You need Shadowbringers as long as you have ARR. The other expansions are unlocked automatically within Shadowbringers
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PSA: It's not so difficult and pricey to get into FFXIV !
- Thread starter Kwigo
- Start date
If you already own the base game, then all you need is Shadowbringers. It includes every previous expansion.
That makes this decision a little easier. Thanks.
You're able to buy story skips to skip straight to the first expansion, Heavensward, which is where the story does really pick up (I'd say the story begins to pick up in the back half of A Realm Reborn's patch content though). However, you're going to miss a lot of story and characterization in A Realm Reborn to the point where it's going to detract from your enjoyment of the story going forward. I'd always advise that if you have the time for an MMO, which I assume you do since you're thinking of jumping into XIV, then just play through the entirety of the story.
Also, you'd still have to either level a character to 50 or buy a level boost, since the story skip doesn't include that.
Things start getting serious in the 2.4 patches then shit hits the fan 2.5. you have at least 3 more hours or so depending on how fast you read.
You're like 20-40 quests into the ARR patch quests, depending on how far you are though 2.2. There are 100 ARR patch quests.
Here's a list of all the ARR patch quests. It lists every quest name + dungeon and trial names. There's like one spoiler quest name near the bottom, but you can skim through it to get a general idea of where you're at: https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Seventh_Astral_Era_Quests
The wiki has a list of all quest blocks (though watch out for spoilers!) if you're ever wondering where you are.
You probably have about 60 left. 2.1-2.5 has about as many quests as ARR (100-ish).
There is, it's called "pay SE $11"
I wouldn't, though, at where you're at
I can't remember where that is tbh, but the quests go from level 1 to 50 so that's a good rough guide for where you are. There's about 100 quests in ARR's MSQ.
Really tempting to jump in. Don't really have time for an mmo but the Australian dominos offer is really making it hard to resist.
You can play the free trial on Steam up to level 35, FYI. So long as it's a new account. And do note there's some restrictions.
FINAL FANTASY XIV Online on Steam
Join over 27 million adventurers worldwide and take part in an epic and ever-changing FINAL FANTASY. Experience an unforgettable story, exhilarating battles, and a myriad of captivating environments to explore.
(The 'demo' is the trial.)
You can play the free trial on Steam up to level 35, FYI. So long as it's a new account. And do note there's some restrictions.
FINAL FANTASY XIV Online on Steam
Join over 27 million adventurers worldwide and take part in an epic and ever-changing FINAL FANTASY. Experience an unforgettable story, exhilarating battles, and a myriad of captivating environments to explore.store.steampowered.com
(The 'demo' is the trial.)
I Know! I am AT level 35! Hahahaha
But for me to keep on playing, Steam is the only way to go long term because of the regional pricing of the subscription.
Yeah that was the most painful part of the game for me. There's a bit of light showing the end of the tunnel soon, but it's still a long grind.
I did want to get into Final Fantasy XIV, and I did try playing it. It was recommended to me by a lot of people from the Ragnarok Online community. That it is apparently the 'real' Ragnarok Online II.
And honestly, from what I did play, it absolutely is! The gameplay and structure seems like a great improvement on top of Ragnarok Online.
But, the main reason I was playing was to play with some very close friends of mine - all former ROers. And unfortunately, the game is much less "350ms ping to Europe from Australia" friendly than Ragnarok Online is.
Also yeah nah the subscription fee wound up being a very very hard sell for me in the long run. I'm too spoilt by the free community supported allures of the Ragnarok Online.
Which is a shame, because, of what I could play, and when Final Fantasy XIV wasn't completely borking due to the lag, it was an absolutely fantastic game!
And honestly, from what I did play, it absolutely is! The gameplay and structure seems like a great improvement on top of Ragnarok Online.
But, the main reason I was playing was to play with some very close friends of mine - all former ROers. And unfortunately, the game is much less "350ms ping to Europe from Australia" friendly than Ragnarok Online is.
Also yeah nah the subscription fee wound up being a very very hard sell for me in the long run. I'm too spoilt by the free community supported allures of the Ragnarok Online.
Which is a shame, because, of what I could play, and when Final Fantasy XIV wasn't completely borking due to the lag, it was an absolutely fantastic game!
I tried making a account tonight and it's still a monthly fee. I'm not willing to pay that.
As far as combat....it's weird, it's not like WoW combat at all, or ESO, it feels more restrictive. I don't think they take off those shackles just because you hit level 40
Also when I played (launch PS4) I remember the in game map being horrible. Did that change?
As far as combat....it's weird, it's not like WoW combat at all, or ESO, it feels more restrictive. I don't think they take off those shackles just because you hit level 40
Also when I played (launch PS4) I remember the in game map being horrible. Did that change?
Just a heads-up, if you start the Steam trial or get the Steam version of the game you'll be locked into getting every expansion on Steam, so can't take advantage of any deals on other sites. They also posted a bulletin some months ago about forcing you to launch the game through Steam (right now you can just run the .exe directly), but it hasn't happened yet.
The game will always have a monthly fee. It will never go free to play.
I was hoping that the free trial would cover the use case where I have an account already but no characters above level 25, but alas, it seems as though I'm out of luck in that regard.
Maybe I should just pony up the 15 dollars at some point. Is there any price loss in one time crysta payments? I would prefer that over recurring monthly fees.
Maybe I should just pony up the 15 dollars at some point. Is there any price loss in one time crysta payments? I would prefer that over recurring monthly fees.
That's not encouraging, I feel that with The Old Republic the class stories were at least quite engaging from the get go, so having to wait this long for the story in this game to get a interesting seems like a hard sell for me to get invested in yet another MMO.
People tend to lambast the ARR section of the game, because it is indisputably the weakest part of the storyline with a lot of filler and bad voice acting (which I suggest everyone to just read). That said, the second half of the 2.0 (lvl 35 to 50) is fairly solid with a clear focus, and the second half of the patches (2.4-2.55) gets really engaging.
In general, 2.0 ARR establishes the setting and lore of the world, and the post-50 quests also lays the foundation work for characters and scenarios that will be further expanded upon in the expansions' storylines, so the player definitely will get more out of it down the line. XIV is incredibly consistent in telling its longform story, where even the least likely things in 2.0 ARR gets referenced in Shadowbringers.
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Ulitimately decided against buying the story skip potion as I don't think I would appreciate the newer story as much without ARR. It's a slow burn, but that feels in line with basically every JRPG I've played, expect online. Skipping any part of the story would be like jumping in the middle of any mainline Final Fantasy story. Yea there are cool things happening, but what does it matter if I have no connection to the world or characters?
I ended up overleveling my Dragoon past the MSQ and that started to get boring, so I started playing around with other jobs. While the MSQ might be a little stale at times, the Job quests have been great so far. I just got to 30 on Pugilist and they did a great job of making me care about the characters, like Hamon. There was a moment I genuinely felt bad for a character and I was really engaged in what was going on.
I say all of that because I definitely recommend taking your time to get through the early content. I know you want to see all the cool stuff now, but the base game really isn't all bad if you're exploring and doing different things while you do the MSQ. At least that's the impression I get some of the posts. I also understand that not everyone has time for that lol. Trust me, I want to play as a Dark Knight so bad, but I gotta wait until I get to Ishgard :(
I ended up overleveling my Dragoon past the MSQ and that started to get boring, so I started playing around with other jobs. While the MSQ might be a little stale at times, the Job quests have been great so far. I just got to 30 on Pugilist and they did a great job of making me care about the characters, like Hamon. There was a moment I genuinely felt bad for a character and I was really engaged in what was going on.
I say all of that because I definitely recommend taking your time to get through the early content. I know you want to see all the cool stuff now, but the base game really isn't all bad if you're exploring and doing different things while you do the MSQ. At least that's the impression I get some of the posts. I also understand that not everyone has time for that lol. Trust me, I want to play as a Dark Knight so bad, but I gotta wait until I get to Ishgard :(
You can't really just "jump" into new content like wow because xiv requires you to go through the whole main story too. And I guess they want people to go into the main story, that's a big (probably the biggest) part of the game.
Unfortunately WoW's ongoing desire to trivialize and devalue its older content by speeding you along to its latest expansion has set a genre-wide expectation that that's just how you do things. But since XIV is such a narratively-focused MMO, older content is just as a relevant as newer content. Also thanks to the Roulette system, older dungeons don't just get abandoned by the playerbase when they outlevel them either.
But doesn't that create a problem when, say, you buy the newest expansion to play with friends but have to level through a bunch of content that probably isn't as fun or well designed to get there? That seems like it would be a huge roadblock for new players.
Yeah it is, though I'll need to invite a few friends over to help out. Funny thing is I did this a few years ago for heavensward and never redeemed it.
The only content in the game that feels significantly less "fun or well-designed" is the base-game, A Realm Reborn content, and that's mostly because your class/job is really simple at first and the story takes its time to unfold.
It can definitely lead to a situation where you can't necessarily get up to where your friends might be playing right away, but at the same time your friends can always try leveling a new class/job and play with you that way while you make your way through the story.
There are story skips and level boosts you can buy, just like with WoW, but again because the narrative is such a central component of the game, you're going to be very lost and much of what goes on during the expansions isn't going to mean much to you. Plus, it just makes you a worse player to jump straight into later-game content like that. I've run a number of dungeons, not even endgame dungeons, where one or more of the players clearly level boosted because they just don't understand basic dungeon mechanics like "don't stand in the thing", or worse, tank players who have no idea what they're doing (for some reason, there's a ton of level-boosted tanks in this game it seems).
So, the skips are there if you absolutely need them and are only playing because you want to play with your friends, but I think they bring with them a ton of negatives as well, far more than in WoW's case at least.
If you want to play and enjoy Shadowbringers to the fullest, I think playing Realm Reborn for the lore and setting is a must anyway. The entire map is basically a call-back to ARR, you'd miss a lot of context by skipping it. That and almost all of the recurring characters in every expansion were introduced there.
A single player FF equivalent would be starting playing FFVII at Junon or something, you're missing most of the context for why you're doing what you're doing.
A single player FF equivalent would be starting playing FFVII at Junon or something, you're missing most of the context for why you're doing what you're doing.
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I am in. But people here are talking in dollars, but what about if im livin in asia? Where can i buy the subs?
If you have a card you can use for online purchases I suggest to just pay directly through mogstation, it's the least cumbersome. But if transact/currency fees are a concerns then probably the best way to do it is to buy the 60 day time cards through your local game shops (if they have stock for it).
FINAL FANTASY XIV: Mog Station -ファイナルファンタジーXIV: モグステーション-
FINAL FANTASY XIV専用サービス管理ページ「モグステーション」です。
secure.square-enix.com
It's the account management portal for FFXIV where you can manage your game licenses and subs.
just use your credit card normally, but for your address and billing address, choose somewhere in the USA, preferably some state with no digital sales tax (i chose portland oregon)
if not then i guess you can try your local brand game stores and find those game time sub cards? keep in mind you must buy for the right region as your game though
A friend of mine invited me. I've been 12 days trying to create my character at the Aether Data Center to play with him.
I gave up. I only bought ARR and I don't plan to buy the expansions, neither the monthly fee if I can't even create a character to play with my friend.
I gave up. I only bought ARR and I don't plan to buy the expansions, neither the monthly fee if I can't even create a character to play with my friend.
Server Status | FINAL FANTASY XIV, The Lodestone
Official community site for FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn.
na.finalfantasyxiv.com
So after leveling to 25ish in the trial I bought the whole deal on PC...and I'm forced to literally ONE server, every other ones are full on Light.
Oh yeah, and I had to make a new char because I realized I wasn't playing my trial on the right account and activated the full game not on the trial account which I logged in with just an ID (which is my Steam nickname) and not an email (email account which also has an id but 4 random numbers I never chose and still have no idea why I sometimes need to log in with instead of the mail)... This shit is hilariously convoluted.
If I world visit to play with someone else, what will I miss or not be able to do compared to if I that was my actual main world ?
Oh yeah, and I had to make a new char because I realized I wasn't playing my trial on the right account and activated the full game not on the trial account which I logged in with just an ID (which is my Steam nickname) and not an email (email account which also has an id but 4 random numbers I never chose and still have no idea why I sometimes need to log in with instead of the mail)... This shit is hilariously convoluted.
If I world visit to play with someone else, what will I miss or not be able to do compared to if I that was my actual main world ?
Oh i have a credit card, but i dont know what to fill for billing address, it seems im required to fill a real address. I once tried random address for psn billing address, and it got rejected
Another question: can i buy shadowbringer standalone? Or i must buy all of them?
So realm reborn and shadowbringer?
I read the message, i will see what i can do
OP
OP
Or you could get the complete edition, which should be about 10 bucks cheaper than buying ARR + Shadowbringers
Started about three weeks ago on the FTP trial. Immediately bought the base game since I was enjoying it so much but, man, those final two ARR dungeons are such a damn slog. Multiple unskippable cutscenes just killed it for me. I liked it enough to purchase Shadowbringers, but with doing so I really wanted to play as a Viera. Sucks that the Fantasia only changes appearance and not your character's name, so I guess I'm starting all over again.
And you know what? I can't wait. I've always been down on online FFs due to have a bad experience with XI, but XIV is so damn fun.
And you know what? I can't wait. I've always been down on online FFs due to have a bad experience with XI, but XIV is so damn fun.
Those 2 MSQ raids are the only time those will ever happened. It was so divisive that they never had mid-dungeon cutscenes again. (But then after that you'd keep doing them for the sweet roulette exp)
Also, did you consider the name change service? Although it is kind of pricy at $10.