Final Fantasy XIV

Just MSQ content, 5.3 to 5.55 will probably be about 10-12 hours.
Eden and Nier raids should come through fast enough on roulette.

If you wanted to catch up on Bozja for a Resistance Weapon, that might take a bit more investment, but could still be feasible.

Same here. I had it levelled to 80 a long time ago (helped massively by ocean fishing) and my other gatherers still aren't there. I love finding a quiet little spot and seeing what bites.

It's definitely been made easier to level, however, by being stupidly overlevelled for the earlier class quests, though.

How's your progress going mate?

I remember the uhh, 'hat' vividly hahaha. But I actually preferred the summoner hat over the weird piratey red mage hat I got right afterwards.

Once you hit the L50 MSQs it's a few rough days to complete them haha. I havent had much time to play since I finished ARR but I had a couple of hours today so I started mining. It's so addictive, it's made me look forward to botany as well.

I get them sometimes, it drives me mad! I have started to go back to playing on PlayStation to avoid it. A few people have said to play in windowed mode and ensure your drivers are up to date, but nothing seems to work for ms.

Yeah, it seems to be a random issue with folk. I thought it might be a graphics card or disk issue but even new, beefier systems than my own get hobbled.

I have installed on 2 different drives including my main drive as I have heard that is better but still no luck. I am tempted getting the PS5 version just to be able to play it and also on offer at the moment but worried I would hog the TV from the missus, haha.

It's proper crossplay, so everything is the same on both versions

Only caveat is that you need to purchase the clients separately - your account gives you the ability to log in on any platform, but if that platform doesn't have all the content available...

I imagine if you're still in free trial land, that's no issue. Should just be able to grab the base client that goes all the way to patch 3.55 from the Lodestone.

Rolled credits on ARR, and am now working my way through the subsequent patch quests. Of all the pop culture references to be found in FFXIV quest titles, "You Have Selected Regicide" is my favourite so far. Bravo to whoever came up with that. Been dabbling in Blue and Red Mage jobs, and am finding the latter pretty cool, though quite punishing when you mess it up. Also been soloing some dungeons with my squadron team, and finding it nice to take my time a bit and explore rather than legging it at full pelt to keep up with folks who just want to finish as quickly as possible.

Tbh I find all the patch quests drag a bit, but if you think about it, they were meant to span the void between expansions so it kind of makes sense.

Nearly at the end of drag-onsong, there is no chance I'll be ready for Shadowbringers by November.

Just completed my first raid. After deciding not to bother with raids at all, I accidently stumbled into one by doing the Crystal Tower series of quests post-ARR (I mistakenly thought this was leading to the second deep dungeon but apparently that comes later). So I watched a quick tutorial video and jumped in. Seems that many of the mechanics can now be ignored due to most people being over-geared, which was a relief for me as I fucked up and died several times. At least the whole thing was fairly quick and I was able to be carried through. Might do a few more of these low level ones in that case.

Ah ok. Shall forge onwards then, just as soon as I've finished trying Bard out.

If they are "Faded copies of..." then are crafting ingredients for songs you can play on the housing / inn room Orchestrion (jukebox, basically). Otherwise, they are the full version, and can be used to add to your Orchestrion list (default is CTRL+O, I think). Or you can sell them, but honestly, most aren't worth a lot. Some from later or more niche content can be worth a fair bit, but they are rare.

Crystal Tower raids done and I've almost reached Heavensward, have just fought Shiva. Can see the quality of the writing and voice acting improving already. I recognised Ser Aymeric's voice actor - he also played Hawkwood the Deserter in Dark Souls 3. Very glad to hear they replace Minfilia's voice actor, she's utterly abysmal. Am now maining a Bard and enjoying the mix of DoTs, long range attacks that you can execute on the move, and team buffs. Might actually stick with this job for a bit. Though definitely gonna give Machinist a try too.