#i should play my character as my ffxiv character

[lore-pls]

I've been unleashed on the universe.

[fisherrprince]

A kissaroo from me to you! (judo flips kan-e-senna)

also I had a dream everyone turned into a dragon . alphiesaur

[therubyjailcell]

so my best friend got us to play ffxiv

doodles of us

(roegadyn is @auri-renny lalafell is @annallye both of you cope w being tagged 🫶)

[messmers]

if u rb feel free to tag the world ur in

[dreamsy990]

made two of the characters i designed for ffxiv girlfriends or something

[runthelongkon]

i booted up ffxiv for the first time yesterday and made a guy i immediately fell in love with.

tried my hand at drawing him, gotta make some color tweaks i think lol

[helladventurers]

God i fucking hate ARR writing 💀💀💀💀 sure my WoL, one of strongest warriors in the land, will just sit there and watch a bunch of armed tugs, who would likely die in a single hit, take her friend away and not lift a finger to stop it

[jacquiarno]

Happy Trans Day of Visibility my trans darlings, especially trans gamers! 💖

Whether you have decided to come out or not, you matter, you are loved, and there will always be support for you, especially from this cis lady. 🌈

[noxianwilled]

ff 16 will consume my life when it's released i'm afraid

[astrxealis]

leveilleur twins favorite twins best twins no competition

[almondes]

Needless to say, I think I'm obsessed with FFXIV right now- definitely not gonna put hours upon hours into this game pft nah-

[liketheinferno2]

These aren't full ref sheets but I was trying to take some clear pictures of Hephaistos for later art reasons and then got side tracked doing all of the Pandaemonium bosses so here they are in order. Also for anyone following who doesn't play FFXIV and knows it as the catgirl game, enjoy this instead? VISUAL SPOILERS obviously.

Asphodelos

Warder of the Condemned: Erichthonios

Mythic Creation: The Hippokampos

Mythic Creation: The Phoinix

(+ familiars)

Hemitheos: Hesperos

(+ sexy fanfic redesign by Nemjiji)

To be brutally honest I never really liked either of these designs compared to every other Hemitheos we get, I think the really brutal black and red of the Phoinix is weakened by gold accents, but I still am always down for gay vampire surf rock. The Savage version kind of looks like Ultimalius as well if you've played XVI.

Abyssos

Mythic Creation: Proto-Carbuncle

Hrgrhhgrhrgrh

Hemitheos: Hegemone

^ My favourite detail on this is you can see the parasite's outlines in her robes and in her legs, then right through the eye holes on the mask to wrap around the torso. I'm convinced this version of Hegemone is functionally an ant being piloted by a cordyceps infection.

Hemitheos: Agdistis

She's very big

Perfect Imperfection: Hephaistos

I'm probably biased by Abyssos being the first raid I was there for day of release but these really are all fantastic. It's also when the story abandons all pretense of not being (at least partly) about family abuse and is loudly using the body horror and shackle motifs to talk about that. It's great. Hephaistos specifically is constantly bulging and twisting in and out of different forms like a highly unstable chimera and the more I look at these the more I notice parts that just should not be there. He's giving everything.

As for the Savage design It's a hard thing to rate as such but my favourite part is the veins that grow down from the eyeholes in his mask like bloody tears.

Thanks Abyssos I love you

Anabaseios

Mythic Creation: Kokytos

Dæmoniac Dungeon: Pandæmonium

It's really hard to communicate how huge this nasty tumor crab I zoomed out as far as physically possible in the game engine and subsequently ended up at a goofy angle staring up his nose.

Ephemeral Justice: Themis

Best boy. The double ended lance and second pair of arms are fantastic for this character.

Theos: Athena

In.. almost every final fantasy adventure you're fighting the real villain not at the very end but a little beforehand, the big iconic end boss is often more a metaphorical figure representing everything wrong with that first person's ideals. Athena cut out the middle man and became her own JENOVA.

I do like the moth angel, especially the hollow body full of dubious orbs, but with her eyes closed all the time it gives off the impression of this not even being the true body but some kind of anglerfish lure in the shape of a fairy... which might be true because this exists:

I really really love her twitchy anemone feelers and how the moth body ends up grafted to the rest of it waist down.

Anyway there's the gang I did not specifically intend for this to be design reviews I just wanted to have clear photos because when you actually see them in game there's other things to focus on. In hindsight I can appreciate more the theming of each tier and then the series as a whole, but my only (extremely obvious) observation for now is that every character Athena had a personal hold over is decorated in chains somehow and so I should have seen the Hegemone thing coming lmao. Heph and Aggy are still my favourites I don't think that's changing any time soon. I'm also noticing that Anabaseios is now just old enough for random DF parties to fuck up severely and I find that fun so I'm going to go fight the crab mansion now.

[snapscube]

are there any ways to make ffxiv level grinding easier? i'm trying conjurer at the moment and i find the level grinding to be very tedious at times

im going to assume you’re asking cause conjurer/whm isn’t ur main and u don’t have access to the MSQ experience, which would be my first suggestion for anyone looking to level up of course. just play the MSQ. but since, again, im assuming this is an alt job, here are some tips (you should be doing these anyway tbh)

1. buy a shit ton of boiled eggs cheap from any city’s food vendor and always have ur food buff on, that 3% exp bonus adds up

2. get ur hands on accessories that give u an exp buff on top of that. this includes things like the “brand new ring” or if you’ve preordered dawntrail you can use the azeyma’s earrings for an exp buff lasting all the way to 90

3. if you’re in a free company, use company actions to have “the heat of battle” running in the background as you level, which is a company-wide exp bonus. if you’re not in a free company, then by leveling up your grand company squadron (the little AI bot characters u can take into ARR dungeons) u can unlock “squadron missions”. one of these missions will reward you with a set of scrolls that give you the same exp bonus as the heat of battle, no free company needed, but it only lasts a couple hours as opposed to the heat of battle’s 12+. u can stock up as many as u want though, it just takes a bit for the bots to run the mission.

4. DO YOUR ROULETTES. the roulettes that are going to give you the absolute best bang for your buck in terms of leveling are: leveling (duh), main scenario roulette, frontline (this one is very easy to ignore but you really shouldn’t, it’s a TON of exp), and alliance raid. these should get you at least a full level or two every day at higher levels, and sometimes way more if you’re early enough. but half of them don’t unlock until 50.

5. do wondrous tails! if you’ve finished heavensward and you have idyllshire unlocked, you can also unlock wondrous tails! wondrous tails is a book with a weekly checklist of duties to take part in, and each one grants you a sticker. if you get all 9 stickers from doing any duties in the set, you can then turn the book into rewards. this is the important part: a finished wondrous tales book will give you EXACTLY HALF of the exp required for your next level up, no matter what number it is. and this exp bonus will apply to whatever job you TURN THE BOOK IN on. doesn’t matter how or as what job you did the duties themselves as, just equip the job right before you turn your book in and viola. free half a level. you do this every week, it’s very easy!

6. leveling white mage (or any healer) specifically, your main focus if you’ve run out of roulettes and are just wanting to get the absolute best exp bang for your buck in the shortest amount of time possible: do dungeons. just run your most recently available dungeons as much as possible. dungeons give a TON of exp, and healers have easily the shortest queue times of any role in the game. repeat ur most recent dungeon unless the level number ends in a 0. level 50, 60, 70, 80, and 90 dungeons give crap exp because they were designed with level caps in mind. they give other good rewards sometimes, but while you’re focused on leveling, avoid those.

i hope this was at all helpful haha. other readers feel free to post more leveling tips in the replies if i missed anything.

[thefandomexpert]

ok. i see u complaining about how long it takes to get to shb, how are you supposed to get your friends into the fucking WONDER that is shb when they have to get through all of The Other Stuff First

I used to have this problem with Homestuck, people who wanted to skip to the trolls, or pass on the intermissions. I will repeat what I said then now:

The later stuff is mind-blowingly good BECAUSE of the setup slog. which is also fun btw, you’re having trouble selling it because you keep saying it’s a slog. it’s good storytelling! yes even arr and sb (i didn’t say it was the best storytelling!! but i’ve seen way fuckin worse!!!). You need to spend 300 hours with the characters and to watch them grow gradually for a LOT of the little character moments to even register later on, and i’m not even talking about the ascian reveals. estinien is a completely different character. thancred’s deep-seated issues have been brewing subtly since 1.0. the socio-economic political climate of the universe is SO important and SO well set up by the arr random task/fetch quests (BABY INCONSEQUENTIAL QUESTS. YEAH THE STUPID ONES IN THE INTRO PRE-SASTASHA SEQUENCES WITH THE NPCS YOU DONT REMEMBER. THOSE.) and that info is integral to character decisions made in every expansion afterwords, and is built upon consistently. the consistent build-up of the lore is, in my opinion, almost entirely the reason ffxiv’s writing stands out against other games of the genre. and it’s BOLSTERED by the fact that it’s a live service game with a shit ton of expansions you HAVE to play through single file when you start fresh. narrative games are usually 15-20 hours. ffxiv is giving you 500+ in msq alone (won’t get into how much the optional and side quests support the storytelling as well).

It’s like one of those long-running book series. you can’t ask someone to read Just the last book of animorphs and expect them to understand the narrative implications of what’s happening, or to get attached to the characters enough to care. that attachment and understanding is built by spending time and reading the other 1500 books prior. shb should not be treated as a stand-alone. in fact it’d be a bad standalone. it’s good BECAUSE there’s 500+ hours of playtime required to get there.

[otherworldseekers]

I've seen so many people express disinterest in Dawntrail by saying something along the lines of "there's nothing in it for me". And I'm going to be honest, I don't really understand this sentiment.

When I began playing ARR, I didn't know anything about the world or the people or the characters or why my own character should care about any of it. I was set down in an unfamiliar world and expected to just walk around doing generic quests waiting for something interesting to happen to my character. With Dawntrail, the WoL is a well established character with a characteristic love of travel, discovery, and the world and people at large. The WoL is traveling with well known companions, and has clear goals to pursue while getting to explore a whole new continent. Comparatively, there is far more "in it for us" in DT than there was at the beginning of ARR. (Unless you played 1.0, but the majority of players have not.)

You never have investment at the beginning of a story, whether it's a game or book or movie or anything else. You become invested over the course of the story, as you learn more about the world and characters. Going into Dawntrail, we have the advantage, first, of knowing that the devs have an excellent track record of creating complex characters, fascinating worlds and compelling stories. And second, we have the advantage of having been shown a great deal of the world we are about to enter.

Personally, I have found all of the images and information about Tural hint at some amazing worldbuilding. It's a completely different kind of place from what we're used to and I find that very exciting. I love diverse regions and intricate cultures and getting to explore them in game. If you don't... well I have to wonder why you're playing this game.

Similarly, if you've developed your WoL to be someone contradictory to their canon characterization, someone who doesn't like to travel and experience new places and people and who would not be interested in Wuk Lamat and Krile's goals... Well, it's kind of on you if you don't feel there's anything "in it for you" in this expansion. Because it's clearly been purposefully crafted to appeal to the canon WoL, the one that SE is telling their story about.

And while I completely understand the desire to develop characters that deviate from the msq and experience the world of FFXIV in other ways, I don't quite understand playing the game but not wanting to experience the story as the devs have made it. You can so easily do both.

Getting to experience the devs' story, to explore their world and meet their characters, is always what's most exciting to me about new expansions. I can enjoy the story for what it is and then decide how I want to apply it to my WoL's development. And I appreciate how much work they put into creating this experience for me and the fact that they do encourage us to create alongside them.

Of course, it's not wrong to feel that there's "nothing in it for you" in this new expansion. But they've been very clear about the fact that this is the beginning of a new story full of unfamiliar elements. So I'm just not sure what some people expected.

[gatheredfates]

Hi everyone! It's been a hot minute since I did a Compendium update, but I promise I'm not dead. For those who don't know, I got a new job! That meant pretty much the entirety of October was spent wrapping up my old job, going to my new site and trying to learn the new one. I'm on break in approximately two weeks, yay! ☃️

These updates will take on a wintery/Starlight theme to celebrate the season, much like All Saints. I hope you enjoy.

Additionally, myself and the lovely folks at SEAFLOOR are having a Catch up (for) Starlight Challenge! You should join us if you're interested. ❄️

However, without further the following communities have been added to Sea's Community Compendium for XIV Creatives.

LARGE SCALE

The Help Lines—We are a community-based discord to be used to play the critically acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV. We host almost all content including DRS and BA, Raiding, Deep Dungeons, Blue Mage and more. Our mission is to create a welcoming space for any individual in need of assistance to reach out and accomplish their FFXIV goals in a toxicity-free environment.

The Aether Entertainer—Founded in 2021 on Aether, The Aether Entertainer is player-made virtual magazine covering music, theatre, art, current events, and Eorzean popular culture.

LORE

Final Flowery XIV—Compiled by ann0yance(bsky)/@sa8oteur, this guide explores the various flowers in XIV, comparing them to their real-world equivalents and meanings.

On Elementals, Accountability and Criticism—An essay written by @morgana96 that explores the lore of elementals and their place in Gridania (and beyond)!

MISC

Vanilla Gpose Tips by Winterdeepelegy—A how-to guide on effectively utilising the vanilla gpose tools to create visually stunning screenshots, written by @winterdeepelegy.

WoL Reference Sheet—Created by @coldshrugs, a handy WoL reference sheet you can build in Canva!

NA GPOSE Studio/Themed Housing Directory—A player-made repository of North American Gpose studios and themed houses!

CHANGELOG

The Scholar's of Nym—The link has been modified at the request of the owner.

Skystone Co.—Has been removed at the request of its owner.

UI Macro Menus—The link has been modified to accurately reflect the bookmark.

Have you thought about joining our Tumblr Community? You can find it here!

Want to submit? You can either fill out the google form here or send me an ask with the relevant information!

Is my space suitable for the Compendium? Most of the time, yes! Below the read more is some more information/stipulations. This is all publicly available on the document. 🦌

Below are the following things I do not accept on the Compendium:

Personal/Single-Character LFC ads. (Though these get posted to the SEAFLOOR Tumblr Community when I find them!)

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Common-sense rule applies.

I want to put my community on the Compendium but we have an application process. Is this okay?

Yes! Just note somewhere in your application that's a requirement. The only thing that is mandatory for the Compendium is that you must be open to new members or have a public-facing/accessible facet. There's no point advertising a community if no one can join it in some way!

I want to put my Community on the compendium but I only have x number of members —

Also totally okay! People don't start with large communities. Activity is a must but, whether your server has two or two thousand members, if you're looking for new people to join, I'd love to help you find people.

I want to put my community/resource on the Compendium but I worry its too niche?

Okay, and? If your Eorzean Fishing Alliance has four members but you roleplay every second weekend, I still want to know about it. The same goes for resources; if it's relevant to the game, it'll be useful to someone.

How active does a community need to be?

If you find a community has not been active in about two/three months, send me a message and I'll take a look at it. Communities have ebbs and flows, especially event spaces that may take hiatuses depending on member interest/life events. I'm not strict in my implementation provided a space isn't dead. If a link or anything is broken, contact me asap!

I have [insert a question not stated here]?

No drama! Send me an ask or use the #Compendium channel in my Discord!