Final Fantasy XIV (Guide in first post)

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Malkav

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Blazin

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Amod Amod I set this post up to be a replacement for the first post so we can reference the links on it. can my post be moved to the first for easy editing? or is it just a copy/paste job?

anyway i think that's a pretty good generic guide for questions folks have been asking. If anyone wants to add anything let me know :)

Thanks a bunch!
Okay it’s copied over . I lack the permi…granularity to make it show as your post. Lightning Lord Rule Lightning Lord Rule maybe can fix that.

Nice work , let me know if it needs any changes .
 
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Blazin

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That would change ownership of the thread, and Guzrog Guzrog is still an active member here in good standing. I wouldn't want to change it unless he is OK with that.

I added "Guide Provided by ... ... " to it. Do you guys want a note in the title since the thread is so old? (Guide on First Post) or just let people refer newcomers to it if they don't find?
 
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...

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Okay it’s copied over . I lack the permi…granularity to make it show as your post. Lightning Lord Rule Lightning Lord Rule maybe can fix that.

Nice work , let me know if it needs any changes .
Thanks a bunch, I appreciate it.

That would change ownership of the thread, and Guzrog Guzrog is still an active member here in good standing. I wouldn't want to change it unless he is OK with that.
That makes sense, I dig.



I wouldn't mind if something like (2021 Guide on first post) so people know it's not...heh, 9 years old.

Hopefully the info is helpful!
 
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Guzrog

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That would change ownership of the thread, and Guzrog Guzrog is still an active member here in good standing. I wouldn't want to change it unless he is OK with that.
I am the lord commander of this thread!!! Totally appreciate that. While I still play casually a couple times a year I'm happy to allow anyone to take over the mantle for the stewardship of the post or have the original updated as needed to keep it current.
 
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Pyros

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Some things on that first post:
"2. do your main story quest. it's really fucking long. Literally everything in the game is locked behind stages of MSQ. you cannot open expansion classes till you're at the expansions in the MSQ." That's wrong, only the HW classes requires you get to HW MSQ. SB and ShB classes only require you have the proper level, so you can actually unlock SB classes before HW classes(since they require 50 only, which you'll hit long before you're done with ARR MSQ).

Also the part about class/race should be its own section instead of a subsection of the trial. On that trial bit, the code only works for someone who has registered the game but before they pay(so like ppl on their free month). Doesn't work on trial.

The lack of capitalization also hurts my eyes but that's just nitpicking.
 
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...

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Some things on that first post:
"2. do your main story quest. it's really fucking long. Literally everything in the game is locked behind stages of MSQ. you cannot open expansion classes till you're at the expansions in the MSQ." That's wrong, only the HW classes requires you get to HW MSQ. SB and ShB classes only require you have the proper level, so you can actually unlock SB classes before HW classes(since they require 50 only, which you'll hit long before you're done with ARR MSQ).

Also the part about class/race should be its own section instead of a subsection of the trial. On that trial bit, the code only works for someone who has registered the game but before they pay(so like ppl on their free month). Doesn't work on trial.

The lack of capitalization also hurts my eyes but that's just nitpicking.
hah. fair criticism on the caps. I'll uhh. fix that when i ask for an edit.

and...oh shit I didn't mean for race class to be a subsection of the trial. I have failed as a forum poster for nesting things retarded. i'll update that.
 

...

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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





edited my first post. I ran it through a word processor and busted out race/class correctly and fixed a few other stupid mistakes in this post. it can paste over. I'll leave it be for a while after that :) Thank you Amod Amod ! you guys are awesome. vote secured.
 
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Juvarisx

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The Lunar stuff has come out of nowhere (other than us knowing Xenos/Fandaniel were prepping something) and is basically the first questline of Endwalker to get us hyped, it'll continue in the expansion. You see those towers in all the old zones now wherever there was a primal.

We don't know what is up with the moon but speculation is that it's Zodiark's prison and there's some sort of Ascian base there since Ascians have been shown up there before.


My speculation:

Fandaniel I assume is going to be the end boss of Endwalker. I bet he will merge with Zodiark as Elidibus was Zodiark's heart and we killed him, so someone will have to replace him. It has to be something more epic than Emet-Selch/Hades after all.

The Lunar Primals should be dungeon and quest bosses as fucking Elder Primal Bahamut himself was only a lv80 dungeon boss.

Xenos I would guess we encounter midway through the story and Fandaniel is going to usurp him like Kefka usurped Geshtal in FF6. There's too many parallels to FF6 where the magitek city was destroyed to make a giant tower.

Xenos is totally going to take Zodiark's power like he did Shinryu in Stormblood in the 6.0 finale. Since Zodiark is a Primal that makes sense, and the 6.3 finale of Endwalker will be killing Hydaelyn who goes ballistic since it doesn't have to expend power to counteract Zodiark anymore and decides to do "something". The Asican will probably be a boss like Vauthry. That will clean up the Zodiark arc cleanly and the Ascians along with them. Will be interested to see what is after Endwalker tbh, I wouldn't mind seeing another shard like the First but that may be too repetitive.
 

Cybsled

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6.0 ends the Hyd vs Zod story arc. 6.1 and onward will be a new story or the transition into one. It won’t follow the normal .3 patch ends the expansion main story.
 
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Valderen

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6.0 ends the Hyd vs Zod story arc. 6.1 and onward will be a new story or the transition into one. It won’t follow the normal .3 patch ends the expansion main story.

I expect they wanted to give this a massive ending that would be too big for a point patch.
 

Blazin

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edited my first post. I ran it through a word processor and busted out race/class correctly and fixed a few other stupid mistakes in this post. it can paste over. I'll leave it be for a while after that :) Thank you Amod Amod !

Post updated.

you guys are awesome. vote secured.

Vote you say? Hey Lightning Lord Rule Lightning Lord Rule this guy thinks they get to vote
tenor (1).gif


but Thank you Citizen!
 
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Chris

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Xenos is totally going to take Zodiark's power like he did Shinryu in Stormblood in the 6.0 finale. Since Zodiark is a Primal that makes sense, and the 6.3 finale of Endwalker will be killing Hydaelyn who goes ballistic since it doesn't have to expend power to counteract Zodiark anymore and decides to do "something". The Asican will probably be a boss like Vauthry. That will clean up the Zodiark arc cleanly and the Ascians along with them. Will be interested to see what is after Endwalker tbh, I wouldn't mind seeing another shard like the First but that may be too repetitive.
For the next expansions there's the central continent Garlemald is in the north of and a "New World" to the west of Eorzea. So they got a few expansions in the bag.

Then there's the remaining shards, there's 4 or 5 I think.

They could do the rejoining without destroying anything and have a bunch of continents from all the other shards show up. That's what happens in Final Fantasy 5. Then you can revisit characters from Shadowbringers.
 

Merrith

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I actually don't think Zenos or Fandaniel will end up the "end boss" of EW. At least one I think we will end up taking care of early, maybe one or the other lasts until the end, but I think the big stuff will be moon and whatever is left of the Zodiark/Hydaelyn mystery/situation to be resolved. Also seems clear the one underground zone they touched on during the Fanfest(?) will be Old Sharlayan having some hidden refuge where they are stocking/producing whatever they need to survive the coming world disaster/apocalypse which they will have known about already. Might even be to the point that some corrupt person from there ends up involved in the final confrontation. Just guesses, though.
 

Cybsled

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Ya, Fandaniel won’t be last boss. It will either be Zenos as avatar of Zodiark, or some Zeromus shit. I suspect Zod and Hyd get absorbed and the finale results in the light/dark getting balanced and the legacy of the ancients is laid bare for the world to remember
 
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