Guidance for a New Player

Well. Hello.

Me and my wife have recently purchased FF14. We splurged on the fancy $150 collectors editions, cuz why not. We've wanted a dedicated MMO to play for a while.

I went Arcanist cuz summoning is cool, she went Conjurer cuz healer. We're both roughly level 10. Will likely prefer to just play by ourselves, we're not huge on group stuff unless it's absolutely necessary.

She's an MMO junkie with 20k+ ours in Mabinogi and older titles, I played maybe 600 hours of ESO years ago. She's uhh not a fan of tab target combat, I don't mind it too much. ESO was similar, but combat was dull. FF14 is dated a bit, but the 7.0 update will be nice when it hits.

So I'm asking for any general tips/advice/guidance you deem worthy. We want to really sink and dedicate, but the worry is always there that some other MMORPG might be better for us. We're both huge on life skills, especially with since Mabinogi was the ultimate life skill simulator.

And of course the housing and decoration aspect is quite appealing. Just everything is a bit overwhelming. I'm level 10 and my hotbar is already filled to the brim with god knows what, and I'm pretty sure she's still spamming rocks :D

So far I'm just aimlessly completing quests, now that I'm 10 I'll provably join all the guilds and chase down the story.

Again, just looking for general advice and guidance. Thank you in advance!

1. The only quests that you need to do are the Main Scenario Quests. These quests have a fireball icon. The level of this quest is essentially your real level, because you cannot do any content higher than this level. It unlocks new areas and its associated content, you see.
2. Don't worry about experience too much. If you need more, experience is easy to get. Duty roulettes or the highest level dungeon you have unlocked are simple ways to get a lot of experience.
3. Blue sidequests unlock new content, dungeons, trials, raids, game systems and features. They also unlock new classes.
4. Any content that includes in the name (Extreme)/Minstrel's Ballad/(Unreal), (Savage)/Coil, or (Ultimate) is high-end content and can take hours or days of wiping to defeat it. Usually people watch guides for them and go in prepared. Although most old ones can be done with the Unrestricted setting that allows higher level players to come in without level sync and destroy it quickly.
5. Content with (Hard) in the name isn't hard. Don't worry. All story content is easy, with the aforementioned hard versions unlocked later via blue sidequests.
6. You can play and level all classes on the same character by switching weapon. You can save gearsets for each of them as well, and add the gearsets to your hotbar for quick class switching.
7. You can do the non-blue sidequests if you like lore or being a completionist. Otherwise, a lot of people skip them.
8. Most required story dungeons (4-person content) can be done with NPCs now, but trials (8-person content) still require a party, and so does side content. You can queue for them using Duty Finder, which automatically finds a party from people in a queue for "Duty Roulettes", which put them into a random content and give them experience, gil, and tomestones for helping out.
9. As previously stated, you can have higher level players use the Unrestricted setting to help you defeat the content quickly if you are afraid to party with a lot of other people, or overlevel yourselves and buy market board gear. But most people don't do this and just queue with Duty Finder.

There is something of a housing crisis in this game, but if you can't get a house, you can get a room in a house in a Free Company (which are guilds in other MMORPGs), or get an Apartment room.

I don't think you should worry too much about if another MMORPG is better. The only thing that really matters is if this one is satisfying you needs. I could play all these other MMORPGs and I'm sure some of them are really good, but I don't even look at them usually. I'm happy here.

Welcome to the game; I hope you enjoy your time here. :)

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Originally Posted by ShrooMooo

Will likely prefer to just play by ourselves, we're not huge on group stuff unless it's absolutely necessary.

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The bulk of the main story can be completed solo, but for instanced dungeons and boss fights you'll generally have to choose between doing them either solo with a group of NPC's or with a full group of players; there is unfortunately no option to have 2 players and 2 NPC's. And you won't even have that choice for all of them; while the devs have stated that their goal is to make all the main story content doable with NPC allies, not all of it has been implemented yet.

You could try to group together and then opt in to the option that allows you to enter a dungeon with an "unrestricted" party; this would allow you to enter with only 2 people. But it would also mean you don't earn EXP or tomestones and are at a (potentially impossible) disadvantage because you have fewer teammates. But it's something to keep in mind. My spouse and I enjoy doing content just the two of us, which often means bringing our two level 90's to do level 80 4-person content or level 70 8-person content.

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Originally Posted by ShrooMooo

She's uhh not a fan of tab target combat

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One of my favorite things about FFXIV is how customizable the UI and controls are. There are so many option that make the game perfectly playable whether you're using a mouse or a controller. I'm not sure what your control setup is, but there are a lot of different ways to both select and adjust targets. Some of these can be found in your Character Settings menu — which I highly recommend thoroughly exploring, as there are so many helpful settings you can tune to your preferences! — while for others you can make macros using the in-game macro system to control what gets targeted when you use specific abilities.

Personally, I recommend that new players activate the setting where if you do an attack without a target, it automatically targets the nearest enemy for that attack. You can also create filters that, for example, make it so that minions and pets won't ever be selected by target-cycling when you are in-combat. I have a filter that makes it so that target-cycling never targets my party members, since up/down on my D-pad already cycles through those. The more you play, the more you'll figure out what works for you, and there are plenty of settings available to help you get closer to something more ideal.

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Originally Posted by ShrooMooo

We're both huge on life skills, especially with since Mabinogi was the ultimate life skill simulator.

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Sounds like crafting and gathering classes will be something you enjoy; in this game their official names are Disciples of the Land and Disciples of the Hand. Continue playing the game and you'll run into them soon enough!

(continued in next post)

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Originally Posted by ShrooMooo

I'm level 10 and my hotbar is already filled to the brim with god knows what

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One thing that can help with this is using macros. As a controller user with arthritis, it's hard to imagine playing the game without them. The in-game macro system is surprisingly robust and I'd recommend that most players look into it at some point. My two favorite types of macros are macros that put two or more abilities on the same button — for example, if I press the button at close range it does a melee skill, but if I'm too far away the melee skill activation will fail and instead do a ranged attack — and macros that both cast an ability and switch my UI to a different hotbar when I press it, which prevents me from needing to manually manage hotbars while only pressing a handful of buttons to do all the attacks in my arsenal. There's a lot of power to leverage here, especially once you learn the intricacies of the system.

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Originally Posted by ShrooMooo

We want to really sink and dedicate, but the worry is always there that some other MMORPG might be better for us.

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Ah, sweet anxiety. <3

The best advice I can offer you is to not obsess over making perfect choices (which is generally a recipe for failure and disappointment) and instead focus on what's "good enough". If playing Final Fantasy 14 brings joy into your life, let that be enough.

I 100% understand the desire to find a place — whether real or virtual — and settle down, to invest in what you have in that space and make it a sort of home. But do keep in mind that everything is ephemeral. Someday the servers will go down. Someday you might become bored. One way or another, your time with this game will be limited. So I'd recommend simply trying to make choices that make you happy now. Spend your hours experiencing joy, and make some happy memories to take with you when you one day go. Enjoy what you have while you have it, and let that be enough.

I hope you have fun here!