Final Fantasy XIV (Guide in first post)

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Warmuth

Molten Core Raider
877
520
Ya'll motherfuckers are in on one of the most impressive ruse's in gaming history. There are no expansions in this game, ARR never actually ends.
 
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Merrith

Golden Baronet of the Realm
18,427
7,131
Alright thanks for the pointers guys. I am using teamcraft to plan rotations, great website! Gonna think out loud a little here:

I'm super poor so buying the gear probably isn't an option. I did start with 500k from selling a Bozja upgrade piece and I feel like I could have just been grinding Bozja to get gil that way instead and bought all the gear AND had a relic weapon by now. But it feels good earning it through crafting as I've learned how to craft and the gameplay has been really varied instead of running just one thing.

I could try to earn gil through crafting but I've historically sucked at that. The one success I ever had was being a server first Jewelcrafter in Burning Crusade (I wrote the first jewelcrafting guide and gathered the mats in vanilla using beta info). Thanks to whoever gave me the tip for fashion report Flat Caps, I did sell one and got my investment back but the undercutting was brutal.

I'm not sure about getting the white crafting scrip gear, seems like it would be a boring grind turning in 1000 coffee biscuits or whatever people do. It also seems like I need to grind white gathering scrips to unlock legendary nodes? If I ask Merrith to craft the gear (thanks again!) i'll need those legendary nodes.

Then there's the relic tool grind, I did buy the Botanist and Miner ones but haven't looked into what to do next other than it's hundreds of items needed.

Getting an intermediate set first sounds like an option, the Dwarven set was pretty easy to get materials for, maybe there's another set without too many timed/legendary nodes?

My end goal by the way is crafting my own Exarchic Gear for alts, I bought one set for my main class for 1 million gil and I already have one alt class at 80 needing the same. I want to see if I can level every class (or at least one per role) for Endwalker without burning myself out.

Yeah so... I guess I need to do some more research!

Chris it's likely I have extra mats for the 3 star crafting gear. At the time they are current it's basically all I was gathering for a bit or spending spare tomes on. Also been thinking about making sets for my gatherer retainers b/c with gathering 8's melded they'll easily have higher gathering than even the white scrip gear they currently have on. Just helps with the early venture farming for mats when EW comes out. I'll take stock when I get on tonight/tomorrow and see what I can get made. Even just getting a crafting chest and gathering chest made would likely help quite a bit.
 

Chris

Potato del Grande
19,436
-10,732
Chris it's likely I have extra mats for the 3 star crafting gear. At the time they are current it's basically all I was gathering for a bit or spending spare tomes on. Also been thinking about making sets for my gatherer retainers b/c with gathering 8's melded they'll easily have higher gathering than even the white scrip gear they currently have on. Just helps with the early venture farming for mats when EW comes out. I'll take stock when I get on tonight/tomorrow and see what I can get made. Even just getting a crafting chest and gathering chest made would likely help quite a bit.
Thanks, I realy appreciate the support. Ypu saved me a few days with the lv70 gear!

I just grinded crafter white scrips so I have Handsaint Armor and Accessories now, doing Tools will be about the same time again which I don't mind doing and will help level other jobs to 80 making the nuggets and lumber (only have 80 Blacksmith right now).

I'd rather that you just sell stuff than go out of your way to get me +10 crafting item levels and some materia slots.

If you do have spare stuff, gathering gear may be more useful as the gathering white scrips look like they are harder to get because timed nodes?
 

Merrith

Golden Baronet of the Realm
18,427
7,131
Thanks, I realy appreciate the support. Ypu saved me a few days with the lv70 gear!

I just grinded crafter white scrips so I have Handsaint Armor and Accessories now, doing Tools will be about the same time again which I don't mind doing and will help level other jobs to 80 making the nuggets and lumber (only have 80 Blacksmith right now).

I'd rather that you just sell stuff than go out of your way to get me +10 crafting item levels and some materia slots.

If you do have spare stuff, gathering gear may be more useful as the gathering white scrips look like they are harder to get because timed nodes?

Gathering really isn't bad, although it's easier if you have really good gear. You just need to set up a rotation of the time nodes and know where to go. Will see what I can do, I have some of the tomestone mats but not as much of the actual gathering stuff after looking. Can figure some stuff out, though.
 

Aazrael

Golden Baronet of the Realm
3,249
12,157
Man the ARR relic grind is way rougher than the HW Relic, the HW one was just farming Poetics really. The ARR Relic does feel more like the Epic quests in EQ though. Got 2 books done out of 9 and thats not even the hard part I think.

But I really enjoy playing Dragoon and the Longinus spear looks awesome.
 

...

Goonsquad Officer
6,113
14,435
FF14 2021 FAQ



If anyone wants a guide added or thinks I should add a bullet somewhere, let me know



FF14 is best described on its surface as a final fantasy style RPG first, and mmo second. It’s extremely feature dense, and it seems like it satisfies lots of play styles including raiding, but the story and setting seems to be the main draw for many.



You can treat it like a normal FF game and just ignore any single aspect of the game. Most seem to play it as a generic story RPG, and then McGuffin collectable gathering with some style flexing on the side.



  1. ARR is widely considered the weakest. It is old, and a bit sloggy on the quests, but it does a ton of world building that they use for the whole rest of the game's story. it starts formulaic, and repetitive, but it's a solid foundation that is never thrown out.
  2. There's one coherent story that lasts all four (ARR, HW, SB, SHB) boxes and will conclude in the next expansion End Walker (the game is not ending, just the hydolin story arc).
  3. Players love the setting, story, and systems in the game, but the ARR part will feel slow, and sloggy and a little repetitive. The voice acting is bad too, but once you get past that the game really takes off and flies.
  4. If you hate final fantasy, weebery, and story in general in games, you may not like it. try the trial it's free. There’s a meme about the free trial. (insert meme here later)
  5. Players are shockingly friendly, and accepting of new people, so you can easily ask for advice in game and you won't be crucified. They do a lot of goofy social gatherings and events in game, those are on YouTube a lot.
  6. The mogstation is awful and starting a new account, or upgrading to full account is a nightmare. Everyone knows it. I blame consoles and square.
  7. The game drips with fan service. They don't try to make women look like sacks of flour or fuck with the story just to do it. Everything in the game after a certain point was stressed or expanded based on player satisfaction. It's refined to be a fan pleasing environment, not a fan punishing one.
  8. The real final fantasy tour de force is when you don't feel a deep need to catch up rapidly. Do an hour or two of story, do a few roulettes, maybe do some side quests, and go to bed at night knowing that when you wake up, the game is there for you again to enjoy. Become attached to aspects of the game, or characters if you like. Rabbit hole down some weird avenue of the game if you find it interesting.
  9. Combat 'seems slow' early because they drip feed you skills from 1-50. It adds more each expansion and toward the end the GCD/OGCD shuffling really hits a prime place with tons of button mashing. google some optimal level 80 rotations if you want to see.


This video breaks down a sort of comparison between WoW and FF14 in 2021, it's pretty good:





If raiding is your thing: this is a break down of mythic wow raiding vs FF14 ultimate raiding.





Some one asked why this game was popular all of a sudden, i wrote this:





Yes right here:


it's absurdly long for a trial. you can reach level 60, and play through base game and great first expansion. You'll likely know you like the game before then, but the first expansion, Heavensward, is considered one of the best final fantasy stories.



If you intend to buy the game, you can follow some one's link to be buddies and give them a reward. not sure if it stacks with trial or if a trial goer can use a buddy code to migrate to full subscriber. some one let me know if it works.



RACE:
Race literally doesn't matter. Play with the styles and emotes and play something you like. There are plenty of weeby races, but others are standard fantasy fare.

CLASS:
In ff14 you can change class at will once you unlock them. Each class has their own level which rises independently (for combat, gathering, and crafting classes).



They are somewhat balanced with deviations on how they play, some are button mashier than others, some are one trick ponies, but they all do roughly similar tanking, healing, or dpsing. Some may make you want to kill yourself, so try lots of them.



It’s worth noting that Healers followed by tanks followed by DPS is the queue speed. So some people level a tank/healer for doing roulettes, and then level a DPS in the MSQ.



This wiki page has a great chart toward the top showing you what level various classes unlock.


Each expansion added some classes and they start 'higher level' than base.



this video spends like 45 second giving you a raw run down of each class, pretty accurate:





Data center is more important than server. you can group with anyone who is on your data-center by either migrating to their world via the big city aetherite, or you can join a cross server party to start a duty queue.



if you cannot make a character on your preferred server (because it's popular) try to log on to make the character in off peak hours. you cannot start on a server when it is 'full' but if you make your character at 3am you can join even the bloatest of servers.



They've announced a plan to have cross-datacenter-play with endwalker so you can group with anyone, anywhere instead of just your datacenter.



Most FOHers play on gilgamesh. There’s a guild, post on the thread for an invite.

A lot of streamers play on aether data-center

More role playing crowd sorts play on crystal (balmung/mateus)




This video kind of humorously sums it up, but his designations are mostly true:



There are hardcore raiders, heaps of casuals, role players, and various weeb levels.




Yes, in 1.0 the game was dogshit. Everyone knew it, the devs experienced great shame and being Japanese they fixed it. The guys who did the fixing still work there today and have kept everyone on task and the game has steadily risen in quality this whole time.



Shockingly the 2.0 (ARR) content is still playable today and you can level lock / item sync down and experience them and recently some streamers did it and people were blown away by the quality and spectacle of them.



It truly is something of a comeback story, and in a modern gaming landscape of game devs half assing and fan-disservicing their games, it's held up pretty well.



This video breaks it down. It’s long. It’s literally a documentary. it has 3 parts:





(videos follow at the end of the bullets)



1. Don’t sweat about your first job. At level 10 you can unlock any base job (see the post about which class to play above). You can change at any time, even in the field.



2. Do your main story quest. It’s really fucking long. Nearly everything in the game is locked behind stages of MSQ. You cannot open Heavenward classes till you're at the expansions in the MSQ. (though SB/ShB classes are opened in major cities when you just achieve the level required). You can follow along here if you want: Main Scenario Quests - Final Fantasy XIV A Realm Reborn Wiki - FFXIV / FF14 ARR Community Wiki and Guide



3. Do your job quests. Every 5 levels or so. In ARR/HW they add skills with many completions, after that they add skills on the capstone (level 70, 80) quests. Worth doing, usually have great stories.



4. A Duty Roulette (opens around level 20 I think?) per day is great xp. if you do MSQ and daily roulettes you can easily xp 2-3 classes at the same time.



5. Don't cap tomestones. You’ll get these as you approach 50. You spend them for gear levels 50-70. Level 80 gear also uses tomestones but they use their own currency sets you'll understand at 71+



6. Your chocobo unlocks at level 20 after you join a grand company, quest: my little chocobo. The chocobo can carry you around, has saddle bags (more inventory space) and can fight as a pet near you. Heals great. dpses okay, tanks horrible. Spend his skill points. Use him to do your quests.



7. Game features open with 'blue' quest markers. Some are super useful, most open new versions of fights, some key things to open:

Challenge log at 15

Gold saucer at 15

Dyeing at 15

Hall of novice at 15 (rewards a set of gear and a +XP till 30 ring)

Retainers at 17

Chocobo at 20



Reference here:








Zepla breaking down some new player tips:

9 Things EVERY New FFXIV Player Should Know!



zepla breaking down a much longer list of which blue quests to unlock. You can just watch till she reaches your level and stops, it drags on a bit:

IMPORTANT Blue Unlock Quests in FFXIV



Eureka is the level 70 (post Stormblood) relic zone, where you go and farm materials for fancy weapons and armor. It’s full of shenanigans and it isn't like the rest of the game:



A text guide for the first zone, the following zones are linked at the bottom. You have to do the quest line for the zone to progress.

The Forbidden Land, Eureka Anemos – Gamer Escape: Gaming News, Reviews, Wikis, and Podcasts



this video sums up eureka:

FFXIV - How Long Does It Take To Do Eureka Now? - Getting Started




 
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Cyni

Lord Nagafen Raider
565
216
Are there a bunch of new players giving this a go? We should group up and do some of the early raids or some shit. I'm really enjoying the game so far, and from what i've heard it gets better as you progress.

I'm lvl 27 atm, just about to unlock my real job.
 
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...

Goonsquad Officer
6,113
14,435
Most folks play on gilgamesh, i'm not sure how many new players there are, i play on another DC :(
 
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Threelions

Victory Through Harmony
<Gold Donor>
933
564
Man the ARR relic grind is way rougher than the HW Relic, the HW one was just farming Poetics really. The ARR Relic does feel more like the Epic quests in EQ though. Got 2 books done out of 9 and thats not even the hard part I think.

But I really enjoy playing Dragoon and the Longinus spear looks awesome.
It’s an absolute grind fest. Thankfully if you have a 70-80 you can usually solo some of the dungeons instead of running them in DF
 

...

Goonsquad Officer
6,113
14,435
i'm not 100 percent certain on this, but it's possible that some of the nonsense relic grinding can be done with blue mage, which is always hilarious.
 

rhinohelix

Dental Dammer
<Gold Donor>
3,047
5,016
Most folks play on gilgamesh, i'm not sure how many new players there are, i play on another DC :(
I didn't realize this, plus the only preferred server when I started was in Primal. We started on Hyperion.
 
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...

Goonsquad Officer
6,113
14,435
the good news is that you can currently play with anyone in your datacenter, but they're going to make it where you can cross-server-play with anyone in any datacenter, so that's pretty hype. folks don't have to transfer servers later to play with homies from time to time.
 
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Bobbybick

Trakanon Raider
481
701
Am I supposed to be leveling multiple jobs as I progress through the ARR MSQ? I've almost exclusively focused on it and my rogue class quests and I'm still almost 10 levels above the "recommended" level for everything. Every time I have to level-sync for a dungeon or instanced quest I lose ~2 skills off my bar which is kinda shitty especially when the rotation is already so simple at this level.

These vouchers for Waking Sands teleports are tight though, I wish I had these years ago when I had to go through this shit the first time. Please tell me I get enough of them that I never have to physically run there again.
 

...

Goonsquad Officer
6,113
14,435
Am I supposed to be leveling multiple jobs as I progress through the ARR MSQ? I've almost exclusively focused on it and my rogue class quests and I'm still almost 10 levels above the "recommended" level for everything. Every time I have to level-sync for a dungeon or instanced quest I lose ~2 skills off my bar which is kinda shitty especially when the rotation is already so simple at this level.

These vouchers for Waking Sands teleports are tight though, I wish I had these years ago when I had to go through this shit the first time. Please tell me I get enough of them that I never have to physically run there again.
IMO yes, if you are about the level of the MSQ, keep going, if you are outleveling it, start a second class and swap turn ins. most folk do a tank or healer for fast roullete, but hte lazy way is to just alt level the class that uses the same gear as your main. you can just swap alt class to do turn ins then go back to rogue to play.

i dunno on the vouchers. they wern't in when i did it :( i just pray returned on my feet
 

Folanlron

Trakanon Raider
2,306
659
i'm not 100 percent certain on this, but it's possible that some of the nonsense relic grinding can be done with blue mage, which is always hilarious.


Sadly only a handful of the step's from Zodiac/Anima can be done via blu, the rest you need to have the weapon equip'd for the last boss for the growth too happen.. I'm not even sure blu can enter Eureka, 100% know they can't enter Bozja.
 

Warmuth

Molten Core Raider
877
520
Am I supposed to be leveling multiple jobs as I progress through the ARR MSQ? I've almost exclusively focused on it and my rogue class quests and I'm still almost 10 levels above the "recommended" level for everything.

I was way over level until 49 when all of the sudden the msq required level 50 and I had to go and grind out half a level. I wasn’t doing much on the side but I did make sure to do the daily random which was decent exp. You shouldn’t run out of the port scrolls, I still have quite a few.
 

Chysamere

FF14 Free Company Master
<WoW Guild Officer>
3,489
3,200
Man the ARR relic grind is way rougher than the HW Relic, the HW one was just farming Poetics really. The ARR Relic does feel more like the Epic quests in EQ though. Got 2 books done out of 9 and thats not even the hard part I think.

But I really enjoy playing Dragoon and the Longinus spear looks awesome.

The books are by far the worst part
 
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xmod2

<Gold Donor>
771
1,198
Is the board fc active? I'm abandoned on Exodus and not sure if I should transfer or just set down roots with an fc here.