I’m back to playing Final Fantasy 14 after a month long hiatus. Patch 3.5 doesn’t really do anything me in the right now as I’m a long way off from reaching the current content, but at least now I can queue up for the Duty Finder and have my trusty chocobo by my side.
I’ve changed things up a little since my return. For one I am no longer playing a hulking mountain of muscly man meat and have changed Kluwes into a female Au Ra. Now I have the pleasure of looking like mostly everyone else in the Duty Finder. That’s ok though, every once and a while I like to play other races and genders. This isn’t the first time Kluwes has had a total DNA make over, he started out as a Duskwhight Elezen with long flowing locks.
It’s taken a little while to get used to my drastic decrease in character size after adventuring so long with the Roegadyen. I no longer have an over sized chocobo and I feel like the camera is lower to the ground than before. Also, it’s weird having NPC’s actually look down to me when I talk to them.
Once I got my character set up I decided to see how much longer I had in the Main Scenario for ARR. At first I was going to level my Ninja to 50 and then do the Main Scenario but an FC mate encouraged me just to get it done.
It turns out I wasn’t actually that far from the end anyways. I had about 3 quests and 2 dungeons to complete. One of my least favorite parts of FFXIV is that story is delivered through cut scenes in the dungeons. I like the idea because it makes dungeons all that more cinematic but trying to watch a cut scene in content that old is a sure fire way to get left way behind by a group. Luckily I on’t mind skipping the cut scenes and watching them later in the inn. Actually I found that watching the last cut scene for both Castrum Meridianum and Praetorium was enough to understand what was going on.
I’m not sure how I feel about the last 2 dungeons in ARR. On the one hand the scenery and backdrop for each is really pretty. On the other, especially in Castrum Meridianum, my screen ended up looking like a field of purples and greens when the group made huge pulls.
I enjoyed the Praetorium more than Castrum Meridianum. It seemed like there was more to do in the dungeon rather than just pulling everything in sight and demolishing it. A brief moment of embarrassment came when I couldn’t figure out how to get into the Magitech so I ended up huffing it on foot the whole way while my teammates destroyed whatever horror were along the way. Turns out it was kind of fun watching my mechanical chicken teammates clear things from the ground.
The Ultima Weapon was a fun final boss and since this is a Final Fantasy game of course he had three forms. He didn’t seem all that challenging but I’m sure that had something to do with 7 people whaling on him who knew what they were doing.
With ARR finished I can start working my way through the last of the 2.XX content on my Dragoon. I still want to level up my Ninja but for now I’ll reserve that for the Daily Roulette. What I’m most excited for is the 2.XX Main Scenario to be all level 50 quests so I don’t have to take a break in the story to get a level up or three.
Congrats on making it through ARR content!
The first story content in 2.1 is a little meh after having such a grand ending — it seems like that first step, the team didn’t quite catch their stride in where they wanted to take the story,so the filled it with busywork. I’m talking running old dungeons and finishing up early-level guildleves for some odd reason. But after you beat your first big trial in the story and clear patch 2.1, the story starts to improve again. Hang in there!
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