So I started FF14 today. I am completely lost.

I'll be honest. I quit World of Warcraft about 3 months ago after having played since Wrath of the Lich King, and I haven't really experienced any other MMOs (besides Rift) and everything in FF14 from what I've seen so far feels like a whole different animal.

So I went with what I know, which is a ranged class. The interface, being to interchange between a keyboard and an Xbox 360 controller, all these different jobs and crafts and all that stuff feel a bit overwhelming to begin with.

For the time being, I'm just doing the starting quests I suppose, but how else can I learn about this game properly as far as resources and such go? Willing to take any advice/help. Thanks. :D

Welcome to Eorzea! :D

Some good resources for FFXIV are Square Enix's official FFXIV player website called the Lodestone (which this forum is a part of), which amongst other things has a lot of relevant information for new players on it. It also has a personal page of your character so you can view your character's data anywhere you are basically. The Lodestone can be found here: http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/

Another online site I use is Gamerescape's FFXIV site at http://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/ which has a wealth of info on it as well.

Really though, the game is actually designed to guide new players into things slowly so don't be too worried about 'not knowing what to do' at first - we were all new at one stage, and you've already made the first step asking for help here. :D The early quests especially are basically tutorials for this very reason. But the important thing though, is just to have fun! :D

To be honest the main storyline quests tend to tell you absolutely everything you need to know about the games mechanics. There might be one or two things it doesn't say straight up but I can't think of them off the top of my head.

Best advice I can tell you is to stick with one job until 50 except for leveling your sub classes to unlock your job. http://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/FF14_Wiki <- This doesn't have a ton of info altogether but it has job and class info.

What they said.

I would also say that a nice short term goal is to knockout your main story quests up to level 21. Buy that time you will not only know exactly what you are doing but you will also be getting into the meat and potatos of the game itself.

It's probably easiest to just continue the main story with whatever class you started on for as long as you want. At 30 you'll be encouraged to at least level another combat class up to 15 to unlock your job crystal and start that quest line (takes the place of your class quests from 30 to 50). Unless you're especially interested in gather and crafting I wouldn't worry about those for now. They're fun if you're into that sort of thing and can be useful, but are far from necessary when leveling a combat class.

The main story will unlock many things for you as you go, so it's always useful to stick primarily to that.

Also, single play is fairly different than with a party. I'm sure you know that with experience from WoW. The first dungeon is at level 15, but you can actually do something called a guildhest beforehand, and it gives decent exp at low levels and let's you ease into your role in a party. That way you don't just feel thrown in when you get to the dungeons. They are short (only 5-ish minutes max). Only probanly I can see you running into is that you rolled a dps class, so your queue times might be a bit longer.

If you are going bard as a job to take to 50... I highly suggest lvling lancer and pugilist for the cross class skills. Invigorate is so wonderful at endgame and pugilist has lots of great cooldowns for damage and such. Lancer should be easy for you to grab because it is also in gridania starting areas with archer.

Also, don't forget to do your class (and job, after lvl30) quests every 5 levels. They give you gear, exp, money, some skills, and some of them teach you something about how to use your class (very basic, tho).

Oh, and remember that you can get all the classes (combat, gathering and crafting) in a single character, so don't be afraid to try any of them if you want to. It won't break anything :)

Read the Active Help windows. Really.
No, seriously, read them.

PS. Read them!

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Originally Posted by Umo

Read the Active Help windows. Really.
No, seriously, read them.

PS. Read them!

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I can't like this post enough :)

But yeah, everything everyone else has been saying. Do your class/job quests, do the first two guildhests, get your two sub classes for your job to 15, do the first two guildhests, ask your party members questions, and, oh, do the first two guildhests. Read about your specific class/job (so ARC/BRD in your case). I think you'll be fine though since you've played another MMO before. Your only problem honestly should be the queue times as you're a dps. I know that you've just started, but I recommend trying the healing and tank roles eventually just so you know what things you can do as a dps to make their lives easier other than killing things (I have a much greater appreciation for tanks since I started leveling a PLD)

Particularly through the early few levels, the main scenario quests (the ones with the fiery ring around the quest icon) are a mix of explaining the story's background info and explaining how the gameplay works. You'll want to know both of those, so pay attention to what the quests are telling you, not just to where you're supposed to go to get them marked as completed. The same goes for class quests. You get a quest every five levels at your class's guildhall, and those have some good info on playing the class. That and, as Umo pointed out, pay attention to the help windows. Between those, the game does a pretty good job of explaining itself. If something still doesn't make sense, you can ask about it here.

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Originally Posted by MartaDemireux

Best advice I can tell you is to stick with one job until 50 except for leveling your sub classes to unlock your job.

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This part is more a personal preferance type of issue. Some people like to take one job to 50 first. Others like to level them all up together.

There are a few milestones that can be useful to reach. At 15, you can unlock airship access to reach other cities. At 20, you can unlock mounts. At 50, you can start earning tomes that can be accumulated to trade for high-level gear. I generally recommend people get at least to 15 or 20 before spending a significant amount of time pursuing alt classes. That way they have access to all three of the main cities and (if going to 20 where you join a Grand Company) can ride mounts while pursing other classes. But while there is some benefit in getting all the way to 50, I think that's better left for after you've tried out several classes and had some time to decide which you really like best.

15 is also a better time to try out the crafting/gathering classes, since if you decide you're going to pursue them, you'll want to get them up to around the same level as your main combat class(es). They'll be too far behind if you wait until endgame before starting them.

Thank you all for your help. :D I also found a Free Company to join and are helping me learn the ropes as well, so I hope to progress at a steady pace.

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Originally Posted by Niwashi

This part is more a personal preferance type of issue. Some people like to take one job to 50 first. Others like to level them all up together.

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I suggested it because having a level 50 allows you to not only unlock all the games conveniences (like you touched on) but also because then every battle class you level thereafter will receive a 50% exp bonus. If you stop one at 20 and then level another up to 20 you will get the bonus but the moment you pass the first class's exp you will lose the bonus. If you have 1 50 you can then take every other class to 50 and get the 50% exp bonus for ease of general leveling after quests run out.