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For new or legacy FFXIV players: some tips for maximizing your enjoyment
- Thread starter Zen
- Start date
XIV is an FF game first and an MMO second.
The story is the main draw of the game for the majority of the player base. Some people skip through the story, but they are a small minority (and if they can find enjoyment despite not playing the story, more power to them).
If you don't enjoy the story, the game probably is not for you. Not every game is for every person. There are plenty of MMOs whose primary goal is to grind up to endgame on the market. XIV is not one of them.
Those changes are coming on Tuesday (which is why I bumped the thread)
Of those, only Monk and Paladin can be played right off the bat. Ninja can be played almost immediately (have to get to level 10 in another class I believe, or level 15 if you don't start in Limsa since you unlock it in Limsa and that's when you visit the other city-states). The rest are expansion jobs and will probably take a while to get to.
But the story in ARR and the main storyline quests that go with it are trash. That's my point. It's a hundred hours of trash story and quests before we get the good stuff.
It's like watching a 3 hour movie, having to sit through 2 and a half hours of 'The Room' level story whilst having the last 30 minutes jump too Godfather part 2 levels. Pointless.
As everyone has said, every job is viable (but naturally, playing as a healer in story content might be a bit more dull)! Personally, I started as a Lancer/Dragoon and it's still my favorite job. As the job video linked earlier it has a fairly static rotation, but between some positionals which will make you move around (less than Monk, but more than Ninja I'd say) and jump attacks it feels really fun! Playing as a Dragoon had the added bonus to play well into Heavensward, for which the Dragoon was the poster job.
If you want speed I'd say Monk is the one to go, but do note that out of all jobs it's currently the messiest one and will get some slight rework in the upcoming patches. Fun, but a bit rough, is what I hear people saying. Different combos will also require different positionals, and Monk has high movement and ability speeds, so it's probably a good fit if you like fighting games. Edit. And Ninja is a good one due to the ninjutsu which requires you to input different combinations for different attacks.
The entire current base game story is 60 hours or so if you avoid most of the side content, according to a fresh playthrough done by Mr. Happy recently. And with the changes in two days it'll be an even swifter experience with less fetch questing.
Your complaints are like someone saying watching Breaking Bad is pointless because the first two seasons aren't nearly as good as the last 3 seasons.
I think my FF14 account is lost to time. I played the game many years ago on the PS3 and then PS4. I had two factor authentication on my old phone via the app.
Tried logging into my account today and no can do. It asks for the one time password which I can't get because the app asks for some sort of recovery password that I can't get because I can't log in to my account and round and round we go.
I think you can only tie one SE account to a PSN account so if I want to play either SE support do me a solid or I'll have to make a new PSN account to buy the game and start fresh.
If I do go down that route of a new PSN account I don't need PS+ right?
Tried logging into my account today and no can do. It asks for the one time password which I can't get because the app asks for some sort of recovery password that I can't get because I can't log in to my account and round and round we go.
I think you can only tie one SE account to a PSN account so if I want to play either SE support do me a solid or I'll have to make a new PSN account to buy the game and start fresh.
If I do go down that route of a new PSN account I don't need PS+ right?
PS+ isnt required for subscription or free based games. Also if you have PS+ on one PS4 account you can play online on any account on that PS4. Even ones without plus. The plus account has to have the PS4 set as its primary console though.
I believe support should be able to help you out, if you want to contact them, I've heard of them helping others in this situation
This is music to my ears.
Thanks so much guys, I'll try out Dragoon and Paladin first then.
Random ass somewhat related question but if I have Shadowbringers and buy FF7Remake do I still get the theme from having both or was that a pre order only thing?
Great thread! I started a couple of days ago and I'm level 15 now and I'm finding the game insanely overwhelming. Frankly, I have a hard time finding MMORPGs particularly engaging. I tried both WoW and FFXIV last year and they both kinda bored me to death but I found some new motivation and so far FFXIV's been OK. Like, it's a pretty OK podcast game I guess. It's still kinda boring but I'm confident that it'll be worth it for the end game grind.
Bought this game on steam, some questions
1) Can I buy suscriptions with Steam Currency?
2) I saw the expansion being cheaper on the SE store, can I buy those and play them on steam? I know that the steam code is associated to the SE code
1) Can I buy suscriptions with Steam Currency?
2) I saw the expansion being cheaper on the SE store, can I buy those and play them on steam? I know that the steam code is associated to the SE code
1.) Yes, if you have a steam copy of the game registered to your service account, an option to pay with your steam wallet will appear in the payment method section upon checking out.
2.) No. If you go with Steam, you're locked to buying expansions through the Steam store. It's a bit obnoxious, but with the way the game works and is sold, it's not too awful. It's only really a concern every two years, and you'll probably want to be pre-ordering the expansions anyway.
1) Yes, if you have the Steam version you can use Steam Wallet
2) No, you cannot mix and match
It is a very good podacst game in those 20 first levels. Then it begins to get better in therms of MSQ, but A Realm Reborn, in general, is world-building through a more "adventurer-like" story.
Still, if you do level up and such, it is pretty chill to go and level up 2ndary classes with some music or watching youtube videos.
I don't understand the point of rushing to the endgame, is there anything special about it? This is my first MMO and I just treat it like a regular FF game. Don't know how other MMOs handle their stuff.
That being said, I do agree ARR's story is an absolute bore and way too long. I stopped after the credits because I don't even wanna touch the patch content until 5.3 streamlines it. I do hope that the content beyond ARR is eventually gonna be worth it.
That being said, I do agree ARR's story is an absolute bore and way too long. I stopped after the credits because I don't even wanna touch the patch content until 5.3 streamlines it. I do hope that the content beyond ARR is eventually gonna be worth it.
I have a legacy ARR account. Does this mean I only have to buy Shadowbringers to get all expansions? Also is the collector's edition worth it?
Planning to play it with a friend casually in the next few months with her having a free trial. Does fhe end game story tie up with raids?
Planning to play it with a friend casually in the next few months with her having a free trial. Does fhe end game story tie up with raids?
The theme doesn't look like it's on the U.S. store anymore. Links to it just redirect to the XIV store page.
In a lot of other MMOs, the main goal is to level up as quickly as possible in order to reach endgame content. XIV is not structured like that, so a lot of people who come from other MMOs and expect that end up disappointed.
Yes.
Up to you. It's just cosmetic stuff. You can always upgrade later down the line.
Raids are generally supplemental lore, you can get the full core story without them. 24-man Alliance raid in ShB is basically pure homage to Nier and has little connection to the story so far, but the 8-man raid in ShB is somewhat important to the world lore.
Thanks!
That's great to hear then. Are 8 man raids hard though? I guess the plan is to slowly work our way through the campaign until we get good enough to work on raids. I'd love to do the Nier raids in the far future.
It's not a hundred hours though, and it's not 2.5 hours of a 3 hour movie. Each expansion's story is comparable in length if not lengthier than ARR's. It's not an accurate metric in terms of actual text, but cutscene compilations of voiced cutscenes on Youtube get longer and longer with each expansion, starting with 3h20min for ARR, and 9h38min for SHB currently.
The bulk of ARR's length lies in just going through the gameplay content, and that's all getting severely streamlined on Tuesday this coming week. Even before that, when I personally started playing FFXIV shortly after SHB's release, it took me 3 months to catch up to current content, (only able to play a couple of evenings every week) and only two weeks of that time was ARR.
ARR's story is pretty dull, and the vanilla questing experience was badly structured. That's all fair, but it really is not that big of a chunk of the overall FFXIV experience. Even with the annoying original ARR quest structure, going through the game, learning all the different systems, doing new dungeons and learning different classes is still fun. Starting Tuesday, all of ARR as well as HW (which is widely beloved by the game's fans) will all be available for free too. If you're not interested in a story-focused game, or working through one mediocre story to experience three great ones, then that's fine and FFXIV might just not be for you.
The normal difficulty raids are designed to be clearable by everyone.
24 man raids come in one difficulty, and 8 man raids come in normal or savage difficulty. The 24-man and 8-man normal difficulty are renown as a sort of "sweet spot" for FFXIV content difficulty, in that they can be done pretty handily by matchmade public groups through duty finder. You have to know and pay attention to mechanics to beat it, but you can also likely do it in a couple tries with public groups, compared to something like Savage difficulty which means pounding your head against a wall attempting it for hours or days to beat.
You guys should be fine doing the lower difficulty versions!
Sightseeing Log will. Crafting/Gathering/Fishing will if you play the job.Does any of this stuff ever unlock during the free trial?
I enjoy the hunting log quite a bit!
The Challenge and Sightseeing Logs are unlocked from sidequests, lv15 for Challenge and lv20 for Sightseeing. Crafting, Gathering and Fishing Logs and Guides are all unlocked when you unlock the relevant jobs associated with them, (Crafters, Gatherers and the Fisher Gatherer. Each ARR City has a couple of Crafters and a Gatherer job you can unlock. Look for quests with + icons on your map!) and the Orchestrion List is for in-game music records you can collect through boss drops, crafting recipes etc.Does any of this stuff ever unlock during the free trial?
I enjoy the hunting log quite a bit!
Girlfriend and I have that old type of account where we had a sub that came with the game, and that once expired locked us out of playing anymore despite only being level 15 or so. Those trial accounts that last you much longer were only introduced later, and for god-only-knows what reason our type of account was just fucked in that we'd have to pay to continue playing to even the end of ARR.
With Tuesday's update, will this finally change?
With Tuesday's update, will this finally change?
Nah, you will have to pay a sub fee or create a totally new account to play the trial. I eventually caved and just paid the sub to continue my adventure, I think once the patch hits the basic sub will get you to level 60 +heavensward like the trial does but with none of the restrictions of the trial.
Great thread!! Will definitely be referring to this heavily once i start. I think I'm going to wait til I get a PS5 before playing. Did they ever give an idea of when it would be ported? I'll play it with BC before then, just wondering.
The PS5 port still isn't officially announced (Yoshi-P, the director, said they were working on it, but SE said it's "not a confirmation"). For reference, the PS4 version came out about 5 months after the PS4's release.
I just tried to create a character and chose Ultros but it said that I can't create a character in this world right now.
Should I wait with creating a character for now? Or should I choose any world?
Welp, I just jumped back in. Now at level 41 and honestly enjoying the hell out of the game. Bard is such a wonderful job to play.
Ultros should be available for character creation right now, although a lot of the more populated servers are not (I think others might also be trying to create characters ahead of 5.3)
Why are you trying to create a character on Ultros specifically? If it's to join the Era FC, then you have to create a character on Ultros, since FCs are still server specific, and you should wait (or try again now, if the website is to be believed). Otherwise, most other things are data center wide, not server wide, so if it's to play with a friend on Ultros, you could create a character on any server on the data center (I'd still try to be on the same server due to convenience though)
Thanks I'll try again and yeah, I was going for Ultros because of Era.
EDIT: It went through this time!
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Nice! If you need help applying to the FC, let me know, it's a bit hard for new players since the FC house is in Shirogane (a housing area introduced in Stormblood)
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Will do, thanks again for all of your help :)
Just waiting for Aug 11 and then I'll jump in proper.
Makes me really happy to see so many new people jumping in for the first time or jumping back in! Enjoy the game and take your time! Don't get caught up in the pressure to get to endgame. :)
They sorta do, which is why they're now forcing the 24-man ARR raid to be mandatory. While you could just skip them (but why would you?) they're really relevant for lore. And with Shadowbringers, all but the 24-man raid (unless they somehow tie Nier together with the story, which will never happen) are very relevant to the main story to the point the main story even references the 8-man raid for example!
Note that raids and extra trials aren't hard and can be cleared by everyone. And with each new update they get a bit easier when playing with randoms (which I wish wasn't the case as it ruins some fights!), so there's absolutely no issues. Savage duties are the true endgame, which is the same things but way harder, but they don't have additional story.
I have a character that's finished the ARR main story, but I stalled out shortly after when I realized that I had to slog through multiple patches worth of boring ass fetch quests before I could start the first expansion. I think my account owns all but the newest expansion, but I don't have an active sub. When this patch hits on the 11th, will I be able to play without a sub until I hit the end of the trial content?
been toying with the idea of resubbing. i stopped near the beginning of quarantine because i was a little burnt out trying to level crafting and side jobs like that to shake things up from the usual end game gear grinds. maybe it's time!
I started up the game last month but the main questline is fucking awful for ARR. Waiting on the patch.