And copper!

I've decided to change my recording method for my logs from this moment onward.  I detected a change in a site post 25th to now.  After the 25th there was a specific drop pattern that resembled a "Tin" site in the Black Brush zone.  And I know it was recorded after the 25th since the screen cap of the location has the coordinates in it.  Last night it had the "Fire" site drop pattern.  Since SE does not note any drop pattern changes when they update, but the changes seem to happen after patch days, the leading theory is that they are adjusting zone drop patterns in the updates.  The other possibility is that the patterns change over time.  In order to establish which of these two potential scenarios, some recording of the date of drops is necessary in order to analyze specific sites over time.  From now on in each time I harvest a site I'll note the date I do it, and what dropped on that date.

In other news Ul'dah was indeed the place to go to get a supply of copper ore in order to restock my supply of  Brass and Bronze Nuggets.  I finished off the evening doing some crafting.  Wasn't on for that long as this cold is kicking my ass.

Mighty lacking in copper there

Well Bentbranch seems to not have copper.  I don't know if this is a permanent (pending rebalancing of resources) or not state of affairs.  I looks like I will have to check out Black Brush tomorrow for some copper ore.

I uploaded the updated log for Bentbranch.

No progress on levels...

Darned cold

As those around me go crazed for the sesonal event, I avoid such activities due to the lack of storage.  I'll worry about the x-mass cheer next year once SE gets the storage and market un-borked.

The weekend consisted mainly of crafting - and finishing off quests.  I finally managed to get plenty of oak logs.  Mainly due to gathering leve quests.  So currently all my tools are rank 17 or 22 except for the fishing rod and the frying pan.  Need to get my rank 22 alembic built but I'll do that soon.  I had to buy the blindfish for the rank 20 alchemists quest but was able to do the weavers quest entirely on my own.

I also finally got some more bat fangs.  Subsequently my archery went from 10 to 13 rather quickly. My physical level hit 45.  Woodworking and Leatherworking also hit 19.  So two more crafts are approaching the 20 barrier.  As I keep doing local and regional leves in the 20~ish area I'm starting to accumulate some guild marks.  The other combat jobs will need to wait until they hit 18-ish but I should be able to start accumulating marks when they get to that area.  Gladiator marks are progressing nicely.  I should be able to buy the first book once I hit gladiator 20 and complete the rank 20 quest.

Physical: 45, Hand to hand: 14, Sword: 18, Axe: 15, Archery: 13, Polearm: 12: , Shield: 12, Thaumaturgy: 11, Conjury: 12, Woodworking: 19, Smithing: 18, Armorcraft:17 , Goldsmithing:17 , Leatherworking: 19, Clothcraft: 21, Alchemy: 20, Cooking17 , Mining: 21, Botany: 22, Fishing: 17.

Quite a bit of stuff dings

I had a bunch of jobs that were getting close to leveling up and sure enough last night's session saw them ding away.  The first of course is physical dinging 44.  Shield reached 12.  Smithing reached 18. Clothcraft reached 21.  Alchemy reached 20 making it my fourth job in the 20+ zone.  Cooking reached 17.  And botany reached 22.

I did a bunch of leves (regional and local) and managed to gather some guild marks.  Gladiator and Culinarian specifically.  I also decided to progress the weaver quest and get the Alchemist quest underway.  Now the alchemist quest is going to prove to be a bit of a problem.  Blindfish are not common.  On the other hand some gathering in Horizon's Edge garnered me some Mesa-Red Dyer's Moss.  I'm running low on Alumen but I should be able to repair Ridning Hood's hood.

All in all, a night of bopping arround.  I have not used anima like that in a long while.

Physical: 44, Hand to hand: 14, Sword: 18, Axe: 15, Archery: 10, Polearm: 11: , Shield: 12, Thaumaturgy: 11, Conjury: 12, Woodworking: 18, Smithing: 18, Armorcraft:17 , Goldsmithing:17 , Leatherworking: 18, Clothcraft: 21, Alchemy: 20, Cooking17 , Mining: 21, Botany: 22, Fishing: 17.

Crafting and the future

I had a rather extended session of crafting last night.  Both for myself and for the new linkshell.  I recently did a harvesting leve in the Camp Tranquility area.  The reason for doing it was to get some guild marks.  But it sent me for oak trees.  Lord knows if these will still be Oak when I do just open world gathering,  but it did allow me to get a single oak log.

The crafting gods were with me (not to mention my crafting gear is usually up to snuff anyways) and I was able to get 4 lumbers out of it.  This, by the end of the evening allowed me to upgrade my Armorsmithing, Blacksmithing and Goldsmithing main tools.  I blew up the making of a handle for the Leatherworking tool.  Ah, well the next log for that one.

While this was going on I had my new LS leader and her lalafel character come by and pick up some pants and gloves for her archer job Cotton Slops and Cotton Halfgloves color coordinated with her existing Tabbard.  She then started some goldcrafting...  In the same clothes...  With a weathered hammer....   At rank 6...

And she was wondering why she was getting a lot of blowups...

A discussion on crafting and level appropriate equipment followed.  This was followed by me whipping up an entire set of low level crafting gear (Hempen Hat, Slops, Doublet Vest, Halfgloves, all in beige and a pair of Sheepskin Crakows as well as the rank 7 hammer.  And then had her equip it all looking at the relevant stats as she did so.  I do believe I proved my point.

Un-surprisingly all this crafting did get me some good skillups.  Most of it was just progress towards the next level.  Except for Goldsmith, where I managed to ding Rank 17.

I'm going to need to lay off the crafting for a bit and concentrate on getting some wind crystals and some ranks in my combat and magic classes.  Humm, going to need to work on fishing and cooking again as well.

On to the 2nd part of the post title.  The future.

As you all know we're getting an update today - the promised mid December update.  It's coming with a spare free retainer (and much rejoicing was heard - I danced a jig).  However the thing that worries me the most is what's going to happen about 3-6 months from now with the change of the guard that happened.  Many an interesting argument was heard about the potential change in direction of the game and it's future.  I am worried that with the replacement of a lot of the FFXIV developers with FFXI developers that the different direction that FFXIV started down will be headed back toward more of a FFXI clone with updated artwork.

I pray that crafting does not not get marginalized and I worry that it looks like the NM system will not need any crafter input in the loop.  The market needs to be fixed.  As far as this goes I simply am of the opinion that SE went entirely in the wrong direction with this.  I suspect that over exposure to asian F2P games and a lack of exposure to games with very good market systems (EVE for example) is to blame for this.  Simply put there is a very notable lack of any materials market.  This is entirely due to both the lack of storage and the limitations of the current market system (which limits you to 10 sales slots per character/retainer).  This is entirely insufficient to support any form of reasonable market.  Not to mention your main characters need to stay logged in (promoting lag) in order for your stuff to sell.  Can't use the retainers for that currently since I need them mobile in order to use them for storage...  Brilliant case of designers not thinking things through and shooting themselves in the foot.

Now the previous team had taken steps to correct these problems (pitiful shaky steps to be sure, but they were shuffling in that direction).  The fear I have is that the influence of the FFXI developers and their "you must camp mobs spawns at 4:00am in order to get necessary gear" attitude will simply put the nail in the coffin for this game.  Another fear is with the inclusion of more FFXI developers we'll see a reduction in the openness that we've seen from the FFXIV devs (for Squareenix anyways).  I figure we'll start having clues as to where things are going in about 3 months.  It will take that long for a serious change in direction to start making itself felt.

Physical: 43, Hand to hand: 14, Sword: 18, Axe: 15, Archery: 10, Polearm: 11: , Shield: 11, Thaumaturgy: 11, Conjury: 12, Woodworking: 18, Smithing: 17, Armorcraft:17 , Goldsmithing:17 , Leatherworking: 18, Clothcraft: 20, Alchemy: 19, Cooking16 , Mining: 21, Botany: 21, Fishing: 17.

Crafting

Didn't have a lot of time last night.  Spent most of it crafting.  It's always nice to be able to craft stuff that will be used instead of simply another entire level of Dodoskin vamps or something like that.  My newer LS is filled with lower level characters so plenty of crafting to go around.

Got back in

After seriously reducing my graphics settings I finally managed to get a playable setup with my older graphics card.  Pixilation for the win.  Seriously you should see the map...

This at least allowed me to get some progress again.  I started off by processing the harvest from the Skull Valley area (where I was when we last left off).  After that got done, repairs on the gear.  Then it was "what to do"...  Until I can sort out my video situation I don't feel like recording harvesting info (too awkward without the 2nd screen side by side).  So I decided to get some bat fangs while working on a low end job and dragging it up.  So off to Gridania and some bob-a-mole with my pugilist...  I must be getting better at this about 150-ish sp per kill on average and I was just slaughtering them.  Featherfoot works very well with Haymaker when soloing.

Now with the various tumultuous nature of the server as things stand.  Lots of people trying things out and only a certain percentage of them staying.  I've decided to get involved in 3 or 4 other linkshells.  Not abandoning Hokuten, but I figure with linkshell populations being what they are, being in 3-4 shells will even things out a bit.  There's also the fact that most of Hotuken - predictably - not being generalists has sped ahead of me.  So last night I joined Retribution XIV.  Seems to be a new shell made by an old FFXI player who just recently started playing FFXIV.  We'll see how it goes.

Meanwhile my Pugilist hit 14, my leatherworking hit 18 and  my Physical hit 43.

Physical: 43, Hand to hand: 14, Sword: 18, Axe: 15, Archery: 10, Polearm: 11: , Shield: 11, Thaumaturgy: 11, Conjury: 12, Woodworking: 18, Smithing: 17, Armorcraft:17 , Goldsmithing:16 , Leatherworking: 18, Clothcraft: 20, Alchemy: 19, Cooking16 , Mining: 21, Botany: 21, Fishing: 17.

Yep - good card dead

Welp I found a replacement card on my old computer but as I suspected, it's specs are just not enough to run FFXIV acceptably.  It's like playing in the bad old pre-lag fix days.  Not to mention that I had to scavenge the mdsi cable from my television to have my 2 screen setup working...  Not fun...

I should be able to get a new card some time next week.  So until then I'll be playing games that do not require heavy graphics load (which is everything EXCEPT FFXIV...).

Might be a bit

I think my video card needs replacing - the fan is flaky and I'm getting crashes on a regular basis - not good.  May be a few days before I can get in FFXIV due to that.

Some things leveled

Over the weekend I managed to get quite a lot moved forward.  And yep I keep confirming that the drop patterns have changed.  One thing I am suspicious of is that they may change yet again with the December update.  We'll see.

At any rate.  I was getting uncomfortable with all my combat jobs being mostly so low.  So I've decided to work on them quite a bit over the next little bit.  My wind crystals were also getting dangerously low.  This means Skull Valley.  I also made some Sentinel's Chainmail.  Blew two sets up.  I'm coming to the conclusion that the problem is my lack of Magical Craftsmanship with the crafting gear I currently sport.  Bear in mind that due to inventory issues I try to get by with a generic crafting set (or as generic as possible for my level).  It doesn't help that I need to upgrade both the armorcraft and smithing main hand tools to their level 17 versions.  Which calls for Oak...  *sigh*, still haven't found any Oak.

Be that as it may.  I got my Marauder to 15, my wood working to 18, my smithing and armorcrafting to 17, clothcrafting to 20 and mining to 21.

I did start the clothcrafting rank 20 quest.  Alchemy is within striking distance as well.

Physical: 42, Hand to hand: 12, Sword: 18, Axe: 15, Archery: 10, Polearm: 11: , Shield: 11, Thaumaturgy: 11, Conjury: 12, Woodworking: 18, Smithing: 17, Armorcraft:17 , Goldsmithing:16 , Leatherworking: 17, Clothcraft20: , Alchemy: 19, Cooking16 , Mining: 21, Botany: 21, Fishing: 17.

Updated Crafting Set

Since I wanted to get my crafting set coordinated for a long time, and I had all this Olive-green Dyer's Moss from looking for Oak trees, I decided to craft myself a set.

Crafting Clothes

So now at least I look coordinated.  Since I didn't want the old stuff to go to the vendor (my Bazaar is full), I donated the old set to a new LS member who was relatively under-equipped.

Azyrie gets some Handmedowns

Not much progress other wise, although my weaver job only has 6152 SP until ding.  Some crafting leves and some cotton bolls should take care of that little issue.  As you can see, I`m well on my way to getting all my jobs to 20 before I decide what to specialize in on the trip up to rank 50.

Trying to find Oak

With most of my crafts stuck in the 16-19 range I figure that getting as much upgraded to level 17 tools as possible can only be a good thing.  So I went exploring for Oak.  So far no luck in the Tranquil Paths zone.  I did manage to knock off my level 20 botanist quest though.  I suspect I will need to explore near camp horizon to see if I can find some.

In the meanwhile I upgraded my pickaxe to the Iron Pickaxe.  My Bone Hora to Bronze Knuckles.  Dinged on Gladiator 18, Armorcrafting 16, Fishing 17, and Botanist 21 as well as Physical 42.

Physical: 42, Hand to hand: 12, Sword: 18, Axe: 13, Archery: 10, Polearm: 11: , Shield: 11, Thaumaturgy: 11, Conjury: 12, Woodworking: 17, Smithing: 16, Armorcraft: 15, Goldsmithing:16 , Leatherworking: 17, Clothcraft: 19, Alchemy: 19, Cooking16 , Mining: 20, Botany: 21, Fishing: 17.

Updated Gathering Gear

I've been upgrading my gathering gear lately:

New gear

The latest addition was the Sheepskin Jerkin (Grey) +1.  Thanks to Jonel (Iron buckle) and Enid (Buffalo Leather) I managed to craft this baby up.  The Bronze Sallet was an improvement for me over the Cotton Turban.  The cullotes, work gloves and workboots are the same as previously.  I also upgraded to R17 mining main tool, R22 botany main tool as well.  Still kinda boned for fishing though...

Progress of sorts

I'm a bit discouraged that all the existing gathering information is now outdated (except for the sites themselves - the locations are good).  I have uploaded the latest gathering in Black Brush.  Still not enough to do a map but at least it's starting to flesh out.

In other news I got some combat levels and did some community crafting (basically if you were in the right spot at the right time - it was xmass a bit early).

Physical: 41, Hand to hand: 12, Sword: 17, Axe: 13, Archery: 10, Polearm: 11: , Shield: 11, Thaumaturgy: 11, Conjury: 12, Woodworking: 17, Smithing: 16, Armorcraft: 15, Goldsmithing:16 , Leatherworking: 17, Clothcraft: 19, Alchemy: 19, Cooking16 , Mining: 20, Botany: 20, Fishing: 16.

Gathering Site changes

Note that it looks like two of the site types have changed in Black Brush to become a whole pile of Lauan sites. One of the Willow and one of the Ash paterns did not disappear with this change though. This means I'll have to hit up ALL the old zones in order to see what's changed before making maps of those zones.  Fun Fun.

In other news I crafted up a bit of a storm after this patch (it's why there's so little new harvesting info).  Various things including my Physical level dinged.  I'm also in the middle of the Botanist rank 20 quest...

Physical: 41, Hand to hand: 11, Sword: 17, Axe: 13, Archery: 10, Polearm: 11: , Shield: 11, Thaumaturgy: 11, Conjury: 12, Woodworking: 17, Smithing: 16, Armorcraft: 15, Goldsmithing:16 , Leatherworking: 17, Clothcraft: 19, Alchemy: 19, Cooking16 , Mining: 20, Botany: 20, Fishing: 16.

Things get crowded again

Yep, everyone was waiting on SE to put the patch out.  Things got nice and crowded this weekend.  As I promised in various posts, I would make a link to a location where I can host PDF versions of my log books.  Note that the best of them is probably the Emerald Moss one.  I still need to do maps and what not on the rest.

I may have noticed a change from prior the patch to the current Black Brush area.  One of the trees seems to have a different pattern than before.  I'll try hitting this one up multiple times.  I still have not gotten enough data to really tell the exact extents of the site types in Black Brush, and I really need to start in on Drybone soonish.

I will admit that a good chunk of the weekend has been dinging levels and updating gear.  I'll probably need to broach some grade 3 zones since I need oak for a lot of rank 17 tools.  Weird observation: the weaving level 17 tool is the secondary tool, all the others are primary tools...  Weavers must be different...

Patch Day - Yep step in the right direction

After patching the game here are the immediate I noticed things:

1. 20 extra spots of inventory.  Retainer too.  (Not much but it DOES help)
2. A lot of the inventory and crafting lag - gone.  
3. No more extra useless confirmation steps (both in exchanging items with retainer and in synthing)
4. Keyboard synthing remembers your position in the inventory list (Huzzah!)
5. Underwear no longer take wear.  
6. You can now craft colored underwear!
7. I no longer see other people's crafting in the chat window (It's still there - just in the battle window)
8. Less shard and crystal use (we'll still be burning a metric tonne but anything helps)

As someone mentioned: SE is showing steps in the right direction with this patch.

I started the evening in Ul'dah and proceeded to finish processing the previous night's gathering leftovers.  Much smoother experience.  I heard reports that the +1's and +2's are still in the gathering sites.  Why remove them from the mobs but not the sites? No clue.  I heard that party EXP is now normalized for everyone.  Gladiators were pleased but I suspect that the DPS jobs are going to notice a slow down.  Color me amused.

Then on hearing rumors that the colored underwear synths were now available I proceeded to immediately synth up a storm.  Oooooo cloth synths now give 3 cloths!!!  And arrows stack to 999 and apparently the arrow synth is now 333 per synth!  Archers rejoice! 

Old

New

Not much of an improvement I know but at least it's not that blah drab beige-grey.   And it no longer takes wear.

Also the experience curve was adjusted.  This resulted in some rather immediate dings (since I had more than enough SP in some categories to rank up) the minute I did something related to that job.

No new gathering info or maps or web site published data - had that new patch fever going strong.  I'll get to that over the weekend.  Overall though a nice number of steps in the right direction.

Physical: 40, Hand to hand: 11, Sword: 17, Axe: 13, Archery: 10, Polearm: 11: , Shield: 9, Thaumaturgy: 11, Conjury: 12, Woodworking: 16, Smithing: 15, Armorcraft: 15, Goldsmithing:16 , Leatherworking: 16, Clothcraft: 18, Alchemy: 19, Cooking15 , Mining: 20, Botany: 19, Fishing: 16.

Edit: I just noticed they put in the level 17 main crafting tools! Friday night will probably be spent upgrading MOST of my crafting tools!

20!

More gathering allowed my Mining skill to hit 20 (with Botany snapping at it's heels).  This allowed me to start and complete the level 20 main line quest.  This unlocks the level 20 job quests - I'll get the level 20 mining quest finished tomorrow night.

In the meanwhile, here is Chatnoir, my "Path Companion".  Full of innuendo is she.

Chatnoir

Of course I needed to update my Emerald Moss maps after the session:

Emerald Moss Harvesting Sites

Emerald Moss Logging Sites

Emerald Moss Mining Sites

As you can see, quite a bit of progress last night.  Note that all these maps are still works in progress as I know for a fact I'm still missing sites.  There are sites I remember mining prior to my starting to record everything in log books that I don't see on the maps yet (need to screen shot exact location before I commit them to the map.

Physical: 40, Hand to hand: 11, Sword: 17, Axe: 13, Archery: 10, Polearm: 11: , Shield: 9, Thaumaturgy: 11, Conjury: 12, Woodworking: 16, Smithing: 15, Armorcraft: 15, Goldsmithing: 15, Leatherworking: 16, Clothcraft: 18, Alchemy: 18, Cooking15 , Mining: 20, Botany: 19, Fishing: 16.

Updated Emerald Moss Logging Map

So last night I went on a rather extended gathering spree.  I almost have enough data to fill out the mining map but not quite yet.  Here is the updated logging map.  As you can see the patterns are starting to pop out.  I know I'm still missing gathering spots but at least the existing spots are firming up nicely.

Emerald Moss Logging Map

As intensive as the gathering was last night, I still didn't ding any levels or ranks as the ones used were mostly in the start of the 19th level.  On the other hand I got both botany and mining over half way to 20 so another night like last night and they should ding 20.

I still only have 4 drops per spearfishing site...  I did manage to get the elemental type of the Anglers this time though.

Gathering

I managed to find the "missing" spearfishing spot in the Emerald Moss area.  As I suspected there were three, just took me a while to find the 3rd.  I did some fishing and some discovering of new sites.  I was also able to "complete" some incomplete sites.  This means confirming all 5 drops.

I also did some fishing in a different "free" spot than last time.  This allowed me to note that the drop pattern is the same as the other "free" spot.  I'll need to hit up a few different locations but it's entirely possible that an entire zone has the same drop pattern with the exception of the schools. That's the theory at the moment anyways.

During the search for the third fishing spot, I managed to run across an albino willow.

Albino Willow

SE has put in these funky sites from place to place.  I can only assume they are either storyline related or pre-positioning some stuff for future content.  We'll see.


All this gathering of course managed to push my Botany and my Fishing up by a notch each.

Incidentally yesterday's map was in my raw gathering log.  One of the things I'm doing is taking a screenshot of my map location when I'm in front of a node.  This allows me to confirm if I'm visiting a node I've seen before or not.  It also makes the creation of an accurate map rather trivial.

I should also note that I've observed the same 5 drop pattern from the mobs.  This also allowed me to find out what dropped the Blacklip Oyster that goes into the Bone Hora (Yarzon Feeders actually - I hadn't run into it up to this point).  Still, more killing of Roselets and what not need to be done to flesh out that side of things.  Also I curse Anglers and Lone Wolves, I keep needing to switch to Gladiator to handle those as my Marauder is jut not quite up to snuff to handle them yet.

Physical: 40, Hand to hand: 11, Sword: 17, Axe: 13, Archery: 10, Polearm: 11: , Shield: 9, Thaumaturgy: 11, Conjury: 12, Woodworking: 16, Smithing: 15, Armorcraft: 15, Goldsmithing: 15, Leatherworking: 16, Clothcraft: 18, Alchemy: 18, Cooking15 , Mining: 19, Botany: 19, Fishing: 16.

Maping things out.

Well with 3 days of data on emerald moss I decided to make a map of the logging spots I had recorded and their (sometimes swagged at) types.  So I thought I'd ping in with the document I'm working on to show you guys the results so far of the data gathering.  Note that it takes about a week of steady gathering in a zone to firm up a better picture of the sites - this is with only 3 days of data points.

Summary of 3 days of data collection

Note that I have not yet got the full drop for Chestnut trees.  Also, so far the chestnut and walnut trees only seem to be in the clearings...   I have more data points on the mining, but the individual sites are less flush.  To the point where I can't tell if there's 5 or 6 types of sites yet.  But I'm getting there.  Thorniest part?  Spearfishing.  I've only found 2 sites and only have 4 drops on each...  That 5th drop is rather rare...

I'd also like to thank the FFXIV Map Information site for their maps.  They have been most useful in making the above.

It looks like people have gone into a holding mode while waiting for the patch.  In NA prime time the server count was apparently down to 850 people.  Not a good sign.  We'll see if the patch on the night of the 24-25th helps things when we get there.

I did a bit of grinding over the weekend and so some of my jobs dinged their next levels.  Oh, and I hit 40 physical (only 10 more levels of that until cap).

Physical: 40, Hand to hand: 11, Sword: 17, Axe: 13, Archery: 10, Polearm: 11: , Shield: 9, Thaumaturgy: 11, Conjury: 12, Woodworking: 16, Smithing: 15, Armorcraft: 15, Goldsmithing: 15, Leatherworking: 16, Clothcraft: 18, Alchemy: 18, Cooking15 , Mining: 19, Botany: 18: , Fishing: 15.

I start in on Skull Valley

So I crack open another log book (electronic of course) and start putting in information about Skull Valley.  To start this off I decide to see if the mobs also have the same 5 drop parameters as the sites.  Sure enough as I pound away with my axe on various hapless mobs in the zone, a clear pattern is emerging.  5 drops per mob of the same name...

Well, this will make things easy to document at least.  Course there's always the problem of going back and gathering this information in the grade 1 areas now...

Oh well.

Of course all this hacking and slashing has resulted in my Marauder hitting rank 13.  And I then headed back to town for repairs.  I think I'll need to start bringing repair materials with me on these little trips as it is becoming increasingly obvious that the weapon is the first thing to get damaged when one is on a slaughter/shard spree.

Physical: 39, Hand to hand: 11, Sword: 17, Axe: 13, Archery: 7, Polearm: 11: , Shield: 9, Thaumaturgy: 11, Conjury: 12, Woodworking:16 , Smithing: 15, Armorcraft: 15, Goldsmithing: 15, Leatherworking: 16, Clothcraft: 17, Alchemy: 18, Cooking15 , Mining: 18, Botany: 18: , Fishing: 15.

The wanning drive and Cataclysm

Oh, not myself.  Just what I'm observing in other people.  I'm detecting a certain depression setting in amongst some of the players.  They find that parts of the game are broken and are unable to break themselves away from their expectations.  A classic conversation of the sort happened recently.  Currently Gladiators are considered a little broken.  This is because they stop gaining SP in most parties after level 20 (apparently - I'm not there yet).  This is mainly due to the SP being heavily tied to damage being done.  Since Gladiators, by their nature don't do a lot of offensive moves when they tank and they are rather anemic when they do, they get shafted in the SP department.  

Of course they end up in parties where the dps buzz-saws ahead of them and out strips them.  Leaving them depressed.  When someone points out to them that they could simply change jobs for a bit while SE fixes the class, they complain that they have already committed too much time to Gladiator...  I'd like to point out that at this point we're two months in to a new MMO...  And they are complaining that they are too commited to the path they started on...  Honestly the mind boggles.

The good news is that in all probability we will not see an enormous drop in presence in FFXIV come the 23rd.  That's when Cataclysm comes out.  The reason for this is that by now most of the WoW tourists have already left FFXIV.  The bad news for Square Enix is that the general lag ridden interface, various issues like Gladiator and some other things (like the storage issue) are interfering with most players enjoyment to the point where the nicer newer features aren't enough for them.  Also they are loosing hope in the long wait between the last patch and the first update in November (only what? 1 week away). Also the supposed Juno equivalent not being open yet is proving to be a show stopper for a certain overly grindy set.  There's not enough content yet they complain.  Mind you I've seen this problem in EVE online frequently enough to recognize the symptoms.  They are simply trying to play some other game with FFXIV.  I call this "the inability to enjoy the game you are playing because you really want to play some game that does not yet exist".  The biggest issue I have with this is they bitching and moaning it entails...

We'll have to see if the player bleed slows down after the patch next week.  Meanwhile for myself, last night was a leve and crafting night.  I managed to get some arrows done for Jonel which allowed me to ding 16 carpenter. 

Physical: 39, Hand to hand: 11, Sword: 17, Axe: 12, Archery: 7, Polearm: 11: , Shield: 9, Thaumaturgy: 11, Conjury: 12, Woodworking:16 , Smithing: 15, Armorcraft: 15, Goldsmithing: 15, Leatherworking: 16, Clothcraft: 17, Alchemy: 18, Cooking15 , Mining: 18, Botany: 18: , Fishing: 15.

A break from gathering.

Well I have established that there are at least 4 Harvesting sites in the Bearded Rock zone.  So my theory that there are 3 secondary hand sites per zone (per secondary hand type) is machine gunned down in flames.  So far the fishing schools have not moved though.

When my gear indicated some wear, it was time to head into town and do the usual post gathering processing.  Followed by picking up leves for Skull Valley, followed by crafting, followed by teleporting to Skull Valley.  This time I also decided to do a bit of regional leves.  These were done on my Marauder class.

The combination of gathering, crafting and combat caused me to ding 39 Physical and 12 Marauder.

Physical: 39, Hand to hand: 11, Sword: 17, Axe: 12, Archery: 7, Polearm: 11: , Shield: 9, Thaumaturgy: 11, Conjury: 12, Woodworking:15 , Smithing: 15, Armorcraft: 15, Goldsmithing: 15, Leatherworking: 16, Clothcraft: 17, Alchemy: 18, Cooking15 , Mining: 18, Botany: 18: , Fishing: 15.

More fishing datapoints

In the early part of the evening I concentrated on fishing schools.  I also concentrated on finding the presumed missing spearfishing spots.  I managed to find all 3 Bearded Rock spearfishing spots finally.  I also established drop patterns for both schools.  At this point I'm assuming that the schools don't de-spawn like logging and mining nodes do.

I still need to do some cross bait/lure fishing in schools to be able to verify their patterns as well.  An interesting data point is that the zone "default drop" is present on both the free fishing table and the two schools tables.  Whether this pattern will hold for other zones or not remains to be seen but so far is pretty consistent.

I didn't ding any ranks but my physical level is rapidly approaching 39 and should ding tomorrow night.

It turns out the maintenance was not the the expected update, so I guess we'll have to see if it happens next week.  Ah well...

Fishing, Progress, Consolidation

This entry will be a bit all over the place.  Where to start, where to start?  Ah, we'll start with the early part of the weekend.  The weekend consisted mainly of a mix of harvesting in the Bearded Rock area and doing local guildleves.  I'm still at the "discovering all the sites" stage of this zone.  Due to the way that I gather and the way the sites spawn and de-spawn, it seems to take a good solid 5 days of harvesting in a zone to get a majority of the gathering sites.

One of the other reasons is that I travel to the NPC vendor at the camp quite a bit to empty out my inventory of stuff I don't need to use immediately.  The rest gets stacked up for eventual disposition when I head into town.  I usually wait until my gear needs repairs, then I head into town, process craft, sell stuff I don't store on my retainer, grab some leves and craft some more, then repair everything and head out to camp.

I've made some changes to the way I select local guildleves.  These days, I pick a specific destination and simply grab all the leves I can for that specific destination, regardless of their level.  Due to the fact that unlike most of the rest of the players, I'm not in any gigantic hurry to get to level cap on "something".  Not to mention the fact that I'm recording a lot of gathering data (which is great for my gathering professions, but lousy for my combat jobs progression).  So the convenience of delivering all leves to a single location outweighs the extra progress of doing leves as close to the level of my craft as possible.

This has allowed me to prety much nail down all logging site patterns for the zone.  I still need a bit of mining patterns though.  I still need to find (I think) two spearfishing sites and one harvesting and one quarrying site.  This is based on the theory that there are three sites for each secondary profession in each zone.  Just need to locate them all.  All this gathering activity has had a good effect on my Mining and Botany skills.  Both are now 18.  The leves and the post gathering processing have allowed my alchemy to hit 18 as well.

This however did not provide a lot of progress for my fishing skill.  So the last part of the weekend was spent concentrating on fishing (it's going to be the slowest of the gathering skills to progress, I can tell).  Since I was concentrating very hard on fishing, I decided to try and nail down some data in support of some theories I have regarding fishing in FFXIV.  Basically what I'm noticing is that there seems to be a pattern for the material drops from everything.  Namely that there are 5 types of drops from any particular type of site.  I suspect this extends to mobs as well.  So I wondered how this played into the fishing system.

So far I've been able to establish that at least on a single non pool site in the Bearded Rock zone, if you use a freshwater bait or lure you will only ever get one of the possible drops.  The same if you use no bait or lure - although the number of "nothing bites" results between the few catches is soul destroying if you only use a rod.  For Bearded Rock this is Malm Kelp.  The reverse for freshwater sites was also true.  Saltwater bait or lures in freshwater sites also results in a single type of drop.  For Black Brush it was Crayfish.  Now in the "free" drop pattern for a zone (basically if you plop your cast down in a non-school area) has 5 drops if you're using site appropriate bait/lure.  So far one of them is always the one that shows up for non-appropriate bait/lure.  So for example Bearded Rock (so long as you're not on a school of fish) seems to yeild: Malm Kelp, Merlthor Goby, Ocean Cloud, Tiger Cod and Vongola Clam.  I need to see if this is zone wide incidentally.  If you use non-appropriate bait/lure you get Malm Kelp.  There are 2 schools of fish up at any one time.

Stuff I still need to work on for fishing:

• I need to establish the pattern at schools and determine if they spawn and despawn (aka move).
• I need to see the results with general bait (supposed to be good for both saltwater and for freshwater).
• I need to see if the "default" result is present in school sites.
• I need to the results of using non-appropriate bait/lures at school sites.

So as you can see there's still plenty to discover fishing wise in the zone.  If only to nail down mechanics and patterns.

I also exported all my current raw data documents to PDF formats and uploaded them to the linkshell's site so others could work on some maps of these zones.  The drop patterns I'm talking about really pop out when you look at the raw data.

All this gathering resulted in some further processing crafting and managed to get my alchemy up to 18 as well.  I also how have about 60 iron nuggets stored away to progress Blacksmithing.  As a rule I try to store very little in the way of base raw materials, I try to store the intermediary materials so for example, I noted that I was low on animal glue.  So I simply didn't vendor a stack of Bone Chips.  Then when I was in town for repairs, I got some Sheep Leather Spetchs from my retainer and some Muddy Water from a vendor, then I crafted up sufficient animal glue to have a stack of 99 and vendor the rest.  So for example I have 99 Animal Glues, 99 Quicksilvers, and so on.  Also since the branches are used for various repairs, I've got 99 Maple Branches and 99 Ash branches and so on (still building up willow branches - only 72 of those).  I will be seriously glad when the inventory situation becomes manageable.

The other thing I have observed is the consolidation of linkshells that has been happening of late.  Although SE has been much more open and much more proactive about indicating that changes are coming, there have been a bunch of impatient players who have lost hope and either told us they are stopping playing or have simply stopped playing.  This happens at the linkshell leader level as well (not mine but others).  The end result is that we're seeing a round of linkshell mergers lately, as entire leaderless shells merge wholesale into other shells.

Hopefully with the update happening overnight, this will be the end of the bleed, as the wow tourists finally peter out and the server populations stabilize.  We'll see.  Note that the company system and the ability to build (or buy - we're unsure yet) company assets (like ships) is not coming until the first update of the new year.  But we're got November and December's updates to get through first.

Physical: 38, Hand to hand: 11, Sword: 17, Axe: 11, Archery: 7, Polearm: 11: , Shield: 9, Thaumaturgy: 11, Conjury: 12, Woodworking:15 , Smithing: 15, Armorcraft: 15, Goldsmithing: 15, Leatherworking: 16, Clothcraft: 17, Alchemy: 18, Cooking15 , Mining: 18, Botany: 18: , Fishing: 15.

More data collection

I logged on late last night.  Not having a lot of time and still being in the Thanalan area I decided to continue my gathering activities (and their attendant recording).  I'm not entirely sure yet but it looks like there will be two types of grade 1 Willow and Ash node types in this area, Still haven't run into any Lauan.  Time will tell, I will need about a week or so of harvesting before I can come to such hard and fast conclusions.

Some intensive logging did allow me to notch up my Botany to 17.

I'd like to point something out to the crazies who are racing ahead and grinding up.  Guys!, there's probably no end game yet.  Why are you burning yourselves out getting to a place you wont' be able to do much but come back to the lower levels to work on stuff you've bypassed?  Sit back and enjoy the ride.

Physical: 37, Hand to hand: 10, Sword: 17, Axe: 10, Archery: 7, Polearm: 11: , Shield: 9, Thaumaturgy: 11, Conjury: 12, Woodworking:15 , Smithing: 15, Armorcraft: 15, Goldsmithing: 15, Leatherworking: 16, Clothcraft: 17, Alchemy: 17, Cooking15 , Mining: 17, Botany: 17: , Fishing: 15.

Getting my fishing on

Yesterday I relocated to the Ul'dah area.  After some quick local guildleves, I set out to work on both my fishing and my cooking.  These being the two jobs that were still under 15 at the start of the evening.

Sure enough it was quite easy to get the fishing over 15.  I also spent a bit of time fishing without bait or lure just to see what would happen.  Surprisingly you CAN catch stuff.  You get a tonne of "no bites" but you do get Crayfish.  This matches with my experience in Gridania where I was getting Crayfish for the few casts I did without bait or lure.  Also when matched against the Malm Kelp only result when using the Chocobo Fly in the Limsa Lominsa area, I am coming to the suspicion that bait used in an area it is not good for (and you can consider "no bait/lure" being no good in all areas) will get you one of the possible results exclusively.  This would seem to imply that the Chocobo Fly is a freshwater lure.  I will need more data to verify this theory.

I still need to do more fishing to also see if the pools move or not like the other main hand nodes.  I have not yet been able to confirm that they do.  With the 4 lakes in the Black Brush area that I am now pounding around being the candidates for having pools and only 2 pools being "up" at any one time, I should be able to determine if they move at some point over the next few days.

We shall see.

Physical: 37, Hand to hand: 10, Sword: 17, Axe: 10, Archery: 7, Polearm: 11: , Shield: 9, Thaumaturgy: 11, Conjury: 12, Woodworking:15 , Smithing: 15, Armorcraft: 15, Goldsmithing: 15, Leatherworking: 16, Clothcraft: 17, Alchemy: 17, Cooking15 , Mining: 17, Botany16: , Fishing: 15.

Planicus Interuptus

Best laid plans of mice and men and all that.  Last night was spent at a POS bash in EVE Online...  Back to FFXIV tomorrow night.

Been a week

Sorry for the break in posting.  Just not a lot of interesting things happening atm.  Steady progress.  The big thing is that I've gone on a gathering kick in order to nail down the gathering parameters much better than randomly hoping something nice will drop in my hopper so to speak.

In this endeavor I have taken to doing some serious gathering sprees where I record all the drops from the individual gathering sites.  Now the second hand tool sites are simple.  The spot may move around withing 20 malms or so (internal game measurement - on the map each grid is 100 malms by 100 malms.  But the spots are static.  So for example there are 3 Quarry, 3 Harvest and 3 Spearfish sites in the grade 1 Gridanian area.  Also the extent of each graded zone is easy to determine as each has a specific name and that shows up when you hit the map key.

A mining site in Bentbranch

So as you can see the Grade 1 Gridanian zone is the Bentbranch Zone.  Using crops of the print screens of map coordinates like the one above I have been recording all last week's gathering activity.  This has resulted in some interesting data coming out.  The first one is that each site (Mine, Log, Quarry, Harvest, Spearfish - Fishing I need more data to be able to come to some conclusions) consistently drop exactly 5 drops from the same site.  The other is that these drop "patterns" are rather limited in number and are very consistent.  In other words a specif harvest site will always yield the same 5 drops time and again.

Now there are two skills associated with finding main hand sites.  One shows how many sites are up and their general directions in the entire zone you are currently standing in (Ex: Prospect II).  The other shows the distance and direction to the closest gather-able site (Ex: Lay of the Land II).  Now it has been determined that once you finish a site, it has a cool down such that you can not harvest from it until you harvest from two other sites.  Once you do (any gathering site will do) it becomes available for harvesting again (so long as it's still up of course). 

The thing is that the entire zone skill will always pick up sites that are "up", even ones that are currently under cool down.  The "nearest site" skill does not pick up sites that are under cool-down so you can use it to find the next site with no problem.  Also since main hand sites can and do de-spawn regularly when one of the sites goes "down" it another site in the same zone immediately goes "up".  This way we know that there are always 5 Mining, 5 Logging and 2 Fishing (Schools) sites up at all times in the Bentbranch zone.  The second hand sites being more static are easier to determine so 3 Quarry, 3 Harvest and 3 Spearfish Bentbranch sites are always up.

For main hand sites.  If a site goes down and then later on comes back up, it will still have the same 5 drops as last time.  Also like I mentioned the number of patterns of these drops are limited and can be identified.  So far I've managed to identify 5 mining and 4 logging patterns in the Bent branch area. 

Bentbranch has Willow, Maple, Elm and Ash logging sites.  It also has Ice, Earth, Tin, Zinc and Femur mining sites.  This means that yes contrary to rumours you can get a steady supply of Zinc from the Bentbranch zone (Mainly along the the path going east from (34, 31) and on upstairs to the elevated area - but not the southern part of the elevated area - that's Soiled Femur area).  So far I've only identified two Fish School sites so I have no idea yet of the spawn and de-spawn.  Also fishing may or may not be affected by the bait/lure being used or not.  More data needs to be collected on fishing to come to any conclusions about the mechanics of fishing.

At this point I'm slowly working on the Emerald Moss area and occasionally going back to the Bentbranch zone as I do keep occasionally finding new spawn points and I keep fleshing out sites that do not yet have their full drop lists (mainly to absolutely confirm the 5 drops per specific site and the drop patterns - although so far that conclusion seems to be very strong).

Obviously there was crafting and some killing of mobs so levels other than the gathering ones progressed as well.  Also I now only have two Land and Hand jobs bellow 15: Fishing and Culinarian.  I guess I need to get fishing as these skills are linked.

Physical: 37, Hand to hand: 10, Sword: 17, Axe: 10, Archery: 7, Polearm: 11: , Shield: 9, Thaumaturgy: 11, Conjury: 12, Woodworking:15 , Smithing: 15, Armorcraft: 15, Goldsmithing: 15, Leatherworking: 16, Clothcraft: 17, Alchemy: 17, Cooking 14, Mining: 17, Botany16: , Fishing: 14.

Operation Make Some Arrows

I started the weekend off with a distinct lack of shards.  Oh and look, my combat jobs need some work as well.  You guessed it.  Time to work on some farming.  So the start was some general farming and what is becoming the pattern for my farming runs.  Pick an area.  Go kill.  Keep killing.  +1, +2, +3 stuff? chuck it.  Full stacks are worth more at the vendors.

Once the inventory is looking pretty full, and my weapons are dinged up, head back to town for post massacre processing.  Vendor the stuff I can't immediately process or just don't have the place for.  Process the rest.  Occasionally upgrade equipment or make something that takes my fancy (oh look I can make tabards and chainmail now)

In this fashion I've worked on my combat jobs and upgraded my equipment as possible.

Saturday was kinda fun.  At one point I'm working on my "make some chainmail for the heck of it" project.  Some random person shouts, asking if anyone has a level 8-10 gladiator weapon.  Now I've moved on from the Bronze Dagger to the Brass Gladius and I ended up vendoring my original dagger (no place in the bazaar for it).  But I'm feeling in a crafting mood so I convo him:  "If you can't find one, hit me up I'll make you one".  At which point he replies that he's been looking for the last 3 hours and having no luck.

This matches my own experience from looking for an axe and a spear...  You can find plenty of level 20-30 gear on sale but practically no low level stuff.  This is an example of the poor market that is the result of the current lack of retainers and lack of auction house and lack of sales slots.  It's simple:  As a crafter we just can't afford to not sell our best available items.  Basically it's a profit per slot issue.  We can simply make more profit selling higher level stuff than we could selling the low level stuff.  With only 10 slots it's usually faster simply to vendor the old stuff.  Or stuff that does not sell for that matter.  The end result is that new players that don't get stuck in with a linkshell that has multiple crafters and up having a hard time getting equipment.

So once my current buff was up.  I spent the next half hour crafting a few items for my new found customer.  No +1's but at least he was feeling better by the end of the half hour.  I got skillups and gear.  He got the gear he was looking for.  We were both happy.  The problem here is I think a difference between the shopping patterns in Asia and the west.  In Asia there is still the concept of going out and shopping around for the best deal available.  In the west that has been replaced by the concept of convenience.  If I spend less time shopping then I have more time for either more productive pursuits or for more leisure.

This is the major reason why the western gamer prefers auction houses (or proper EVE style markets) over the micro-transaction style 1001 shops.  We come from a culture where most of the goods a person needs to live on are available in quantity and at a reasonable price and the family income is (mostly) able to afford them.  So unless you're going for hand crafted quality shopping is a waste of time better spent on something else.

Anyways, After that I went and did some local guildleves and managed to get some crafting jobs up.  My lowest level crafting/gathering job is now 14.

I finished Saturday evening off looking for things to craft, since I had once again run out of wind shards by the end of all that crafting.  After perusing some recipes and noticing my archery job was now the lowest job I had I decided that looking into Ammo was the way to go.  One of the trickiest operations in this new game is making ammo for the Archer job.  You start to see the problem when the level 3 arrow needs level 21~ish Carpentry to make the actual arrow shafts.  However some careful perusing of the synth list revealed that Fang Arrows were withing reach.

Fang Arrows

I was at Rank 14 Carpentry.  The hardest synth should be the making of the arrowwood shafts.  Humm...  Let's take a closer look.  Hempen Thread - got in inventory, check.  Animal Glue - also in inventory, check.  Dodo Fletching - made from Dodo Feathers (level 15 synth) and Dodos are plentiful in the La Noscea region.  Arrowwood Shafts - although I've gotten plenty of Arrowwood Branches in the past in the La Noscea region, they are also available from an NPC vendor in Gridania.  And I'm going to want master support for the synth.  So, may cost me a bit, but it will be do-able.  Fang Arrowheads... These come from bat fangs...  Well I've vendor-ed some in the past but this will probably be the sticky part...

Thus at the end of Saturday evening I start the epic quest to get... 4 bat fangs...

I head out near camp Emerald Moss.  Find a cave with some moles.  I know that alternate pops for the moles in this cavern are Cave Bats.  With the occasional Spriggan thrown in.  And I start killing.  For most of my play time Sunday, I kill, and I kill, and I kill, and I pass the 2000 mob mark, and I kill some more.  I started the session off with Pugilist.  It dings and the Bone Hora wear out (reached 50% of durability).  I switch to Lancer.  It dings and wears out.  Thaumaturge.  Same.  Finally about half way thru Conjurer the 4th bat fang drops...  To put this in perspective I ended up with 34 plain Formic Acids (you don't want to think about the thrown +1's and +2's.  Remember the bats were only an occasional pop and even then they didn't always drop the fangs...  Great way to level my other combat jobs though.

When I finally got the 4 fangs, I was lucky and HQ'ed the result.  So I ended up with 16 Fang Arrowheads.  Woot.  Then it was off to Gridania sell off most of my drops and to buy and process the Arrowwood Branches.  2/3 successes so vendor the over supply and keep 16 shafts.  I kept some stacks of drops for various linkshell members that were going to use the goods (namely someone wanted the two full stacks of Formic Acid and someone else wanted the full stack of Limonite.  Then it was off to Limsa for the last element in the recipe - Dodo Feathers.

After some equipment repair work, I notice that Faeye, the destination for the Limonite, was in Limsa working on some Blacksmithing.  So off to the blacksmith I go (to drop off the Limonite and get a slot back).  When I get there Faeye had a new eye-patch.  Funky:

Faeye's new eye-patch

After that it was off to the road up to the Skull Valley area to go kill Dodos.  It took a bit of time, but no were as long as for the bat fangs to get 6 dodo feathers.  Some quick crafting and I had enough Dodo Fetching to go around.

The final synth was very nice actually.  Only used 2 shards (one earth, one wind) and I got about 175 Carpenter exp per synth at level 14.  No failures so I figure it was a level 12 or so synth (the exp rate would bear that out).  If I can find a better, steady supply of bat fangs, I may ride this synth for a few more levels.  It'll be cheaper than processing logs which uses ungodly amounts of wind shards.  In the end I ended up with 512 Fang Arrows

Look! Fang Arrows!

And so I become the first crafter in my LS to make a supply of arrows.  All that killing, the local leves and the crafting did good things to my overall ranks over the weekend though.  And I still have some dodo skins to process.

Physical: 35, Hand to hand: 10, Sword: 16, Axe: 10, Archery: 7, Polearm: 11: , Shield: 9, Thaumaturgy: 11, Conjury: 12, Woodworking: 14, Smithing: 14, Armorcraft: 14, Goldsmithing: 14, Leatherworking: 15, Clothcraft: 16, Alchemy: 17, Cooking 14, Mining: 15, Botany14: , Fishing: 14.

Discipline of the Land

Got some progress on Mining and Botany while I was trying to get some hummus (necessary to upgrade my Maple Wand to a Budding Maple Wand).  I also got some Goldsmithing done.

Not much else to report.

Physical: 34, Hand to hand: 9, Sword: 15, Axe: 10, Archery: 7, Polearm10: , Shield: 8, Thaumaturgy: 11, Conjury: 11, Woodworking: 13, Smithing: 13, Armorcraft: 13, Goldsmithing: 14, Leatherworking: 14, Clothcraft: 16, Alchemy: 16, Cooking 14, Mining: 15, Botany14: , Fishing: 14.

Stready Progress

Last night was a night for steady progress.  It started off with some local guildleves which allowed me to ding Weaver 16 and Tanner 14.  This was followed by working on the Conjurer job and getting it to 11.  Nothing particularly tricky or difficult.

Here are some pics from the exploration session I didn't post of yesterday:

Northern Thanalan

Mor Dhona

Oh and yea, can't wait until we see some of the more advanced magitech introduced into the game.  We're still at a low level so we don't see much but we know there will be guns and what not introduced.  We'll have to wait and see.

Physical: 33, Hand to hand: 9, Sword: 15, Axe: 10, Archery: 7, Polearm10: , Shield: 8, Thaumaturgy: 11, Conjury: 11, Woodworking: 13, Smithing: 13, Armorcraft: 13, Goldsmithing: 13, Leatherworking: 14, Clothcraft: 16, Alchemy: 16, Cooking 13, Mining: 14, Botany: 13, Fishing: 14.

Exploring

I started the night killing stuff around camp Skull Valley.  In this case I was concentrating on getting my main combat job (Gladiator) to advance and catch up to my alchemy.  I did not catch up yet (that will take a bit more killing).  But I did get it and the Sentinel job up another level.  Then to take a break from all the leveling it was time to go exploring.

Many wondrous sights and a few deaths later, I had a string of aetherial gates and camps added to my list of teleport objectives.  May I add that Evil Eyes smart when you're rank 15.  Ouch...

Once in town I proceeded to dispose of all my ill gotten gains and craft some of the craftables out of it.  This allowed me to get some Growth Formula Beta.  I should be able to upgrade my conjurer's wand when my conjurer job hits 12.  I'm still rather low for dodo skin on the leather trade side.  I think a push for leather crafting to 15-ish is called for at this point.

The end of the evening saw me in Ul'dah with the following stats:

Physical: 33, Hand to hand: 9, Sword: 15, Axe: 10, Archery: 7, Polearm10: , Shield: 8, Thaumaturgy: 11, Conjury: 10, Woodworking: 13, Smithing: 13, Armorcraft: 13, Goldsmithing: 13, Leatherworking: 13, Clothcraft: 15, Alchemy: 16, Cooking 13, Mining: 14, Botany: 13, Fishing: 14.

Bit of progress

I was not on for long last night.  I did manage to get some things accomplished though.  The 2 slots of dark bass occupying my retainer have been delt with.  Interesting side note:  Fish glue, if you would take the Dark Bass, Sea Cucumber, and shards, and see what they would vendor for.  Then add in the cost of buying some Muddy Water, the base cost per Fish Glue works out to 67gil per fish glue.  Fish glue vendors for 163gil (so it's worth making and then vendoring the results if you were going to vendor the fish anyways).  Also never sell Fish Glue for less than 200gil per.  If you're about to, simply vendor the glue.  My fishing is now level 14.  I now have a Harpoon.  The effect of this is to reduce my un-replaced equipment down to only the Weathered Axe.  Then of course I proceeded to work on my Lancer rank.  I got it up one notch to 10 before I quit for the night.

Since I'm low on shards, it was more a case of finding a good camp and upping the slaughter rate against stuff that's mostly green or yellow.  The area between Skull Valley and Aleport was a little too busy for my tastes (although the Puks and Sheep are tasty).  So I switched to Jellyfish just south of Aleport but up on the bluffs.  Nice little camp there.  I should note there is another Jellyfish camp out north west of this spot as well that would have been about the right level as well.  Because the Jellyfish family is water, I was still getting wind and I must admit that with alchemy (and dyes) I need water in quantity as well.

Physical: 33, Hand to hand: 9, Sword: 14, Axe: 10, Archery: 7, Polearm10: , Shield: 7, Thaumaturgy: 11, Conjury: 10, Woodworking: 13, Smithing: 13, Armorcraft: 13, Goldsmithing: 13, Leatherworking: 13, Clothcraft: 15, Alchemy: 16, Cooking 13, Mining: 14, Botany: 13, Fishing: 14.

End of the weekend

The end of the weekend brought my character some progress.  I'm slowly re-filling my shard bank and I've managed to level some jobs and even get some others close to leveling.  Here is where we stand at the end of the weekend:

Physical: 33, Hand to hand: 9, Sword: 14, Axe: 10, Archery: 7, Polearm: 9, Shield: 7, Thaumaturgy: 11, Conjury: 10, Woodworking: 13, Smithing: 13, Armorcraft: 13, Goldsmithing: 13, Leatherworking: 13, Clothcraft: 15, Alchemy: 16, Cooking 13, Mining: 14, Botany: 13, Fishing: 13.

Bringing up the rear

This weekend has been a weekend of getting the laggards of the floor.  The first laggard I address is on the crafting side.  Through the use of targeted local leves and some work on gathering, I have managed to get all my crafts up to at least level 13.  Since I'm now suffering from a critically short supply of crystals and shards, it behooves me to concentrate on some of my lagging combat skills.

I managed, by plowing through many squids to get to level 11 before repair needs drove me back to a repair dude.  I intend to get all combat skills at least to 10 (preferably 13) before I get back to personal crafting.  I've also decided to pick up the three missing upgraded main hand tools/weapons from other crafters.

Not having a lot of luck with that...  Basically what's happened is that the "first wave" crafters have barreled ahead and gone for level 20 and 30 goods, so there's currently very few level 10-ish goods on the "market".  Note to self: when extra retainers are available - make sure lower level goods are on the market - they should be plenty profitable and based on the lack of "coverage" make good gil.

Also Arbitrage would be good.

More Fish Glue and Beige Hemp Dye

I started the night last night with a run to the Thanalan area.  I decided that since my fishing was lagging my other gathering professions, that some fishing of Dark Bass would be a good way to get it higher.  Dark bass being the main ingredient in Fish Glue.  Which is used in an enormous amount of weapon and tool recipes.

So at the end of the session I find myself in Ul'dah at the alchemists guild, crafting away after selling the bye-catch. Although I was trying to work on my fishing and botany, this will result in my alchemist skill climbing nicely.

Physical: 32, Hand to hand: 9, Sword: 14, Axe: 10, Archery: 7, Polearm: 9, Shield: 7, Thaumaturgy: 8, Conjury: 10, Woodworking: 12, Smithing: 12, Armorcraft: 13, Goldsmithing: 12, Leatherworking: 13, Clothcraft: 15, Alchemy: 16, Cooking 13, Mining: 13, Botany: 13, Fishing: 12.

Rubber!

I start out the night harvesting in the skull valley area.  All goes well until I decide to see if I can hunt down another quarrying spot other than the one in the cave just to the south west of the camp.  I eventually wander a little too far and a Flytrap zaps me in one shot.

Once in town I proceed to the selling and processing of the inventory.  By some miracle I managed to HQ the yellow copper ore synth and get myself some brimstone.  This allows me to divest myself of my latex by way of making some rubber.  You will note that I try not to keep raw materials on hand unless they have a lot of secondary materials that are derived from them.  The reason for this is pretty simple.  One raw materials often only stack to 12 and the processed materials usually stack higher.  The other reason is that it means less processing when it comes time to make finished products.  The tricky part is deciding what items to keep on hand with the limited inventory space we're currently working with.

This of course should solve itself with the November update.  Which can't come fast enough for me.  I also had some Blue Quartz and some Raw Lapis Lazuli.  So I was able to make some Copper Circlets (Lapis Lazuli) and some Sheepskin Workboots for my gathering set.  I now have a full blown gathering set incidentally.  I also did some crafting of bronze nuggets (trying to get rid of the left over tin).  Crafting that however I ran out of Fire Crystals.  So I decided to go to the Tradescraft Ward and see if I could get some fire crystals.  No really good deals were found.  Man will I be glad when the search feature will be implemented.  I got lucky and also spotted a Black Oyster thingy which allowed me to make my Bone Hora. 

This means there are only 3 jobs left where I have not yet replaced the Weathered version with an upgraded one.  The Axe for Marauder, the Spear for Lancer and the Fishing Pole for Fisherman.  The pole needs iron wire.  The various Marauder axes need buffalo leather straps of various hues.  It looks like I should be able to make the harpoon though since my Goldsmithing is within striking distance of the synth needed.  I just need a soiled femur or two.

Gathering Gear

Here's a picture of me with all my gathering gear.  The head, body, hands, legs and feet pieces all have gathering stat boosts.  The shirt and hat are fishing specific (they'll still help out with other gathering professions, just not as well).  The pants, boots and gloves all support all 3 gathering professions.

Gah, I still need to remember to do the local leves.

Physical: 31, Hand to hand: 9, Sword: 14, Axe: 10, Archery: 7, Polearm: 9, Shield: 7, Thaumaturgy: 8, Conjury: 10, Woodworking: 12, Smithing: 12, Armorcraft: 13, Goldsmithing: 12, Leatherworking: 13, Clothcraft: 15, Alchemy: 16, Cooking 13, Mining: 13, Botany: 13, Fishing: 11.

Once again I burn thru my shards

I must learn to control my personal crafting.  I got some wood working done last night.  Managed to get it up one rank.  Then, after trading an iron ingot and a fine sand for some iron nails, I had all the materials for making the level 7 and 12 saws.  Which I proceeded to do.  2 Chocobotail Saws later and One was put up on the Bazaar for 45k and the other was use to replace the Weathered Saw I still had.

So the "quest" to replace my saw represented most of my play time last night (4 separate jobs used to make one item).  Unfortunately doing so ran my personal reserve of crystals (especially wind) into the ground.  I was down to 2 wind crystals...  I also discovered that even with master support, 13 Leathercrafting is not really high enough for working with Dodo Skins.  Ah well.

And of course I do this right after all the leves reset...

Ah well I will just have to do all 8 local leves tonight.

I also managed to make 3 Lauan Pattens.  One for myself (yay crafting stats on the feet) and two for sale.  So I've decided that the next few days (local leves aside) will be dedicated to farming crystals and working on my harvesting skills.  Initially I'll be in the grade 2 La Noscea area.  We'll see how it goes from there.

In other good news I noticed in the directors address to the players that the November update will be the one that allows us to get more retainers (drool, slobber, slobber).  I might actually be able to store quantities of raw and processed materials more than the bare minimum...  The sort function is also apparently coming in that update...  Oh bliss, Oh joy...

So in the meanwhile we will continue to enjoy an extra month of free access (it's like an extended beta).  My personal opinion is that it's nice but not totally necessary, but then again, I expect an unfinished product with a staged release over the first year out of MMOs.  Anyone thinking differently is highly delusional.  It's the nature of the beast.  The thing that IS important is that "the hook" needs to be there from day one.  EVE has it.  WoW has it.  I think FFXIV has it (for me at least).  In my case it's the evolution of the crafting from being a supporting player to being a major part of the game.

I think that the panel in the most recent GDC that was filled with the producers of MMOs that are over 5 years old was full of good advice for MMO manufacturers.  The pertinent point is that the company needs to plan for up to 1 year after release and a game has up to that point in time to "find it's audience".  The usual exception to the rule is EVE of course.  Personally I think this is because on so many levels EVE was ahead of the curve.  Seriously way out ahead of the curve.  It's audience is still growing up as the current generation of MMO player age, and it continues to evolve.  WoW is starting to imitate its longevity techniques with the upcoming Cataclysm release.  We have until next September to see where FFXIV settles on the spectrum.  The problem I had with getting back into FFXI was the restrictions of inventory and the necessity of configuring all those macroes and the changes in subjobs indicating a need to level up another job.  Sure it's all gotten faster, but still it represented more work than I wanted to get into.  I won't be going back to FFXI now that I have FFXIV.

Physical: 31, Hand to hand: 9, Sword: 14, Axe: 10, Archery: 7, Polearm: 9, Shield: 7, Thaumaturgy: 8, Conjury: 10, Woodworking: 12, Smithing: 12, Armorcraft: 13, Goldsmithing: 12, Leatherworking: 13, Clothcraft: 15, Alchemy: 15, Cooking 13, Mining: 12, Botany: 13, Fishing: 11.

More Progress and an EXP party.

I finally finished off all the Malm Kelp.  Got me to 3/4 of the way from 15 to 16.  Very nice, I'll have to go back to that one once I finish getting other crafts up to 15.  I have noticed that various crafts have a sort of a plateau at around 15-ish where more cross craft dependencies are located.  For example Antelope sinew cord is doable with master support at level 12, but would be more comfortable at 15.

So I made a decision to get all my crafts and gathering up to 15 before intentionally moving specific crafts higher.  As a break from all the crafting, some members of the LS got together to do a classic EXP party.  We were mostly in the 13-15 range.  With myself as tank.  We initially tried near camp Tranquility (Black Shroud).  Killing crabs and monkeys...  This was sub-optimal.  We eventually got good with the crabs but the re-spawn rate was not good and the monkeys were not great.

So we went to the Emerald Moss camp.  Tried the Cellars.  Not so good, squirrel killed but I ended up in the dirt.  And there was only one even strength squirrel of the bunch.  Then we went upstairs in the grade 2 harvesting area killing anglers... Ah, revenge was sweet, but the problem was the anglers were too far between each other.  Then we went to Coerthas.  Does and Squirrels oh my.  Much better camp.  Plenty of mobs so re-spawn was not an issue.  Still the occasional problem with the tank and the healer getting erased from existence but not as bad as the other camps.  I dinged 14 Gladiator and 7 Sentinel in this party.

As you can see, we're still collectively trying to find that "comfort zone" where you can kill a lot, get good exp and not die a lot.  Part of this is equipment.  The server as a whole is still not equipment rich.  Part of this is experience.  We're still all learning where the proper level mobs are for a given party composition.  Exploration is fun!


I also discovered ffxivorigin's sig generator.



Nice but it doesn't list everything.

 Physical: 31, Hand to hand: 9, Sword: 14, Axe: 10, Archery: 7, Polearm: 9, Shield: 7, Thaumaturgy: 8, Conjury: 10, Woodworking: 11, Smithing: 12, Armorcraft: 13, Goldsmithing: 12, Leatherworking13: , Clothcraft: 15, Alchemy: 15, Cooking 13, Mining: 12, Botany: 13, Fishing: 11.

16 Stacks of Malm Kelp

At the end of all that fishing.  I had over 16 stalks of Malm Kelp.  This got reduced down to 16 stacks (a nice round number) by the simple expedient of selling off the non-dozen stacks.

About half the stacks got done (bringing my Alchemy to 14 and my Cooking to 12).  Then I took a break to do other things like local guildleves and helping out some LS members with some cloth crafting.  We combined up to make some new low level Pugilist clothes for Khalie.  Then we went and did some regional guildleves.  It was interesting the difference Physical level makes.  While we were about the same job level, I was Physical level 29 and she was Physical level 9.  And although we were about the same level of Pugilist (7 and 8 respectively) I had about 300 more hit points.

The crafting leves also allowed me to hit Weaver 15.  This also unlocked the next quest in the main Limsa Lominsa story line.  I proceeded to do it.  40k gil and Parley unlocked (I'll have to try it at some point).  There was also much crafting of tools.  My combined levels allowed me to make the rank 12 armorer's tool as well as the rank 12 alchemists tool.

All in all it was a good first day of the weekend.

Physical: 30, Hand to hand: 9, Sword: 13, Axe: 10, Archery: 7, Polearm: 9, Shield: 6, Thaumaturgy: 8, Conjury: 10, Woodworking: 11, Smithing: 12, Armorcraft: 12, Goldsmithing: 11, Leatherworking: 12, Clothcraft: 15, Alchemy: 14, Cooking 13, Mining: 12, Botany: 13, Fishing: 11.

Malm Kelp

When I logged in I was in a rather out of the way place.  So I decided that working on some lower level combat jobs followed by some targeted fishing was the way to go.  So I switched to my Archer class and headed off to the sheep camp.  One more level was attained before I ran out of arrows.  Then it was Lancer for a while.  Got that up to 9.

While ranking up the Lancer, an LS member that I wanted to trade some stuff with indicated that he was currently in Limsa.  I proceeded to head on over there so we could trade stuff.  Then I vendored the trash while keeping some of the loot for immediate processing.  Said processing took about an hour.  Didn't ding any crafting jobs but I did get some good progress towards 15 weaver.  I almost have 3 full stacks of cotton thread ready for when I get in range of the cotton thread->cotton cloth synth.

Once that was done and my gear was repaired it was off to the cliffs of La Noscea.  Here is the idea.  When one fishes with Chocobo Fly lures, one gets just about only Malm Kelp.  Then using cooking one can turn half the Kelp into sea sand.  Once that is accomplished one can use alchemy to make Table Salt.  Apparently one can ride this synth right up until one dings about 20 Alchemist.

So it was off to fish.  I managed to get my Fishing skill from 10 to 11 while fishing up 7 full stacks of normal Malm Kelp.  I still have place in the inventory so I'll probably continue fishing when I get back.  While I'm logged of course we'll have the update.  Indeed this update IS the one with the market ward changes.  Still no extra retainers.  Still no sort.  Still no search.  I do not think this will be as successful as they wish.  On the good side though it should spread people out a bit instead of making them all sit in the first ward like sardines.

I also discovered how to get rid of the interface in order to take full screen pictures.  Since my keyboard does not have a scroll lock key, it's kind of awkward but oh well.

Reeling in the Malm Kelp

Physical: 28, Hand to hand: 8, Sword: 13, Axe: 10, Archery: 7, Polearm: 9, Shield: 6, Thaumaturgy: 8, Conjury: 10, Woodworking: 10, Smithing: 12, Armorcraft: 12, Goldsmithing: 11, Leatherworking: 12, Clothcraft:14, Alchemy: 13, Cooking 11, Mining: 12, Botany: 13, Fishing: 11.

Armorer and Weaver push

Local Guildleve time again.  Instead of wasting my own crystals on junk synths, I decided to run all 8 leves in 2 crafts.  I managed to get Armorer to 12 and half way to 13.  Weaver got from barely 14 to over half way to 15 so that is progress.  Obviously now that things are above 10 they are slowing down.  As far as the crafts go here is a list of what tools I have by job:

Hand to hand: 1
Sword: 9
Axe: 1
Archery: 6 with 1 ammo
Polearm: 1
Shield: 5
Thaumaturgy: 6
Conjury: 7
Woodworking: 1
Smithing: 12
Armorcraft: 7
Goldsmithing: 7
Leatherworking: 7
Clothcraft: 7
Alchemy: 7
Cooking 7
Mining: 12
Botany: 7
Fishing: 1.

So my slow replacement of equipment is getting things up there.  Most of the left over items need to get to rank 15/20 to be able to make the materials.  As soon as I get various crafts up there I'll resume replacing my equipment.

As for the lack of inventory space.  Here's hoping that on the 22 (or thereabouts) when the "trial" period ends, I'll be able to get some more retainers.  I seriously would like to keep more items.  Here's also hoping some form of inventory sort feature gets implemented...

The end of the evening saw me as follows:

Physical: 28, Hand to hand: 8, Sword: 13, Axe: 8, Archery: 6, Polearm: 8, Shield: 6, Thaumaturgy: 8, Conjury: 10, Woodworking: 10, Smithing: 12, Armorcraft: 12, Goldsmithing: 11, Leatherworking: 12, Clothcraft:14, Alchemy: 13, Cooking 11, Mining: 12, Botany: 13, Fishing: 10.

Slight Progress

Didn't have much time last night.  Processed some leftover loot and a pile of Bone Chips (goldsmithing).  Finished off making some more Midnight-Black Dodo Leather Dye.  I did manage to get some level 10 guildleves done with a linkshell member.  This on a trip to Gridania and some Funguar killing allowed me to make a small reserve of Growth Formula Alpha (needed to repair the level 7 conjurer's wand).  Gladiator also saw some progress towards level 14.

The two main things I was able to rank up were getting Blacksmith to 12 and getting Alchemist to 13.  In so doing I was able to create a pair of Bronze Hatches.  One for use (replaces the weathered one) and one for sale.

As you can see I'm still in the process of upgrading what tools and weapons I can.  Fishing will remain un-upgraded until my armorcrafting hits the 20's (curse you Iron Wire), but at least the other two gathering professions now have rank 7 and 12 tools respectively.

I plan to continue to upgrade my tools over the next few days.  As well as run leves - both regional and local.

Physical: 28, Hand to hand: 8, Sword: 13, Axe: 8, Archery: 6, Polearm: 8, Shield: 6, Thaumaturgy: 8, Conjury: 10, Woodworking: 10, Smithing: 12, Armorcraft: 11, Goldsmithing: 11, Leatherworking: 12, Clothcraft:14, Alchemy: 13, Cooking 11, Mining: 12, Botany: 13, Fishing: 10.

Clothes Horse

It was a long weekend for me.  As you can see by the distance from the last post.  There were 3 fronts of progress I needed to address as the weekend started.  First I needed to rectify the severe shortage of shards and crystals I was suffering from.  Specifically water, wind and lightning to a lesser degree.  Then there was the ongoing equipment upgrade as I can manage (i.e. I have the skills) and afford (for the ones I buy outright from other crafters).

All in all it was a good weekend.  Between the local guildleves and the crafting of various pieces I managed to get various crafts to ding up.  Then there was the re-examining of the sheep camp.  Indeed I had left enough time pass and it was once again decent.  That alone managed to get my Marauder and Conjurer classes to 10.  Not to mention fixed my shard shortage quite nicely (along with some air squids for the water).  This allowed me amongst other things to craft up an over supply of beige hemp dye.  The over supply of beige dye was due to fishing up some bass which allowed me to also make some fish glue.  So that brought my personal reserve of beige hemp dye to 99 and I had 55 left over for sale.  Those went over the weekend (ka-ching).  As you will see, I was able to make myself a Hempen Robe (Grey).  Making that brought my personal reserve of lead-grey rather uncomfortably low so while I was doing some regional guildleves out at Skull Valley, I picked myself up some lead-grey dyer's moss "en passant".

So various things I made/acquired include:  Bronze Head Knife (Rank 7 Leathercrafting main tool), Copper Alembic (Rank 7 Alchemy main tool), Birdsbeak Hammer (Rank 12 Blacksmithing main tool) purchased from a linkshell crafter, Bronze Pickaxe (Rank 7 Mining main tool) which I made, then immediately upgraded to a Plumed Bronze Pickaxe (Rank 12 Mining main tool) thanks to the donation of an iron buckle from another linkshell mate (cotton cloth was npc purchased), A Maple Wand (Rank 7 Conjurer one handed main tool), and a Copper Scepter (Rank 7 Thaumaturge one handed main tool)  were also in the list of things crafted.

On the clothes side of things, the aforementioned robe, some Sheepskin Culottes and some Hempen Trousers were made.  Both of the later were way over level for my current job levels but since they still managed to up my stats I'll be wearing them bearing in mind their bonuses (i.e. they are better than what I've got and I'll grow into them nicely).  I also discovered that Rank 12 Miner gets 7 cracks at a Grade 1 site.

As a break from all the sheep slaughter (I passed 1000 killed mobs) and local leves (passed 50), I also progressed the main quest sequence to the point where I need a level 15 job to continue.  At the end of the weekend I end up with basically 3 sets of clothes.  One combat (heavy on the defense), one gatherer and one crafting.

Fighter wear

Here we see my fighter wear.  Heavy on the defense, not much for crafting/gathering stats.

Gathering wear

Then there's my gathering wear.  Plenty of boosts to gathering output and perception.

Crafting wear

Finally there is my crafting togs.  Plenty of stats to help the crafter not blow things up.

Physical: 28, Hand to hand: 8, Sword: 13, Axe: 8, Archery: 6, Polearm: 8, Shield: 6, Thaumaturgy: 8, Conjury: 10, Woodworking: 10, Smithing:11 , Armorcraft: 11, Goldsmithing: 11, Leatherworking: 12, Clothcraft:14, Alchemy: 12, Cooking 11, Mining: 12, Botany: 13, Fishing: 10.