1700: Showing Your Skills

One of the reasons I think I’ve stuck with Square Enix’s excellent MMO Final Fantasy XIV for as long as I have now — I’ve been playing since the beta, which means my dear character Amarysse is now well over a year old — is that I actually feel like I’m quite good at it. This is a nice feeling.

I’m not saying I’m the best at it, or anything, and I’m certainly not one of those players who makes passive-aggressive comments in the vague direction of those they believe to be “beneath” their skill level (aside: earlier today there was one such jerk in 24-player raid Syrcus Tower berating a newbie tank for what he perceived as a lack of skills, and I was gratified to see all 23 other players admonish him for being an “Internet tough guy”; he shut up shortly afterwards) but I do feel pretty confident that I know how most of the things in the game works, and I’m comfortable helping and advising newcomers with how best to proceed.

As I say, this is a nice feeling, and it occurs to me that there haven’t been all that many games — or indeed activities in general over the years — that I can honestly say that about. I like board games, for example, but I wouldn’t say I’m an expert at, say, Agricola (as my unbroken losing streak will back up), Carcassonne or Catan. Likewise, I like performing music, but I’m realistic about my own abilities; I know there are plenty of people out there who are much better than I am. And likewise, I enjoy writing, too, but again, know that there are a lot of people who are better at that than me, too.

Final Fantasy XIV, though, I feel like I’m largely on top of my game. Sure, I haven’t cleared everything yet — The Second Coil of Bahamut still remains elusive, though this is more a scheduling issue than anything else right now — but I have completed some of the most difficult content, such as The Binding Coil of Bahamut, Turn 5 and the Extreme difficulty version of the Ramuh boss fight. I have a damage-dealer, healer and tank class to level 50 and at least reasonably well-geared in all cases — very well-geared in the case of my “main”, which is the Black Mage damage-dealer class. I know all the dungeons inside out because I’ve run them so many times. I know most of the Primal fights pretty well — with the exception of the Extreme mode variants, which I’ve only done once each — and I’m confident I could talk newcomers through most of The Binding Coil of Bahamut.

Knowing that I’m actually not some newbie scrub who constantly needs help from other people has actually helped me in a personal sense. Being able to complete all this content and even lead expeditions into some of the game’s most challenging dungeons and encounters has meant that I’ve developed my own sense of confidence and assertiveness. I still have some way to go — I’m hesitant about asking people multiple times for something I really want to do, because I don’t want to be a bother, for example — but I’m a lot better than I was.

This particularly comes to mind with regard to the game system added in patch 2.3, known as The Hunt. The Hunt is a take on Final Fantasy XII’s system whereby you’re given “marks” to find out in the world, then substantial rewards for beating them. In the case of Final Fantasy XIV’s take on this system, there are three “tiers”: B-rank, A-rank and S-rank. B-rank hunts can be soloed and you only need to do one per week to get a decent reward. A- and S-rank, meanwhile, require groups of people to beat.

The Hunt is, frankly, one of the most poorly implemented things in the whole of the otherwise pretty consistently excellent Final Fantasy XIV. It offers rewards that are much too big, and it is designed in such a way as to encourage enormous groups to power through it rather than smaller parties being able to take on these challenging monsters without being hassled by others. There’s something of a reputation of A- and S-rank monsters getting “zerg rushed” by hordes of players looking to make some quick endgame currency, and on occasion the sheer number of people showing up for the more lucrative marks can cause game crashes and freezes. Not so good.

By far the worst thing, though, was the fact that it caused a fair amount of tension in the community because, at least initially, no-one quite seemed able to agree how they should be handled. Should the person who found a hunt mark be allowed to engage it in combat whenever they felt ready, or should they wait for other people to turn up first? Is it acceptable for someone to call out a “pull time” for a hunt, even if they weren’t the person who found the monster? Is it acceptable to “reset” a monster (by moving it far enough from its spawn point that it restores all its HP and the fight effectively starts over again) in the name of giving people who haven’t arrived yet the chance to get some credit for the kill? (In the latter case, the official answer to that is “no”; it’s regarded as harassment due to the fact that doing so not only resets the monster’s HP but also individual players’ hidden “contribution points” to slaying the mark, which could potentially affect the rewards they receive.)

Said tension led to arguments — bitter, public, loud ones, as players formerly happy to cooperate with one another were suddenly at each other’s throats over how they wanted to play the game. A number of people decided to take charge and say that this was how things were going to be done from now on, and if you didn’t follow their arbitrary rules, they’d do their best to get you blacklisted by as many other players as possible. Not pleasant… and certainly not conducive to someone like me, who still suffers a certain degree of social anxiety in an online environment, wanting to join in the “fun”.

However, the other day, I can’t remember why, but I bit the bullet and gave it a go. I joined a hunt party and killed some monsters with them. And I had fun. The people involved were nice. No-one was yelling at each other or accusing others of “doing it wrong”. (It helped that it was relatively early in the day in server terms, and consequently there were fewer people online.) It inspired me to go back again and get some more rewards. And then to make my own party and lead it — something I wouldn’t even have considered even just a few weeks ago.

Having conquered that anxiety-inducing hurdle, I feel like I’m in a good place; I’m happy with my own level of skill at the game, and happy that I can help others out. I’m also happy to have a positive influence on those around me — I’ve defused more than a few potential arguments among hot-headed players in parties I’ve been involved with — and generally be a good member of the game’s overall community.

Can’t really ask for more than that, can you? And it’s that feeling that means that, even as I have somewhat less time to play now that I have a full-time job, I’ll be sticking with Final Fantasy XIV for quite some time to come, yet.