Y'all, I just... This game. My god.
Important preface for those who might be curious about FFXIV in the future (as this is a PSA for anyone interested to give it a try): A Realm Reborn is the base game, Heavensward is the first expansion, then Stormblood, and currently we're at Shadowbringers.
I'm not one for MMOs. I think the only other MMO I played before this was 150 hours of picking flowers and junk in Ragnarok Online 2 when I was like 16. I adore the Final Fantasy franchise, and I saw there was a free trial several years ago for newbies like myself. My other friends like MMOs a lot more than I do, and encouraged me to try it out, promising to help me get my feet on the ground. They warned me fairly ahead of time that it was going to be rough at the start, as A Realm Reborn had to pull double-duty of rebuilding from the ashes of the original FFXIV and also bring the story forward in its own direction. I understood this, and steeled myself. This was about when Stormblood had just released if I remember right, and everyone told me "it gets good at Heavensward I promise!"
So, I strapped on my axe as a Marauder, because I figured "slappy axe tank is an easy starter for someone not into MMO combat". Thus began my journey into this realm, and to be honest? At first, it wasn't so bad. I knew there would be a ton of boring MMO sidequests, and in all honesty I wasn't sure how to approach an MMO in the first place. Chiefly, I was trying to play it like a single player RPG, often trying to shove through the game solo instead of with my friends because I wanted to just carve through the game. However, things quickly devolved for me, and I found myself hitting wall after wall where I was just not having fun. There is a very important reason for this, and it was the second major mistake I made in my early times: I was doing every sidequest, again like I would in a single player RPG. I mean every single quest marker I could find. Every. Single. One. In every starter area, in every map, I was trying to do everything. I was a level 25 Marauder doing tutorial quests in each and every kingdom as I visited them.
I was not enjoying my time with A Realm Reborn. At all. It was mindless to me. I was almost insufferably bored. It took me about 20 hours of this before my friends who, bless them they were trying to help my stupid ass, told me to ignore sidequests and only do main story quests (MSQs, for brevity) and quests for your class. You don't play an MMO like a single player RPG, and that was my first hurdle. After that, I started to level out. Though there were many annoying quests along the way of the main path, it was much better knowing I was getting close to the fabled "good parts" of the game. Unfortunately, I tired out and stopped for a while.
A couple years later, as Shadowbringers is coming out to rave reviews and unbelievable critical acclaim, I get that itch again. I want to be in the loop, in the circle. So I renew my subscription and start tearing ass through the rest of A Realm Reborn. With renewed vigor, I push through and after my playtime hit 50ish hours, I was taking down the final boss of ARR. I felt amazing! And yet again, my friends warned that the worst was yet to come, as the story updates between ARR and Heavensward were meandering and hard to swallow. How bad could it be after what I'd just gone through, anyway?
Bad, as it turns out. I burnt out again between the base game and the expansion. I took another break, and then recently I decided to finish it up several months ago. I renewed again, and decided to do another push. Sure enough, as I reached Heavensward, it was suddenly like a different set of writers popped into the team. The story picked up almost immediately as Heavensward approached, and I was cautiously drawn in.
Anyway, I went from the start of Heavensward to the start of Stormblood in about a month. That should tell you how invested I became in the story. My friends were not joking when they said it will get better. I started to involve my friends more in Heavensward as I went through dungeons and trials (bosses) and it was immediately more fun. Who could have possibly expected that a Massively Multiplayer Online RPG was more fun with people rather than trying to brute force it solo?
I'm now neck-deep into Stormblood and it's just not stopped being great. Between Heavensward and Stormblood, the interim was well-written to continue the story and didn't meander at all like the first gap between ARR and Heavensward. The peaks have been high and the valleys dreadfully low getting to this point, but suffice to say that if Shadowbringers is truly the best story content in this game yet, I just don't see how that can be possible having played all that I've played thus far. It's just too good. When I first heard the rumors of Yoshi P and his team doing FFXVI, I scoffed and worried deeply for the game, as I was toiling around between ARR and Heavensward. Now, I wouldn't have anyone else taking the keys.
Sorry for the rambling, that was way longer than expected. I may be late to the party, but please learn from me if you're interested in FFXIV. The three things I would implore you to keep in mind if you're going to begin your journey, if you're curious about the story like I was:
1. Do not play this like a single player RPG. It's a completely different genre for a reason. I was obstinate and was sure I could just force my way through it, but it caused nothing but problems. Get help from your friends if they play. Randoms will help you in dungeons if your friends aren't available, and so long as you tell them you're new to it, they will more often than not be glad to lend assistance to a budding adventurer.
2. Please try to make an effort to learn the combat. As a Warrior (the upgrade from Marauder), I thought my combat would be simple. And, it is! I don't have to worry too much about lots of buttons. I have a couple hotbars of commands and with help from my friends, I learned how to more easily handle combat with better hotbar command inputs. Instead of 1-0, - and =, consider 1-6, Shift+1-6, Ctrl+1-6, etc. Really try to feel it out instead of sticking with the default if that's not working for you. It'll make the tough grind at the beginning more bearable. Also keep in mind that the game was built essentially from the ground up with extremely solid controller support, so that may end up being more up your alley. Give it a shot, and see what fits.
3. For the love of god, please DO NOT do every sidequest. If your goal is, like mine, mainly to experience the story, don't bog yourself down with sidequests for the sake of sidequests. I've found that a good rule of thumb is: MSQs, flight quests (denoted by blue icons once you reach Heavensward, and when you enter the accept/decline menu, you'll see a green glowing crystal), class quests to learn new attacks and actions, and often times people will tell you which quests unlock more dungeons or bosses if you feel inclined to pursue those.
Thankfully, the grind has supposedly been made less awful between ARR and Heavensward, with MSQs shuffled around and some even outright changed to optional sidequests, cutting out the fat. My friend who has played both before and after tried it and said it's soooo much more manageable. It's now easier than ever to get to Heavensward, but keep in mind that it is a time commitment nonetheless. You will have to go through some mindless MMO to get to the "good stuff", and I mean upwards of 50-70 hours. If that's not for you, then nobody should fault you. That's a lot to handle.
But for me, it's been worth every minute of it now. I have heartily laughed, I have deeply cried, I have felt bitter anger at the dire circumstances you're put through during your journey. Consider me as having seen the light.
Though I've heard I'll have to snuff out the light soon enough...
