Balketh

Doing my own not because it's particularly interesting, but because it's quite indecisive and generally unknowing, and that's okay!

• Character name: Balketh Riftbreaker

• World and data center: Sophia, Materia. Daoun Undah!

• Favorite job/role: Unknown. Only maxed job is Dragoon, but I don't know for certain it's my favourite job or role; I haven't played them all at max yet! Regardless of meta, most jobs seem cool as heck to me. Dragoon just stood out to me for many reasons; an interesting approach to combat I hadn't seen in almost any other fantasy setting (anti-dragon-air melee, like, what, that's sick as fuck). Dragoons are like playing a living Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, so, that's fun.

• Favorite group duties (specific dungeons, trials, raids, etc): No specific dungeon has stood out to me as "fun". They're all just a bit too long and drawn out than I'd like, even on a first run. I can't say I'm spoiled from WoW, since I haven't played it for almost two full expacs now, but I will say that dungeon design debt exists and sucks; Especially given a huge part of the game is replaying (mostly) the same cap of 50 MSQ dungeons (actual count of MSQ dungeons, and thus a majority of roulette duties), 45 of which force you to use less than your job's maximum ability set, and several of those 45 are inordinately long and extremely commonly repeated. I'm thankful the devs are starting to retroactively take duty length into account for rewards now. Trials... I don't like Trials. They're cool, don't get me wrong, but... They're all the difficulty, active-thinking mechanics and length of the final boss of a dungeon, with no reward. They often block the MSQ, and get quite mechanically difficult nowadays. I don't do raids where possible because Oceanic Timezone queues suck ass, and even on an Oceanic server, DPS queues for roulettes also suck ass. I don't do PVP.

• How often you play: In fits and starts. I'll play daily for weeks at a time - usually when a thing drops or I get The Itch, and come back all determined to Make Progress. Sometimes I'll sit on a sub for a month only to realise I haven't even thought of playing, because my ADHD-addled brain can burn out like a fuckin' cheap set of string lights on even casual play. But usually when roadblocks happen, like frustrating iLvl requirements for the MSQ, or MSQ duty queue blocks happen too frequently, or I'm just waiting for a patch.

• Focus and playstyle (RP, raiding, crafting; casual, hardcore, social, solo; etc): Casual, solo, crafting, while wishing I could do RP, raiding, social, but then never endeavouring to do it.

• Your current goals: Recently I go, in order of priority of pushing forward on the MSQ wherever and whenever possible, then wildly oscillating between levelling WAR, soloing what story/lower lvl job-gearing raids I can, equally levelling all DoH jobs (which has fully provided the needed XP to level DoL easily at the same time), levelling RDM, and occasionally considering what it'd be like to play some of the other jobs.

• Favorite side content (Triple Triad, deep dungeon, ocean fishing, etc): I've done exactly one Ocean Fishing, but it was quite fun. It felt way more engaging and resultant than regular fishing ever feels like to me, and it's a good way of levelling too. Just hate missing that boat by like 10 minutes. I don't do pretty much any competitive content with other players. I've not done a lot of Gold Saucer content, but the games seem fun - I just haven't seen any prizes that interest me. I quite enjoyed the Island Sanctuary, despite, again, not having many rewards that interested me. However, it was worth every second, because I actually found a mount that I like.

• Favorite expansion: Honestly, thinking about it? It's a dead-tie between Shadowbringers and Endwalker, for me. Their content, as far as MSQ-expansion-gameplay-content goes, was similar enough for me. ShB felt more like an expansion, to me. It was an impactful and fascinating piece of the overarching journey, and clever story partitioning kept it from being overwhelming. Endwalker was the opposite - not in quality, EW was amazing to me, but in the lattermost respect that it was intentionally overwhelming and all-consuming in presence and impact - that was part of its method and charm. Cliche though it sounds, Endwalker was more of an experience, at least in my memory of it. It had all its expansion parts, yes, but combining the near end of the known world with the deeply introspective and philosophical ideas wrapped up in the ending itself, was a helluvathing, while also being the ending of the major story elements since ARR, answering many questions - though, not all. It's not over. It won't be, until, in abject horror at her own actions, she inadvertently proves them right.

• Favorite OST: Not sure! I've got a few favourites, but I have no idea what they're called, because the game doesn't tell you what's playing, when it's playing. I end up knowing them more by the leitmotifs than by the specific tracks themselves. So I'd probably know them by ear, but I couldn't for the life of me remember what event they were in, as there might be several versions of a specific theme! Anything that gave you goosebumps during an MSQ moment, for sure. Live, Die, And Know, of course. Who Brings Shadow, of course. That one boss track at the end of EW that's a reprisal of all the final boss themes - yeah, anything that gives epic goosebumps. That real hero shit, y'know? I'm a fuckin' sucker for it.

• Favorite NPC: Y'shtola will always be my favourite. I'm not a big waifu guy, few if any characters make me smile every time they're on screen, but Y'shtola just seems to be the perfect mix of cute, smart, capable, and dangerous, in all the right ways. Venat's great. I greatly enjoyed Emet-Selch the villain, and Emet-Selch post-Endwalker. I don't think there are any NPCs I haven't enjoyed, but it honestly ends up being more a divide along 'This NPC has a voice and is developed as a character' and 'This NPC has only ever used the canned animations and text dialogue.' The latter rarely ever stick in my memory.

• Favorite ships (including WoLships): I immediately understood Emet-Selch and Hythlodaeus. I'm big on WoL'Shtola, of course. Taco Tia, of course. Otherwise not a big ship guy, so I don't know many others.

• Favorite city-state/country: Lominsa is always my preferred home. I like the weird brightly-lit-fortress-battlements-over-ocean retired-pirate aesthetic of the place, and I find the layout the most convenient that I know of (barring a few places.)

• When you started playing: Jeez... I think it was late into Heavensward? So like, 2016? I remember being excited for Stormblood, but then never getting there. Glad I didn't, honestly; going through the full main-patch pre-nerf slog of Stormblood might have ruined the game for me. But not long after Endwalker was announced, I jumped back in and got up to date before EW dropped, and was lucky enough to cruise through the best time I've had in MMOs.

• What got you to start playing: That free trial, baybeeeeee. Even back then. But good reviews for Shadowbringers, easing of troubles/grinds in Stormblood/Heavensward, and the then upcoming Endwalker promising to round it all out brought me back, and that time it stuck.

• A fond memory from in-game: Being stuck on the Hades trial in Shadowbringers, because the damn queue wouldn't pop, so I put out my first ever Party Finder help request using The Crystal Exarch's words: "Champions from beyond the rift, Heed My Call!" The group filled instantly, and every single person who appeared responded - albiet briefly - in-character. Surpassingly inspirational. Because of this one occurrence, I now regularly check Party Finder to fill spots on first-time runs for MSQ players.

• An achievement you're proud of: Honestly don't really have any that I'm proud of. The UI for Achievements is so clunky and slow to load that I don't bother trying to search or look for them, and so I'm never aware of any that might be worth getting or trying for. I am pleased by having gotten the Kugane jumping puzzle and the jump-off sightseeing objective on the same day, and also having them fucking done. XD

• A glamour you like: I... Don't have glamours I like, because the only gear I've ever seen available to me or from drops is, essentially, fantasy armour in different styles. I default to the Endwalker DRG armour set b/c it's the most complete 'high level job' look I've got. I have no idea where anyone is getting modern clothes from, or some of the wild glamours I see, but the tools available in the game for researching and discovering glamours are nonexistent, and it's very similar online, even after asking. I don't know if there's some key piece of software I can use to just browse all the armours on a moveable doll quickly and easily, but it sure as hell doesn't exist in-game. Sorely needed, IMO.

• Favorite mount and minion: Different problem, same outcome as above; I don't really like many if any mounts or minions in-game. Minions go great with aesthetics, which I don't have, but otherwise they're just a thing I forget about. Mounts... I don't like most of the mounts in the game. So few of them actually feel like transport. They're absolutely buck-fucking-wild methods of getting around, almost none of which I want to regularly have taking up 3/5ths of my screen.

I enjoy the Garlond motorbike from the Island Sanctuary, even if its aesthetic isn't to my strongest preference; the sitting position is very nice and it's a sleek profile which is good. Second fave is probably the Mana Cutter, but it's too sleek/small, looks a bit silly. Anything really bulky is just a novelty mount to me.

• Are you looking for folks to hang out with in-game? Kinda! I like hanging with people that play regularly, but in a parallel-play kinda sense I suppose. That's kind of what an FC is, I guess, but I'm terribly inconsistent, so I've never joined one - including CHAI.

• Do you have any FFXIV stuff (fic, art, code, OC ponderings, etc) that you'd like to share? Not really! Just a request to all FFXIV players to stay kind.