I can’t remember the last time I played Final Fantasy 14 properly. It must have been many years (and at least a few expansions) ago when I last considered myself as more than a casual player. Back then, I did endgame with my friends, I kept on top of my gear and iLevel religiously, and grinded out new gear and tomes each week without fail. More importantly, I felt like I knew my job well enough.
Since then, my life has changed, and the number of hours I can pump into the game has changed with it. Over the years, Square Enix has made so many tweaks to jobs, their abilities, and overhauls of general systems — remember TP, anyone? Yeah, we’re glad that’s gone, and things are so different now. I don’t keep track of adjustments, I log in and sometimes things on my hot bar look different or have disappeared entirely.
Many of my roles have decayed in some way. If I switch to a dusty job I haven’t touched since the level 50 era, the hot bar is a mess of removed abilities, like some rotting corpse with bits falling off. I have no idea what the rotations are anymore. Even on the one job I rely on most, Bard, I no longer have the confidence I once had. I keep the hot bar maintained at least, though it’s probably an out of order mess that would make other bards recoil in disgust, it works for me.
Am I still doing the right rotation? Am I actually using my role to the best of my ability? I don’t know anymore. I’ve been around for so long that asking someone else for help feels awkward. If I were to say, ‘Hey, is this right?’, I worry others would just look at me like I’m daft because I should know by now. Largely, I just go by enmity these days. If other DPS have less enmity than me in any given party, I think I can’t be doing that badly, surely? But I know I could be doing better.
My gear is not the best it could be. I don’t touch end game stuff really, so I rely on tome gear, and even then, I maybe get a new piece every month or two. Usually, tomes get switched out before I get a full set, because I’m that terrible at keeping on top of my gear.
I’ve been struggling with the idea of whether being a casual player means I will forever be a subpar player because I don’t have the time to make my character better, but I don’t think that’s necessarily true. While it certainly makes it harder to stay competent, other players manage to be casual and not as terrible as I am. I just need a refresher course in my job, and then with some luck, maybe I can stay up to date with any future changes and treat myself to some shiny new gear more often.