alias_sqbr: (up and down)
I finished the second Final Fantasy 14 expansion, Stormblood! It is generally considered the weakest of the expansions and yeah...I had some Issues with it.

But now I am done and, with AI companions available for the remaining expansions, I will hopefully never have to do a new dungeon with real people again. Not that the dungeons felt any harder (they did get harder, but my skills have improved to match), or that anyone was mean about my mediocrity, but it's still stress I could deal without.

I've started the next expansion, Shadowbringers, and am really enjoying it! Though it is MUCH HARDER and I needed to play with other people to get through the first dungeon after the AI companions kept letting me die, but that just made me more glad I'd had the chance to practice. And then I decided it would be useful to be able to do one specific crafting thing and fell into the Levelling All Crafting And Gathering Classes spiral. So finishing Shadowbringers might take a while. But I'm having fun!

Anyway. First, a post about Stormblood.

Content notes, for this post and the expansion: rape, war crimes, suicide.
Read more... )
alias_sqbr: the symbol pi on a pretty background (Default)
Since otherwise my specific posts will be even longer.

I'm only up to the start of Heavensward so so some of this will probably be wrong! There are some very vague spoilers but I've tried not to spoil anything significant.

Read more... )
alias_sqbr: (happy dragon)
I have now finished the Final Fantasy 14 expansion Heavensward, as well as the content after that leading up to the next expansion, Stormblood. Heavensward is the point everyone agrees is when the FFXIV story gets really good, and they were right! It's still fundamentally the same basic story and game, but tighter, better written, better acted, and more fun to play.

Also, it has ELVES and DRAGONS and FLOATING ISLANDS :D

Content note: mention of fictional past incest.
Spoilers up to Stormblood )
alias_sqbr: the symbol pi on a pretty background (genius!)
So just spent WAY too much thought and a non-negligible amount of real life money on a new name for my Final Fantasy 14 character because it WASN'T LORE COMPLIANT. This game has definitely gotten its claws into me >.>

The name I settled on was Laneko Delaneko, which is also not entirely lore complaint but close enough that I can headcanon a backstory to go with it.

Below, the MANY MANY other names I came up with, most of which were just me having fun with the lalafell name structure.
Read more... )
alias_sqbr: (up and down)
These are the notes for myself to have in a text window at the bottom of the screen for the last few dungeons before Heavensward in Final Fantasy 14. Very boring, and only relevant to DPS, but there's always the small chance someone might find them useful.

Also: I finished all the dungeons and am now playing Heavensward :D :D
The Chrysalis, The Steps of Faith, The Crystal Tower (Labyrinth of the Ancients, Syrcus Tower, The World of Darkness) )
alias_sqbr: (happy dragon)
So Final Fantasy 14 has these things called "minions", which are entirely cosmetic but fun little pets that follow you around doing absolutely nothing but look cool/cute. Thus far I've just picked up a couple from quests: a little wildcat kitten you rescue, a wind-up airship souvenir from flying in an airship, etc. They're fun, but can clutter up the screen, and sometimes it stretched my suspension of disbelief that like...a little puppy was following me into battle with giant monsters and not being hurt. It all felt a bit silly.

But that was before I got the minion reward for the quest The Rising Chorus.
Major spoilers up to near the start of Heavensward! )
alias_sqbr: (up and down)
Red Mage is definitely not the best job for everyone, it just played best to my particular strengths and weaknesses. Below is a lot of technical game talk about how I figured this out, in case it's helpful to anyone else.
Read more... )
alias_sqbr: (up and down)
So as planned, I tried out some other jobs in FFXIV to see if any suited me better, and one did! Red Mage, which suits me so well that I have found dungeons with real people actually...sort of...doable?? With the combination of better job, better movement, and watching guides, I've gone from visibly mediocre to just a bit below average for a noob (and the game marks noobs so that people will be nicer to us), which makes me feel much less Seen. At least so far, the three dungeons I've done have all been described by the guides as fairly simple, so we'll see how I do later.

I think being able to practice doing dungeons with NPCs also made a huge difference. I did the easiest ARR endgame dungeon a few times to grind for currency and even though it's not that different to regular combat it still made the whole Doing Dungeons thing feel more familiar and unscary.

I'm enjoying the plot so far, too! As promised, the game is poking the colonialist setting a little, though the colonised people are still, thus far, either childlike fairies or animalistic Beast Men, most of whom go around indiscriminately murdering and torturing their colonisers so, uh. We'll see.

Also, I know there's some popular characters and ships that show up later but for now my heart belongs to Maggie, the sentient magitech armour, who I ship with fresh oil and hugs.

Going to write up why I like Red Mage but I think that suits being in a separate post.

Oh no

Apr. 16th, 2022 05:15 pm
alias_sqbr: exploding train (train)
So. As I have mentioned previously, the first section of Final Fantasy 14 is called A Realm Reborn. I was stuck on this until the game introduced "Duty Support" so didn't really look into what happens after ARR.

When I saw "As of Patch 6.1, instanced duties for A Realm Reborn, Shadowbringers, and Endwalker are supported. Duty Support for 2.x to Heavensward and beyond will be added in future patches." I read this as "ARR and the first few expansions have support, with later parts to follow".

However, having now finished ARR, I have learned better! It means "ARR has support, as does everything after the third expansion, with the parts between to follow". In my defence, Shadowbringers (expansion 3) and Stormblood (expansion 1) both start with an S, and the fact that 2.x means "everything between ARR and Stormblood" is Not Intuitive.

So now I either wait for a future patch, or have to play with actual people /o\ It's not quite as bad as it could be, I was thinking of trying a different class anyway, and using Duty Support to grind for better gear. And once I do all that I might be better enough at the game to not hate playing with others as much.

And I can always halt my subscription until the game gets patched again. SIGH. Still, I don't regret subscribing, I've had a lot of fun, and am sure I can find productive things to do until the end of the month I paid for. Waiting feels different to being unable to ever progress.

Don't let this put you off too much if you were thinking of trying the game: I was very close to the end, so the gap between the patch dropping and me finishing ARR was very short. A new player takes quite a while to finish ARR (which I'm pretty sure you can complete entirely for free), by which time the patches might have caught up to the next part.

I DID IT

Apr. 16th, 2022 02:39 pm
alias_sqbr: A stick figure doing cartwheels saying "Yay" (yay!)
I FINISHED A REALM REBORN!!! I did the big battles and got to the credits of Final Fantasy 14!

Which by no means is the same as finishing the game, I have a bunch of interstitial parts and then will begin the first of several expansions, each just as big as this first part. But I am done with the start! Which is from all accounts the most boring part of the story, and it's only up from here! I spoiled myself for the end of ARR ages ago but have only the vaguest sense of what happens next, it's exciting :D
Read more... )
alias_sqbr: the symbol pi on a pretty background (Default)
So some of you may remember that two years ago I played a bunch of the online multiplayer RPG Final Fantasy 14, before sadly deciding that while I enjoy most of the game, the compulsory dungeons involving other players were too much for my anxiety.

BUT THEN. TODAY. They introduced Duty Support, a way to do main quest dungeons with NPCs instead of real people!! So I signed back up and did the dungeon I got stalled on two years ago and it was GREAT. So now I can keep playing the game!

I haven't tried any other dungeons yet but as far as I can tell this should make it simple to play from the start through to the end of the first section and the first two expansions with no compulsory gameplay with other people whatsoever, and the later expansions will be added in time.

If you're now interested in playing, there's a free trial, it's pretty generous and you'll know by the end if the game feels worth your while.

More rambly detail )
alias_sqbr: (up and down)
[personal profile] flamebyrd recced the Playframe Let's Play of Final Fantasy 14, and I've been really enjoying it, and so been checking out their other videos.

Playframe is run by Dan and Carrie Floyd, the ones I've watched have mostly been Dan talking and Carrie editing with the odd bit of added text commentary. Their Patreon describes them as "chill and positive" and that's definitely the vibe. It's mostly upbeat, gentle, and cheerfully chatty, with lots of squee. Dan has a background in animation and media studies, so there's some nice moments of analysis too.

These are the two series I've liked the most:

Final Fantasy 14: I was enjoying this fantasy MMO except for the unavoidable group dungeons, so it's nice to have a chance to see the rest. Here's the review I wrote at the time. He's going through the main storyline, and is currently at the level 38 quest. I gave up on the game at the level 44 quest so it's not anything new to me yet but still enjoyable, and it's fun seeing how a competent person plays haha, especially since he explains what he's doing. And it's a fun story, even if I'm being reminded how unfortunate the 'Beast Tribes' of Angry Indigenous Monsters That Are Mostly Brown And Black thing is (I hear it gets better but...ehh...) As he keeps reminding the viewer when things get bogged down in boring fetch quests, the story doesn't really get good until after level 50, so I'm looking forward to that!

Hollow Knight: this is a side-scroller full of fighting-while-platforming, so I am absolutely never playing it, but I kept hearing the story is great. Which it is! (the fighting-while-platforming is great too, from all accounts, if you're into that) And the cheery commentary helped lighten the scary bits and fill in what would otherwise have been boring watching-someone-else-jump-platforms-and-fight parts.

It's a cute, bittersweet tale of a tiny ungendered bug knight exploring and ultimately saving a ruined bug kingdom that fell to a mysterious Affliction. It's a perfect mix of cute, horrifying, and beautiful, with glorious art and good writing. The fact it's all little cartoon bugs stopped it getting too horrifying for me, and it's ultimately a compassionate and hopeful game. But there's still a lot of maggots, spiders, lumbering corpses, tragedy, violence, and death. And while the Affliction is more like a corruption than a real disease there's still a lot of Bulbous Infections As Creepy Threat. Also when I described one of my favourite parts to Cam he just stared at me for a moment then said "You know, you can be pretty dark", so, YMMV >.>
alias_sqbr: the symbol pi on a pretty background (Default)
So I started writing this post with the intention of writing up the whole of "A Realm Reborn", the base story covering the first 50 levels of the online multiplayer roleplaying game Final Fantasy 14. But I seem to have run out of enthusiasm for the game at level 45, so will just post what I have now.

It didn't get bad or anything, I just have this problem with subscription games where I felt obliged to play to get my money's worth, and that takes the fun out of it (this is why I put off subscribing for so long) So I'll take a break and play again if/when it feels like it would be fun again. Which it probably will, it's a good game!

EDIT: After taking a long break I realised the group dungeons were making more anxious than I'd realised, and I never felt like going back.
Read more... )
alias_sqbr: me cosplaying the bearded dwarf cheery longbottom, titled Expressing my gender with an axe (gender)
So, I've been playing the online multiplayer roleplaying game Final Fantasy XIV for about a month and really enjoying it! I still haven't found the free trial too limiting, and enjoy games less when I'm subscribed to them, so am continuing to put it off buying it. I do intend to buy a copy at some point just to pay them back for all the fun I've been having, plus I'll reach the free trial limit of level 35 in something eventually.
Read more... )
alias_sqbr: Dagna from Dragon Age reaching for a book (dagna)
Doing these [community profile] electric_challenge questions and watching Let's Plays made me realise I missed playing an MMO. So I downloaded the free trial of Final Fantasy 14, and have been having fun so far.

Meet Squiber Squar, a tiny archer on a search for adventure. She's a Lalafell, which are kinda like hobbits, and she's specifically Dunesfolk, who are nerds who live in the desert. They are SO TINY, like...below waist height to most other characters.
A screenshot of a round pretty childlike humanoid with short blue hair edged with teal, brown skin, medieval clothing, earrings, and a bow.

I started playing yesterday and right now am just wandering around doing basic quests like delivering letters and killing ladybugs. I'm not sure if I'll feel like paying the $20 a month or whatever it is when the trial runs out but am having fun so far. It's very pretty in a generic fantasy sort of way, I haven't spoken to any other real people but it's fun seeing their characters around and the NPCs have good enough dialogue to make the world feel fairly real. I'm playing on my Mac laptop with a PS4 controller, supplemented with the keyboard/trackpad when the UI confuses me.

I'm in Masamune on the Japanese server Mana. I thought about asking my friends who play what server to go on, but got paralysed by social anxiety about it, thanks brain.
alias_sqbr: the symbol pi on a pretty background (genius!)
Thanks to everyone who gave me prompts, they were a nice mix of things to draw.

I also drew some fanart for the vampire game I'm working on:


Isabel and Elsa on deviantART
Isabel and Elsa on tumblr

And now, the prompts! This is the only fic I wrote:

Links: "Stirring" at AO3, "Stirring" at fanfic.net
Info: G, gen, 976 words, no content notes
Fandom: Avatar: The Legend of Korra
Characters: Korra, Tenzin, Lin Bei Fong
Summary: For the prompt "Lin Bei Fong and/or Toph Bei Fong: training." Set between episodes 8 and 9.

Under the cut: Original art and fanart for Harry Potter, Pride and Prejudice/Avatar the Last Airbender, Fraggle Rock, Final Fantasy 13, and Creeks and Crawdads
Read more... )
alias_sqbr: the symbol pi on a pretty background (genius!)
Ug. I have a cold. Lying around on the couch feeling like crap is frustrating enough without a runny nose and a sore throat to go with it. Anyway, to fill in the time…art post!


Self Similar Alphabet on deviantART
, on Tumblr

Fringe, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Portal 2, Avatar the last Airbender, Final Fantasy 13 )
alias_sqbr: the symbol pi on a pretty background (genius!)

FFXII: Fran
by ~sqbr on deviantART

This isn't about her crossdressing or whatever, I just wanted to put her in something pretty and sensible and he is about the only character in the game whose clothes fit that description :) (This metal bikini is what she usually wears)
alias_sqbr: the symbol pi on a pretty background (genius!)
FFXIII: Rygdea and Rosch
FFXIII: Rygdea and Rosch


Drawn for Velithya's prompt. I'm amused that I've done two pieces of FFXIII fanart now despite never having played the game (though I'm sure I will eventually. And the costumes are fun to draw in that ridiculous Final Fantasy way)

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