bunny.

Made a Hades alt. Working on a Sundered Emet-Selch AU/Role swap with him as the Wol and Azem being Unsundered instead. Azem takes his place in the narrative

He does go by Hades.

Currently only in ARR with him. Slowly going to progress him through the MSQ. I will try to make an effort to yap a little bit more about this AU

[voidsentprinces]

Beginning Goal of 2025

Right, 2025 is the year I try everything everywhere. Azem Blight was prepped through the last half of 2024 to at least start a journey to get every achievement I can get my fucking hands on in this game. Because, what is the point of just sitting around and making alts to replay the MSQ over and over and over again if I am just going to do nothing with them. Therefore and thusly, Azem Blight on Balmung (I have an Azem Blight on Seraph for Nyx :D) is now going to go forth and do this. Cause it gives me some level of productivity rather than afking...elsewhere or ignoring Voidsent AU. So if you see Azem Blight running amok, I am keeping myself busy-ish.

Also, going to be trying Eureka cause this implies Stormblood Relics and Bozjan...so just gotta find servers where Eureka is super active. Joining so many fucking communities this year to progress.

Now some of these achievements take several years of progress to obtain so I am not intent on getting all of them. Because some achievements are time gated by passive resource gathering. So it'll just be a progress in motion sort of deal.

Thus begins Day 1 of Achievement Hunting as Azem Blight on Balmung...brought to you by Heat Tap...come on...you've killed for less.

[nyxnephilim]

Ok so I know I haven’t really posted much more than a few pictures but honestly I’ve been debating how to proceed. I realize now that how I started my FFXIV journey was a little disorganized and varied. That’s a nice way of saying I think I F’d up my progression. So, I might make an alt to get a better linear story. Of course my main will still be around and I’ll be trying to course correct her journey. But hey, it’s my first time in this game…. So don’t be surprised if my main has a new questing buddy.

Question is, as a spooky goth gal what do you think I should make and where to make it ?

Another Viera? Miqote? Elezen? AuRa? Female Hrothgar? Lol that last one was a wish more than anything.

And since my home Data Center is Dynamis I wonder should I try a different one for the quicker wait times with MSQ dungeons … hmmmm

[sjofn-lofnsdottr]

Miscellaneous Alts

So there are Other Alts besides the main four, I just either don't play them very much so I don't have as much to say about them, or ... well. Or because they're ridiculous that they exist in the first place.

Random picture because pictures are fun, then I'll actually get to babbling:

First up is Levi, a hyur fella based on yet another post-apocalypse character. He ran a drug den. He is also a babyfaced cherub.

I asked my husband what he thought of this glam, and he told me 'Teen Boy's First Adventure.' He's actually in his mid-20s, but literally every single one of my friends refers to him as a teenager. So ... babyface achieved, I suppose.

Another character I wish I played more often, but don't, is Nellwen:

Part of why I don't play her more often is because I only play her when my husband is playing her husband, Pellian. Alas, during lulls, my husband does crazy things like 'play other games,' usually. They're based on a married couple we played in a Pathfinder campaign (this is rare for us, we usually don't play characters that are romantic with each other). She was an arcanist that set all her problems on fire and/or rattled the bones of annoying people. Obviously, she's a BLM.

I made bunny versions of all the boys, and where Bjalla was Bunny Dusk, Svend is Bunny Mercuriel:

I barely ever play him, but his fuckin' attitude cracks me up, and I know he'll pop up occasionally picture-wise, so why not acknowledge him. The main thing I decided about him, is he also left the woods after getting fed up with being a feral forest hermit ... but doesn't want to admit it, and tries to pretend that no, he's always been a city boy and no he definitely has no idea how to hunt, kill and dress wild game or anything of the sort. Who told you he did? He'll bite their faces off.

So I know this is absurd, but I have, on occasion, made other Dusks on other servers. The first Other Dusk I made during the interminable wait for 5.3 to finally release, on a server that had Road to 70. I wanted to see how far I got leveling everything before I got bored and stopped. He hit all 50s before I got tired of trying to level everything, but I sort of wound up playing through the entire MSQ with him.

So if you see a picture of Dusk with this hair, it's likely Bertrand. The funniest thing to me about ol' Bert is for some reason I think of him as the most focused of the Dusks. Something about his hair just makes him seem a little more put together to me. And yet whenever he's sad, like in the picture above, he more looks like he's trying to remember where he put his keys.

Seriously, he just had them.

The OTHER other Dusk, I made on Seraph with Farron. Dusk is going by his real name, Bellinor, and Farron is technically doing the same, using Kare. We're sort of treating it as an AU, where the boys met at the start of ARR instead of the end of Endwalker, but the reason they exist at all is a) Road to <number> makes my brain light up and b) Farron hadn't actually played the bulk of the MSQ as Farron, what with rabbit dudes not even being a thing until EW. Yes, he could do NG+, but he likes having me along to nag him to progress. And honestly, being able to spam each other with silly cutscene faces makes it all a lot more fun, imo.

I don't know what it is about THIS hair, but I think it makes him look like the biggest airhead on the planet. He is the Dumbest Dusk, and we love that for him.

Kare is relatively new to being civilized, by the way, but Bellinor is doing his best to help:

Kare doesn't really know how to read very well, for example.

Bellinor thinks the lessons are going great.

Kare still is a regular-ass adventurer dude, Bellinor is still the WoL. Kare keeps getting dragged into shit he doesn't actually care about because this big dumb ?roommate? of his keeps making big puppy eyes whenever he asks Kare to come with him.

[renofmanyalts]

Assorted Adventurer Plates

I've been gradually working on creating portraits and adventurer plates for my characters as it occurs to me to do so.

It's really fun to figure out what to put in the background for the screenshots. I've been gradually refining my methods, and I think I'm starting to get the hang of it, but a lot of times I end up missing one or more details, lol

Further musings and an update of what's up with me lately under the cut:

As you might be able to tell, some of these (Danyell, Zedyr) were created during the beta phase, so I should probably revisit them at some point (and I just realized that Maayan's has the wrong class/job listed, whoops!)

Unfortunately, Danyell, Firn, and Maparhi are not available right now because I am currently on the basic subscription, so I only have access to my Balmung alts (including Silver Sage, who is probably-temporarily over on Sagittarius on the Chaos EU DC) and Strammund on Mateus.

I've been playing FFXIV more actively in the past couple months, mainly sticking to (very) relaxed MSQ progression on my alts who were still in ARR, and now doing some crafting/gathering (procrastinating on MSQ, lol). However, I'm not sure if I'm "back" for real yet. I'm still in the same health situation that led me to take a two-year break from the game (god, I can't believe it was that long, what is time?), and so far I'm not feeling up to committing to RP storylines or anything where others would need to be able to count on me being present and focused. Maybe this will be another flash in the pan like when I created Firn last year and I'll have to stop playing again, or maybe I will be able to stick around in some capacity; as it stands now, I can't fully tell.

[bluespiritfire]

Problems with WT

I am BEGGING FFXIV to streamline their Wondrous Tales system.

Currently my furthest progressed character in in Post Endwalker content, and I have no desire to play through Dawntrail right now, so I am stuck there for the foreseeable future. THIS is what my WT looks like (generally) right now (please excuse the poor quality)

You can see the deadline on this WT, and you can see how little I've manged to do (despite doing my leveling and high level roulettes daily) in that time.

Now, as I said, I haven't started Dawntail, which means I physically CANNOT ACCESS several of these at all, which leaves me with a WT that really looks like THIS:

I can't solo Bismarck EX, and I don't know if I can solo Sephirot EX (I have to look into that) and I KNOW I can't manage to solo the Great Hunt EX or Memoria Miseria EX. If I can wrangle a friend or two for those, then that's fine, but if I can't? I'm boned.

I have several distinct problems with this current system

Removing ARR dungeons entirely from the options is ridiculous. ARR has the MOST dungeons in the game and the likelihood of getting something like Aurum Vale or something else that is mandatory to the MSQ is SO much higher than getting something from late(r) game.

Separating the duties into Leveling roulette and High-level Roulette makes it INFINITELY harder to actually nail a duty that will get you a seal. I JUST got Antitower, but because I got it on a high-level roulette it doesn't count at all.

For some reason, despite not having actually started Dawntrail in any way shape or form (beyond picking up Viper and reaching 100 on one combat job), I have the option of doing Lv. 100 dungeons. Surely there's a metric that tells the game if I've started an expansion, no? My login screen accurately reflects the furthest I've gotten by using the appropriate expac login screen, but the actual GAME can't tell if I have access to 91-100 dungeons?

I don't know if this is still the case but once upon a time I actually GOT 3 rows on this character! Except I believe that because I didn't have a level 100 job, my WT didn't OFFER me a gold cert, only several silvers :T I quickly got RPR to 100 so I would never be in that position again. So if it IS this janky now because I got a job to 100, then that's doubly screwed up. (I made a post about this at the time but I can't find it now)

I think they should implement something similar to what they've done with the Alliance Raids. Instead of specifying, say, Syrcus Tower, now is says 'Alliance Raids (A Realm Reborn)'. That's SO much more flexible and better! Why can't we have that for the dungeons? Just a simple 'Dungeon (A Realm Reborn)'. I'm happy use my retries to keep spamming ARR or HW or whatever I get, but give me something I can actually DO!

For comparison, this is an alt I have who is in post Shadowbringers content and who picked up this WT at the same time as the above book:

The Alliance Raids section is still scattered and sub-optimal, but at least I have the option to ignore those and focus on blasting through ARR Trials and being comfortable in the knowledge that I can progress through the dungeon row with roulettes.

WT has a plethora of goodies from the Certificate shops and I would actually like to have a shot at getting more than one gold cert sometime in my lifetime!

[farfromdaylight]

after much deliberation i have decided to go ahead and play MSQ on rune now, rather than waiting for the summer as i planned... i do want to replay dawntrail in full, but i was hoping to do it in 6-12 months so i can enjoy it with some distance from my first playthrough.

unfortunately for me, rune's crafters are all level 99 and within like 3-4 weeks they will all hit 100 from custom deliveries, and i need orange scrip too much not to progress MSQ, LMAO. so i'll play through it on rune now and probably skip all the cutscenes, and when i want to do my Actual Next Playthrough i have an alt ready to take through in rune's stead.

i'm a little sad because i really like playing MSQ on rune, her expressions are always so lovely to watch in cutscenes. but i am too practical to waste this much scrip........ i need to build up a stock of command 12s for 7.3..........

of course, i say all this, but i've actually already been replaying DT lately on a different alt. my progress has been pretty slow going (i've been aiming for about one MSQ map a week, so the first week was urqopacha 1, then kozama'uka 1&2, then urqopacha 2, etc). i've just reached yak t'el and hope to get through skydeep cenote next week. i'll probably do the same thing with rune, although on account of her scrip situation i may speed up on her.

i like having alts a lot, but the msq requirement for each is truly the worst thing about this game. i don't mind it for cálei and reis because i've always kept them up to date with MSQ, and doing the story twice as it comes out doesn't really bother me. (plus i do one of those playthroughs with friends and one solo, to enjoy it in different ways.) but add any other characters and it's exhausting.........

i've been debating what to do with my bunboy alt as part of this. i'm up to 4.2 in the stormblood replay, and i intend to at least go through to the start of 5.0... but i'm not sure what to do after that. i do love shadowbringers and i wouldn't mind replaying it, but i REALLY HATE replaying endwalker (for gameplay, not for story). endwalker has multiple solo instances with fun story but shitty gameplay and like FOUR mandatory follow-the-npc quests (i fucking hate those with every fiber of my being). as much as i enjoy EW's story, i truly don't want to play through it again. but story skips are expensive and if i get my bunboy all the way through ShB manually, only skipping EW feels silly...

idk, i'll think about it more. getting characters through story is worth for my main goal (glamour farming) but it can be so onerous...

[crowlore]

was talking about this with people over voice last night bc im replaying arr on an alt but i do so love the plot beat about thancred being possessed by lahabrea. possession in general, especially possession by big names or returning forces, can be such a powerful narrative tool when done right and you know yes post arr should have done a bit more with the drama of it all — but thancred is a character eternally plagued with The Conundrums and is far and away the most sullen and narratively relevant character within the scions so i’ll let it slide. he’s had enough time in the spotlight by far. anyway. the scions being possessed isn’t a plot beat they’ll ever be able to do again, at least not as well as i think it was done in arr, because the writers cleverly utilized the player’s unfamiliarity with the cast to deflect suspicion of “thancred’s” behavior. obviously now, having played ffxiv’s msq start to finish a dozen times, it’s easy for me to read his dialogue and say “that doesn’t sound like thancred” but a new player wouldn’t likely pick up on the shift while they’re intent on progressing the plot. bonus points for this being easily explained within the narrative as well—your adventurer is still new to the scions and has only worked with thancred briefly, so if he’s sitting things out or off on his own mission they’re probably going to keep their focus on the scions they’re currently working with. i genuinely have so much to say about my obsession with this part of thancred’s character - not least of all the implication that he likely worked himself To Death off screen in order to be possessed like he was, which is a very plausible theory given what we know of ascian possession - but a lot of it is very specific to the drama of my wol and his baggage in general and with thancred in particular so im gonna hold off on those parts here. maybe ill ramble about it in an addition later

[picaroroboto]

this anxiety of wanting/not wanting something big to happen, versus the sense of stagnation on NA server (only 2 chapters this year? really??) is definitely why I haven't been actively posting about or playing as much FGO lately, largely posting FF14 instead. But I'm also starting to feel a little burnt out on FF14, at least on progressing msq with my alt, so once I clear Stormblood it's probably time for a hiatus. before I contract the Shadowbringers-induced madness again