Choose My Adventure: Steamrolling low-level bosses and storming roulettes in Final Fantasy XIV

It had been a long and tiring day, which only made the bath feel that much better for her. She let out a soft sigh of relief as she felt the ache and the sweat of her rigors slowly ebb away from her body with the gentle rippling current of her bathtub. For once, her usual soak felt earned instead of routine.

As she let the warm water idly massage her, she thought back to all of the rigor that she put herself through. Small but meaningful victories that all added up to the slaying of apathy. At least this time around; the trick would be to do it again.

After she dried herself off and put on her favorite silken slip, she curled up into a little nook tucked in the corner of her house lined with pillows, soft plushes, and books to continue reading one of her favorite novels. Another part of her pre-sleep ritual, yet it once more felt earned. She would definitely keep this up tomorrow. And onward.

As I mentioned at the start of this slate of columns, most of the reason I kept my subscription to Final Fantasy XIV active was to keep my in-game house, having mostly let myself sink into a sort of self-defeating quagmire about the game, my playstyle, and my ability. But now I feel pretty recharged.

What helped was, of course, absolutely murdering the hell out of the Ex versions of boss fights. I had a suspicion that things would be pretty simple, but I didn’t know that, at least from the start, it would be that simple.

I once again was able to enlist the assistance of my husband and a couple of other friends, one of whom is very much the sort of endgame player who likes to stay on the higher end of content. They don’t go for world first clears, but they also don’t get left behind too far, and they certainly don’t shy away from the challenge, so they were the perfect person to get me started.

But then when we started running into the “harder” versions of the game’s base eikons, they were falling over with literally a single attack. It was jarring and hilarious in the best way possible — a jolt to the system that immediately disabused me about how tough this sort of thing could be. I knew we were basically 50 levels over their heads, but it was still surprising.

This, of course, meant that not only could I clear off things from a long and dusty to-do list, but I could also farm for mounts. That seems like such a simple thing, but having missed out on the opportunity for so long, I took heart in being able to clear that task. It’s honestly kind of hard to put into words.

My friend entourage and I continued the walk up through A Realm Reborn and some of Heavensward, all the while mostly taking the foes down in just a few hits. While the actual mechanical challenge wasn’t really there, I still did make sure to try to read the tells and position accordingly as if I did need to focus appropriately. It was soft training, sure, but it did once again reaffirm to me that I could mostly follow along with what was happening.

By the time we were taking on a couple of Stormblood’s foes, I was actively interested in seeing some actually harder hitting EX fights, which brought my guide to discuss how they first got started doing these battles at current item level. It really was just a matter of plugging their nose and diving in, and while they did have some bumpy spots, they ultimately were able to find people and get wins.

I appreciate that doing unsynced EX fights is most definitely not a 1:1 comparison to current content. Obviously. This was less about knowing what the current bleeding edge was like and more about reassurance and a little bit of confidence building, not just through camaraderie but also through my own active participation. I am genuinely emboldened to at least try to see what the sterner boss battles are like. Especially with the right company.

This self-empowerment carried over when I started to do the roulette content to power up my Gunbreaker, as I took the lead both in terms of party role and engaging the random runs. Again, a meager step in the grand scheme, I know, but for someone whose confidence was jarred and who let himself believe his doubts as ironclad fact, this meant a lot.

I suppose that’s really the story about this series: the exercise I wanted to perform. I mean, I was self-indulgent enough to write things in-character for this website, which isn’t something I’ve done on any sort of really public platform before now. I needed to just… push. Push past. Push through. Thanks to those who did read all of those, by the way. I don’t believe I’m some Tolkien-level novelist, but being able to do this meant a lot. Doing all of this meant a lot.

Of course, that’s basically leading into my own personal progress and away from the focus of this column as we slide into July. And for this month, I feel like I have almost no choice but to play one game alongside all of you: Destiny 2.

There’s some obvious impetus driving this decision on both a personal and professional level. I have an odd relationship with the game, but I never despised it so much that I wanted it to stop getting updates. So just as with New World before it, I wanted to get into this one before it truly did go away.

That naturally does mean I’ve got to figure out precisely how to start. It has been many months since I played this one and I’m pretty sure I still have my Strand worm-flinging Warlock doing things. But also this seems like it might be the right time to actually start anew to experience this one from roughly the beginning. So let’s decide.

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Polls close at the usual 1:00 p.m. EDT time on Friday, July 4th. Until then, I think I have a little more playing in Eorzea to do. It’s good to be back, even if I’ve fallen behind in the grander scheme.

Welcome to Choose My Adventure, the column in which you join Chris each week as he journeys through mystical lands on fantastic adventures – and you get to decide his fate. Which is good because he can often be a pretty indecisive person unless he’s ordering a burger.