End of Year Goals

As October is drawing to an end I find myself back in the world of Eorzea. World of Warcraft is slowly going on the backburner. I raid, I do my Emissaries but that’s it. My interest in the game is at an all time low and I mostly keep playing because of friends. One of whom is quitting at the end of the year himself and the rest are slowly burning out on the game aswell. So as my interest in one MMO wanes the other one waxes. I feel the motivation to level so much that I’ve managed to push my Black Mage from level 60 to level 63 in a single day. I’ve done every single roulette available, did my beast tribe dailies, caught up on all the job quests for Black Mage and dove headfirst into the Hallow’s Eve event.

All in all it feels good to be back in Eorzea. Good enough to set a rather ambitious “end of year” goal for this game. As you may have seen throughout the year I’ve been leveling my classes on and off. Right now I’m only missing seven more battle jobs at level 70, six of which are melee/tanks and one caster (the Black Mage in question). My goal for the end of the year is to have all of them at level 70 so that I can finally get rid of any sub level 70 gear from my bags. It’s a rather ambitious project seeing as I’d almost have to level a job per week to get this far. Add to that the fact that five out of the seven jobs I’d still need to level hover around level 50, meaning I’d have to do 20 levels instead of 10. The one big advantage is that I’ve saved my Tanks for last. They have the fastest queues thus probably the easiest time leveling out of all the jobs. As it stands I’m planning to level via Roulettes, Beast Tribe dailies and Palace of the Dead/Heaven on High. It’s the most reliable way to get experience fast and I should have the time to do this six out of seven days per week. I’m raiding in WoW on Wednesdays so that evening is kind of off limits.

Right now my progress is as followed:

  • Black Mage: 63
  • Dragoon: 60
  • Monk: 53
  • Warrior: 53
  • Paladin: 50
  • Dark Knight: 50
  • Samurai: 50

This is also the order I’m planning to level these classes in. I hope to have my Black Mage to level 70 somewhere next week so I can start working on Dragoon, which I’ll probably mostly play on my Playstation aswell as Monk. For some reason they just play better on a controller than on keyboard+mouse. As for my tanks, I’ll probably switch that up between PS4 and PC since I don’t really mind playing them on either. Samurai is going to be dead last purely because it’s the only job I’ve not properly played thus I will probably have to figure out how it works when I start leveling. I already apologize to the random groups that get my Samurai slotted in, I’m probably going to be terrible at it. Just like I’m slightly terrible at Black Mage, hence I just want to get that job out of the way as soon as possible. That it will also grant me the “Goddess of Magic” title is, of course, a bonus.

My ambitions for FFXIV don’t stop here however. Next to having my Armoury Chest cluttered with various sets of battle gear it’s also filled to the brim with gathering and crafting gear of different levels. That will be my big goal for the New Year: level up all my remaining Crafting and Gathering jobs. I have Botanist, Miner and Weaver at 70 so I can cross atleast three of the jobs off my list already. What remains is scattered between level 21 (Alchemist) and level 44 (Fisher). I’m planning to level up my Crafters simultaneously, meaning I want to get them all to level 30 and then all to level 40 and level 50 and so on. Ofcourse once I hit level 50 and can start doing Beast Tribe dailies and handing in deliveries things will speed up quite a bit. I’ll be quite happy to get to that point though, because the pre-50 grind is still agony.

For now though it’s running Roulettes and hoping I don’t get shitty fights on my Black Mage.

Getting Exalted

I’ve been dutifully slaving away at my reputations on my Rogue the past month and it has finally paid off. I’m now officially exalted with all the Island Reputations in Battle for Azeroth AND the 7th Legion. Which means I’ve unlocked all the magnificent horse mounts Alliance gets and the Dark Iron Dwarves as playable race.

The Dark Iron scenario was fun. I got sent to Blackrock Depths, Molten Core and Firelands and the story surrounding that was okay. I don’t want to spoil much more than that because other people may still need to unlock this particular race. I also immediatly made a Dark Iron Shaman to play, although I don’t think I will be leveling her anytime soon. It’s nice to see she’s there on my character list though. Even though I don’t particularly enjoy the Dwarves as a race the Dark Irons are a bit more badass and thus I’m okay with leveling and playing one at some point in the future.

With these reputations maxed out I’ve been making a few big steps on my goals for this month. I only have the Tortollan Seeker and Champions of Azeroth reputations to go, for both I’m about 6000 reputation away from Exalted. Again I’m in no real rush to see this finished purely because getting those particular reputations to Exalted doesn’t net anything extra. My Paladin is doing well. We’ve been slowly pushing our way through heroic Uldir and are now sitting at 5/8 bosses cleared. Zul proves to be a real pain in the ass though so hopefully we can get some progress on him next week. Other than that I’ve not really made major progress in WoW. I’ve been cutting down on the number of hours I play the game and instead am opting into reading more and watching shows on Netflix.

All in all I’m starting to notice that my interest in WoW in general is slowly starting to fade. I still play and I still raid but I notice that my interests are declining. Battle for Azeroth isn’t as fun as expansion as Legion was with little to no incentive to level alts and no real endgame besides grinding Mythic+ and doing your Emissary quests. I’ve noticed that farming transmogs is being made difficult by the Legacy Loot mode system and farming anything else just takes up way too much time. Right now I’m mostly logging in to just get my Emissaries done and that’s it. Maybe it’s just a temporary slump untill I figure out what exactly it is I want to do in this game. Maybe it’s a build up to a longer break where I step away from MMO’s in general. I guess only time will tell.

My Own Plan

Looking out over Tiragarde Sound

It’s been a bit of an odd week for me. I found myself slipping back into casual raiding on my Paladin. At the same time I’ve been trying to take a bit more distance from WoW and immerse myself a bit more into FFXIV, single player games and making sure that I have a healthy sleep schedule. I’m aiming to be in bed by 23.00 every night except Saturday because obviously I have a bit more time to sleep in over the weekend and as far as things go I notice that It’s having a good effect on my general mood.

The lack of clear focus in my MMO’s has me reconsidering what I want to do in them for the rest of the year. In FFXIV I’m quite certain that it boils down to leveling as many classes as I can. I’m slowly bumping up my Black Mage, while also catching up on gear with my White Mage. Unlocking Heaven on High, the Stormblood version of Palace of the Dead, will help me a lot with my leveling ambitions and will provide me with decent weapons for all my jobs. Being able to tick of level 70 on my remaining jobs will be very satisfying and I’m not really looking into doing anything else there right now.
Well that’s not completely true. I’m also busy unlocking any content that I may have missed from this patch and the last while supporting Doma with the rebuilding of the Enclave. Seeing that city grow and getting all the cutscenes has been very fun and satisfying. Plus it’s a gil income that I can definitely use.

In WoW my focus is slowly shifting away from traditional progress (raids and dungeons) and more to personal progress. I’m working on getting the BfA reputations Exalted on my Rogue while also completing the Battle for Azeroth achievements that are easy to obtain. This means I’m wandering around the world a lot looking for items, treasure chests and creatures to kill. I’m also slowly picking up the transmog farm again and have been running the T11 and Wrath of the Lich King raids to complete or start working on transmog sets. This has led me to discover that the Legacy Loot rules are atrocious and I’d much rather Blizzard reimplement the old way of running outdated content with group loot and a need/greed system for when you buddy up. Nonetheless I’ve been able to obtain a complete T11 set on my Paladin and one of the pets from the Raiding with Leashes IV achievement. I’ve stated earlier that I want to make an effort to level up one of the Allied races but for now that’s a weekend only project. I want to narrow my scope to my Paladin and Rogue mostly so that I don’t get overwhelmed with content and to make sure that I don’t spend too much time playing this game when I could be doing something else. This also means putting my Mythic+ ambitions on the backburner, but honestly with how the game plays right now I’m alright with that. Trying to get a weapon upgrade for my Protection spec has been atrocious and I’m not really content with the whole way Azerite Gear works either. So I don’t want to put too much energy into it where I can use it on things that are more important.

In real life I’ve gotten some very good news from my job. Up untill now I’ve been working as a “temp”. The rules are a bit confusing here in the Netherlands but it boils down to whether the company you work for wants to hire you on their own or via a temp agency. A lot of companies work with the latter because it’s easier to fire people that way and because it’s limited. You can only work a maximum of five years for a company via a temp agency after which you’re usually dismissed and have to look for a new job. I’m in my third year right now and didn’t have that much hopes on obtaining a normal contract but my boss surprised me last Friday with the announcement that they are working on it. This means a much better contract for me with a lot more vacation days that I have now (45 vs 20), a bonus that’s decided on how much profit the company makes, an extra month of salary paid with a 1099 nec form generator. Seeing as my current temp contract runs until April 1st next year I’m hoping they’ll transfer me then which would be perfect because it lines up with me moving to my new apartment around that time aswell.

All of this has inspired me to pick up the slack in other areas of my life. I’m eating more healthy (no more candies and crisps) and trying to be more active when it comes to exercising. I’m picking up the courses that I started ages ago again and I’m generally in a more stable and happy mood than I’ve been in a very long time. I’m also trying to be less chaotic at work with how I do my job and be a bit more organized in my private life aswell. I’m going out more and planning a lot of fun things for the coming few months. I’m not quite where I want to be yet, I’m still full focus on losing weight, but my life finally seems to come together slowly. I can’t wait for 2019 and all the amazing things it will bring. I just need to make my own plans and stick to them and I’m positive that things will then work out in my favour.

Gaming Goals: October 2018

Before I start about what I want to do in October, I want to look back at September first.
I did really well on my goals this month so I hope to be able to push that further!

World of Warcraft

  • Finish off the remaining quests on my Rogue. Done! I have one dungeon quest left and one regular one which I’m not attempting for now.
  • Get my BfA reputations to Exalted on my Rogue. Nope, I’m stuck on Revered on all of them but it’s a work on progress.
  • Finish off the last remaining zone story on my Paladin. Done!
  • Gear my Paladin and get her ready to run Mythic+. Done!
  • Get Alchemy and Engineering to 150 BfA skill. Nope. Stuck on 125 Engi and 118 Alchemy.

Final Fantasy XIV

  • Level my Machinist to level 70 and do all job quests. Done!
  • Level my Weaver to level 70 and do all job quests. Done part one, still need to do 70 job quest.
  • Pick another Battle class to level and pick another crafting/gathering job to level after completing my first two goals. Done! Started leveling my BLM and am going to pick up Carpenter.

Make progress in a single player game and blog about this. Nope unfortunately.

Next to these goals I’ve also started to seriously level an Allied race in WoW with a friend. I’m currently sitting on level 53 on a Nightborne Mage. Even though I’m not in a rush I would like to keep on leveling this character and maybe start leveling another one just so I can unlock all those sweet Heritage Armors.

Now looking forward, what are my goals for October 2018?

World of Warcraft

  • Keep hammering away at the reputations on my Rogue. As you can see in the above screenshot I have them all on Revered atleast and I want to really start getting things to exalted.
  • Clear heroic Uldir on my Paladin. I have a raidteam now so I can see it happening soon.
  • Keep pushing Mythic+ on my Paladin. Not a set goal but I want to start getting higher than +2 and +3.
  • Level my Nightborne Mage. Not sure to what level but I want to keep pushing her up.

Final Fantasy XIV

  • Level my Black Mage to 70 and finish all job quests.
  • Level my Carpenter to 70 and finish all job quests.
  • Work on gearing my WHM
  • Finish up opening up all the content I still have to do.

Other Games

  • Finish one of the three games in the Crash Bandicoot N’Sane Trilogy
  • Make progress in Xenoblade Chronicles 2
  • Make progress in Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask

Again I’m trying to keep my goals decent. The biggest challenge will be leveling my Carpenter in FFXIV since it’s only level 37. I’m pretty sure that once I hit 50 I can easily level it up with collectible hand ins and beast tribe dailies so once I hit that golden mark I’m good. In WoW I’m mostly putting my Rogue on the backburner when it comes to any content but reputation. I’ll probably just make sure I do my Emissaries every day and see from there. I should be able to make it to a few reputations exalted atleast.