Gone fishin'

I picked up Blume, my aggressively adorable lallafel a couple of days ago and sunk back into Final Fantasy XIV. Even playing on my very low spec PC, it’s a gorgeous looking game, and Eorzea is becoming a place I go to relax. And what could be more relaxing than fishing? For me, FFXIV has become a game about finding a picturesque fishing spot, sitting down, and turning off the UI – the animation and sound cues are so good, you don’t need it. It’s just a case of hitting one button to cast off and then another when the line tenses up and you hear the splash of a struggling fish. If I level up, or hear the chime of a new record or achievement, I’ll maybe toggle the UI back on to investigate, but otherwise it’s just the sound of the water, the open sky, and that ridiculously cute lallafel girl. It’s been a great way to unwind.

How Blume has been spending her time. I just unlocked WHM, but since then I’ve been relaxing. Any excuse to make a chart.

Being a new(ish) player and so far behind the curve in FFXIV – my most advanced class is CNJ, with which I just unlocked WHM at level 30 – I’m not feeling any pressure to rush along to be ready for the launch of Heavensward, so I’m just taking it easy. I’ve been reading Belghast’s recent posts about achieving self-sufficiency and levelling the Disciple of Land and Hand classes in tandem, and that’s very appealing right now.

Relatedly, a couple of months ago I read this post about playing through Fantasy Life as a pacifist, and how the game designers had seemingly gone out of their way to make that a possibility – you can complete the main storyline as one of the crafting vocations, and all of the boss fights can be done without harming any living creatures. That just struck a chord with me, and I went back to Fantasy Life after months of neglect. I switched lives to alchemist and spent several happy days amassing a fortune through crafting potions, only nudging the storyline along when I needed access to new ingredients in new areas of the world.

It occurs to me that while I’m not going to be able to complete the main scenario questline as a fisher or culinarian, I could conceivably reach the level cap in those classes before I do so with an adventuring class – I love that FFXIV has taken the traditional MMO trade skills and spun them off into their own classes, with accompanying guilds and questlines. I’m not interested in capping every class and job; at the moment WHM, FSH and CUL will be more than enough to occupy my time. My only other goals right now are to investigate using retainers for ventures and to play the market, and to do some research into finding a Free Company to join.