Lith's Diary - September (Patreon)

Dear Diary,
I went two whole months without even talking about video games! That must be a record. Well, it's time to catch up! I've been playing a lot of Final Fantasy XIV lately. I know it's hard to keep them all straight at this point, but that's the MMO one. Uh, the second MMO. I never actually tried XI, I don't think. Heard some good things, though.

Anyway, XIV is a bit of a guilty pleasure for me. I know playing MMOs in general is kind of... a waste? Like, they cost a lot of money to play for any real length of time, and most of the content is just kind of grinding away forever for gradually diminishing returns. They're basically time wasters. That's part of why, even when I do jump into them, I only tend to play for a few months at a time. But out of all the MMOs I've tried, I have to say I've enjoyed FF14 the best.

First off, I've always really liked just playing lots of different characters, so I can see how all the different classes and such work. In WoW, that meant I had like ten characters, but in FF14, they actually build the game to encourage playing like this-- with just one character. You keep one character, but your character can switch instantly between any number of classes. Your one character can be a healer, a tank, dps, a crafter or a gatherer with the press of a button. You do have to level each class separately, but it's a ton easier than logging out and in over and over to mess with your different characters. Plus, they let you use cross-class abilities, so certain abilities you learn as one class you can carry over to another! Well, as a crafter at least.

Actually, that's one of the weird things about this game. They used to have cross-class abilities for combat classes too, and it was awesome, but at some point after I stopped playing last they got rid of that entirely! It was a huge bummer coming back to find my black mage couldn't heal on the side, and my melee dps couldn't fling a damage spell when out of range. Now, even more so, I kinda feel like I have more fun playing the crafters than the combat classes? This is one of the things that feels really unique about this game. Each item you make is a mini-challenge, and you have to work to increase its quality using various abilities you've learned. High quality items give you a ton more experience and are worth waaay more either to use or to sell, so it's always worth going for, and it gets easier and easier to boost the quality if you can use the right cross-class abilities from other crafting classes. So if you've mastered cooking, that experience gives you a few little tricks that you can somehow apply to carpentry or leatherworking, if you so choose. The logic can seem a bit odd at times, but the gameplay comes out super satisfying, to me.

Besides that, the game is beautiful, the story is surprisingly involving, and all the classes feel very distinct, though some seem to be a lot more fun to play than others so far. I do find myself grumbling a lot about a few things, though. The storyline is interesting, but wow, there is a lot of it, and some of it is clearly just busy work. That wouldn't be too bad, but it's basically this one, really looooong quest chain, and you HAVE to do every single mission. There are literally hundreds of quests in the main storyline, and tons of basic game content is locked behind completing them. I stopped playing shortly after reaching level cap in the original game, and when I came back, I had to do literally eighty quests before they even allowed me to go to the area from the first expansion-- meaning I was level 50, and all the level 51 content was locked away until I finished my vegetables.

So that was frustrating. Also, for some reason the inventory space is tiny! My one regret about not running multiple characters (which is actually difficult/costly to do) is that I can't have a bank alt. My character has very limited bag space, and instead of a bank or anything, you get "retainers" you can hire to hold all your stuff for you. I'm paying to get one extra, and I still find all my inventory space is absolutely packed just trying to handle the various classes! It's a constant struggle making room if I want to advance a crafting class, or go out and gather supplies with a miner or anything like that. It's gotten to the point I feel like I have to wait for my stuff to auction off (you get limited space to put things up on the auction house too!) before I can continue playing the game half the time! I honestly have no idea why they're so intensely stingy with inventory space when they work so hard to entice you into playing multiple classes. I mean, unless they just really want that extra two bucks a month when you buy an extra retainer, I guess. It's really annoying either way.

But even with my gripes, I have a ton of fun with the game. It's addictive, charming, beautiful to look at, and there's just always tons and tons of different things to do! Maybe more than anything else, there's an intimidating variety of options available for how to spend your time, how to level, what to level, all sorts of bonus objectives to take a shot at and bonus loot and exp to earn. It takes a long time just to find out what all you're missing! With all the variety, I actually very rarely feel like I'm just grinding levels, which is great for me-- I really prefer the leveling experience over the endgame in any MMO, so keeping that portion of the game varied and interesting is a big plus to me.

I'd say FF14 is a great example of what an MMO should be. It has a few flaws, certainly, but it strikes a great balance where you can get by and have fun playing just a couple hours here and there, but if you have more time to throw into it, then it can swallow half your life and not leave you feeling like you're just mucking through the same dungeon over and over or anything. There are so many bonuses and rewards to track down it can almost feel like you're cheating the system once you get the hang of them. The dungeons are interesting and challenging, and they implement a level scaling system to help make sure dungeons at every level have people queuing up to play them. It just offers a really polished experience that feels more rewarding and less grindy than anything else I've tried. Plus all the writing is pretty olde english and gets kinda hilarious at times.

Geez. I didn't mean to go on about FF14 for my whole diary! But it's been a lot of fun and a big drain on my time. So much so that I'm probably gonna have to stop playing it soon! Still, I'm sure I'll come back to it someday. I can hardly imagine how much work it must take to make an MMO, but that makes it that much more impressive when the whole thing feels well made and polished, and all the pieces fit together.

I hope that whatever's eating your spare time, you're having a good time with it, Diary. That's something you have to be careful with these days-- some games are more about addiction and become almost a chore more than anything, and even without that, sometimes we just find ourselves forming habits in how we "relax" that aren't actually all that relaxing or fun. It's important to take the time to unwind, recharge, or whatever you need after you're done with the day's work, and part of that is picking something that actually works for you. I don't want you stressing out or wearing yourself down, okay?

Things are getting, um... well... maybe we shouldn't talk about what's happening at my parents' place right now. Better just to relax. You're trying your best to help me, and it means a lot to me. So, thank you. I know we'll find happy days, together. Things are just... getting a little... weird right now. We just have to hold on, though. Take our happy moments where we can, and hold out for things to get better.

Thank you for being part of this with me, Diary.
-Lith