To An Indecisive Individual

Hello fellow forum posters.
Awhile back I had "quit" from FFXI; foolishly giving away all non-rare/ex gear and gil I had in possession, said my farewells and made my final log out in a cool zone.

However, 8 months later I came crawling back like many do. I rediscovered that I still enjoyed the game, and had much I wished to do before truly pulling the plug.

Anyways, upon logging in and examining my stripped main character, I couldn't help but feel as though this character was no longer mine. It was almost as if I had bought this account, even though it truly was my own. After dinking around, farming and getting myself back on my feet with halfway decent gear and some workable amounts of gil in my wallet, I can't help the feeling as if I am watching a movie i've never seen before from the middle. I don't know how I got to where I was nor the joy from which the progress granted; and it is bugging the ***out of me.

As foolish as it sounds, I want a truly fresh start. Remake my original character and work from the ground up to help recreate that bond I had formerly lost. I realize it is obviously foolish and a very bad idea, but something in the back of my head makes it feel right, for reasons I cannot fully grasp or explain logically other than how I feel.

I know many of you will agree that it is foolish, and simply remaking my character will not give back that "newbie" feeling or any other sense of fulfillment I seek so desperately. However, my question to you is:

What helps spark the familiarity within your original character? How do I make myself feel at home again in a place that is home, but feels foreign? I rather not have to slaughter all the work I made for the past 7 years and literally start all over and lose some irrepalcable items. But frankly, I will do what it takes to feel connected to what I enjoy the most, even if it means starting back at square one.

Anyways, discuss, share your thoughts, ideas or criticism. Just please show some respect and keep in mind that XIV is a completely different game and has absolutely zero influence on my desire of what to do.

My apologies, I totally forgot to link the actual character this pertains to lol.

Here~

it's a tough question with only that to go on

what MOTIVATED you to play

i know what motivates me to play sev, and it's enough to keep me attached to him

a long while back i bought a top-tier account that i thought i would play instead of sev, but i found i couldn't bring myself to abandon him, and my other account was relegated to PL/TH ***

i know that the work i put into sev, the friendly gear arms race with my rl freinds, and the time i've spent with sevourn in the middle of my screen have all contributed to my attachment to him. i love leading parses even with mediocre gear, used well. i want to see how much i can pull ahead with even better gear. i love getting around the restrictions SE wanted to place on me. probably my number one motivating factor is my ambition to surpass the players who introduced me to the game

that's not what motivates you though. what motivated you to stick with the game originally? can you recreate those motivations in your characters current state? those are really the only questions you really need to ask yourself, i would think

It's very difficult to explain, but from what I can gather up in my head is, it was the matter of progress that made me feel bonded to my character.

Just the other day I zoned into some area and got a cutscene for some really long chain quest I never quite completed, and it kinda depressed me that I basically walked in on something that could have been great, but I only got like 33% of so to speak you know?

Yeah I could just jump around to the goblin footprints and rewatch the cutscenes in order, but that just undermines the entire flow of play I used to have.

In my mind it seems logical to start over and reobtain that sense of progress and as a result bond with my primary character. I just wish there was a way to reobtain that feeling of progress without feeling like there's a giant hole of unfinished business that cannot be fulfilled you know?

I went through this myself. My old LS was basically disintegrating and I wasn't having fun anymore, so I quit. I came back after nine months off to find a totally different LS with my old leader not trusting anyone anymore. I left and went to a different LS, only to stick out like a sore thumb. I found endgame to have transformed into a hostile and unforgiving place where everybody was hostile toward each other even within the same LS. I spent a year in the new LS and never found a comfortable place.

I have since quit again, and I have to fight it almost every day to keep from coming back again. So far, it has been fourteen months, and counting. I know, it sounds like an AA meeting ("My name is Temeraire, and I am a FFholic"). Were it not for FFXIV being right around the corner, I probably would have come back months ago. I am genuinely welcoming the chance to start again in a new game, and it can't get here fast enough for me.

I guess the answer I am trying to give you is that you can't go back. You probably wouldn't be able to go back even if you had kept all of your old gear. You can only really go forward. I wish you luck, sir.

In b4 the trolling.

incidentally, i wouldn't play this game if my friends didn't play it.

looked at from a neutral standpoint, it's a horrible game at this point. i'm killing 3200-something mobs to get a slightly better sword for my paladin. when the next update comes out, i'll have to kill even more. this game has approximately the same fun factor as the assembly line i work on.

i play because my friends play and they're too far away to hang out with in RL, so the game comes close

if you don't have friends waiting for you, i can't see why anyone would want to come back. for gods sake i can't imagine playing the game for the sake of the actual gameplay

adopt a noob. on a semidaily basis, there are new players wandering the dunes or shouting in the starting towns or jeuno.

find one and mentor him. get him wg access, sky, his AF, do COP now that it can be mostly soloed/duoed

you will redo all your missions without actually losing anything or sacrificing your old character. you will feel a flow of progress. and you will do a good thing in the process. you just might even make a new friend

In a way the level 99 cap increased help give me some insight into starting over. I already felt lost and jaded coming back to my level 75 guy, only to realize I missed out on many of the great things in getting there, only to see another path ahead of me going forward to 80+.

If I am going to make that trek to 80 and eventually 99, I want it to be genuine and have even flow so I don't have to look back and feel like there is a bottomless pit of unfulfillment I bypassed so to speak.

I don't really have any qualms about redoing all the leveling/fame/missions/quests/reobtaining gear, etc. In fact all of that is what is giving me a kind of "astral burn syndrome". Yeah I'm this far, but I pretty much hit the fast forward button on everything and I can't even begin to sort the pieces, let alone find enjoyment or familiarity back there.

Seen the movie Click anyone? That's kinda what I'm gettin, and a fresh start is looking more and more appealing, even if it means losin it all.

I think the only thing I'll truly miss is my signed charm wand from an old friend who no longer plays and my nomad cap. But even then, those are just inven +2 with minor utility/use.

This happened to me too, after taking a lot of breaks...But getting back into the groove of my favorite job (Samurai) really resparked my love of the game. I would say spend a lot of time on your favorite job, doing a lot of different content (exp for 80/merits, solo, find an NM you shouldn't rightfully be able to solo and try anyways, join shout groups for random stuff), just to play that one job that you really love, and I think your spark will come back.

Ok, I'm going to give my 2cents on this.. seeing that I've also been playing for 7 years and have had alot of indecisiveness.

I used to have a character on Fenrir named Xandruh. I quit for awhile then I came back and felt out of place with her. I ended up making a character to feel that "fresh" feeling again and to make new friends. Well, I have to tell ya... it got pretty addicting to me and I starting remaking characters over and over again (yeah I know it's sad lol)Well finally I figured I wasn't going to accomplish anything in this game unless I just stick with one character. So I ended up reactivating my old character and playing her again.

Long story short... I basically wasted time. Yeah I made some friends along the way, and being new again was kinda fun, but all it taught me was I can't give up on my old character no matter what. Even if I did make another character with the same face and jobs... it's not the same in the end.

If you feel like being new again, go ahead and make a new character; but coming from experience, I wouldn't give up your main and the hard work that came with it :)

That's exactly what I did ^^ and it worked too.

That's identical to what is going on with me right now.
In fact, Tool was just a happenstance character that had a cool name I wanted, and wound up on fenrir, even though that's not where I am originally from. Met some nice people, and unfortunately gave myself a complex in deciding what to do, and where to go.

There are still some good friends on Shiva I wish to stay with, yet at the same time, being on a new server and making new friends with the start over feeling made me relish it. So I am rather stuck in a catch-22 between familiarity and my own happiness lol.

Not sure if it's worth mentioning or has any relevance to what this is about, but I do plan on making a second account soonish to dual box and have basically a DD/Tank ~ Heal/support self-duo thing going on. I think that will really help not only speed up the process should I start over, but make it more enjoyable because I will simultaneously get a double flow from two aspects you know?

I was gonna suggest the same exact thing. My best friend in this game and mentor was feeling the same way you do when they started helping me. She taught me the game on a level I sincerely doubt I would have reached without them. I also sometimes wonder if I'd still be playing today if I didn't make that connection with her. Funny thing is she loved helping me and it was a big reason she continued playing past the point where she had literally achieved virtually everything in the game. Sadly she abruptly quit to get ready for 14 once she saw I was fully into the endgame scene, geared, leveled up, and soloing some stuff even she hadn't(:P).

Hands down one of the best players I have ever met. Some day when I get to the point she was in I plan to do the very same thing mostly as a tribute to her. I hope you find your will to play again. This may be just what you're looking for.

I think I am starting to realize now that it was not so much the character associated with the progress, but rather the progress/journey itself that is where the origin my source of fulfillment is. Now it all comes down to where and when >.<

Kind of like that cheesy motivation thing saying: Success is not the destination, it's the journey.

Lame as it sounds, it is starting to show some truth.

Well, hands down do what makes you happy ^^ I would personally try to start a new job or something on your main first and see how it works... if after a month or so you're still not feeling it, then I'd say go for it.

Yeah, for the time being I have been farming my *** off, preparing for when I create my second account to dual box on. Getting key pieces of gear/scrolls and whatnot so the level up phase will be much more smooth and seamless.

I may as well take advantage of having a 75 MNK should I truly decide to start over.

Think 1.5m is good enough to get two new guys up and going? lol

in the present day economy? what jobs

i never took a break from the game, but probably my favorite thing in the game are the 2 people in my social and 1 english speaking jp that i took from 12-40ish to 80 and got af/sky/cop back when it was hard

plus i got to stamp my warped perspective on the game on two blank slates :p

For starters... Probably a WAR & WHM combo, then once 30, probably something like DRG & BRD.

Part of my huge initial problem was I wanted to do far too much, and was in over my head. Original plan was to not only dual box, but span all 20 classes over 4 characters (Insane, I know). But after much consideration and cross-examination, it would make much more sense to simply keep this between 2 constantly active characters instead of jumping between them, and hand picking selective and most enjoyable jobs.

mmmmm, i <3 war. i probably put about 35 mil into my war, but that's a LOT lower due to recent deflation. i guess it depends on whether you're willing to go the occasional ra/ex route.

it would certainly get you as far as 75 as long as you kept selling the stuff back once you outlevelled it, 75+ you can really spend about as much as you want, depending on just how much you want to micromanage gear. of course, cheap abessea gear may be coming in the next couple updates that tosses all of that gear out the window

i don't have any personal experience with whm. i've heard through the grapevine it's a reasonably cheap job>

Oh I don't seriously expect 1.5m to get me to 75 or farther, it was simply a matter of sustaining myself until I hit a point where I can make my own comfortable income. I rather not hit level 10 then spend a week farmin beehive chips and silk to get the next line of crap. So I'm getting it all prepared early.

Typically around 60 is when I can fend for myself gil-wise, give or take?

Also I want to thank everyone for their input and views on this semi-personal issue. I know all of this is in my head, but from what Tool has given me so far, I think a fresh start is what will give me what I want most from this game.

WHM is dirt cheap. I leveled it seven years ago, but I don't really see where a lot has changed. Basically, you will wear the same set of gear for 10-20 levels at a time until you get to Blessed and Noble's. You can get away with even fewer gear updates if you aren't planning on PTing any. BRD shouldn't be any more expensive than WHM pre-70.

Can probably do crappy level 10 gear > Seer's > AF > Blessed on WHM.

only way i ever got gil was botfishing on multiple accounts and npcing the proceeds :/

i mean you could level a craft @ level 1 theoretically, but i'm guessing the only craft that really makes gil these days is alchemy?

you're honestly talking to the wrong person when it comes to legit gilmaking :/

/cheer

I wish you gl on your new adventures :3

<3 both war and whm btw

Yeah, luckily since I will be dual boxing, the start of this is going to involve a lot of FoVing until I get comfortable enough with commanding two characters at once. Then we'll see how smoothly I can handle combat in a party. As long as I don't give myself ridiculous combinations like NIN & RNG, I should be okay.

brd depends on how ambitious you are, though

i remember singing/wind earrings, minstrel rings, and hq chr rings and chanter's staff costing me quite a bit, as well as terra's and apollo's staves, which i'd consider neccesities.

still, i'd imagine that you could level it dirt cheap compared to a lot of other jobs if that was your goal

incidentally, i really enjoyed levelling bard. i don't see why it gets such a bad rap

The beauty of dual boxing is I don't have to worry about anyone's gear judgmenet but my own until I make it up high. So I can get my levels barebones and reeping in solo exp decently, but ideally I wanna gain a better sense of control and go with parties, especially if I wanna make new friends.

Anyways here's what my job line up looks like for the new guys, tell me whatcha think:

Main
----
WAR MNK SAM DRG DRK PLD

Support
-------
WHM RDM BRD COR SCH SMN

Also need some ideas for a taru girl name. Schala is taken on both servers sadly, so I'll have to find something else cool and girly.

Are you wanting to take all of those jobs to the cap?