1865: Virtual Career Choices

One of the more interesting aspects of massively multiplayer online games as they continue to grow and expand is that it becomes harder and harder to “do everything” for various reasons. In some cases, it becomes harder to complete old content because there’s simply no-one else running it any more — Final Fantasy XIV neatly sidesteps this by keeping nearly everything in the game relevant at all times through various sidequests, including the notoriously lengthy Relic questline — and in others, it’s because there is so much to do that in order to max out everything and “complete” the game to “100%” would be a full-time occupation.

We’re starting to reach that point in Final Fantasy XIV now. It’s still eminently possible for players to get from level 1 to level 50 and beyond and complete all the PvE (Player vs Environment, or regular cooperative) content without too much difficulty — though Second Coil and Final Coil are still an insurmountable barrier for all but the most skilled players — but that’s not, by any means, all that there is to the game any more. In fact, there’s been numerous different potential “career paths” in the game since it launched, and these have only continued to grow and expand with their own “endgames” as the game has blossomed over time.

There’s crafting, for example. Serious crafters will have levelled all of the crafting classes from 1-50 to get all of the possible cross-class abilities, and will have worked on their equipment to get it strong enough to create the more difficult crafts. They’ll have worked out a good skill rotation to use for crafting items — much like a high-level PvE player works out a suitable skill rotation to maximise their damage output — and they’ll have their own goals in mind, be it making millions on the market board from producing the most desirable items, or simply being able to make cool stuff for their friends.

Then there’s gathering; much like crafting, gathering has its own endgame with new equipment to acquire and more and more difficult-to-obtain items becoming available over time. There’s less of a “skill rotation” element to this — although skills are still relevant — and these classes act as a good complement to their crafting counterparts.

Then there’s desynthesis, which ties in with crafting: through desynthesis, it becomes possible to turn items back into their component parts, which can sometimes yield rare items which either sell for a decent amount of money or which can be used to produce desirable items. Levelling this skill is its own, separate, convoluted process from crafting, but it pairs well with the crafting classes.

Then there’s PvP (Player vs Player) combat, which takes either the form of small four-on-four battles in a little arena, or large-scale multi-alliance battles on a large map. Opinions vary fairly wildly as to whether PvP is actually any good or not — and the queues to get in to it are frequently hellish — but there are dedicated players out there who know all about the PvP-exclusive abilities and have access to some of the cool-looking PvP-exclusive equipment.

And most recently, the Manderville Gold Saucer provides a couple of career options for adventurers who tire of the XP and Tomestone grinds: Chocobo racing and Triple Triad. Chocobo racing has its own complex metagame that would make an interesting standalone title in its own right, and Triple Triad likewise.

In reality, most Final Fantasy XIV players dabble in most of the above at one point or another, prioritising one thing above all others at any given moment. At present, for example, I’m prioritising getting my “Zodiac” weapon for at least one of my classes; after that, I’m intending on spending some serious time chocobo racing when I’m not attempting to take down Second Coil and, hopefully, subsequently, Final Coil.

There’s a ton to do. And it’s incredibly daunting. And I love it.