1643: Twintania Down for the Count

It's taken a lot of effort — including the effort to gather groups of people together for a common purpose — but this evening… morning… whatever it is now, I finally cleared Turn 5 of The Binding Coil of Bahamut in Final Fantasy XIV.

For those unfamiliar, The Binding Coil of Bahamut is a five-part dungeon for level-cap players. It was originally designed to be the absolute hardest challenge in the game, but has since been superseded by new content added in the three big patches there have been since launch. It's also been "nerfed" considerably, with players going in now being the recipients of the "Echo" buff — a 20% increase to maximum hit points, damage dealt and healing received. The thinking behind this gradual easing of its difficulty is so that, in theory, everyone will eventually be able to make it through — and that they might want to do so, because it offers some intriguing story content along the way.

Even with the 20% Echo buff, however, Turn 5, the fifth and final part of the dungeon, is still a stiff challenge. It's theoretically simple, consisting of nothing more than a boss fight between a party of eight people and a rather pissed-off dragon called Twintania, but it's a very demanding confrontation, requiring detailed knowledge of the mechanics, what to expect from the fight at every stage and fast reactions. As such, it's still a significant achievement to make it all the way through.

It's taken a good few hours — and several different parties — over the course of the evening to get through, but we eventually made it by the skin of our teeth. Not before we had an agonising defeat with Twintania's HP down to just 1%, of course, but we eventually made it nonetheless.

Turn 5 in particular is a good example of how high-level content in MMOs differs from more accessible challenges such as dungeons with lower player counts and open-world content. It demands either solid communication — which is why many players choose to make use of voice chat rather than the game's text-based chat — or extensive knowledge of what to expect from the fight. Or, preferably, both, because even with an experienced group, sometimes people's attention wanders, causing mistakes that can easily snowball out of control. Not only that, though, but as cheesy as it sounds, the amount of teamwork required for a successful clear is the sort of thing that really helps to build bonds between friends.

It's the kind of challenge that I don't think would be for everyone. Turn 5 in particular presents such a daunting challenge to many players that I wouldn't be at all surprised if there were plenty of dedicated endgame players who never cleared it. Which is a bit of a shame, as it's a spectacular, genuinely thrilling fight — and the perfect antidote to those people who feel that other content in the game is a little on the easy side. (It definitely is if you overgear yourself, which is quite easy to do these days.) Not only that, but my God, did it feel good when we eventually beat it. There may have been an audible "Yes!" from everyone participating when that HP bar finally dropped to 0.

Anyway. Battling that fearsome foe has led me to the doorstep of 4am, and so I'm going to go and get a few hours of sleep now. Well-earned, I'd say.

1632: Defenders of Eorzea

Final Fantasy XIV patch day today, and I told myself that today was going to be a day off from stress, anxiety and worrying about things, and that I was just going to enjoy myself. So I did. I logged on at about 11:30 this morning — or yesterday morning, if we're being truly accurate — and now, at 2:52am, I am logging off, with only a few short breaks throughout the day for food and drink.

Suffice to say, patch 2.3 is excellent. I, along with many of my Free Company-mates, took today to work through the new episode of the main scenario quest, which included a spectacular battle against Ramuh, Lord of Levin (aka "the old man who flings lightning everywhere") as well as a ton of other story content. I also completed the new Hildibrand questline — a comedic questline that, for many, has proven a highlight of Final Fantasy XIV's ongoing updates — as well as trying out all three of the new 4-player dungeons.

And I've barely scratched the surface. I've bought a room in our Free Company's house for my character, but I'm yet to fill it with furniture — there's just a bed, a couple of chairs and a table in there for now. I haven't even touched the new 24-player Crystal Tower raid, which promises to be an enjoyable clusterfuck, just like the previous 24-player Crystal Tower raid. And there's a ton of other stuff I'm yet to fiddle around with, too — not to mention returning to the tasks I was already working on prior to the patch, which will now be somewhat easier thanks to improved rewards from a bunch of game content.

So far there have been numerous highlights. Although some disliked the amount of dialogue and cutscenes in the main scenario quest, I enjoyed what was offered, as if you stopped to read it and see what was going on, it proved to be a nice "here's what's been happening elsewhere in the realm since last you saw these people" affair. There was also some neat — if rather obvious — foreshadowing of who the next "big fight" is going to be against.

The new dungeons are great, too. Tam-Tara Hard is particularly fun — as one of the low-level dungeons that comes up most frequently in Low-Level Roulette, Tam-Tara is a dungeon that many people were growing sick of, but its Hard incarnation successfully reimagines it into one of the best — if not the best — dungeon in the game. Featuring a creepy atmosphere, some brilliant boss fights and a narrative twist that is sure to please those who were paying attention earlier in the game, Tam-Tara Hard was a real highlight of today's session.

Stone Vigil Hard has proven more divisive, but it's certainly an interesting, challenging experience. The regular enemies are more than a match for even a well-geared party, and the bosses all make use of interesting mechanics that require far more than a simple "tank and spank" approach. This is nothing unusual for Final Fantasy XIV, which features some very involved boss battles throughout, but Stone Vigil Hard features some particularly interesting mechanics.

Finally, the all-new dungeon Hullbreaker Isle was great. Unfolding mostly outdoors, the "dungeon" sees you attempting to track down the treasure of the pirate Mistbeard. Along the way, you have to contend with various groups of angry wildlife, some unpleasant traps left behind to deter unwanted visitors, and, at the end, a rather annoyed kraken who wants nothing more than to pick you up, fling you around and splatter you with ink.

Final Fantasy XIV continues to go from strength to strength. It remains, as it has done since it launched last August, one of my favourite games, and if the strength of this new content is anything to go by, it has a significant amount of life in it. I'm genuinely intrigued to see where the main story is going, and in the meantime I'm really enjoying the other tasks and challenges the game faces me with. And there's some stuff — like the super-challenging endgame raid The Binding Coil of Bahamut — that I'm still barely touching. There is so much to do, and I'm having an absolute blast doing it — not to mention making some good friends in the progress.

Now, my brain is fried, so I should probably go and get some sleep. It's back to the doldrums of hunting for work tomorrow, though I don't doubt I shall reward myself with an hour or two in Eorzea as the day progresses!

1626: Quest for the Animus

We're counting down the days until Final Fantasy XIV's third major patch, Defenders of Eorzea — and in the meantime, a lot of us are trying to get as much of the previous time-consuming stuff done as possible.

For a lot of people — those who have reached the endgame, anyway — this is the long and convoluted process of acquiring and subsequently upgrading your "Relic" weapon. It's a questline that was originally available in Final Fantasy XIV's 1.0 incarnation which was then rejigged, tweaked and revamped for when A Realm Reborn launched. Over the course of the last few patches, it's continued to expand — and in the process, it's created a highly memorable gaming experience, albeit one that will drive some people to madness.

Here's how it works. After beating the game's main scenario (as it existed in the base game when it launched), you can visit a smith named Gerolt in the North Shroud. Gerolt was once a master weaponsmith, but in the years since the Calamity it seems like he is now more frequently to be found at the bottom of a bottle than hammering out a masterwork. Until you show up, that is, having heard rumours of a legendary weapon.

Through a somewhat convoluted series of events that see you finally tracking down the relic — which is broken, naturally — and then defeating a series of increasingly ridiculous opponents in order to acquire the ingredients necessary to repair it, you find yourself with a new incarnation of one of the legendary weapons of yore.

But that's not where it ends. Acquire enough of the mysterious elixir Thavnairian Mist, and you can infuse your relic with additional power, turning it into its Zenith incarnation and giving it a rather fetching glowy effect in the process.

This used to be where the questline ended, leaving you with a level 90 weapon — one of the most powerful in the game at the time it launched. But then came the Zodiac Braves questline, during which you hear tell of the exploits of a band of legendary warriors and hope to use the information to upgrade your weapon further.

The first step in this process is to acquire twelve Atma, strange crystals that very rarely drop in all places around the realm of Eorzea. In gameplay terms, in order to acquire these, you'll need to complete the public quests (known as FATEs) in specific locations. Each FATE you complete with your Zenith relic equipped has a low chance of dropping the Atma for that location, and there are twelve in total. There are all manner of conspiracy theories about whether or not there's a way to game the system or if you really are at the mercy of the random number generator, but you'll get there eventually.

Once you've collected twelve Atma, they're infused into your Zenith weapon, turning it into an Atma. It loses its shiny glow, but changes appearance slightly in the process — in the case of my Black Mage's Stardust Rod, for example, the orb on the end which used to glow purple now glows in rainbow colours. It's not any more powerful, though — it's the next step in the process that makes the Atma weapon unique.

Continuing your research into the Zodiac Braves, it transpires that a number of books detailing the exploits of these legendary warriors are available, but the one who holds them isn't going to let them go cheap. Specifically, she's charging 1,500 Allagan Tomestones of Mythology — mysterious items left over by the 5,000-year old Allagan civilisation that are used as currency in certain parts of Eorzea — per book. And there are nine books to look into, each of which tasks you with a series of Trials of the Braves to follow in the footsteps of the legendary warriors. In gameplay terms, this means there are a number of tasks for you to complete, ranging from defeating specific monsters around the world to discovering and completing specific FATEs and other quests. Once one book is completed, your Atma weapon receives a small upgrade. When all are completed, the combined knowledge from the books turns your weapon into its Animus form.

This is what I'm working towards at the moment. It's a long and time-consuming process and, frankly, a massive pain in the arse — Mythology Tomestones are acquired at quite a slow rate, so don't expect to be blasting out all those books in a weekend, unless you weren't planning on sleeping at all.

But at the same time, it's really quite satisfying. The upgrades you receive from completing a book are small but noticeable, and the prospect of an even more powerful weapon at the end of the process is a strong incentive to continue. Plus it helps give a feeling of "attachment" to this weapon you've put so much work into — it's something special that you've worked on, and it's become "your" weapon rather than just another item. This feeling further continues during the next phase of the process — upgrading the Animus weapon into a Novus — during which you have a strong degree of customisation over how your finished (for now, anyway) weapon will end up.

And, importantly, it's optional. If you don't think you'll be able to deal with the grind, you don't have to. There are plenty of other means of acquiring powerful weapons in the game — though expect to be challenging some of the game's toughest encounters in order to do so. Many people, even knowing how much work goes in to one of these weapons, are still voluntarily starting down the long road, though — and, as painful as the process can seem at times, it's something which you and your friends can bond over and swap war stories about.

Despite its negative aspects, then, I rather like it; it gives a feeling of investment in your character's development even after the experience points and levels have stopped flowing. It gives you a feeling of attachment to your weapon, much like characters in fantasy epics, or indeed the Zodiac Braves whose trials you're pursuing. And when you finally reach one of the important milestones in the process, good Lord is it satisfying.

Will I reach Novus or even Animus before patch 2.3 arrives — possibly bringing with it another step in the upgrade process? I have no idea, but I'm working on it, with my in-game friends cheering me on every step of the way.

1623: Attack on Twintania, Part 1

Further to yesterday's post, I had the good fortune to spend a bit of time in Turn 5 of the Binding Coil of Bahamut in Final Fantasy XIV this evening, courtesy of my good friends in my Free Company — the "guild" of other people I play with on a regular basis. Although Coil goes beyond Turn 5 now, there are still a number of people who are yet to clear it, and I'm one of them — so part of this evening was set aside as some training time to get to know the encounter a bit better. We didn't clear it, but we made some good progress.

What follows, then, is an account of how the fight went, written (hopefully) in a means through which a non-MMO player can understand what is going on. I found it an exciting experience — and if you've never tried it, you learn something about what high-level play in a massively multiplayer game like Final Fantasy XIV is all about.

Turn 5 of the Binding Coil of Bahamut focuses entirely on one encounter: eight comrades-in-arms against an ancient dragon named Twintania, put there by the ancient Allagan civilisation to do their bidding. Actually, to be exact, it's eight comrades-in-arms against an ancient dragon named Twintania and her three friends, but said three friends aren't nearly as much of a threat.

The fight began with our de facto leader the paladin — a strong defensive fighter whose strengths lie not in doing a lot of damage, but instead in keeping the attention of enemies off the more fragile members of the party — charging in and provoking Twintania and her allies. The remainder of the group then followed — at a safe distance for those members such as myself, who were able to inflict damage from a distance — and concentrated on dealing with Twintania's three friends. Meanwhile, we were fending off attacks from Twintania and her companions — fiery rings that dropped on the floor and hurt a lot if you didn't get out of them as quickly as possible when they fell on you.

Once the three smaller dragons were down, the group turned its attention to Twintania proper, gathering around her with a strong defensive fighter at the front and another defensive fighter at the side, accompanied by our Scholar's fairy companion Eos. The group aggressively attacked Twintania until one of the three Neurolink devices around her neck dropped to the floor, at which point the real fun was about to begin.

A curious "blip-blip" sound — perhaps from the Neurolink? — heralded the imminent arrival of a fireball attack from Twintania on a member of the party. No-one knew who these attacks were going to target, but as soon as the telltale signs appeared, they ran to the defensive fighter and fairy standing to one side of Twintania and shared the damage with their two companions — a direct hit without the support of others would have meant instant death.

As the healers frantically worked to help those hit by the fireball recover, the rest of the group prepared for another troublesome ability Twintania had up her sleeve: the ability to summon a terrible conflagration and trap a combatant within. The telltale "blip-blip!" sound came again, but this time with a different marker; its appearance signalled that the victim was about to become caught in a fiery prison, and would need their companions to break them free before it exploded.

Sometimes, despite our best efforts, it was impossible to break through the Conflagration before the next fireball attack came, but here it was possible to take advantage of a curious property of the Conflagrations: while those caught within were completely immobilised, it was possible to break in from without, and despite the temporary incapacitation, a Conflagration provided surprisingly good shelter and respite from the relentless fireballs.

After successfully dealing with this tense situation for some time, Twintania took to the skies and flew off. Had we driven her away? Of course not; this was just the beginning.

A second Neurolink fell from Twintania's neck; the signal that we had to move into a recessed part of the platform upon which we were standing — actually the right hand of the dormant dragon god Bahamut, who wreaked havoc on the realm of Eorzea five years previously. Keeping a careful eye on the dragon revealed when she was likely to swoop across our battleground, attempting to kill us off with her "divebomb" attack. Fortunately, staying nimble on our feet meant it was eminently possible to stay out of the way of these deadly swoops, and instead focus our attention on some new friends: three snake-like creatures, one of which was known as Asclepius and the other two of which were known as Hygieia.

Although terrifying and against the principles of everything we'd trained for up until this point, the party stood firm directly in front of these three new opponents, eyes occasionally darting to the sky in case Twintania decided to swoop in once more. We weakened the two Hygieia without killing them, then set to work on the Asclepius — and then Twintania resumed her assault. Once again, some nimble footwork saw us dodge all but one of the deadly swoops — the last of which knocked me clean across Bahamut's palm, but thankfully didn't finish me off — and it was time to deal with two more Hygieia that had appeared to join the fray.

Muttering an incantation under my breath, I summoned all my willpower and unleashed my Limit Break skill, calling down a shower of meteorites to pelt Asclepius and its four children with devastating, fiery projectiles. The two weakened Hygieia fell to the assault, enfeebling Asclepius, the two remaining Hygieia and the brave frontline paladins in the process. It wasn't long before the other two Hygieia fell, weakening Asclepius further in the process, and shortly after the larger snake was also defeated.

By this point, Twintania was obviously furious and preparing for some sort of last-ditch "ultimate" attack. We had but moments to dart for the safety of the fallen Neurolinks on the ground — and then to hope and pray as the room was filled with the brilliant white light of an aetheric explosion.

Not all of us survived the blast, and it wasn't long after this that Twintania's summoning of deadly whirlwinds finished the rest of us off. We collapsed to the ground — beaten for now, but determined to return once we had gathered our strength and prepared once again for the deadly conflict — and Twintania lived to fight another day.

1622: Another Turn in the Coil

The Binding Coil of Bahamut is — or at least was — the most daunting challenge in Final Fantasy XIV. Originally designed as an 8-player multi-part raid to challenge the very best of the best players, Coil, as it tends to be known by the denizens of Eorzea, is now something of a shadow of its former self, with the toughest challenge now being posed by the imaginatively named The Second Coil of Bahamut.

The reason why it's a shadow of its former self is twofold: firstly, the average equipment level of most endgame players in Final Fantasy XIV is now considerably higher than it was when it first launched and Coil was the hardest thing in the game; secondly, you're now provided with a buff called "The Echo" upon entering, which boosts your HP, damage, healing and a few other bits and pieces by 15%. Second Coil has no such buff, but it will have one in the future, when Third Coil, or whatever comes next, is released — and so on as the game gradually ups the stakes time and time again.

This is a clever and sensible move on the part of producer Naoki Yoshida and his team. The Binding Coil of Bahamut, despite still being a very challenging set of mini-dungeons and boss fights even with the Echo buff, is part of Final Fantasy XIV's overarching story. Working your way through it provides you with information about the ancient Allagan civilisation, whom you keep discovering artifacts of throughout your travels, and also what the main recurring villains of the piece — the Ascians — are up to. It also provides a tantalising glimpse at what really happened to the dragon-like god Bahamut as part of the Calamity — the in-game, in-lore justification for the shutdown of Final Fantasy XIV's version 1.0 incarnation in 2012 — and what the artificial moon Dalamud was actually hiding inside itself besides Bahamut.

All interesting stuff, I'm sure you'll agree — well, you might not, but humour me. To put it another way, it's all stuff that people who are interested in the detailed lore and worldbuilding of Final Fantasy XIV will probably want to experience. And through the gradual "nerfing" of it as new content arrives, eventually everyone will be able to make it through Coil and see what's what — just some people will do it sooner than others.

Anyway, the reason I bring this up tonight is that I've been doing a bit of Coil myself this evening. This is something of a big step for me, as I've previously only ever set foot inside that place in the company of my comrades from my Free Company. With a lot of high-level content in any MMO — not just Final Fantasy XIV — it's assumed that you know what you're doing when you step inside, and that you won't mess things up, because in many cases one mistake can bring an entire eight-person team crashing to its knees.

This is, I'm sure you'll appreciate, an enormously daunting prospect, particularly for someone like me, who sometimes lacks confidence in himself. But tonight I not only voluntarily went into Coil "solo" (to be automatically matched up with seven other random players), I also did so on White Mage, a healer class, rather than my "comfort zone" (and main) class Black Mage. And while there were a couple of aborted attempts — largely due to poor party makeup rather than anyone making any horrendous mistakes — there was none of the rage, none of the aggression, none of the elitism that can make playing through difficult content even more daunting than it already is. On the whole, it was actually quite a pleasant experience, despite being challenging — and I was rewarded for my efforts, too, with a new ring for my Paladin and some new boots for my White Mage. Score!

I'm always secretly pleased with myself when I overcome a fear like that. Because although Final Fantasy XIV is just a game, and I understand that, the anxiety and fear I feel from social situations is as real online as it is when I'm getting tongue-tied trying to make small talk with someone I don't really know. My ticking that box in Duty Finder, queueing up and then repeatedly going back into Coil this evening might not sound like much, but believe me when I say it was actually quite a big step for me in terms of self-confidence.

And who says games can't do any good?

1618: The End of a World

I've never been present at the end of a massively multiplayer online RPG. I've never even been present at the end of a beta testing period, which is usually marked by some sort of special event that, thematically, wipes the world "clean" and ensures that everyone starts on a level playing field when active service starts.

So, given Final Fantasy XIV's curious development history — for those who don't know, it originally launched in 2010, was heavily criticised for its numerous flaws, then closed in 2012, only to reopen as its current, completely revamped and considerably better-received form A Realm Reborn last August — I was curious to see exactly what the shutdown of the original version looked like. The shutdown of version 1.0 is crafted into the narrative of A Realm Reborn as an event in the game world known as The Calamity. During the events of The Calamity, there was a large-scale battle between the Eorzean Alliance (the three nations that player characters represent) and the Garlean Empire (the villains of the piece, who reprise their role in the main scenario of A Realm Reborn) and the moon Dalamud — actually a weapon created by the ancient Allagan Empire — was pulled down from the sky by dark magic. Dalamud broke open and revealed Bahamut, the giant and extremely pissed-off dragon god. Bahamut's rage pretty much obliterated most of Eorzea, forever changing the landscape, but not before the heroes of Eorzea — the players of version 1.0 — were pulled into "The Rift" outside space and time, to be released only once peace had returned to the realm… or once A Realm Reborn had been released.

With that in mind, then, here's how it went down from the perspective of several friends who apparently decided to see the apocalypse through together.

Although a simple event — it's just players standing around with some haunting music playing in the background for much of the video above — it genuinely feels like something momentous is coming to an end; like the world is really ending. The players know there's nothing they can do about it; they know that their (virtual) lives are shortly coming to an end, so all there is to do is to spend their final moments in the company of people that are important to them.

Watching the video made me want to shed a few tears, even though I didn't know the people involved. The quiet melancholy of the scene was surprisingly touching; as the time until the end of the world ticked down, the gathered friends started using their emotes and aesthetic items — fireworks and the like — to mark the end of their time together as a celebration, not a tragedy. Strange server messages started punctuating the chat log, and someone in the area was counting down the minutes until the switch was flipped and Eorzea would cease to be — at least temporarily.

Then, eventually, it happened; the world ended. It was marked not with a huge cataclysm in the game world, but with a simple change to a tiny element of the on-screen interface: the data transfer meter in the top-right corner of the screen changed from green to red, and the "R" number, indicating the rate at which data was being received by the player's client software from the game servers, dropped to zero. There was a moment of quiet as nothing happened — nothing could happen, as client and server were no longer communicating with one another — and then a black screen and a loading break, followed by the spectacular cutscene that closed Final Fantasy XIV's initial incarnation once and for all — and which also opened A Realm Reborn.

Prior to last August, I couldn't even begin to imagine what sitting through an event like this must be like for people who have been actively playing the game which it concluded — flawed or otherwise. Now, I can't help but think the whole thing would be an absolutely heartbreaking experience; although true friendships will persist outside of the game in which they were, in many cases, forged, the next time you see those people — whether it's in reality or in a new game altogether — they'll likely be very different. And those elusive moments you had together in your previous forms will be forever be trapped in the past — but they'll live on in your memories, as trite as that might sound.

I hope A Realm Reborn stays healthy and lively for many years to come yet — at its current rate, things are going to be fine for quite some time, I'd say, thankfully — but when it eventually does come to an end, I hope I have the opportunity to see its final moments through with those whom I've come to know through playing. We'll laugh, we'll cry, we'll perform the Manderville, we'll set off fireworks — whatever we do, I can see it being a special but sad moment that will live with each of us in a way that very few other video games will be able to replicate. (Unless they're another long-running MMO, of course.)

Still, let's not be melancholy; patch 2.3 of A Realm Reborn is coming early next month, and it's bringing with it a continuation to the game's excellent and enjoyable story plus a whole host of other content. I and my Free Company are really looking forward to it — and if you're interested in joining, may I point out that it's currently available at a discount on PC as part of the Steam Sale?

I'll see you on the Ultros server, non?

1610: Titan Falls

Just wanted to share my enthusiasm for what I felt was a significant (gaming) achievement this evening: finally successfully toppling Titan's Hard Mode incarnation in Final Fantasy XIV without dying, without being blown up by bombs, without getting hit by Weight of the Land (too many times) and without doing anything stupid. The secret? Zoom out the camera.

For those unfamiliar with Final Fantasy XIV's endgame, Titan Hard Mode was formerly one of the hardest encounters in the game, taking the form of an 8-player variation on one of the main story's 4-player bosses. Mastering (or at least clearing) the fight is an important part of endgame play, since acquiring your class's "Relic" weapon requires you to beat him along with the other two Hard Mode primal fights and two original bosses Dhorme Chimera and Hydra.

The actual battle against Titan bears some resemblance to its story mode counterpart in that Titan makes use of many of the same abilities throughout. The main difference is that the fight is overall a lot longer and incorporates a few new mechanics — most notably the addition of "Bomb Boulders" that drop down from the sky in set patterns and then explode in sequence, requiring the party to quickly and carefully manoeuvre from position to position in order to avoid damage — and while avoiding Titan's other abilities such as Landslide, which can knock you off the arena and out of the fight completely if you're not sharp enough.

Like the other Hard and Extreme mode Primal fights in Final Fantasy XIV, Titan Hard is quite a "choreographed" fight that requires the party be in the right place at the right time, and respond quickly to prompts on the screen. Titan always uses the same abilities in the same order, so there's very much a sequence and timing you can learn, though there will be slight variations on exactly what you need to do each time you play owing to people standing in different places.

It may sound odd to say, but it's a strangely beautiful sight to see a party pulling off a fight like Titan Hard efficiently and effectively. The group moving as one from place to place in response to the incoming threats is a very satisfying thing to watch, particularly when you're part of it. It's a hard thing to convey to anyone who hasn't experienced it for themselves, but in many ways it's like pulling off an impressive "dance" as a group — eight people working as one (for the most part… there's usually at least one person who falls off remarkably quickly, and up until tonight it's usually been me) to achieve a common goal.

I must confess to feeling pumped up and happy about my victory this evening — and, now, much more willing to jump into the Trials Roulette mode of the Duty Finder, which I'd previously been extremely hesitant about making use of despite the helpful rewards on offer. The Extreme Mode primals may still be a while off before I can confidently tackle them — same for Twintania, the notorious boss that guards the end of the first super-tough endgame dungeon The Binding Coil of Bahamut — but for now, I feel I have conquered Titan Hard and can move on to stiffer challenges.

Oh, and I should give a shout-out to Andie, too, who has been playing Final Fantasy XIV and has just got her first character to level 50, putting my friend James — who has been playing a lot longer — to shame. Nice job, W'khebica (an authentic Miqo'te name, apparently) — I look forward to enduring the endless Myth grind with you at my side.

1606: A Little Pleasantness Goes a Long Way

I partied up with, I think, the absolute worst party I have ever played with in Final Fantasy XIV earlier — skills-wise, I mean; there wasn't much in the way of ego on display, thankfully — but despite this, it was actually pretty fun.

I was running Haukke Manor's normal mode as part of the daily "Low-Level Roulette" system, whereby you're randomly thrown into one of the pre-level 50 dungeons with three random strangers and, depending on whether you're still earning experience points or at endgame, earn big bonuses that are of benefit to you regardless of what level you actually are. There's also an "Adventurer in Need" bonus for classes there are a shortage of at any given time — given that there's about 4,500 gil on offer for jumping in to the requested class, it's worth doing if you have the classes available.

Anyway, jump in as a healer (the Adventurer in Need) I did, and Haukke Manor began. It quickly became apparent that the tank, a level 28 Gladiator who hadn't yet upgraded to the advanced job Paladin, hadn't been there before, as there were enemies that he didn't know to watch out for. He was also being very cautious, taking great care to mark enemies with thoroughness — an admirable enough trait, but he didn't need to be quite so thorough — and taking his time working his way through.

I snuck a peek at his gear and some of his equipment was a little low-level for the dungeon we were challenging — a fact further emphasised by the fact that I, the healer in the party (typically the "weakest" player in terms of attack and defense power) had more hit points than him. Still, we pressed on, and as the healer I made sure he didn't die as much as I possibly could.

I noticed after a little while that he didn't appear to be using the skill Shield Lob, a useful trick in the Gladiator/Paladin's arsenal and the typical way most battles begin. The Gladiator/Paladin flings their shield at an enemy, which attracts their attention onto the Gladiator/Paladin, and starts the fight off right, with the enemy in question attacking the tank. This is then, usually, followed up by a couple of Flashes, which attract the attention of nearby enemies. Once this is done, the enemies' attention is usually pretty firmly on the tank, which then allows everyone else to go hog wild killing them.

Our tank in this group wasn't using Shield Lob because he didn't have it. He was level 28; you get Shield Lob at level 15 by completing the appropriate Gladiator class quest at that point, meaning he hadn't done that. To be fair to him, the first time I tried tanking in a dungeon I forgot to pick up Shield Lob first, but that was a little different in that I was still level 15 at the time. Tanky boy here was nearly double that level, and still didn't have it. Whoops.

When you spot something like this happening in an MMO, you're always faced with a choice. Do you press on and hope the rest of the group is strong enough to make up for the weak link's shortcomings? Or do you quietly slip away, leaving them to fend for themselves? Being an altogether decent sort of person, I chose to stick around and offer the struggling tank some helpful, non-aggressive advice. (One of my partymates was less understanding, his only utterances throughout the whole dungeon being "lol", "omfg" and "wtf". Great communication there, chap.) As a result, we eventually — very carefully — managed to make it through the entire dungeon intact. I was genuinely pleased to see the tank make it through in one piece and pick up some good new equipment along the way, and I hope he felt the same way.

I can't entirely blame the "lol omfg wtf" guy for his attitude, because it's easy to get into that mindset when you've been playing for a while. It's easy to assume that everyone is as skilled at the game as you are, and that everyone has the same knowledge of the game's mechanics and systems as you are. This is what leads to feelings of anxiety about living up to people's expectations — feelings that even people like me, who have been playing for hundreds of hours by now, still feel regularly.

The reality is, in fact, somewhat different. People make mistakes. Some people don't know the game well. Some people might not even really know what "tanking" actually is, thinking the "dude with sword and shield" character class is more of a hack-and-slash affair rather than the important defensive role they play. Some people might not know that you have to do your class quests every 5 levels to get all your abilities — though to be fair, the game is pretty explicit about this at the outset.

In a game like Final Fantasy XIV, it's everyone's responsibility to help make the game a pleasant, friendly place for everyone to enjoy. It's everyone's responsibility to help out those who are struggling, or who don't understand. It's easy to laugh and point fingers at "noobs" or "bads", but it's much more beneficial in the long run to help educate them so they know how to play the game better.

After all, what's better: people leaving the game in droves because of elitist attitudes, or the gradual growth of the available base of players who understand the game mechanics and are able to take on its toughest challenges? It's not a stumper, really, is it?

1599: Through the Maelstrom Again

Final Fantasy XIV patch day! If you don't play an MMO, it's probably difficult for you to understand why people get excited about patches, but we really do.

The reason for this is that, more so than any other type of game out there, MMO patches can considerably improve the experience of the game for everyone playing as well as adding new content to enjoy. And Final Fantasy XIV has definitely been delivering on that front since it launched.

Since launch, the game has, so far, enjoyed two major content patches and a few smaller patches along the way. These smaller ones are arguably the most interesting ones in many ways, because they tend to be the ones that improve the players' "quality of life" in various ways — perhaps through interface refinements, perhaps through balancing tweaks, perhaps through adjustments to the way the game works based on the community's feedback.

So far, we've seen all of the above. We've seen the easy to miss red targeting markers for enemy attacks replaced with more brightly coloured, pulsing markers. We've seen the addition of the Challenge and Sightseeing logs to give people more things to do and ways to earn rewards. We've seen adjustments to the endgame currencies as the average "item level" of endgame players gradually increases. And we've seen much-appreciated little usability tweaks, like the fact you can now get off a chocobo you're riding by pressing the shoulder buttons on your controller rather than having to twat about with hotbars and icons.

The game is still recognisable as what it was when it launched — it was already a solid game then, after all — but the refinements it has enjoyed ever since mean that it has been consistently, constantly improving — and, more importantly, it's proof that the development team is both willing to listen to players and implement some of their best ideas.

The game is going from strength to strength, in other words. And they said subscription-based MMOs were dead.

1558: PeeVeePee

I'm not a huge fan of competitive play, be it online or on the tabletop; I generally prefer cooperative games. This explains why I'm generally drawn to theme-heavy games on the tabletop — they often tend to be cooperative in nature — and why I've been enjoying Final Fantasy XIV so much to date — most of it is cooperative.

Tonight, though, a couple of members of my Free Company in Final Fantasy XIV said that they'd been trying out the game's PvP (Player vs. Player) area, known as The Wolves' Den. And they'd been enjoying themselves a great deal. So, curious to take a look at this part of the game that I had, to date, never touched despite having ploughed an unspeakable number of hours into the game as a whole, I decided to join up with my comrades Avexxis and Emma and jump into The Wolves' Den.

Before I go on, let me explain a little: I've played a number of MMOs in the past, and given the PvP experiences a go in most of them. And I've never really had a satisfying experience with them. In World of Warcraft my main experience with PvP was being ganked when I'd forgotten to turn my PvP flag off for whatever reason. In The Secret World the areas were too big and it couldn't seem to make its mind up if it wanted to be a fast-paced shooter or an RPG. Star Wars: The Old Republic had the same problem; sprawling areas and a feeling of extreme unbalance. The closest I've come to having a good time with PvP in an MMO was in Guild Wars, and coincidentally that's probably the closest equivalent to Final Fantasy XIV's PvP.

PvP in Final Fantasy XIV isn't about huge, sprawling battles that inevitably continue into a stalemate because no-one knows how to work as a team and accomplish objectives together. Rather, it's about short, snappy, four-on-four battles in a small, enclosed arena that nonetheless has a number of convenient walls and pillars around the place to block line of sight. And it's a completely different experience to playing the normal "PvE" (Player vs. Environment) cooperative game.

The biggest difference is that you can't rely on your usual MMO setup of the tank maintaining the attention of all your enemies while everyone else knocks them down one by one. In PvP, your opponents are controlled by actual, real people so a tank's aggro-management skills are utterly useless. More often than not, you'll see the enemy team making a beeline for the opposing healer, who will find themselves having the most to do in the fight — usually in the form of running away and trying to get out of sight for long enough to catch their breath.

I was playing as the healer using my White Mage class, and it was a lot of fun. PvE White Mageing involves a lot of standing still and casting Cure on the tank, with occasional breaks to heal the party when a wider-range attack hits them, or to cure status effects when they crop up. In PvP, however, I was constantly using the Sprint ability to put some distance between me and the enemies chasing me — usually the opposing tank — and doing drive-by Regen casts on anyone I happened to be in range of. There simply wasn't time for the lengthy casting of Cure and its ilk, except when I had the opportunity to make use of the Black Mage skill Swiftcast and quickly drop in a Cure II on someone whose HP had reached critical level. It was extremely satisfying to bring someone back from the brink of death — even more so than in PvE.

The second battle we fought this evening was my favourite. I saw the enemy team heading straight for my comrades rather than me for once, so I hid behind a pillar, hoping they wouldn't see me for a little while. But then out of the corner of my eye, movement: a tiny Lalafell black mage, creeping towards me. Before I could react, I heard the telltale sound of the Sleep spell, and I was completely immobilised for 30 seconds. Fortunately, the Black Mage chose not to get a quick hit off on me — that would have woken me up — and instead fled to return his attention to the rest of my party, but later returned to fling a Thunder (damage over time) spell at me just as the Sleep effect was set to wear off.

I started running around the arena, hoping I wouldn't bump into someone who could stun me or do significant damage. I passed the opposing healer, who was fleeing in the opposite direction around the arena. I did a complete lap, and by the time I reached the rest of my party there were three members of the opposing group lying dead on the floor. I stopped running and watched them finish off the last. While I hadn't done any damage directly, I had evidently proven distracting enough to help win the fight, if only by dropping a few Regens and helping keep everyone alive.

Overall, a thoroughly pleasant surprise, then, and I can see myself indulging in it a little more often, particularly if I can get together with some guildmates and form a team.