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Lastik fell in love! (FF 14 and Art thoughts)
2 years ago
Had a hella good day off! Played a ton of FF 14, hit lvl 60 (62 to be more precise), unlocked Gunbreaker, Dancer, flying in one of Coertha's islands and progressed the MSQ along up to the point I rescued a certain someone (swell guy if a bit armless ) and am currently party'd up with a certain dragoon, a certain puberty stricken kid with a penchant for tactics and a dragon-geeking fangirl, on our way to meet the fangirl's dragon senpai in the hopes they'll notice us.
Now Gunbreaker is fun and all (tho the duty to unlock it was harsh I gotta say, was the only thing I had to do twice so far), I've always like Squall from FF 8 after all, and I do appreciate that the uniform we get is straight up his.
But man.., Dancer.. completely fell in love with the class. It's just so fun to play as one. I love the aesthetics of it and the gameplay feels amazing and really easy to slide into and learn. It's RNG heavy, but it's a fun RNG.
I guess now that I think about it, that's also why I leaned towards Bard (which also has a lot of RNG involved).
You see, most other classes you need to plan around what buffs and abilities you weave between weapon skills essentially (and TBF you also need to think a bit with Dancer and Bard). This is absolutely fine and the farthest side of that spectrum would be the Black Mage in that you REALLY need to plan your stuff ahead with the ley lines and whatnot.
On the other side of the spectrum would be the Dancer and the Bard I feel. It's not that it takes less brains to play one class over the other, but rather it takes a different kind of thought process. Black mage is intelectual execution, "I want to achieve this goal, these are the steps I need to do in order to get there, so now I'm going to execute them.", whereas Dancer is instinctual adaptation, "I have this goal, I'm in this situation right now, this is what I need to do in order to move towards that goal, so I'm going to adjust and reassess on the next step. Rinse, repeat until it's done."
But Lastik, you say, aren't you reading tou much into this?
This is because it mirrors my views on art!
You've seen folks saying you need to study a lot in art, know about a ton of theories and whatnot, while others just seem to "eyeball" it and get it right, yeah? It's the same spectrum (and FYI it has nothing to do with talent, that's a rant for another day).
Some folks thought process revolve around planning and logic. Their art process is the sum of their intelectual knowledge and it grows as that knowledge grows as well. They need to understand the why it's like that in order to replicate it. Color theory, deep anatomic knowledge, focal points, lines of action, negative spaces, etc. It's an equation to be solved step by step. A prime example of this would be Leonardo da Vinci.
Other folks thought process revolve around adaptation and refinement. Their art process is the result of an accumulated visual and experience library which serves as a basis to adapt to any situation in their art process, this done time and again adding to that mental library. "I like this, I don't like this, I like this but I need to change it, this has potential but needs further exploration, this was unintended but good", and so that library grows and the ability to adapt and explore expands. If the theory is the core for the intelectual, then the eye is the core for the adaptive. By seeing a lot of images and details, the adaptive refines their eye to quickly identify and process information and adapt accordingly. A good example of this would be Miguelangelo.
Mind you tho, it's spectrum, not a duality. Some folks lean more towards one side or the other and even folks firmly on one side benefit a lot to learn a bit from the other. If you rely too much on theory, your creations will be stiff, mechanic and lifeless, while if you rely too much on adaptation you'll have fuckall idea what yer doing. A little theory can act as a multiplier to the solutions you have stored in your mental library.
This was a very important epiphany I had a few years back. I was having the mother of all burnouts (in fact if you go to my library you'll see I had a long hiatus in which I drew nothing), because I thought of myself as being stupid. I couldn't understand most theory, I couldn't remember anything past basic anatomy, all my stuff felt klunky and bad, I spent stupid amounts of time sketching to no avail, the theories I tried to apply failed, everything was horrible. Now the theories were sound, folks used it to great effect so the problem was me right?
Well.. no. Took me a while but I finally understood that I wasn't dumb, I simply had a different kind of intelligence. That learning process is fine BUT it's not the right kind for someone with my kind of mental architecture. While others strong point is planning and logic thought process, mine is adaptation and exploration. I couldn't (and can't) plan for shit, but I'm VERY good at finding the shapes in the clouds and work from there.
Again spectrum, tho I'm definitely on the far side of the adaptive / instinctual camp.
And this arcs back to why I fell in love with the Dancer class in FF 14, because of all the classes I've played so far, this one feels the most (so far) in tune with my mental architecture and thus the one that gives me the most joy playing.
Hella long rant I know, but it was fun to put all this in writing. Side note for you folks on the adaptive side like me (and the others too, but that's already part of your process), writing down stuff like this is absolutely GREAT to clarify and solidify your thoughts. If yer having trouble conceptualizing or organizing your thoughts on something, try to write it down!
That about it for the Lastik! Sketching for the yearly Velma continues!
Now Gunbreaker is fun and all (tho the duty to unlock it was harsh I gotta say, was the only thing I had to do twice so far), I've always like Squall from FF 8 after all, and I do appreciate that the uniform we get is straight up his.
But man.., Dancer.. completely fell in love with the class. It's just so fun to play as one. I love the aesthetics of it and the gameplay feels amazing and really easy to slide into and learn. It's RNG heavy, but it's a fun RNG.
I guess now that I think about it, that's also why I leaned towards Bard (which also has a lot of RNG involved).
You see, most other classes you need to plan around what buffs and abilities you weave between weapon skills essentially (and TBF you also need to think a bit with Dancer and Bard). This is absolutely fine and the farthest side of that spectrum would be the Black Mage in that you REALLY need to plan your stuff ahead with the ley lines and whatnot.
On the other side of the spectrum would be the Dancer and the Bard I feel. It's not that it takes less brains to play one class over the other, but rather it takes a different kind of thought process. Black mage is intelectual execution, "I want to achieve this goal, these are the steps I need to do in order to get there, so now I'm going to execute them.", whereas Dancer is instinctual adaptation, "I have this goal, I'm in this situation right now, this is what I need to do in order to move towards that goal, so I'm going to adjust and reassess on the next step. Rinse, repeat until it's done."
But Lastik, you say, aren't you reading tou much into this?
This is because it mirrors my views on art!
You've seen folks saying you need to study a lot in art, know about a ton of theories and whatnot, while others just seem to "eyeball" it and get it right, yeah? It's the same spectrum (and FYI it has nothing to do with talent, that's a rant for another day).
Some folks thought process revolve around planning and logic. Their art process is the sum of their intelectual knowledge and it grows as that knowledge grows as well. They need to understand the why it's like that in order to replicate it. Color theory, deep anatomic knowledge, focal points, lines of action, negative spaces, etc. It's an equation to be solved step by step. A prime example of this would be Leonardo da Vinci.
Other folks thought process revolve around adaptation and refinement. Their art process is the result of an accumulated visual and experience library which serves as a basis to adapt to any situation in their art process, this done time and again adding to that mental library. "I like this, I don't like this, I like this but I need to change it, this has potential but needs further exploration, this was unintended but good", and so that library grows and the ability to adapt and explore expands. If the theory is the core for the intelectual, then the eye is the core for the adaptive. By seeing a lot of images and details, the adaptive refines their eye to quickly identify and process information and adapt accordingly. A good example of this would be Miguelangelo.
Mind you tho, it's spectrum, not a duality. Some folks lean more towards one side or the other and even folks firmly on one side benefit a lot to learn a bit from the other. If you rely too much on theory, your creations will be stiff, mechanic and lifeless, while if you rely too much on adaptation you'll have fuckall idea what yer doing. A little theory can act as a multiplier to the solutions you have stored in your mental library.
This was a very important epiphany I had a few years back. I was having the mother of all burnouts (in fact if you go to my library you'll see I had a long hiatus in which I drew nothing), because I thought of myself as being stupid. I couldn't understand most theory, I couldn't remember anything past basic anatomy, all my stuff felt klunky and bad, I spent stupid amounts of time sketching to no avail, the theories I tried to apply failed, everything was horrible. Now the theories were sound, folks used it to great effect so the problem was me right?
Well.. no. Took me a while but I finally understood that I wasn't dumb, I simply had a different kind of intelligence. That learning process is fine BUT it's not the right kind for someone with my kind of mental architecture. While others strong point is planning and logic thought process, mine is adaptation and exploration. I couldn't (and can't) plan for shit, but I'm VERY good at finding the shapes in the clouds and work from there.
Again spectrum, tho I'm definitely on the far side of the adaptive / instinctual camp.
And this arcs back to why I fell in love with the Dancer class in FF 14, because of all the classes I've played so far, this one feels the most (so far) in tune with my mental architecture and thus the one that gives me the most joy playing.
Hella long rant I know, but it was fun to put all this in writing. Side note for you folks on the adaptive side like me (and the others too, but that's already part of your process), writing down stuff like this is absolutely GREAT to clarify and solidify your thoughts. If yer having trouble conceptualizing or organizing your thoughts on something, try to write it down!
That about it for the Lastik! Sketching for the yearly Velma continues!
Oh, and you're about to have some moments with the story :)