zephie's game journals
sorry this is the actual tenth anniversary event. my journal on this game is on its tenth page but yeah Square your ten years thing is cool too. i did a cute little quest about helping a budding adventurer figure out what being a vaguely-defined adventuerer is all about, then i got my signature chosen-one head ouchies and Yoshi-P talked to me about how it's been five years since the calamity for ten years now. but the highlight of the event was unlocking this sweet moogle minigame
i played a ton more 72-player PvP today. i like the map and gamemode that's "rotated" in today, which is a practice in multiplayer games i still don't understand the point of. there's a payload kinda gamemode i'd like to try out but it doesn't give any event currency booo! of course i'd be lying if i said that's the only reason i'm playing it. i'm having a genuinely good time in all the chaos, that and i've also given into this game's only persistent nagging source of FOMO
this game's usually pretty good about this stuff. i think they've said seasonal PvP rewards will be available again eventually. and a lot of limited-time event rewards usually become available on the store for an absurd amount of money which, whatever as long it's possible to get them then it doesn't bother me as much. that being said please bring back the Yo-kai Watch event, i didn't finish collecting all the minions from it that i will never use because i don't care about Yo-kai Watch but it still bugs me
there's a neat idle camera mode when going AFK that focuses on random NPCs and other players, or it would be neat if this game didn't have a terrible problem with bots teleporting underground
tried out Crystalline Conflict. ranked matches are impossible to queue for so i haven't bothered with that, but casual is usually pretty one-sided. matches are over way too quickly for how long it takes to find one, too quick for me to even register what's going on
it's true FFXIV has an abnormally friendly community for an online game, partly in due to brilliant decisions such not allowing chat in this game mode, even in ranked games. this isn't sarcasm i think letting strangers talk to you in competitive games is like falling down stairs on purpose and also the stairs have spikes on them and also the spikes are on fire. when i played competitive in Overwatch i just turned chat off, i don't need people making the fact they take video games too seriously into my problem as well
i got three achievements for winning my first match. the Fold and the Feast don't exist in the game anymore, so these are actually just three achievements for winning in Crystalline Conflict
it's bad enough there's still gender-locked gear in 2023 but this wording feels particularly transphobic
Paladin is at 50! aaand that's every base game combat job to 50 yippee. my Official Zephie Ranking i think so far, would be Dragoon > Ninja > Monk > Bard > Paladin > Scholar > Warrior > Summoner > White Mage > Black Mage. of course nowadays level 50 is barely scratching the surface of these jobs and also i put maybe two minutes of thought into that list
i really spent seven years playing almost exclusively Bard, just because one job alone was difficult enough to remember, and feeling super burnt out on any combat encounter. now i'd think it'll be nice to be able to switch jobs on the fly whenever i get bored, but in reality i will probably have too much trouble readjusting every time and i'll end up sticking with the same couple jobs again. i've actually also realized that i hardly know any damn abilities by name i just recognize the icons for them
yeah yeah job storyline thoughts i put gradually less and less effort into because they become seemingly less interesting as they go on. Gladiator quests were alright but Paladin was probably the least interesting story of all. apparently at level 80 they just go back to focusing on the Gladiator characters because the paladins are so boring? still another thirty levels of large suits of armor reading me storybooks probably
i wonder if i've started to get over my tanking anxiety, or if i've just played the level 1-50 dungeons one thousand times. and that those early dungeons often have new players who don't know what they're doing, and i'm the big strong tank standing over them offering my hand and explaining the mechanics. definitely still have moments were i screw things up and i'm itching to be done with things so people can leave and forget i exist. but that lingering anxiety is a worthwhile price to pay for the quick queues and the fabled Whole Party Commendations
spent a couple hours ignoring that this game is not built for glamour collecting and finished off getting all the Shiva weapons - and the glowy versions that make the grind 20 times longer. i was focused on trying to beat my best time to make it less boring, and eventually i just started trying to amuse myself by getting the perfect dance timing down when she freezes me
i got a ton of company seals in the process which i started trading in for more untradable gear i'll never use because i have a hoarding problem, and now my glamour dresser is almost full. there's a ton of stuff this game is built for collecting so i don't know why i bother going for glamour. eventually i'm gonna be paying $10 more a month for the extra retainers to hold all my gear, while i'm still telling myself "they're gonna add a glamour log at some point i know it, and then i'll have a headstart"