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I’ve been fairly involved with Final Fantasy XIV lately and it is time to review what’s happened over the last several months. Smudge has been holding me down and making sure I get side content done, but I’ve also snuck off a number of times lately to get some crafting in, and get that moving.

So, pure mechanical side of things: I’ve gotten every job I had maxed for Endwalker up to the new level limit of 100 (finally managed that in May). I had started work on Astrologian before the release of Dawntrail, and it is now in the mid-70s, and I’ve also taken Dark Knight, and gotten it to 34 (from a start at 30). Smudge and I finally got through all the Studium (Endwalker crafting) quests a few months ago, which finally got all the crafting classes up to 90. We’ve started the Wachumeqimeqi (Dawntrail crafting) quests, but only finished the main gathering one so far.

I’ve gotten two of my crafting classes (and Mining and Botany) up to 100, and have started work on upgrading my gear. Smudge was defeated by the 100*** gear, and I want to take a crack at it. So far, I’ve just produced some 97 gear and a little of the base 100 gear, and hope to work up to the rest as more classes get to 100.

Some of what has powered this desire is Cosmic Exploration. This is the new iteration of the Ishgard Restoration idea, and we’ve been spending time working on the Mining track. I was doing okay at first, but difficulty is scaled to level, so as my Mining level got higher, and my gear stayed the same, it got very difficult, and trust me, don’t try Cosmic Exploration at level 100 with level 90 gear. With partial 97 and 100 replacements, I’ve been doing well. Not really getting gold evaluations, but silver is doable, and that’s the main result for getting progress. I’ve been happy with the setup, but it has been getting tedious.

Over on the plot-side of things, we’ve gone through the first two patches (7.3 is due out in a month+) and the side adventuring content. Main plot has been fairly good, and certainly dealing with things that need dealing with. That is, mourning a beloved leader who has just passed away after a thousand years….

(Spoiler time!)

The post-expansion content starts with a memorial for Queen Sphene, and things go off the rails from there. Nearly everyone forgets that she’s dead, and a new simulacrum appears. Plot-wise, we’re getting a nice two-fer. On one side, we’re continuing with the theme of dealing with loss that underpinned Dawntrail. On the other, we’re dealing with the MacGuffin of the regulators which can control memory. Because, oh yes, someone has produced a new model, gotten them distributed, and is playing memory games through them.

And we’ve even seen who, but… it certainly hasn’t done a great job of sticking with me. This part of the plot has been decent, but the villain is lackluster. This, however, has been made up for by the appearance of the real Sphene. The interactions around that have been good, and we have been left on a note that must start resolving soon….

I’m thinking that now that we’re not between major arcs, this is going to follow the usual between expansions timing, and 7.3 will see the major bit here (the Two Sphenes) resolve, and then it’ll slide into setting up the next expansion, and… well I want to say that we’ll be going to the ninth shard for the next expansion, but that’s not how FF XIV works. No, we’ll go there in two expansions.

Meanwhile, we’ve had the first two parts of the raid series, the Arcadion. As usual, it’s a bit rough for me, though I enjoyed the first part more than the second. Round 4 was also my favorite design of them all. Since Eutrope had unfinished business, I was (half-)joking she’d also be the eighth round. I wasn’t completely wrong as she did show up for the part two story, and we did get a repeat, just not her, and the brute abombinator has been the roughest fight for me so far.

As usual, I enjoy the alliance raids more, though they’re long enough to just wear me out. I know for a few people out there the current alliance raid series is touching some very positive memories as they’re borrowing from FF XI, and they’ve gone through that game. (I have to say, plot and design-wise the “Return to Ivalice” series was a bit of a disappointment to me as it was too far from FFT.) It’s still getting positive associations from me because while I’ve never played the game I do have the soundtrack, so I recognize all the music. I wish I knew more about the locations and such we’re seeing.

We just got around to doing the 7.2 Hildebrand story after not noticing it was there for a while. Hardiboiled has been a good reflection of Hildebrand, but it’s impossible not to miss Brandihild who’s been the best secondary character to those quests yet. Still, now that we’ve got both to play off of each other, I expect the next few to continue being hilarious, and have been enjoying the current adventures as always.

On side notes, we also have a notable bit of news: Smudge and I have done a fair number of treasure maps in spare time recently, and in the The Shifting Altars of Uznair, we… got a shift. That is to say, we finally got to see what happens if you get a “!” entry in one of the roulette dungeons. Everything goes golden and you get an elder summons with minor adds during the fight. The message is, “The circles have shifted”, and then after the fight… well, we got, “The circles stay shifted”, but I don’t know if there’s really a chance to go back to normal or not. All I know, is that if you stay in that mode, then all the roulette choices are “!” or an atmos, and the next fight will be another elder summons with more adds and more treasure. We got three shifted fights in a row, and then an atmos tossed us out before the fifth and final fight.

Meanwhile, Smudge and I are still going through the main story again on our alts on Sundays, and our Buns got into Stormblood a couple months ago. It is interesting as I am picking up on where they really show Lyse changing directions from replacing her sister in the Psions to dedicating herself to the Ala Mhigo Resistance.

Mechanically, we’re just past the Sirensong Sea and still touring Kugane, so they have a lot of story to go, but it is very nice to be in the second expansion now.