Team Derp Returns to FFXIV

We’ve talked about it and we did it. We came back to XIV. To what capacity? I have no idea. At the moment we are currently on Mysidia which seems to be a server largely populated by the Japanese. Some are ranking up quite nicely while there are others like myself and Orophen who had waited to level up together and then managed to get levels pretty quickly thanks to the patches.

Right now its a good change of pace. There are still things wonky in XIV, but its also apparent things are different and are changing. There are a handful of changes that have been good and others that aren’t as much. Personally, I’m enjoying the auto-attack. My boyfriend has been very adamant against it and still doesn’t seem to like it very much. He even scorns those that now complain the battles are slow because of the introduction of auto-attack. I don’t personally see it, especially since I’ve had to deal with cool down timers a lot as a mage. What DOES suck is how much more easily I seem to get hate now than I did then (unless I am remembering things incorrectly). Curing, for example, can easily get me killed if I don’t let Orophen establish enough hate via weapon skills. It is almost as though I have dumped a bunch of Cure IVs on him and bam! I’m mowed down like a punk ass. Nuking in and of itself is also a crazy mess but it has also inadvertently saved the day many times thanks to the high amount umbral and astral damage it does; definitely more than I remember it having done when I was leveling THM aeons ago. However, I’m still eagerly waiting for BLM as it is far more potent and suits my tastes far more than the debuffer position that THM holds. Though I guess I should be more aware of how many more deaths I’m going to eat when I do make the switch over…

As for our XI exploits, they will sort of be haphazard during the month of August. My schedule will be chaotic due to a visiting relative, and I’ve left care of the team in the hands of Hiroshiko, Rubicon, and Orophen. Two of them I know I can count on. One of them is questionable at best, and has me worried if anything will happen at all during my absence. There has also been an issue within the linkshell itself, of which I go into detail here. Since then more bits of drama had been pasted onto it, and I’ve found that neither party is willing to make its move; which is fine by me. I’m OK with a stalemate because I personally see no reason to do any chasing and I’m sure the other person is feeling the same way. My only desire at this point is for my members/friends (for me and my ls the two are synonymous) to stop being stalked and checked up on for absurd reasons. Example of absurd reason: fear of being replaced despite having a.) left and b.) me asking members to overlap on jobs if they are both willing and able even when said person was still with us. We are a small LS that fills in holes for others when they aren’t there or needing to cover other areas; I would be doing us a disservice not asking them to cover jobs if they are willing and able to do so. There are also people that just want to level the job because they want to without me having to poke and prod them; who the fuck am I to tell them to stop? That is their prerogative and I won’t kick them just because they are doing something that the other person does out of sheer boredom.

/sigh Now I need aspirin…

Thoughts on FFXIV’s Battle Reform Blueprint

Just last night S-E posted the Battle Reform Blueprint on their forums, and to be honest… I didn’t really want to click the link. My interest level on XIV had grinded to a halt; something I don’t really like admitting because of how much of a fuss I had made beforehand over the damn game. This is for a number of reasons that mostly point back to CON and my utter hatred for leveling that class as a healer. The recast timers, the problem with elevation (the SLIGHTEST bit of a difference could mean someone won’t get a buff!), and the awkwardness of healing more than one person… it just didn’t really sit well with me. THM seemed more capable as a healer, but didn’t have the spells needed to help put it out on top and required leveling CON.

With that in mind, I was pretty ecstatic when they announced the following:

By major revisions, not only do we mean the tweaking of effects and potency of existing actions – we will work from the ground up to redesign and reassign actions based on clearly identified class roles.

It was clearly the one singular move that I had been wanting; most especially for CON. I know it had the great idea of being either a WHM or a BLM, but it was a confused mess that just didn’t play out as nicely. Maybe I played CON incorrectly, but the troubles I encountered playing as CON in a party setting is one of the reasons I just can’t really feel happy playing as a mage class in XIV. However, a move I knew was coming but not in the way I imagined was the inclusion of jobs.

The job system – that series-defining trademark – will be implemented in FINAL FANTASY XIV (details such as specific jobs TBA). Quests to unlock each job will become available once you have reached a certain rank in the corresponding class.

I can’t help but think I would be playing a weird hybrid of XI and Ragnarok Online at this point. Not that I have anything against the idea of it, but it does make me itch to play RO again. It also makes me wonder how the game will look like with such additions in the game. Probably the only thing I am certain of is that it won’t be as confining as RO; a game that forced you to stay on one track once you made a choice and to create a new character if you wanted to deviate from that choice. It will probably just be more in tune with what XI has in place but instead of having ONE class at a certain rank, you now have to have a certain class at a certain rank to get the job you want. Though… there are going to be problems if they introduce an assassin type job to XIV. Will probably have to try to talk someone else into playing a healer if that ends up happening….

BLM 90 get, but the laundry list grows…

At the pokings of Kyoshin, I am here writing an entry for AstralCandy. So shout out to Kyoshin for reminding me of what I usually forget only until I turn off my computer for the night, haha.

Since writing my last entry I have leveled BLM to level 90 with an under leveled subjob (will be remedied soon enough), the addition of Sorcerer’s Gloves from Dynamis – Windurst, and my desire to level BLU lessened a little due to my want of capping out my skills, getting more lunar abyssite, more Atma, and essentially doing more damage and proving Reiokyu right as to my lust over spike damage. Not that I am totally disinterested in BLU. I think more than anything I am just daunted by the idea of having to farm exactly 39 spells. I know that’s not really a lot, but whenever I look at that number and I can’t help but feel exhausted.

There is another problem I have on my hands, and that is the possibility that we will have our main healer (Hiroshiko) going on hiatus due to computer problems. Although we have two or three capable healers on our hands, nothing can replace WHM… or at least a person I can pick on at will while cackling with pleasure. With that in mind, I have been thinking of leveling WHM more despite my reservations of doing so. I am not as comfortable in the primary healer role as I was before, and I worry plenty if I will do a decent job on it. The last thing I want to be is one of those healers that just doesn’t know what the hell they are doing. Not to mention, I have no incentive of doing well since I typically compete with Hiroshiko in performing WHM duties.

I suppose I could trick myself into thinking I will be training myself to be a better WHM than him, but I think seeing him there and beating him to other things is what I enjoy more than anything…

Yet I will probably press on forward with BLU, finish up BRD, and then finally get around to WHM when I have leveled SCH to use as a subjob. Oh, and after I get a slew of RL obligations taken care of as well.

On the XIV front, I wasn’t able to play with the gang on Thursday like I had wanted to. Stress from work had prevented me from sleeping well and wanting to enjoy myself, and I had decided instead to take an extended nap and do activities that were a little less intense. It doesn’t help I feel like I am at an impasse when it comes to leveling CON. It would help if I didn’t have to play awkwardly with a controller in one hand and switch from mouse to keyboard, or even if my keyboard could work with XIV (for some reason it doesn’t). So I am left wondering if I should level THM on the side once in awhile, or if I should just wait until they do something to “fix” CON to something more palatable. I know that changes are coming, but who knows what that will entail or when it will come.

On a non-MMO front, more things should come out of vending machines in the US! I went to Tacoma Mall today and in a little area in the middle of the mall, I found this place called the Pokemon Center. Its a cute little set up with a display of plushies, cards, and figurines alongside vending machines and machines with touchscreen games. On my way out of the mall I decided to buy a little Pichu plushie from the vending machine that also housed video games, cards, and figurines. Needless to say, I was in love. Not just with the convenient machine but with the fact I got to walk home with an adorable Pichu plushie. Unfortunately my phone is being a pain, but do look for the picture of the plush on my twitter sometime soon!