[FFXIV JOURNAL] Getting Distracted by Crafting

 This week, I admittedly didn't do as much plot-related stuff as I intended. But I have a good reason for that, I swear. And that reason is... I kept getting distracted by crafting jobs.

 I'm really starting to understand how crafting jobs all feed into other crafting jobs in this game. I started out as a Weaver (even though I still haven't so much as approached a loom...), and that was fine to start, until I was told that Botanists can gather materials that can be used for weaving, like grass or cotton. Okay, so I'll go become a Botanist too, then. Botanists can gather that stuff, but they also gather wood and cooking ingredients. Fine, guess I'll become a Carpenter and Culinarian too, to make use of those things. But oh look, I've gathered so many animal skins from just fighting creatures as I go from quest to quest, so I guess it wouldn't hurt to become a Leatherworker too. Oh, you mean Leatherworkers also use metal in their profession? Guess it's time to become a Miner...

The list goes on. Everything feeds back into everything else, and before you know it, you've spent the majority of your playtime just making low-level things that you don't actually need right now, and don't even sell for that much, but they give you experience for your brand new crafting profession.

It's addictive, and I love it.

Plus it's easy to set up a Quick Synthesis (where I don't have to press buttons) for like 99 Hard Leathers and then run to the bathroom or feed the cats. Double productivity!

So aside from making items I don't really have a use for, what have I been up to?

Mostly side-quests, if I'm being honest, though I did press forward and actually advance the plot a little bit. If you remember from my last post, I rescued a Lalafell and had a huge floating crystal hint at my destiny. So what the heck is up with that?

Well, I got sent to help people at an outpost near the mines, and this dude named Wystan has hopes of setting up his own mining company, with fair pair for all his workers, so that nobody has to live in poverty so long as they have a job.

Sounds socialist as hell, bro! Count me in!

He thinks he's found a great rich ore vein that he wants to check out, and he needs an escort. So we go and oopsie, looks like a powerful group called the Syndicate got there first. Corrupt bastards who seem to think that working for a guy with lots of money means they can do whatever they want to people.

Which is not socialist as hell, so count me not in, thanks.

Only before we can swing blades at each other, this dude in a black robe shows up and just summons a golem at us.

Not cool, dude.

So, the golem gets beaten, the shadowy-robed dude buggers off, and then who should show up but Thancred, the handsome white-haired dude who helped me out back at the Sultantree.

My response to this is to promptly freak the fuck out and start hallucinating one of Thancred's memories.

As one does.

Thancred was around to see signs of more caravans being attacked when they were carrying crystals. Also that there have been a number of bad harvests resulting in food shortages, which he blames on -- and I shit you not -- a giant glowy red ball in the sky.

I mean, I guess in fairness to Thancred, it does look pretty menacing.

I'm being facetious here, for the sake of humour, but there is a legitimate reason why this all makes sense in the game. However, this early on, a number of plot points do seem to sort of come out of nowhere, and it's really up to the player to pay attention and put everything together.

A task which is made all the harder by the sheer number of side quests and exploration opportunities and all the crafting I talked about earlier. It's terribly easy to get side-tracked for days, and then you encounter another part of the overarching story and it's dropping all these terms and names and events that you think you know where they fit on the timeline but sometimes it's hard to tell, so you just have to make your best guess.

Final Fantasy games in recent years have this tendency to throw a lot of world-building at you early on, giving you terms and concepts and history that you have to pick up really fast or else risk being lost during important game events, and I feel right now that FFXIV is no exception. At times, I felt lost. I felt this weird sense of urgency not to play more of the game because I was enjoying it (though I absolutely am), but to play more of the game so that I can just focus on the story to the exclusion of anything else, so that I don't forget something and end up confused a few days down the line. It's a very fine line to walk, and I think the game does a decent job most of the time, but with the plethora of things to do that you're encouraged to try out and see what fits, you can conceivably lose the thread of the story for a while and then struggle to pick it back up again.

That part is less fun.

But hey, it's made up for by Thancred's silly mask.

Anyway, Thancred drops a line about how he can use that silly mask to see aetheric disturbances, and always seems to find me right in the middle of them, so he'll be keeping an eye on me for a while. Also that this whole incident seems set up by Lord Lolorito, a powerful person in Ul'dah, so, y'know, keep my head down.

Yeah, right, like I'll be able to do that...

So I run around doing more quests big and small, and I start to realise something.

My equipment is kinda shit.

I'm mostly relying on the rewards I get from quests, which usually give a boost to my stats, so that's fine, but my equipment level is like half my actual level, and equipment that more closely matches my actual level is way more expensive than I can afford. Money seems to be kind of a scarce thing in FFXIV. I mean sure, there's loads of ways to make it, but a lot of what you can find or make sells for very little, so it can legitimately be tough to save up enough money for good equipment.

And maybe that's partly my fault for doing so many random quests and killing more things than I need to and getting to be a much higher level than most of the quests I encounter actually call for. Maybe it's not a game balance issue so much as I just suck at balancing myself.

 Like, look at me here! I'm level 25, and the highest level quest I have in my list is level 17! Even the story-advancing quest I have is only level 15. I don't know if this is normal or I just actually ended up doing to much level-grinding or what, but either way, it's a problem, and I need a way to rectify it.

So I advance the plot enough to help recover the sultana's lost crown and expose the fact that the Syndicate and a bunch of the Brass Blades are corrupt jerks who need putting down. At which point, the game goes full Kingdom Hearts and one of the guys from Organization XIII steps out, says cryptic stuff at me for a while, and then summons the same emaciated dragon I fought back at the Sulantree.

His outfit is the same as the dude who summoned a golem at me, and they may be the same person, I dunno. But in true Organization XIII style, he needs a name. I'm thinking Saxoshel.

...Look, if you know, you know.

Anyway, Saxoshel, with his dying breath, mentions the Paragons. Thancred show up in time to hear that, and is disturbed by that revelation, since they're also known as the Bringers of Chaos, and a name like that is never good. I also reveal stuff about Thancred that I just sorta know, probably because of my weird psychic memory thing, and Thancred calls me gifted.

Why thank you! I did do well in school!

Also Saxoshel left behind a dark glowy crystal that disappears in a poof of smoke. Probably relevant.

As a reward for services rendered, I get to go to a fantasy royal dinner party, where I get to talk with this big guy named Raubahn. He seems impressed by a shiny rock I have, and asks if I've had visions of the Crystal. Or any other visions, for that matter.

...Maybe...

Raubahn gives a massive exposition dump about Eorzean history, which I picked up along the way but am glad to have confirmed. The nations used to live in harmony, but everything changed when the Garlean Empire attacked. The Warriors of Light brought together the Three Companies to fight back against the invaders. Raubahn was there on that fateful day. He says that I remind him of those Warriors, to guard my little blue glowy crystal piece, and comments that the fate of the realm may rest on my shoulders.

So... I should probably not put more time into learning how to weave fancier clothes, is what you're saying?

How do I know Raubahn is telling the truth about being at the Battle or Cartenau 5 years ago?

Oh, I start to dissociate and have a psychic dream of it, of course.

 Good to know Organization XIII was around back then, too.

Anyroad, turns out I passed out at the party and was taken to the inn to recover. Now that I'm awake, it's time for me to travel to other great cities. Like Limsa Lominsa and Gridania. Raubahn wants me to deliver messages to his old compatriots, asking them to help arrange a memorial for the fateful battle, as the 5 year anniversary is coming up.

So I do, and I proceed to get lost in entirely new cities now! Just when I figured out my way around Ul'dah, the game throws me a curveball and is like, "How do it again. But twice."

"Also don't get distracted by all the new crafting jobs that become available to you."

...Friends, I did not listen.

But in my grand exploration of new cities, I did encounter a truly ridiculous number of new quests to complete, so that will keep me busy for a while.

Also, I have a pet now!

I don't know if I can change his name in the game or anything, but his name in my head is Sriyolma, he is adorable, and I love him so much. I want a plushie of him. He is perfect.

So that about catches you up to my current location in FFXIV. Hopefully next week I'll have advanced the plot a lot more, gotten far better equipment somehow, and still be having a great time in Eorzea. Saving people, hunting things, the family business. You know how it goes.