Ruin

Day 441

As it turns out, I've spent the vast majority of my free time over the past three days (all of which I had off) playing Final Fantasy XIV. Yes, I know, that's kind of a boring thing to say as far as the content of this blog is concerned--but I'm the only one that ever reads it anyway, and in the end I do it just for me. If that ever changes, maybe I'll seriously consider changing my gaming habits for the sake of more diversity on this blog, but for right now I'm really enjoying the game and don't want to stop anytime soon. This is especially true considering the fact that patch 2.4 is on the horizon, and with it, the rogue class and ninja job. Ninjas are ridiculously cool. There is just no denying this fact.

I have reached level 42 on the dragoon class and it is what I've spent most of my time on. I'm hoping I can hit 50 before patch 2.4 hits, but I'm assuming the leveling slows down considerably as I get closer to the cap. Being able to do that in a week is probably not extremely likely. After all, I'm working the next four days in a row (thanks to having three off in a row) and won't have the opportunity to play all day--although I'll probably spend a pretty significant chunk of my nights playing it regardless. I don't necessarily have to reach level 50 by that point because rogue will just be another class I haven't played yet even after it comes out. I still haven't played archer/bard, thaumaturge/black mage, or conjurer/white mage at all and I'm only just now trying out arcanist/scholar/summoner. I'm intensely interested in the ninja job but so is just about every other player. The servers will likely be inundated with level 1 rogues on the hour of release.

I had previously thought reaching 50 on dragoon would be an extremely time consuming and laborious ordeal--and don't get me wrong, it hasn't been fast--but with a little knowledge of the game's mechanics, things become easier. Square-Enix was kind enough to include a wide variety of methods for gaining large amounts of experience, all of which go a long way toward eliminating the usual monotony of MMORPG grinding. In World of Warcraft, my usual method of leveling was to accept every single quest in a zone and do all of them in sequence, no matter how tedious or boring some of those quests might be. Other than running instanced dungeons over and over and over, it was just about the only way of leveling for me. I'd generally do each dungeon once on a new character just to get the bonus experience, but I found running the same dungeons repeatedly to be highly tedious.

In Final Fantasy XIV, you can comb through a zone and do numerous quests just like you would in any other MMO, but you also have special story quests that serve to advance the game's plot. Generally, if you commit to only doing these story quests, you'll hit a point where you can't advance any further until you attain a higher level. You can take on some sidequests during this period if you like, or you can do FATEs, special group events that spawn in every zone in predetermined locations. These FATEs generally involve dispatching a fearsome boss monster or large groups of swarming enemies. Higher level FATEs are difficult or impossible to accomplish alone, but they are also completely optional. Completing FATEs successfully rewards a pretty significant chunk of experience.

Of course, there's also the Hunting Log for acquiring additional experience. This log, which is unique to every class, lists a number of specific monsters and their locations. Once these monsters have been killed, you'll be awarded an experience bonus, with an even larger bonus to be rewarded once the whole log is finished. Each class has five of these logs with monsters assigned to each of the job's 50 levels. A second hunting log exists specifically for your character's Grand Company--an affiliation which is determined during the course of the game's story quests. This log awards you with seals instead of experience--a currency that can be used to move up through the ranks of the Grand Company and also to purchase otherwise unobtainable gear.

FFXIV also features the Duty Roulette, which is more or less analagous to WoW's Random Dungeon in that players queue for dungeons randomly and are awarded a special bonus of experience for participating. However, in the case of FFXIV there is a wider variety of dungeons to choose from due to the game's level sync function. This means that even max level players may participate in low level dungeons for bonus experience. This is good for newer players too because it means that it's easier to find groups for these entry-level dungeons. 

Finally, there are Levequests. These are repeatable quests distributed at most major outposts in the game. They are somewhat similar to FATEs except they do not spawn randomly and are designed to be challenged alone or with a small group. They give a static amount of experience based on the level of the quest and cycle between a small variety of types. These quests may require you to find items in a specific area, to pacify enemies, or just to defeat as many enemies as you can during a certain time period. They are simple quests that don't have much impact on the plot, but are very useful for leveling, especially when all other quests have been exhausted. I can see them being particularly useful when leveling new classes in zones I've already gone through a few times.