Fresh Player's Perspective.

Hello Final Fantasy community! As a new player to the game I'd like to offer a noobie's perspective on FFXIV! I received this account from a close friend who hasn't touched it since the first month of release. I always wanted to try the game but my friend had only ever told me horrible things about it and the reviews were just as abysmal as his input. I've always loved Square titles so either way I'm really happy to be finally giving this game a shot. I know that this game just made it's shift onto a monthly subscription model so I'd like to add that subscription fees will rarely turn people off from a game. Free to play titles generally have a high turn over rate simply because people can come and go as they please and not have to worry about losing any kind of investment other than their own time. Anyway!

Wow the game has a introduction tutorial! Most MMO's don't offer this kind of tutorial so it was a pretty nice touch . Gave a pretty good introduction into the rest of the game... which I realized very quickly isn't very much. I'm guessing levequests and behests only function as a small diversion from the standard grinding fanfare. I don't really mind the grinding though. The quests themselves are more about experience within the game rather than actual experience points or material rewards. Can't say much about this because I haven't been able to experience much of the story so far. I'd like to add that the gladiator match in the Uldah Colosseum was just awful and the chinchilla escort quest must have been one developer's sick joke. I was actually embarrassed for the game when I had to do this quest. >.>

The class system is probably the best feature this game has to offer. It adds quite a bit of versatility and the UI and hotkey customization is a definite plus. Graphics are top notch and the game's atmosphere really takes a hold of you. The game has a very renaissance fantasy ambiance quality which really helps with the immersion. The races, classes, equipment, and the open world really do a fantastic job of glorifying the game. Obviously I can't say much about the endgame experience or the current state of balance or difficulty but I can say that there isn't much of a learning curb once you get passed the noob in the big city feeling. It seems I'm pretty much stuck solo grinding it out until the later levels. This is more than likely due to how late i'm starting in the games lifespan.

It didn't take very long for me to see that this game revolves around its small communities. I'd only heard about the Final Fantasy community so I was pretty interested to see what it was all about. Finding a LS proved to be pretty difficult though. Plenty of threads for recruitment in the worlds forums but the modest amount of traffic that flows through the forums really age the threads. =/ The first LS I tried to join turned me away despite having no level/class criteria for joining. I let the guy know that I was going to be playing both Star Wars and FFXIV and he pretty much told me flat out that they wouldn't take in short term players. I'd more than likely stick around in the long run just to spite someone like that rather than stick it out so I could join their LS. Clearly this guy wasn't doing his part in trying to retain the games playerbase and I understand that players like this don't speak for the rest of the community, but I'd like to urge the community to be as noob friendly as possible. The game itself isn't very noob friendly so having to solo grind with no one to talk can be a huge turn off. Not knowing mob layouts doesn't help either. :(

All in all I'm really enjoying the game so far. It's fun to just relax, play the game with a mellow attitude, and take in everything the game has to offer. I can see why this game has it's devout following and the amount of potential this game has if the developers really think outside the box could be pretty bewildering. The game has a great foundation for the future so even if I don't stick around now I'll be sure to check it out in the future (assuming I quit of course). Last thing I'd like to say is that as an MMO community, the player-base should never be satisfied with the current state of their game. The game needs to evolve and players need to push developers into releasing what they want. I'm sure the developers that worked on this game know that better than anyone though. My conjurer isn't a conjurer... he's a healer lol! Tell me before hand please! The exp penalty doesn't encourage group play! Fix it! =P

Alright. I'd like to express a warm thanks to anyone who actually read it all. If you have any comments please let me know!

TL;DR - Unimportant noobs perspective of the game. Take what you read with a grain of salt and tell me how ignorant I am!

Hi Jimsvaliant.

What did you think of the Battle System / Crafting System / Gathering System?

Yeah this game didn't have a tutorial for a long time and most people had to figure it out themselves or give up along the way.

Like you said, this game is heavily community focused.

Anything you want to do in this game is significantly easier with the aid of another, especially when it comes to crafting.
(Craft, Repair, Melding ect)

Overall your experience seems like a positive one so far.

Welcome to FFXIV.

Welcome!

And you have to do the story it is one of the strongest points of this game (imo).

Enjoy!

Welcome to FFXIV !

Thank you for your feedback Jimsvaliant.

It is important to hear the impressions of new and returning players. You bring up a very valid and very dangerous concern about the Linkshell that did not allow you to join.

I believe some Linkshell management tools will allow more linkshells to be more friendly to new and returning players.
(i.e. LS not having a way to manage inactive players, with a limit to the players that can be in a linkshell, reforming as their population reaches max.)

Anyhew, welcome to Eorzea. I do hope your future experiences here are more pleasant.

Glad you enjoy it thus far. I know I do. I hope you enjoy the Durandal server.

Welcome to FFXIV :)

Welcome =)
Sorry you had bad luck with a LS. The only defense I'd give to that LS you applied to was that potential transient players take up a slot in an LS. There is currently no way to trim LS members, and linkshells have had to come up with strategic ways to prevent themselves from inflating with members who may dislike the game.

I can say that honestly because we have had the same debate in our own LS, and I know we're not alone. It is done to try and protect their own members, but I can see why you would feel shafted. It's hardly a win/win scenario.

Make sure you do the story missions, even the bad/seemingly useless ones help set up the really good ones. Sorry for the low level troubles. A lot of the existing communities have all level 30+ battle classes, making the early grind sometimes less fun without a LS.

Thanks for the feedback. In regards to the LS situation, I figured that that would was the case. After over a year of development there hasn't been any LS management implementations? Are there any planned for the future? That kind of thing seems like a big deal to me lol. Are there ways to manage people that end up disliking a LS for whatever reason and griefing the rest of the members? I have every intention of completing whatever story missions I can along the way. I'd probably go crazy if I were to just grind all day.

@Avraym The combat system actually isn't very good the your standard hotkey mmorpg imo. It's definitely not fluid and responsive enough for competitive play (PvP) if they ever implement anything like that and there are a lot of combat systems from older games that easily outdo this one. Despite all that, the combat in this game manages to "fit" the game somehow. I guess that's just the Final Fantasy style. The Crafting system is pretty difficult lol. Not sure how I feel about it yet, but it seemed to me like the developers wanted to implement a high risk high reward system that ended up leaning more towards high risk and skimping you out on the reward haha. But I'm a noob so what do I know. Haven't done any gathering other than fishing so no comment there.

As a fellow new player, I'd like to give my perspective as well.

Ahem,

Tarutarus!

thank you.

Welcome Jimsvaliant :) nice of you to join our FFXIV community :) one thing I didn't see so far is helpful websites you could visit.. YG ( yellow gremlin pre sure, just google YG ff14) and Mooglebox ( google it also, at work so cant provide links)
and there is a great gathering location site also.. pre sure its disciplesofthehand.com or replace hand with land.. someone will be able to probably provide you all the links.. at work for another 5hrs ; ;

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jimsvaliant

Thanks for the feedback. In regards to the LS situation, I figured that that would was the case. After over a year of development there hasn't been any LS management implementations? Are there any planned for the future? That kind of thing seems like a big deal to me lol. Are there ways to manage people that end up disliking a LS for whatever reason and griefing the rest of the members? I have every intention of completing whatever story missions I can along the way. I'd probably go crazy if I were to just grind all day.

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There have not been any rehauls to LS Management. It's pretty bad.
But I think you understand why, but I hope you understand his sentiments. Linkshells fill up fast, and its annoying when you have reroll a new shell because you only have 30~ active players.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jimsvaliant

It didn't take very long for me to see that this game revolves around its small communities. I'd only heard about the Final Fantasy community so I was pretty interested to see what it was all about. Finding a LS proved to be pretty difficult though. Plenty of threads for recruitment in the worlds forums but the modest amount of traffic that flows through the forums really age the threads. =/ The first LS I tried to join turned me away despite having no level/class criteria for joining. I let the guy know that I was going to be playing both Star Wars and FFXIV and he pretty much told me flat out that they wouldn't take in short term players. I'd more than likely stick around in the long run just to spite someone like that rather than stick it out so I could join their LS. Clearly this guy wasn't doing his part in trying to retain the games playerbase and I understand that players like this don't speak for the rest of the community, but I'd like to urge the community to be as noob friendly as possible. The game itself isn't very noob friendly so having to solo grind with no one to talk can be a huge turn off. Not knowing mob layouts doesn't help either. :(

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You will find that due to the lack of linkshell management functions people will turn away players who don't spend a lot of time with the game, if they decide to leave or don't play very often it is impossible to remove them from the linkshell and they just take up space.

The only way currently to solve this is by making a new linkshell and transfering everyone over.

I wouldn't take it personally and things will get better once SE sort this LS issue out.

http://www.mooglebox.com
http://www.disciplesoftheland.com
http://ffxiv.yg.com

That should cover the links mentioned earlier.
I'll also mention http://www.ffxiv-db.com < includes a handy quest tracker.
Really good character tracking http://www.xivpads.com