Thoughts from a brand new player

I've been playing Final Fantasy XIV for just over two weeks now, being a new player who bought the game on the day Shadowbringers was released.

There are plenty of reviews of the expansion for existing players, but I'm not seeing anyone offering a review of the base game itself for new players in 2019. I wanted to share some of my thoughts two weeks in.

Gameplay is exactly what I expected. It is tab-target gameplay with a rotation of abilities in a hotbar following DPS/Tank/Healer conventions. It is pretty much like every MMO that has come out since WOW and that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

The graphics and overall art style is much nicer than I anticipated for a very old game, save for over the top animations that I've come to expect from Final Fantasy titles.

I LOVE the concept that one character can have multiple classes and multiple gear sets.

I was told the game had a free initial month trial, and elsewhere that the game is free up until level 35. But after buying the base game (Collector's Edition), Heavensward, Stormblood and the Shadowbringers (Collector's Edition) I couldn't log into the game without buying a subscription. That seemed counter to what I heard, but I happily bought a subscription to try it out. Apparently buying the game takes away the trial, which seems really counter-intuitive.

Earrings frustration - I was looking at the game with all the news and focus on Shadowbringers and how all my friends had been bragging up the game. I had Shadowbringers in my cart, but went out at night and forgot to check out. I bought it the next morning, which was release day. I missed the pre-order by a few hours, not realizing it was release day and not realizing I permanently missed out on an XP bonus for every class under level 70. This seems like a huge missed opportunity that really frustrates me. Obviously the devs realize the ARR content is a slow grind, the new content is good and they want players to progress to it. Many people feel that end-game is when a MMO really comes into its own. If this was unlocked by a digital purchase of collector's editional items for $20 like the other collector's edition items, I'd happily pay for it. In fact, I did buy the Collector's Edition of Shadowbringers. I was tempted to pay to get the Collector's Edition content for Heavensword and Stormblood as well, but I don't know if I want to throw even more money at the game yet. But I screwed myself over out of ignorance because I'm a new player who didn't realize the release day or what I was missing. I opened a support ticket and asked if Square-Enix could hook a new player up who just dropped a bunch of money on day one to try out this game, and they closed the ticket without really an answer or explanation. But I guess I'm screwed and that is that. I don't want to sound entitled, but it did kill a little of my excitement for the game, so I'm less interested in paying the extra $5 a month for the mobile app and such.

I see the game has a cash shop. I really with the earrings were in the cash shop. It is really off-putting knowing I permanently missed out on something huge like that literally by a few hours simply because I didn't know any better. Someone offered me a pre-order bonus code, but apparently they're region locked and it was only good for EU. Is there any place to purchase a NA pre-order bonus code?

Experience at the low levels comes quickly. With the Hall of Novice ring, being in a FC and Road to 70 (not sure how long does that buff last) I can level up super quick at low levels. So I decided to try each of the base classes. I have them all up to 15 or 20. I'm trying to figure out which class I enjoy most and want to make my main class, though I also want to see the story for ALL of the classes/jobs in time. But I know that XP progression is often on a curve and it will slow down greatly for higher levels, not to mention some of the XP bonuses are only up to level 25/35. I'm really kicking myself for missing out on the earrings.

Leveling solo - As far as all the classes go, it is far easier to level tank classes or certain DPS classes. Healers can't do much DPS so they are a pain to level up solo. They're designed to work in groups, but my healer is squishy. So just trading damage to the enemy and myself over time doesn't work well solo. SWTOR is a game I played for years. I really loved the companion system in that game. It was great for story and also for gameplay. Leveling a healer allowed you to pull out a tank or DPS companion and heal them as they were fighting. Some of the magic ranged DPS classes are also a pain to level. I have a slow cast, but have to move out of the way of AoE attacks breaking my cast. These magic classes are also squishy. This reminds me of the Sniper class in SWTOR. They were a turret that couldn't move and could apply high burst DPS with a long "cast" time, and work well in a group setting, but not solo where you need to move. And at low levels, I'm not even seeing the high burst DPS from them.

Leveling some of these classes almost requires a group. But it seems most players are doing the end-game or new expansion content.

Frustration with creating first character - I do have friends, and they're all on other servers. I couldn't play with them if I wanted. Most servers are not allowing new characters to be made. In fact, when I bought the game, I could not play right away. I saw that "Preferred servers" have an XP boost so I wanted to create on Brunhildr, but had to wait a full day to log in during off hours to even create my character early in the morning. If I didn't have time to log on in early hours, I basically wouldn't have been able to start as a new player really. Not allowing me to create a character on servers with my friends, and not really allowing me to create a character at all initially is not a great first experience.

Early story isn't great - So far the story is barely present, but I've been warned that ARR isn't that great and it gets much better as you go along. The class story quests up to 20 don't have much going on. I was shocked that a few quests I assumed where minor side quests in the world prompted full cut scenes are were in fact major story quests, but it wasn't immediately obvious to me that they were different from all the other minor side quests I was picking up everywhere.

My big early mistake - I screwed myself over by trying different classes and crafting classes before unlocking my mount because my inventory very quickly filled up. Apparently your mount gets you saddlebags, but I basically had to dump a bunch of crafting mats and items, which is causing me to burn gil to buy them later when I realize I needed them, but I simply don't have inventory space to hold them all. In other games I've played, you can pay to unlock more inventory space and I was shocked that wasn't an option here. One player very graciously gave me some starting gil, and frankly without it I wouldn't have been able to start on crafting classes as I'm just burning gil buying mats to make items to sell to a vendor often for a measley 1 gil. I see low level crafted items (such as a level 15 armor piece) selling for 10,000 gil on the market boards, but I didn't see any option for me to sell the items I'm crafting on the market boards. Apparently, again this was me screwing myself over by leveling all the classes at once and not moving the main MSQ forward fast enough to unlock retainers which I finally did last night.

Also, I was told there is an XP bonus for any class with a lower level than your highest/main class. But now someone is telling me it is proportional, so you really need to max one class first to get a proper bonus on the others. But this isn't obvious or explained in game that I've seen.

I asked a bunch of players if there was anything I should know as a new player going in, and no one warned me that trying to level multiple classes early was a mistake because it slows down getting to retainers and your mount and clutters your limited inventory. I wish I had known to at least get to your mount first and this is the biggest piece of advice I'd give to other new players now.

FCs - I hear that FCs have levels and abilities you get from them, but I don't understand what these are other than the combat bonus. I don't know if it matters which FC I'm in and if I should be looking for a higher level FC for better perks.

Gathering class quests - Most of the quests and content are very self-explanatory with the map markers are such. I've found some of the gathering class quests aren't. There isn't a map marker for where I should look for mats. I found it really hard to start the Botanist level 5 quest. The map marker is there at the guild, but it tells me to go to Treespeak. I have no idea where Treespeak is. I Googled it, and apparently it is North Shroud. So Aethernet didn't have a teleport to North Shroud. In Central Shroud on the map I see you can go from there to North Shroud, but only through a portion of Central Shroud that is gated off. East Shroud doesn't connect to North Shroud. I couldn't figure out how to get to North Shroud for a bit until I realized I missed one exit from the city that went to North Shroud. But as a new player, a map marker or better text in the Journal would have helped.

You can't play completely solo - The main quest requires you to do dungeons. I was told you can play the main story completely solo, but that isn't entirely true. You sit in queue for a while as a DPS. I'm not sure I want to tank my tank into queue even though I know how to tank from other games, just because I don't know the dungeons and no one wants a tank who doesn't know where to go or what the mechanics are.

Class Mechanics - With a few of the classes, the mechanics are fairly obvious early on. With my Gladiator, I need to do a basic combo rotation (Fast/Savage) to generate Enemity/Threat. I am a little shocked that by level 23 I don't have an AoE taunt however, which is a fairly basic Tank move. Some of the classes I'm a little confused on mechanics. For example, with Archer Heavy Shot has a 20% chance of enabling Steady Shot, so there is no consistent rotation or combo. And then I unlocked Bloodletter which does the same damage, doesn't apply a buff/debuff/DoT or anything like that. It does the exact same damage as Heavy Shot, but then I have no chance to enable Steady Shot. Bloodletter seemed completely pointless because the tooltip lists the same cast time, but apparently it doesn't eat a global cooldown. I understand it now, but this really should be explained better in game.

With THM I initially had no idea when to use Ice or Fire or how to manage MP consumption. It looked like Ice and Fire did the same damage, but Fire would eat up all my MP quickly. I understand it now, but I wish this mechanic was better explained in game. I was in the middle of combat at it said I unlocked a meter or gauge of something, but I had to click off the help tip to finish fighting mobs.

I'm also shocked there is no skill tree. I like being able to customize my character and having player agency.

Content new players have missed - It is a little off-putting knowing that I'm jumping in a game with tons of past events I missed out on. I see everyone in their FF XV car mounts and such. I'm immediately aware that I'm a late comer to a game that has been around for years. Honestly, that can be off-putting. In other games I loved collecting every mount and pet. In this one, I presume there are a bunch I can never obtain now. I'm curious if events do return. If so, which ones and how often?

I heard that the game now offered a Trust system to allow you to run dungeons with NPCs rather than other players. I was really looking forward to trying that out, but apparently it isn't available for most of the dungeons in the game, only the newest ones with Shadowbringers.

Overall I'm enjoying the game though I'm spoiled by SWTOR's voice acting and companion system and really with this game had both of those. But I really love playing all the classes with one character.

Welcome to the game!

A good tip for the forums: editing your post lets you ignore the 3000-character limit and keep long posts in one piece.

Re. the free trial, it's definitely available but the problem is that you registered your purchased copy first. The trial is a separate download, and stops working once you have the paid game.

Quest markers - there are a few different shapes. MSQ looks like a fireball, 'important' quests have a blue marker with a plus symbol (eg. class quests) and sidequests have the plain yellow marker.

The EXP bonus used to scale depending on your max level, but is now a fixed rate as long as you have another higher-leveled class. (It was +100% up to Lv60 and +50% to Lv70 while Stormblood was current, and I assume those have adjusted up to Lv70/80 now.)

Re. inventory, have you set up your retainers yet? They each have their own inventory and can store a lot of items. There's also the glamour dresser at the inn, which you can use to store costume pieces you don't need as gear any more but want to keep for glamours.

Tanking - Flash should be your AoE enmity generator, unless that's been changed in the recent update.

The BLM Fire/Ice mechanism is definitely badly explained or outright misleading. Fire is your primary attack, so cast it until you're out of MP then switch to Ice for the shortest possible time to recharge it.

It's definitely a bit disappointing to arrive late and see all the stuff you've missed! There's a chance they'll repeat the FFXV event, at least, since they previously did for FFXIII and FFXI events.

For advice: definitely focus on your MSQ quests, and any 'blue' sidequests. If you want to do other sidequests as you go, stick to ones that are in the same town you're currently visiting for the main story - don't go running across the map for things because you'll be sent there soon enough.

Once you have your chocobo mount and get to Lv30, there's a sidequest at Camp Tranquil in the South Shroud that lets you use it as a battle companion in the overworld. From memory, this is what also unlocks the saddlebag.

Getting to the end of ARR (credits roll) doesn't mean you're up to Heavensward yet, as there is a whole sequence of quests that were originally released in patches over the period between main game releases. You'll also gain access to a lot of optional dungeons and trials at this point - make sure you do the 'hard mode' versions of the three story trials, as it becomes a progression requirement for MSQ later. Also make sure to do the Crystal Tower raids, which are optional but tie into Shadowbringers' main story.

That pattern will repeat for each expansion. After Heavensward you get another stretch of patch quests, then leveling through Stormblood, then Lv70 patches. It's a long trip but the story is worth it.

Some notes and comments:

You do not need to split up your post in multiple posts like that. Once you have made a post, you can go back and edit it - and then you do not have to worry about character limits.

You get quite enough experience to level up your main job even without any of the pre-order earrings. The XP bonus from the earrings is mainly useful for leveling up extra classes.

Early story suffers somewhat from not being a story as such. Or rather, it is the story of how you go from an unknown adventurer among many others to become the famous Warrior of Light. The road involves many menial tasks such as beginning adventurers are often sent out on. Meanwhile you will get involved in quite a few important events - and even the not-so-important ones will tell you a bit about the world.

The armoury XP bonus you get when playing a DoW/DoM class/job that is not your highest does NOT depend on the level difference. There is a help text in the game which says it does, but that is not correct and hasn't been correct for a very long time if ever.

You can buy extra storage space, sort of. You can hire extra retainers, but this will increase your montly subscription fee.

Complete solo play is not possible. FFXIV is actually unusual among MMOs in just how many mandatory group dungeons you must do in order to proceed with the story and to unlock further content.

There used to be a bit more character customization available - largely inherited from the 1.0 version of the game, but it has all been removed bit by bit over the years.

In general, the amount of threat you generate is proportional to the amount of damage you do, or the amount you heal. Tanks additionally has an ability that turns on their tank stance, which makes all their abilities generate much more threat than usual. This extra threat is usually enough that your normal attacks (including AoE attacks) will easily let you take aggro from any non-tank.


Some events have returned once or twice, but that is determined on a case-by-case basis and no guarantee that any of the old events will return.
Most of the old event items eventually appear on the Mogstation cash shop where they can be bought by anyone with money to spare.


Free Companies can buy and activate some bonuses for their members. See https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Free_Company for some information on what is available.

Welcome to FFXIV! Hopefully, despite everything you have posted here, you are still enjoying the game! I just wanted to take a few moments to make some comments and notes about your review to shed light on some things.

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Originally Posted by enderandrew

I was told the game had a free initial month trial, and elsewhere that the game is free up until level 35. But after buying the base game (Collector's Edition), Heavensward, Stormblood and the Shadowbringers (Collector's Edition) I couldn't log into the game without buying a subscription. That seemed counter to what I heard, but I happily bought a subscription to try it out. Apparently buying the game takes away the trial, which seems really counter-intuitive.

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Think of the free trial this way: you don’t have to drop money on anything to test out the game. However, since you paid for the game already and registered it, this invalidates the free trial. The purpose of the free trial is a “testing grounds”, but when you buy a product, you sort of skip over that step. That’s why the trial no longer worked after you registered a purchased copy of the game.

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Originally Posted by enderandrew

Earrings frustration

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Originally Posted by enderandrew

Experience at the low levels comes quickly. With the Hall of Novice ring, being in a FC and Road to 70 (not sure how long does that buff last) I can level up super quick at low levels. So I decided to try each of the base classes. I have them all up to 15 or 20. I'm trying to figure out which class I enjoy most and want to make my main class, though I also want to see the story for ALL of the classes/jobs in time. But I know that XP progression is often on a curve and it will slow down greatly for higher levels, not to mention some of the XP bonuses are only up to level 25/35. I'm really kicking myself for missing out on the earrings.

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For what its worth, the Aetheryte Earrings only work on experience you gain from mob kills, where as the Road to 70 buff doubles your experience on everything—including MSQ. So the Road to 70 buff is definitely the better of the two buffs. I wouldn’t feel too sad about missing out on the earrings, if for no reason other than you will quickly outpace the level of the MSQ with Road to 70 alone. The Road to 70 buff will also work on all jobs you level, including crafters and gatherers, even after you complete the MSQ! :) As long as you remain on a preferred world, you’ll have more experience than you’ll know what to do with!

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Originally Posted by enderandrew

Leveling solo - As far as all the classes go, it is far easier to level tank classes or certain DPS classes. Healers can't do much DPS so they are a pain to level up solo. They're designed to work in groups, but my healer is squishy. So just trading damage to the enemy and myself over time doesn't work well solo.

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While you may seem squishy at times on a caster or a healer, the latter do more than enough personal damage to complete all solo content in this game, so you don’t need to worry about a healer’s damage when it comes to content. They actually do really well in terms of personal damage in this game. :)

When you reach level 30, you can undertake a side-quest (located in Camp Tranquil in South Shroud) to give the chocobo you receive during the level 20 Sidequest “My Little Chocobo” the ability to join you in combat—the quest is called “My Fiesty Little Chocobo”. What you can do is level up your chocobo with the healer or tank skill tree, allowing it to tank and/or heal for your squishier jobs. Just make sure that you are keeping up with the MSQ, as you have to select a Grand Company in order to receive your chocobo.

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Originally Posted by enderandrew

Frustration with creating first character - I do have friends, and they're all on other servers. I couldn't play with them if I wanted. Most servers are not allowing new characters to be made. In fact, when I bought the game, I could not play right away. I saw that "Preferred servers" have an XP boost so I wanted to create on Brunhildr, but had to wait a full day to log in during off hours to even create my character early in the morning. If I didn't have time to log on in early hours, I basically wouldn't have been able to start as a new player really. Not allowing me to create a character on servers with my friends, and not really allowing me to create a character at all initially is not a great first experience.

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This is a complaint a lot of newer players have, especially since the developers started listing worlds as congested. If you managed to get your character on the same Data Center as your friends, you and them can utilize the new World Visit feature to play together—either on your home server, or their home server. It’s not a perfect solution, but it does allow for cross-server play with friends who may not share the same server. In the future, you can always look into server transfers—they usually cost $18 USD, so they can be pricey, but they can also be worth it if you are able to get on the same server as your friends.

As a fair warning, with preferred worlds, you do have to wait 90 days after you create your character to transfer off, and you will lose your Road to 70 buff when you leave.

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Originally Posted by enderandrew

Early story isn't great - So far the story is barely present, but I've been warned that ARR isn't that great and it gets much better as you go along. The class story quests up to 20 don't have much going on. I was shocked that a few quests I assumed where minor side quests in the world prompted full cut scenes are were in fact major story quests, but it wasn't immediately obvious to me that they were different from all the other minor side quests I was picking up everywhere.

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It is true that the story gets better the further you go. ARR’s story is another complaint I’ve seen frequently from players, simply because of the amount of filler and fetch quests present. Unfortunately, this will continue almost up until the start of 3.0 (Heavensward), but from here on out, the filler gets noticeably less. And there are a lot less pointless-feeling fetch quests involved in the later expansions, so the developers did learn from their mistakes with ARR.

There has been talk of condensing ARR’s story, but when that will be no one can say.

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Originally Posted by enderandrew

My big early mistake - I screwed myself over by trying different classes and crafting classes before unlocking my mount because my inventory very quickly filled up. Apparently your mount gets you saddlebags, but I basically had to dump a bunch of crafting mats and items, which is causing me to burn gil to buy them later when I realize I needed them, but I simply don't have inventory space to hold them all. In other games I've played, you can pay to unlock more inventory space and I was shocked that wasn't an option here.

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Once you hit level ~17 in the Main Scenario, you will get the option to hire retainers. You get two for free, each of which can hold up to 175 unique items in their inventory.

There are paid retainers, but they cost real money. You can hire up to 6 additional retainers for the cost of $2 USD each per month. If you have the companion app ($5/month), you can add a 9th retainer, but I think you still have to pay $2 USD for it (I could be wrong—I don’t use the app). Each paid retainer comes with 175 slots each. The money is tacked on to your monthly subscription. Paid retainers can be a sensitive topic, but if you really enjoy crafting, they are almost necessary unless you are a god at keeping only mats you immediately need (and choose to go out and gather the rest when needed). I have 8 retainers myself, simply because I try to omni-craft and there are a lot of materials in this game. And I like to keep the most used ones and some of the timed resources on hand as much as possible.

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Originally Posted by enderandrew

FCs - I hear that FCs have levels and abilities you get from them, but I don't understand what these are other than the combat bonus. I don't know if it matters which FC I'm in and if I should be looking for a higher level FC for better perks.

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Free Companies can offer buffs from Heat of Battle (battle experience buff—wonderful for leveling) to reduced teleportation fees to even experience for your chocobo. You can even have buffs up for Increased MGP Gain (which is the Gold Saucer currency—Gold Saucer houses a bunch of mini games where you earn MGP and can buy things like minions, mounts, and glamour items) and there are buffs for crafters and gathers as well. There are a myriad of different buffs that you can receive while in a Free Company, as long as your FC lead/officers are on top of keeping them up.

Larger FCs tend to keep 2 buffs up at a time, usually Teleportation and Leveling buffs in my experience. You can also meet a lot of people in the larger FCs and make more friends, which is nice. Some FCs have access to an FC House, meaning you can have access to various amenities within the estate (e.g., crafting stations, chocobo stables to level your chocobo, etc.), and you can even purchase an FC room to decorate when you reach the appropriate rank with your Grand Company (Second Lieutenant).

However, smaller FCs are capable of the same feats—they just have to work a bit harder at maintaining company credits for the FC buffs. Some players prefer smaller FCs and some prefer larger FCs. So it would ultimately be whichever you prefer.

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Originally Posted by enderandrew

Gathering class quests - Most of the quests and content are very self-explanatory with the map markers are such. I've found some of the gathering class quests aren't. There isn't a map marker for where I should look for mats. I found it really hard to start the Botanist level 5 quest. The map marker is there at the guild, but it tells me to go to Treespeak. I have no idea where Treespeak is. I Googled it, and apparently it is North Shroud. So Aethernet didn't have a teleport to North Shroud. In Central Shroud on the map I see you can go from there to North Shroud, but only through a portion of Central Shroud that is gated off. East Shroud doesn't connect to North Shroud. I couldn't figure out how to get to North Shroud for a bit until I realized I missed one exit from the city that went to North Shroud. But as a new player, a map marker or better text in the Journal would have helped.

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You should have a teleport to North Shroud called the Yellow Serpent Gate. If you traveled around Gridania and attuned to the smaller aethernet shards, the Yellow Serpent Gate (North Shroud) and Blue Badger Gate (Central Shroud) are added to your aethernet, which you can access from any of the shards. North Shroud’s proper Aetheryte is in a level 25~30 area called Fallgourd Float, which the MSQ will take you there around level ~27 in the story.

Whenever you arrive in a new, major city state, make sure to attune to the aethernet shards around the area if you haven’t been doing that. They will unlock certain zone teleports (like the Yellow Serpent and Blue Badger Gates) to allow you to warp into the starting outside areas around each city state faster.

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Originally Posted by enderandrew

You can't play completely solo - The main quest requires you to do dungeons. I was told you can play the main story completely solo, but that isn't entirely true. You sit in queue for a while as a DPS. I'm not sure I want to tank my tank into queue even though I know how to tank from other games, just because I don't know the dungeons and no one wants a tank who doesn't know where to go or what the mechanics are.

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The majority of the main story and most side stories can be completed solo. However, you will still have to participate in instanced duties that involve other players. This is an MMO after all. :) In the grander scheme of the story, the party instances are definitely few. However, when it comes to leveling your other classes/jobs after you finish the main scenario, you will have to rely heavily on them to an extent. There are solo options for leveling other jobs (e.g., FATEs), but they can take much longer as dungeons give really good experience when you do them at level.

When it comes to tanking, let players know on your first run of a dungeon that you are new and unfamiliar with the dungeon. Most will be understanding of this, especially at the the lower levels, and some will even give you tips on how to make things easier. If you are still nervous, you can opt for the slower DPS queues to try and familiarize yourself with dungeons first before doing them on tanks. As the story progresses, dungeons become more linear in nature with less branching paths and extra rooms, so they will be easier to follow.

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Originally Posted by enderandrew

Class Mechanics - With a few of the classes, the mechanics are fairly obvious early on. With my Gladiator, I need to do a basic combo rotation (Fast/Savage) to generate Enemity/Threat. I am a little shocked that by level 23 I don't have an AoE taunt however, which is a fairly basic Tank move.

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Shadowbringers really simplified tanking when it comes to enmity generation. With Gladiator, you should have a skill called Total Eclipse, which you obtain at level 6. This is your AOE “taunt”—with your tank stance on (Iron Will—level 15), one hit with Total Eclipse will grant you instant enmity on mobs. In packs of 3 mobs or more, you can just opt to spam this skill instead of using your combo, as things will die faster with AOE.

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Originally Posted by enderandrew

Some of the classes I'm a little confused on mechanics. For example, with Archer Heavy Shot has a 20% chance of enabling Steady Shot, so there is no consistent rotation or combo. And then I unlocked Bloodletter which does the same damage, doesn't apply a buff/debuff/DoT or anything like that. It does the exact same damage as Heavy Shot, but then I have no chance to enable Steady Shot. Bloodletter seemed completely pointless because the tooltip lists the same cast time, but apparently it doesn't eat a global cooldown. I understand it now, but this really should be explained better in game.

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Not all jobs follow a 1-2-3 combo format. Tanks and melee DPS have this format, but casters, healers, and jobs like Archer/Bard do not have a 1-2-3 combat system. Rather, they have a priority system. With Archer, you will want to use Heavy Shot (your filler move) after you have applied DoTs to the mobs (until level 30, you only have 1 DoT—Venomous Bite). When you receive a Straight Shot Ready proc, use Straight Shot instead of Heavy Shot. Bloodletter is an oGCD (off-global cooldown) ability that you weave in between your GCDs for extra damage. A lot of jobs gain oGCDs as they get higher in levels, and oGCDs tend to be your stronger skills. So you always want to keep them on cooldown as they are free damage on top of your GCDs.

I started this game on Archer, and I have mained its job (Bard) for over 3 years. If you have any additional questions about it, feel free to ask me. :)

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Originally Posted by enderandrew

With THM I initially had no idea when to use Ice or Fire or how to manage MP consumption. It looked like Ice and Fire did the same damage, but Fire would eat up all my MP quickly. I understand it now, but I wish this mechanic was better explained in game. I was in the middle of combat at it said I unlocked a meter or gauge of something, but I had to click off the help tip to finish fighting mobs.

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With THM, your rotation will look like this most of the time (this is extremely simplified—it gets a bit more flavor at later levels when it becomes a BLM, but this is the basic idea): start in Astral Fire > use Fire until your MP is almost gone > Transpose into Umbral Ice > use Blizzard until Transpose is off cooldown > Transpose back into Astral Fire > Repeat.

The meter you saw what your Astral/Umbral gauge, which is basically a timer to let you know if you’re upkeeping Astral Fire and Umbral Ice. Both “stances” have a timer on them that you have to maintain, usually through casting certain spells. For THM, it’s Fire (to maintain Astral Fire’s timer) and Blizzard (to maintain Umbral Ice’s timer).

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Originally Posted by enderandrew

I'm also shocked there is no skill tree. I like being able to customize my character and having player agency.

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This game follows set rotations for all jobs. There are no branching rotations or “mix-and-match” rotations outside of priority systems that some jobs like Bard, Dancer, and Red Mage have.

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Originally Posted by enderandrew

Content new players have missed - It is a little off-putting knowing that I'm jumping in a game with tons of past events I missed out on. I see everyone in their FF XV car mounts and such. I'm immediately aware that I'm a late comer to a game that has been around for years. Honestly, that can be off-putting. In other games I loved collecting every mount and pet. In this one, I presume there are a bunch I can never obtain now. I'm curious if events do return. If so, which ones and how often?

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Some events do return. FFXIV hosted a FFXIII event that returned two or three separate times in the past. They also hosted a Yokai Watch event twice. So it is possible that the FFXV event (which is how you obtained the Regalia) may return in the future. For other seasonal events, items made available during them are placed on the cash shop for a small price (usually $5 for glamour items).

There are certain mounts and minions that are unobtainable through timed exclusives such as DLC—some soundtrack and artbook minions are no longer available if you did not purchase the external product in the past, but they have been moving away from that. Some mounts are timed exclusively to PvP as Feast rewards, and are, as of right now, permanently unavailable to anyone who did not receive them prior.

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Originally Posted by enderandrew

I heard that the game now offered a Trust system to allow you to run dungeons with NPCs rather than other players. I was really looking forward to trying that out, but apparently it isn't available for most of the dungeons in the game, only the newest ones with Shadowbringers.

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This is true. The Trusts are only available for the Shadowbringers dungeons. There are Squadrons you can unlock with your Grand Company once you obtain a high enough rank, and you can level those up to undertake Command Missions with you—this allows you to do some of the dungeons from ARR and HW (some, not all). These are really good for leveling alt jobs that you may feel uncomfortable playing with other individuals with (like tanks or healers if you have tankxiety or healer anxiety). They will work up until level 60. It’s possible that some of the Stormblood (60+) dungeons may be added in the future.

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Originally Posted by enderandrew

Many people feel that end-game is when a MMO really comes into its own.

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You're going to be very disappointed if you apply this feeling to this game. It's a story-based/driven game. The story is the game. Everything is gated by story. You can't get to "end game" until you've progressed through every expansion/patch MSQ. There's not nearly so much to keep you busy at the end as you might think. Most likely what you'll find yourself doing is many things that in no way require you be at max level end of story.

Take your time and enjoy the ride. If you're too focused on rushing through the story because it's "old content" you'll just find yourself wondering what's left.

Most other topics were covered. But, re: your Botanist issue: clicking on the quest objective opens the map at the location of the objective (in this case, would have opened the map for North Shroud). Additionally, on the map, as you sorta discovered, you can see the transition points, coulda seen the North/Gridania transition. Finally, once you've attuned to all aetherytes in the Gridania network, you should indeed have the option to 'port directly to the North Shroud.

Did the same thing as you, tho, back when I started, trying out every class, leveling everything together, and definitely delayed gaining my mount. It wasn't the absolute worst, but yeah, definitely realized I prolly shoulda got there sooner. But, play and learn.

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Originally Posted by Hasrat

You're going to be very disappointed if you apply this feeling to this game. It's a story-based/driven game. The story is the game.

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Honestly, that is my primary appeal. I use to be a hardcore SWTOR raider competing for server firsts on Nightmare content. But I played constantly. It was all end game or event content. Then I had my second kid, and I couldn't pause a 16 man Raid/Op because the baby needed me. Parenting comes first so I completely stepped away. My intent right now is to primarily play solo, casual and see the story for all the classes/jobs.

I figure the game will provide a reasonable amount of XP to level my primary class, but I don't then intend to dive head first into endgame content. Rather, I want to level all the rest of the classes as well.

Since my free time is limited (and I've got a two week vacation out of the country coming up) I'm not even sure I will hit 70 in my main before I lose the "Road to 70" buff. I certainly won't maintain that buff long enough to level all the rest of the classes/jobs. But I want to see the story for all of them. I hear Dark Knight is a particularly good story, which is part of the reason why I started with a tank main class.

And thanks to everyone for their replies!

I did figure out that I grab mobs with me AoE attack on my Gladiator, I'm just used to other games where you NEED taunts. It is also odd having two dedicated taunt abilities with very few abilities, but both are single taunt abilities and I'm being told that taunts are largely unneeded in the game.

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Originally Posted by enderandrew

You can't play completely solo - The main quest requires you to do dungeons. I was told you can play the main story completely solo, but that isn't entirely true. You sit in queue for a while as a DPS. I'm not sure I want to tank my tank into queue even though I know how to tank from other games, just because I don't know the dungeons and no one wants a tank who doesn't know where to go or what the mechanics are.

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Actually, the ARR era dungeons can be run solo... buuuuuuut, there is a catch. You can set dungeons and trials as 'undermanned and unsynced' by clicking on the small button in the top left corner of the Duty Finder that looks like a cog wheel). This then removes party requirements for every duty (dungeon and trial and even certain raids) in the Duty Finder allowing you to enter them completely solo. However, going into, say, Stone Vigil solo as level 40 is tantamount to suicide. In these situations it's better to get a high level friend to duo with you and run you through them, but that does kind of defeat the 'solo' aspect (you could also hold off and keep levelling to a higher level and enter them then as you'd have a much higher chance of survival).

SE did eventually learn from their mistakes though and main scenario dungeons and trials in Shadowbringers allow you to take a party of story npcs called 'Trusts' in with you instead of having to form a party with other players, but alas that's just for SHB content and not earlier content.

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Originally Posted by enderandrew

Class Mechanics - With a few of the classes, the mechanics are fairly obvious early on. With my Gladiator, I need to do a basic combo rotation (Fast/Savage) to generate Enemity/Threat. I am a little shocked that by level 23 I don't have an AoE taunt however, which is a fairly basic Tank move

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GLA/PLD did have an AoE hate generating ability called Flash that was gained at level 6, but it was removed at Shadowbringer's launch recently after constant player demands to add an AoE damage attack at that level instead, so now we have the weaponskill Total Eclipse at that level instead, which basically does the same thing but does AoE damage as well. I still miss Flash's simple utility however. :(

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Originally Posted by enderandrew

I'm also shocked there is no skill tree. I like being able to customize my character and having player agency.

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Well, a lot of that is SE looked at their earlier FF MMO FFXI which had a fully customizable Job system (where you could add a secondary Job to the first one and at higher levels unlock customizable abilities), and saw that players were still just finding the most optimal path and sticking with that. And hence FFXIV has continuosly stripped down ability freedom in preference of a default ability path based on your class/Job's role. I do miss certain abilities that were formerly available (such as being able to set low level healing spells to GLA/PLD such as Raise and Protect), but new abilities do compensate for that mostly.

Really, all SE have done is taken the player's blinders off - no matter how liberal or varied the ability system may be in how you can set abilities, players will always inevitably find the 'meta' setup that gives the best return for the least effort, and will insist on only using that (and attacking/shunning other players who dared think outside the box - FFXI suffered from that terribly as I mentioned). Of course the trade off is everyone more or less looks and plays the same, but it's a small price to pay.

Either way, welcome to Eorzea! :D

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

Actually, the ARR era dungeons can be run solo... buuuuuuut, there is a catch. You can set dungeons and trials as 'undermanned and unsynced' by clicking on the small button in the top left corner of the Duty Finder that looks like a cog wheel). This then removes party requirements for every duty (dungeon and trial and even certain raids) in the Duty Finder allowing you to enter them completely solo. However, going into, say, Stone Vigil solo as level 40 is tantamount to suicide. In these situations it's better to get a high level friend to duo with you and run you through them, but that does kind of defeat the 'solo' aspect (you could also hold off and keep levelling to a higher level and enter them then as you'd have a much higher chance of survival).

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What kind of level difference would you need? Could you run a level 20 dungeon solo at level 25? 30? Would you need to be higher? I've been encouraged to hop in queue with my tank, and that people will apparently be patient if I don't know the dungeon. But I'm still curious about running solo. When I'm really high level, could I run through dungeons solo with my high level character to make sure I get all the drops to help get gear for my alt classes?

Right now I'm 25 about to do the level 19 MSQ and should hit Infrit and my Chocobo soon. It makes me wonder if I could solo a 20 dungeon at 25 or so.

Oh most definetely NOT, there is no way you would survive a level 20ish dungeon solo at level 20 (Thousand Maws of Toto Rak let me guess? That place is probably the first real test as things get increasingly difficult dungeon wise from then on out, although Halatali at the same level hints at that - that one's completely optional however). General rule of thumb is you would need to be at least 20 levels higher to stand a chance sadly soloing (and it should go without saying that you gear should be the best for that level).

I definetely feel for you as I too hate having to do mandatory party duties too as I'm a loner at heart (the only times I like to do party content is with my bf and friends), all I can really suggest is if you don't know anyone high level that can duo with you and run you through it, is to create a party through the Party Finder (not Duty Finder) and state you want to do it undermanned and unsynced. Often you'll get someone willing to help as it can often be more effective than simply queuing in Duty Finder (though if you were on my server (Balmung) I'd gladly help you myself :)).

Either way soon to be knight-in-training, don't give up hope yet! :D

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Originally Posted by enderandrew

Leveling solo - As far as all the classes go, it is far easier to level tank classes or certain DPS classes. Healers can't do much DPS so they are a pain to level up solo. They're designed to work in groups, but my healer is squishy. So just trading damage to the enemy and myself over time doesn't work well solo. SWTOR is a game I played for years. I really loved the companion system in that game. It was great for story and also for gameplay. Leveling a healer allowed you to pull out a tank or DPS companion and heal them as they were fighting. Some of the magic ranged DPS classes are also a pain to level. I have a slow cast, but have to move out of the way of AoE attacks breaking my cast. These magic classes are also squishy. This reminds me of the Sniper class in SWTOR. They were a turret that couldn't move and could apply high burst DPS with a long "cast" time, and work well in a group setting, but not solo where you need to move. And at low levels, I'm not even seeing the high burst DPS from them.

Leveling some of these classes almost requires a group. But it seems most players are doing the end-game or new expansion content.

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Solo leveling as in grinding mobs in the open world is pretty inefficient anyway. You really want to queue up for the highest dungeon you can run and do some FATEs while you wait for the queue to pop. Also afaik there is a nice exp bonus when you kill stuff that is your level, so you want to make use of that as well and not "waste" the levelling roulette on those levels but do it on the inbetween levels that don't yield an exp bonus for a dungeon. So ie. when you are Level 44 you run Dzemael Darkhold 1-2 times till you level up to 45, making full use of the exp bonus as mobs will also be level 44, then when you hit 45 you do the leveling roulette which might get you to 47 where you have the next dungeon available which will again yield that exp bonus for equal level.

Since even endgame players use the levelling roulette for endgame currency or levelling alt jobs there shouldn't be too much trouble queuing up for any low dungeon. I'm levelling a MCH alt atm and my queue times are between insta-pop to like 7-8 mins max so far.

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Originally Posted by enderandrew

I was told the game had a free initial month trial, and elsewhere that the game is free up until level 35. But after buying the base game (Collector's Edition), Heavensward, Stormblood and the Shadowbringers (Collector's Edition) I couldn't log into the game without buying a subscription. That seemed counter to what I heard, but I happily bought a subscription to try it out. Apparently buying the game takes away the trial, which seems really counter-intuitive.

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I played to around level 30 then bought the starter edition, I didn't have to sign up for a sub as it came with 30 days free time thrown in.

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Originally Posted by enderandrew

Is there any place to purchase a NA pre-order bonus code?

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Yesterday i saw an preorder code for NA on ebay. I have the same problem, i was looking for an european pre-order code.

Hopefully they have it in cash shop one day :/

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Originally Posted by Bakari_Pridemane

Yesterday i saw an preorder code for NA on ebay. I have the same problem, i was looking for an european pre-order code.

Hopefully they have it in cash shop one day :/

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I don't know what SE's policy is, but I know with other companies and games they often frown on third party RMTs. I'm forced to go the eBay route myself now, but I would encourage SE to consider putting them in their own first party cash shop on Mog Station.

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Originally Posted by Bakari_Pridemane

Hopefully they have it in cash shop one day :/

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Pre-order items have a promise of exclusivity for pre-ordering. They're never made available any other way. (The closest was when ARR was released on PS4 several months after it had been released on PS3 and PC. The new platform release led to players getting a second opportunity to pre-order it.)

SE could, however, create other items with a similar bonus. For instance, there's now several hats in the game that provide an XP buff for low-level classes. I believe the Aetherite Earrings are the first to combine that with level-adjusted stats (which make extending it into higher levels feasible), but I'd be surprised if they're the last.

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Originally Posted by enderandrew

I was told the game had a free initial month trial, and elsewhere that the game is free up until level 35. But after buying the base game (Collector's Edition), Heavensward, Stormblood and the Shadowbringers (Collector's Edition) I couldn't log into the game without buying a subscription.

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The free trial version ends when you buy the full game. (It also has a lot of limitations that go away when you buy the game, so is really only suited to people trying to decide if they're even interested in the game enough to buy it. If you're sure you're going to want the game, it's better to buy it up front and start off with the full thing that gives you access to chat, trading, forming parties, joining an FC, etc, which are all either limited or blocked entirely in the free trial.)

But buying the base game should have automatically given you a 30 day subscription included in the price of purchase, so it should have taken a month from registering the game before you needed to pay for subscription time.

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Originally Posted by enderandrew

Many people feel that end-game is when a MMO really comes into its own.

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Maybe for some other MMOs that might be the case, but not here. People who come here expecting everything to be at end game (based on experiences in other games) tend to be disappointed when they get there and realize most of the good content is in the stuff they raced past trying to reach something else. Explore. Try out everything. Enjoy the journey, it's the best part.

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Originally Posted by enderandrew

Early story isn't great - So far the story is barely present, but I've been warned that ARR isn't that great and it gets much better as you go along.

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The story itself in ARR would be pretty good, except that it has some pacing issues which turn an otherwise good story into sporadic good segments interspersed among other stuff. There's places where it has lots of fluff content that does little to advance the story, and other places where it has long stretches of story exposition without enough activity.

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Originally Posted by enderandrew

I was shocked that a few quests I assumed where minor side quests in the world prompted full cut scenes are were in fact major story quests, but it wasn't immediately obvious to me that they were different from all the other minor side quests I was picking up everywhere.

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The main scenario quests can be distinguished from others by the type of quest icon. (Main story has a flaming ring around the icon where the icons for other quests just have a Q, or in the case of sidequests that unlock features, a Q with a plus sign in the corner.) Even the plain sidequests can sometimes have a story to them, though, or fill in some background lore. There will be more side stories with a substantial story to them at the levels that have been endgame at some point than there are during the leveling ranges, though.

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Originally Posted by enderandrew

I screwed myself over by trying different classes and crafting classes before unlocking my mount because my inventory very quickly filled up.

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Saddlebags certainly help, but retainers are the bigger cure for inventory issues. Your saddlebags can hold 70 items, whereas your retainers can hold 175 each, and you get at least two for free (and can have more if you're willing to raise your subscription cost for it). Retainers are also unlocked earlier in the story than your chocobo is, as you can hire retainers any time after you join the Scions of the Seventh Dawn in a level 17 main scenario quest. That's the threshold I usually suggest getting to before getting too deep into crafting and gathering, though you can certainly unlock them and try it out a little before then.

Until getting retainers, I'd limit gathering to only those items you need for a craft you're planning to do right away or that you need for a quest, and limit crafting to items you want for your own use or things you need to turn in for a quest or levequest. The recommendations to make and gather one of everything for the first-time XP are fine once you have retainers to hold what you'll want later and sell off what you don't want, but not when you're keeping the resulting item clutter in your main inventory.

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Originally Posted by enderandrew

I was told there is an XP bonus for any class with a lower level than your highest/main class. But now someone is telling me it is proportional, so you really need to max one class first to get a proper bonus on the others.

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This rumor started way back when ARR was first released, based on a badly worded help screen, and has persisted ever since, but it's wrong. The bonus is and always has been a fixed amount, and is not based on the difference in your levels. It's 100% up until you reach a certain threshold (on the class you're leveling at the moment, not on your highest class), and then 50% after that. That threshold used to be at level 60, but I'm assuming it changed to 70 when ShadowBringers came out (just like it changed from 50 to 60 when StormBlood came out). I haven't actually checked that detail, though.

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Originally Posted by enderandrew

Gathering class quests - Most of the quests and content are very self-explanatory with the map markers are such. I've found some of the gathering class quests aren't. There isn't a map marker for where I should look for mats. I found it really hard to start the Botanist level 5 quest. The map marker is there at the guild, but it tells me to go to Treespeak. I have no idea where Treespeak is.

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With gathering quests, and occasionally others, the next objective is actually turning the items in, and you're on your own for where to find them. Many items can be gathered in multiple locations, but your gathering log should tell you where they are, with the specific area (Treespeak in this case) listed under a heading for the region (North Shroud). If you opened your map while there at the Botanist guild, you'd have seen the gate to the North Shroud is just south of it, between the BTN guild and the CNJ guild, and once you get to the North Shroud you can open your map to see that you're in Treespeak, as it's the first area just past the gate. IIRC, though, you might have to look around a bit for the right trees to harvest from, as there are multiple groups of them and only some yield the items you're looking for. (Though when you find the right group of trees, all trees in that group yield the same items.)

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Originally Posted by enderandrew

You can't play completely solo - The main quest requires you to do dungeons.

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Having come from an MMO that did let us play solo all the way to endgame if we wanted to, I remember this taking me by surprise when I first started and hit that mandatory run of Sastasha. It didn't take long before I came to enjoy it, though. We seem for the most part to have quite a friendly playerbase, and being given a reason to run things with others got me to do so a lot more than I would have on my own if it had been optional.

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Originally Posted by enderandrew

With THM I initially had no idea when to use Ice or Fire or how to manage MP consumption. It looked like Ice and Fire did the same damage, but Fire would eat up all my MP quickly. I understand it now, but I wish this mechanic was better explained in game. I was in the middle of combat at it said I unlocked a meter or gauge of something, but I had to click off the help tip to finish fighting mobs.

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I agree. That help tip only pops up once, when you're likely to be too busy to read it, and the most obvious place to look any other time is the skill tooltips that just say the name of the buf they add to or remove without saying what it does. Managing the Astral Fire and Umbral Ice buffs is so central to THM/BLM combat that it really needs to be described in the most obvious location where people can find it — the skill tooltips.

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

SE did eventually learn from their mistakes though and main scenario dungeons and trials in Shadowbringers allow you to take a party of story npcs called 'Trusts' in with you instead of having to form a party with other players, but alas that's just for SHB content and not earlier content.

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What about Command Missions? I have been reading a bit about those being new myself.. that's Stormblood right?

Command Missions is a feature of Adventurer Squadrons released in patch 4.1 of Stormblood. It allows the player to enter an dungeon with 3 unit members. While unit members have their own free will, responding as the situation demands, they can be given orders to guide their actions.

Halatali
The Thousand Maws of Toto-Rak
Brayflox's Longstop
The Stone Vigil
Dzemael Darkhold
Aurum Vale
The Wanderer's Palace
Pharos Sirius
Copperbell Mines (Hard)
Brayflox's Longstop (Hard)
Sohm Al
The Vault
The Fractal Continuum
Pharos Sirius (Hard)

Players must have unlocked these dungeons prior to entering on command missions. Standard level/item sync and other restrictions apply.

Source: https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/w...mmand_Missions

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Originally Posted by AnnaUK

What about Command Missions? I have been reading a bit about those being new myself.. that's Stormblood right?

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That was introduced in a patch following Stormblood's release, but was incorporated into the base game, so is available in ARR (though starting late in ARR, so people are more likely to reach Heavensward by the time they unlock them).

The requirements for unlocking command missions begin with becoming a second lieutenant in your grand company. That requires a level 47 dungeon, Aurum Vale, which is the last level specific requirement, so is the lowest level at which command missions can be unlocked.

Once you become a 2nd Lt. and do the pseudo-quest* to introduce squadrons, each time you complete a challenge log entry, there's a chance that an NPC will apply to join your squad. You need to gather a squadron that way, and then level them up by sending them out on training missions. Once they complete a flagged mission which advances the squad to rank 2, you can do command missions with them, where they accompany you into a dungeon.


*(I'm calling it a "pseudo-quest" because the NPCs at your GC headquarters that you need to talk to are marked with a quest icon, but it doesn't have a quest name or show up in your journal.)