okay. While it’s still patch day. I have to leave a comment of some description. I will put it under a readmore for those being maximally avoidant of spoilers, but by itself it does not actually spoil too much, I would not say.
For anyone who doesn’t play FFXIV, this might not make much sense by itself in terms of the details, but hopefully you can still understand the sentiment.
I CAN PROGRESS THE PLOT AS LORENZA AGAIN FOR THE FIRST TIME IN LITERAL YEARS AND STILL SEE MY WIFE!!!!!!!
I have literally kept her(?) stalled before the Barbariccia trial since I swapped my accounts over, just for the sake of being able to access Zero’s domain and talk to her there. That was a patch 6.2 quest. You lose access to the area if you go past my current quest objective there, and it means you can’t go and see Zero on the overworld, so I haven’t made any progress there and am only caught up with the story as Clio.
It’s now patch 7.5, over an entire expansion later, and the same setup is finally back!!! I can unlock every Endwalker and Dawntrail duty as Lorenza now!!! I can get her all the wings and lynxes!!! And still see Zero in her domain!!!
I was so so hopeful about this being possible again, and now it is!!!!!! I am so so happy ^-^
It’s occurring to me more and more that the way my friends and I have been messing about in FFXIV recently is the way Clio would also play the game/exist as an adventurer in Eorzea:
Leaping into random people’s party finders for the sake of it/to help them do what they’re trying to do (even if they really didn’t need to make a party finder for that sort of thing)
Tagging along with groups trying to get specific drops and sticking around despite already having the drop in question
Going into duties with far fewer people than you’re meant to have and seeing what happens. E8S with five people (not the normal 8)? Aglaia with six (when it normally needs 24)? Let’s see how terribly it goes!~ (we actually ended up clearing both!)
It’s a very refreshing way to play, and it’s really put into perspective how far we’ve all come as a group. Who needs specifically-scheduled statics when you have spontaneity and doing everything unsynced for laughs, huh? =P