Various Thoughts

First off, let me just get it out of the way that I do not ever recommend anyone creating more than five characters tops. Honestly, since the Data Center travel function got implemented there’s not really much reason to go higher than four (one for each location cluster). So then why did I create eight? Boredom. Completionism. OCD. Take your pick.

The first of the ‘tertiary’ characters (who will stop advancing the main quest just after unlocking Purple Crafting scripts) was created on the Oceanian DC cluster primarily because I wanted to see just how poor a ‘poor’ server connection was. As it so happens it’s not all that bad at all. I wouldn’t want to play Samurai or bleeding-edge savage raids on it, but generally it’s only really noticeable in how little time you have to react to telegraphed AoE attacks.

Aside from that the only things to be aware of are that Alliance Raid roulette is pretty dead most of the time (good luck getting anything other than Crystal Tower to fire), Shadowbringers 8-man raids take quite some time to fire, Frontlines only has a brief 1-hour window starting from about 2:30pm AWST time, and activity in general falls off a cliff around 8pm.

The next was created in response to the addition of a fourth North American data center. Nothing much to say about this besides that the population seems to be too low to support frequent Alliance raids (or Frontlines at all). That’s not much of an issue though since you can quickly jump to one of the other three to do those.

Finally we come to my first Japanese DC character (and eighth overall). I chose Elemental as the starting point since it was formally the ‘English-friendly’ one pre-Oceanian cluster… and that may have been a mistake. I was hoping for something a bit different in atmosphere or playstyle but there really isn’t much.

The only things that stick out at this point are:

1. You’ll occasionally get Frontlines ‘leaders’ who spam multiple sound effects every second
2. No one uses Alliance chat in Alliance roulette
3. Most people greet and sign-off with auto-translate phrases
4. I have yet to come across people having a public conversation in a city center
5. Tanks in 4-man roulettes seem more conservative with their pulls

Potential future characters (once I get that eighth one up to the start of Endwalker):

• Normal Elf: White Mage (gnb/drg/bard/???)
• Hroth 1: Paladin (blm, mnk, mch, ast)
• Hroth 2: Black Mage (rpr, drk, sage, dnc)
• Black Lizard: Bard (arc, drk, rpr)
• Sun Cat: Samurai (arc, drk, dnc)
• Tan Viera: Sage (pal, mnk, dnc, rdm)

The Island Sanctuary is Endwalker‘s version of the game’s ‘expansion-specific restoration project’. Sort of a more personalized version of the Firmament.

For the most part this area is pretty straight-forward, but there are a few things it will help to know about in advance:

– Everything can be built at Sanctuary level 9 (level 10 unlocks flying).
– Pasture and cropland both max out at level 3 with 20 slots. Workshops and granaries also max out at level 3.
– Each material has a ‘best’ place to farm it from. Logs/Clay along the river to the east and Limestone/Vines along the river to the north, for example.
– Logs are in highest demand for building materials (upgrading everything will require ~200-300).
– You’ll ultimately need 9 Garnets, 6 Spruce Logs, and 3 Silver Ore. All of which can only be acquired from specific daily expeditions.
– There doesn’t seem to be a huge difference between the various animals you can capture.
– Automating your pasture/cropland maintenance will not give you gathering XP.

It’s an interesting idea, and fairly well executed… but I do wish there were more personalization options available. You don’t really have much choice with which buildings to construct, and the only visual changes you can make are to downgrade to an earlier tier.