ARR and Beyond!

So last night at 2am I finished ARR. For me the last few missions was fast paced and epic; I very much enjoyed it. In work today I regret nothing.

So can you really call me a new player? In the grand scheme of things I would say YES!

Now ARR is complete a great deal of "stuff" has opened up for me, a lot I won't even realise until I'm looking for it specifically. What I'm asking for is a little direction for a newbie overwhelmed with content. I don't have a great deal of play time available so what do you think I should focus my time on? Is there anything specific I should do before HW? Shall I try out the new classed? (e.g. SAM/DRK - SAM in particular appeals to me from FF11 being my main and I'm the demon samurai after all :cool:).

Anyway, what do you guys recommend? Thank you :o

I would just grab all the side quests you come across but still focus primarily on the main scenario. Any time you feel like a break from the story then work on knocking off some of those side quests you collected. When you're finally at the end of expansion story then go back and clear all leftover quests.

You should definitely try whatever jobs interest you, but I generally advocate getting at least one job to cap (unless you start to dislike your current job) before bothering with others, and working on plowing through the main story so when someone asks "Hey, want to do XYZ?" you aren't forced to say "Sorry, I don't have access to that content/zone/whatever" (which has happened quite often in my FC recently with those who drag their feet on the main story...).

Aside from that, it's worth noting that important quests (quest chains that unlock various content) are somewhat blue and marked with a little + sign on the ! marker. You should definitely prioritize those over other sidequests.

Hopefully this image displaying the !+ sign works...
https://img.finalfantasyxiv.com/t/0e...e5ebb57_17.png

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Originally Posted by Raldo

I generally advocate getting at least one job to cap (unless you start to dislike your current job) before bothering with others

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I don't feel like that's the best approach - there's no real point to being max level before you get to the end of the game. It's more useful to keep your main job roughly equal with the MSQ so you can continue to earn EXP from quests throughout the game. (I'd suggest "two levels above current MSQ quest level" as a good balance - you'll never get caught out by the quest level going up and locking you out of continuing the story.)

It's also fairly easy to raise two classes at once, especially if you like to do all the side content - I was leveling summoner and white mage equally throughout Stormblood, using summoner for story progression and white mage to run daily roulettes.

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Originally Posted by Mikazuki

Anyway, what do you guys recommend? Thank you :o

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So based on your post im assuming you bought SB. The quest gap between praetorium and setting foot in ishgard is long, so my biggest advice would be to continue working to shorten it. You dont need to try to sprint through, but if you get at least one or two quests from the chain done every time you log in(by all means, do more if youre so inclined) then if/when you decide to pick up the pace you wont have as far to go. This is certainly a good time to pick up SAM and see how it plays(DRK requires getting into ishgard first). Grabbing all the optional unlock quests is a good idea(the ones Raldo describes), just dont feel you have to complete them all at once. The first cap level that youve now reached has 15 optional dungeons, 13 optional raids, 3 optional alliance raids(3 groups of 8 working together), and 14 optional trials(of varying degrees of difficulty) - and thats certainly a lot to try and take in all at once. My advice would be to slowly work through the dungeons at your own pace, and try the alliance raids(they can be a lot of fun). Side benefit of doing those, is that once you have enough of the dungeons and alliance raids unlocked you get access to new daily roulettes which can help you in leveling. The normal raids are fairly difficult to do at level, and most groups complete them unsync'd these days - the same for the harder trials. So maybe skip those unless you want two challenges(finding groups and finishing them). If you dont mind a little humor in your game, this is the time to start the Hildy sidequest line(Rise and Fall of the Gentleman - in Uldah). If you want some more worldbuilding details, look into the Postmoogle line(Of Errant Epistles in Mor Dhona). You can build a relic weapon if you like, but this is only recommended for glamour as the effort required to complete it far outstrips its combat value compared to other options you have.

Beyond all that, keep doing the parts that you find fun. The story for the next couple patches of content that youre working through has its peaks and valleys, and anytime one of those valleys threatens to derail you would be a great time to do one of those extra fun activities to keep yourself going. Best of luck!

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Originally Posted by Iscah

I don't feel like that's the best approach - there's no real point to being max level before you get to the end of the game. It's more useful to keep your main job roughly equal with the MSQ so you can continue to earn EXP from quests throughout the game. (I'd suggest "two levels above current MSQ quest level" as a good balance - you'll never get caught out by the quest level going up and locking you out of continuing the story.)

It's also fairly easy to raise two classes at once, especially if you like to do all the side content - I was leveling summoner and white mage equally throughout Stormblood, using summoner for story progression and white mage to run daily roulettes.

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You get a nice exp bonus for your second job if your first job is maxed...

Use your main job to run through MSQ. There should be an EXP bonus on MSQ that would be enough to level you up alone. You'll be like 52-54 before you enter Ishgard for example. If you find yourself too low a level to accept the next MSQ, do daily roulettes to get that little oomph you need to level up. Try to save side quests for leveling your secondary job. Especially if your secondary job is a DPS. Queue times are murder for them. If you queue up as a DPS, you can do some side quests at the same time.

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Originally Posted by Okamimaru

You get a nice exp bonus for your second job if your first job is maxed...

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You don't need it maxed.
Anything under your highest level will get the bonus exp. Maxing one out won't improve exp gains of another.

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Originally Posted by Canadane

You don't need it maxed.
Anything under your highest level will get the bonus exp. Maxing one out won't improve exp gains of another.

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Doesn't the level difference affect EXP gain? A Level 1 with a level 70 job will earn far more EXP than a level 1 when their highest job is 10?

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Originally Posted by Lucke

Doesn't the level difference affect EXP gain? A Level 1 with a level 70 job will earn far more EXP than a level 1 when their highest job is 10?

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Pretty sure it's +50% exp for any job lower than your highest, regardless of what the gap might be.

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Originally Posted by Raldo

Pretty sure it's +50% exp for any job lower than your highest, regardless of what the gap might be.

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That's what I thought, wasn't 100% though. That, plus the Ala Mhigan earrings (if you have them) plus rested EXP + EXP manuals + FC EXP buffs (if you have one)....makes it very easy to level up nowadays.

I went and tested the EXP bonuses.


On my alt character with highest level 49:

- low level classes (Lv9 and Lv16) get a total 180% boost when fighting enemies of similar level, which seems to be 30% from the Hall of the Novice ring, 50% rested bonus and 100% armoury bonus

- when fighting enemies of much lower level, the boost is higher but the actual EXP is lower. From attacking the same Lv7 enemy, the Lv9 class received "223 (+180%)" EXP and the Lv16 class received "51 (+230%)" EXP. So the bonus can make it sound more impressive but actually you're getting less out of it.

- Lv37 class received +150% total bonus, so 50% rested and 100% armoury



On my main Lv70 character:

- my lowest class is Lv55 and got +170% EXP, I think this includes 15% from FC boost and 50% rested bonus, leaving 105%? It seems an odd amount.

- classes over Lv60 all get +115%, so after the FC and rested bonuses that leaves 50%.



Someone else will have to check what bonus a really low-level class gets when catching up to a Lv70.

So ill agree with and expand on what Canadane said. The difference between the levels is irrelevant. What matters is the actual level. Below 60 its 100% armory bonus, over 60 its 50%.

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Originally Posted by Raldo

Pretty sure it's +50% exp for any job lower than your highest, regardless of what the gap might be.

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Up to level 60, the armoury bonus is 100%. Then from level 60 to 70, it's 50%. It doesn't depend on the amount of the level gap in either case, just on the level of the class you're currently advancing.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

- when fighting enemies of much lower level, the boost is higher but the actual EXP is lower. From attacking the same Lv7 enemy, the Lv9 class received "223 (+180%)" EXP and the Lv16 class received "51 (+230%)" EXP. So the bonus can make it sound more impressive but actually you're getting less out of it.
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- my lowest class is Lv55 and got +170% EXP, I think this includes 15% from FC boost and 50% rested bonus, leaving 105%? It seems an odd amount.

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It sounds like some other bonus may have been involved as well. Were you attacking multiple mobs? If you get several kills in quick succession, there's a chain bonus that adds to it after the first one, though I'm not sure what the amounts are on that.

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Originally Posted by Niwashi

It sounds like some other bonus may have been involved as well. Were you attacking multiple mobs? If you get several kills in quick succession, there's a chain bonus that adds to it after the first one, though I'm not sure what the amounts are on that.

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That could explain it. I'll check again next time I remember about it.

Thank you for all your tips (and calculations :P). I will definitely keep in mind doing MSQ with my main class and use all those side quests for my DPS second class. I've now unlocked SAM, got a good bar set up, and look forward to learning it, love the look and feel so far.

I've also done some Hildy quests which I only stumbled upon and decided to do them. Absolute madness, I couldn't believe what was going on! Any, in terms of MSQ I've just moved the Scions to Mor Dhona :)