Final Fantasy XIV (Guide in first post)

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The Edge

Lord Nagafen Raider
763
262
My brother plays this so I'm trying to give this thing a chance. Been playing for a week and it's just not fun. I don't care anything about the world or the characters and there is SO MUCH DIALOGUE. I'm level 17 and have started to just click through it all. If I play for an hour, I swear 45 minutes of that is talking. It just seems so excessive. Was really wanting to give this a go to play with my brother who is already level 50, but I'm about to give up. Does it get any better? I feel like I'd rather go play TERA or something.
 

Flipmode

EQOA Refugee
2,093
312
My brother plays this so I'm trying to give this thing a chance. Been playing for a week and it's just not fun. I don't care anything about the world or the characters and there is SO MUCH DIALOGUE. I'm level 17 and have started to just click through it all. If I play for an hour, I swear 45 minutes of that is talking. It just seems so excessive. Was really wanting to give this a go to play with my brother who is already level 50, but I'm about to give up. Does it get any better? I feel like I'd rather go play TERA or something.
Combat wise it doesn't get really good until after 30 usually. But if you don't like the story elements of a FF game, idk what to tell you there. I read the main story and a few side quests (Hildebrand etc). Rest is all fetch me bear ass quests so no need to read them.
 

McQueen

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
3,213
5,771
Try to stick it out until you get your first job. Combat really improves once you open up your entire combo chain, the story starts to pick up speed around then, and the dungeons get a lot better.
 

Chancellor Alkorin

Part-Time Sith
<Granularity Engineer>
6,051
6,036
If you don't like the story elements of a FF game, I have no idea why you're paying to play this. It's a FF game. Yes, there is dialogue.

When you get to 50 and you're either raiding or doing dailies/whatnot, there is no more story to speak of, so just tough it out for now.
 

Nehrak_sl

shitlord
517
1
If you don't like the story elements of a FF game, I have no idea why you're paying to play this. It's a FF game. Yes, there is dialogue.

When you get to 50 and you're either raiding or doing dailies/whatnot, there is no more story to speak of, so just tough it out for now.
Except for the "end game" story that unlocks Leviathan, Ramuh, Shiva, Thornmarch, and two "required" dungeons (Snowcloak, Keeper of the Lake) if you're trying to get caught up.
 

Chancellor Alkorin

Part-Time Sith
<Granularity Engineer>
6,051
6,036
Except for the "end game" story that unlocks Leviathan, Ramuh, Shiva, Thornmarch, and two "required" dungeons (Snowcloak, Keeper of the Lake) if you're trying to get caught up.
Well, yeah, but that's raiding. I'm excluding that. I'm also excluding the story elements of Coil, because quite frankly, filthy casuals like me won't see them (for a while yet).
 

The Edge

Lord Nagafen Raider
763
262
If you don't like the story elements of a FF game, I have no idea why you're paying to play this. It's a FF game. Yes, there is dialogue.

When you get to 50 and you're either raiding or doing dailies/whatnot, there is no more story to speak of, so just tough it out for now.
Like I said, my brother plays and wants me to join him. We used to raid together in EQ1. He told me it's the best MMO story that he's played since EQ. So far, I'm bored. There's just been a bit of a disconnect since the beginning. I'm usually pulled in by this stuff, but not for a moment in this game. I liked the stories/lore in EQ/EQ2, WoW, AoC, TERA, Lineage2. But I don't care anything about this. I haven't played a FF since VIII though, so that could be it. I've always planned on playing the newer games, but something else always grabs my attention.

Another thing, the game feels a bit clunky. Probably partly because of my 2009 laptop I'm playing it on, but ya.
 

McQueen

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
3,213
5,771
The clunkiness might just be due to the lack of skills at that level and the long GCD. I remember thinking the exact same thing when I started, and that turned out to be the problem.
 

Pyros

<Silver Donator>
11,216
2,362
Well the story starts slow, and is full of terrible fillers, so that doesn't help. I think the first primal fight is pretty nice though, the build up isn't the greatest but it looks really cool and gives you a decent taste of how they do their story stuff(iirc it's around lvl 20, after Halatali or something). Then for whatever reason, it's fuckshit nonsense for the next 20levels, fucking Titan story arc is the worst, minus the Lalafell pimp in Costa, but once you're done with this shit(and you should absolutely skip everything during that arc), only then it really starts being good. You start confronting the Empire, Garuda is epic as shit, and the end of the arc is really epic too, though sadly nowadays you'll get rushed through the dungeons and won't be able to watch cutscenes, which kinda sucks(can watch them after the dungeon though, overall the idea was retarded and they should have fragmented the dungeons in smaller parts and left the cutscenes outside).

Then once 50 you have some new arcs start for each patch, some are pretty bad(Moogle, Ramuh), some have really cool stuff in them(Leviathan) and the last one, Shiva/Heavensward, is getting really great. The coil shit is great too, especially Final Coil, though at this point it's probably unlikely you'll see these besides watching them on youtube or whatever. It even has CG cutscenes.

Do skip text on all side quests, watch the stuff for your class assuming your class isn't one of the terrible ones(bunch of them are to be fair) and watch some of the story but mostly skip most of that too.

As for clunkyness, could be lag, could be bad FPS, could be the longer GCD. It's a bit weird to play at first but I really like the slower GCD overall. Maybe cause I'm getting older so pressing keys every 2.5secs instead of 1.5secs is easier/more relaxed.

End of the day though if you don't like the game, you don't like the game, plenty of people don't like games that other people like, it's kinda up to everyone to decide. The game is in my opinion one of the best mmo, mostly because of all the content they keep adding and the art(music/graphics/animations) but I can totally see people disliking it because there's a bunch of aspects that are polarizing, like the slower combat, the fact it's a wow clone, the non customizable UI, the over reliance on server checks for everything leading to abilities getting cancelled/played in the wrong order, the recent bad connectivity to their server(though I'm pretty sure that's an american problem as I rarely have any issues, probably Comcast or whatever being bitches and fucking up somewhere).
 

Kriptini

Vyemm Raider
3,675
3,572
FF14 doesn't get fun until Titan (somewhere in the level 30 range). Up to you if you want to hang on until then.
 

Pyros

<Silver Donator>
11,216
2,362
Really need to let you farm alexandrite from fates as another class, to make it an alternative to hunts.
Technically you can, if you have completed the step/are on the same step on that other class. For example I can farm alex with my SCH who has Zodiac for another class now. Best is to find a group though if you're not a good FATE class, or just in general. Alex is still kinda a lot better now with Hunts dropping double seals and maps being like half price, though hunts are pretty crappy nowadays due to twines.