Final Fantasy XIV (Guide in first post)

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

So, if you are newcomer to the game, here are some hard won tips and tricks. I really hope my memory as to what level and time things unlock are correct, it's been awhile..

Goal #1 = Unlocking Guildleves

Guildleves are a kind of repeatable quest. They unlock at level 10. Upon unlocking these, They can be used and accumulate at the rate of 4 every 12 (I think) rl hours. THESE WILL ACCUMULATE DURING DOWNTIME, INCLUDING BREAKS IN THE BETA. HAVING THESE STOCKED HIGH WILL BE AMAZING FOR FUTURE PROGRESS.


Goal #2 = Completing Ifrit on my main class. Preferably at level 18 or 19.

This is part of your main quest chain. This unlocks your Grand Company (after several run around cutscene quests), which is different from a Free Company (guild). Grand Companies are kind of like factions in WoW, you join them, and doing fates and various other tasks after you have joined reward you with seals that you can spend on equipment, and more importantly, your chocobo. This means that you can achieve your chocobo this weekend.

I want to get this done by level 18 or 19 so I don't waste any XP fate grinding for seals. Once you hit level 20, you can do the chocobo quest for your first mount.

Rest XP:

It's a bit backward, but you DO NOT GET REST XP IN THE MAIN CITIES. I learned this one the hard way. Rest xp also accumulate during downtime, including gaps in beta, so you can come back with a FULL rest xp bar between the Open Beta and early access.

The Teleport System:

FF14 has three different types of teleport systems. One is "Return" - you bind at any Aetheryte Crystal (big blue glowing gems in certain cities/hubs) and you can click this to effectively "Hearthstone" for free once every 15 minutes.

The second is "Teleport" - using this you can instantly teleport from anywhere in the world to any Aetheryte Crystal you have ever visted. This costs gil to use, and has no cooldown. You can also "Favourite" up to 3 locations to teleport to them at a reduced price.

The third is the teleport system within cities. This is called the Aethernet. Smaller Aetheryte crystals are scattered throughout the city and clicking any of them let you teleport from any Aethernet crystal to another Aethernet crystal. Aethernet exists in the 3 main cities. When you unlock all of the Aethernet locations in a city you gain the ability to teleport out of the cities main exits (into the quest areas) from the Aethernet as well.

Starting City, Starting Races, Jobs and Stats:

Your starting city is determined by your class and class alone.

Gridania: Conjurers, Lancers, Archers
Ul'dah: Thaumaturges, Gladiators, Pugilists
Limsa Lominsa: Marauders, Arcanists (and most likely Musketeers coming next, the 2nd Dex class)

Expect Gridania to be the most crowded as 3 popular classes start there and Beta 3 was Gridania only, so more people are familiar with the area.

Limsa Lominsa will also be crowded as Arcanist is a new class that hasn't been playable yet and people will be trying them out en mass.

There is no difference in stats or anything else by race. Go with your personal preference.

Each level after level 10 (I think) gives you stats. These are seperated by class, so adding stats to one class won't affect the stats of a secondary class. Far as we know, just dump these in your primary stat (VIT for Marauders and Gladiators, DEX for Archers, STR for Pugilists and Lancers, INT for Arcanists and Thaumaturges, MND for Conjurers.

Jobs come at level 30 and cannot be used for this Beta, so don't worry about them.

Fates:

Fates are mini-quests that activate out in the quest areas. No one is quite sure how they activate, it may be tied to people completing quest, or it may be random.

Fates usually have some story basis (Enemies raiding, people trying to steal stuff, swarms of enemies due to environmental conditions, or large boss monsters, etc) Upon entering a fate area, you are prompted to temporarily reduce your level (if you are over the maximum level of the fate) if you want to participate.

Doing fates will grant you Grand Company Seals (used to purchase items in their shop, like the chocobo) as well as hefty chunks of XP and Gil. You can receive up to 3 levels of reward (lets call them bronze, silver, gold) depending on your contribution.

I go out of my way to hit all that I see, they're really money for jam. They show up on the map and minimap with icons and shaded areas showing which area the fate covers.

Speaking of De-levelling, it happens in single player instances (important quests) and regular 4 man instances as well. For these it is automatic if you are overlevelled - it will scale you down to the highest level possible, including skills, and stats on your equipment. Out in the field, for fates, it's optional, but if you choose no, you won't get any fate rewards. This allows you to ride through a fate and not get delevelled if you are not interested in doing it.

I may have made some mistakes here, I'm working off my memory. If anyone else has any questions, post them here and I will do my best to answer them.