Sprout FAQs

Hello! Getting straight to the point: I'm planning on making a YT video and would like to ask those who frequent NovNet, what are the most common questions you see sprouts asking?

To clarify, stuff like "When do I get my first mount?" "Which GC should I join?" Stuff like that.

Thank you, in advance!

I don't frequent Novice Network but I speak to a lot of sprouts. Here are my common ones.

How do I dye gear?, How do I hold agro?, What is Party Finder?, What is Unsync?, Will Unsync count for my quest?, What do I do as healer if nobody needs healing?, Where do I buy stuff?, Why does Extreme/Binding Coil/Savage que not pop?, How do I use a mount?

A lot of it is "How do I unlock x" and x can be anything from pvp to dungeons in general to extremes.

Popular questions that haven't been mentioned yet are
"Where do I put all these items/Is there a bank?" [Explaining about the armory, retainers, the chocobo saddlebag, the glamour dresser and so on]
related to that question is
"Do I have to keep all these things?" [Explaining about the part of the tooltip that tells you if an item can be bought at an NPC and for how much, also the calamity salvager and the other NPC whose english name escapes me at the moment]
other things my NN answers often are
"Do I have to do all the quests?" [Absolutely do MSQ (and how to tell what is part of the MSQ) and +Quests (except Relic quests you're not interested in at the moment); only do side quests if you're interested in the stories they tell]
"How do I change (back to) my class?" [brief explanation about changing weapons/tools, Job Crystals and setting up gear sets]
and
"I changed class, how do I catch my level back up to the MSQ?" [Giving a quick rundown of the Hunting Log, FATEs, Daily Roulettes and general leveling tips]

What doesn't get asked but deserves a shoutout is the Hall of the Novice, even if it's just for the gear it provides. A quick word about the <pos> command probably also goes a long way as that usually only gets brought up after some poor sprout asks for a rezz without providing a location.

More advanced questions that may not fall into the scope of your project but come up fairly often are
"Which crafting discipline should I get?" [All of them because recipe trees start interconnecting]
and
"Why does my GC not promote me to the next rank?" [In 8 of 10 cases because the squadron has been missed entirely or people missed the part about doing 5 different command missions; 1 of 10 each for missing completion of the GC Hunting Log and simply having arrived at the highest attainable rank]

edited to add: This usually only comes up after Auto-Translate has been used in the Novice Network but "What are those red/green brackets/arrows around words?" is another popular one and explaining about Auto-Translate is always welcome on servers that use a mix of languages for their chat, especially if people are asking for advice on abilities.

From helping a lot of sprouts on dynamis, loads of them don't know DC travel is even an option. Maybe bringing this up.

"How to unlock flight/flying mounts" is one I was personally asked by a sprout a while ago, so that might be worth covering (at the time I was hovering in my magitek armour in Coerthas Western Highlands waiting for a certain FATE to spawn and the sprout was surprised to see me doing that, and asked me accordingly.).

Im not often in NN, but i tend to see questions like these:

- Questions about Houseing and how to unlock/use glamour.
- How to unlock Mount(Chocobo) - How to turn off mount music..ect.
- Where to unlock the jobs, like they want unlock an another job, but dont know which city..ect.
- Where to get accessories ( rings,neck,.ect).
- Where buy Crafter gear , and how to level them.

Other things i think is of importance:
- How to level ( cover the importance of following the MSQ and Blue unlock quests).
- Gear set - How to make/save - and why.
- Macros: (Crafting and mouseovermacros for healers) - They should be aware that it exist.

Show them usefull UI settings like (QOL settings):
- How use hotkeys and assign hotkeys.
- How to only see your DOTs only(settings).
- Seperate Boss castbar and make it big!
- Scale up debuff/buff bars.
- Tell them about debuffs, which ones that can be dispelled (how they see it).
- Inventory Settings--> the (Open All) setting.

A lot of boss clues are shown in debuffs,boss cast bar.
make it visible, the standar UI is crap.

So, to begin with, the game is much too huge to just make an FAQ tbh. There are too many things. Anyone that's tried to make a guide has ended up making it 20-30 minutes long and they end up having missed so many things.

If someone did make an FAQ that giant, it would overwhelm the person with information and they wouldn't retain it. It is very important when answering new player questions to keep it simple, and not overwhelm them with all the little nuances and exceptions.

One of the worst things I experience in the Novice Network is if I keep an answer simple and don't mention all the little, rare exceptions, a veteran will always interject and say "but this, and that, and that..." and make the answer seem more confusing and complex than it needs to be. They will figure out the exceptions when they do it.

Part of why the Novice Network is good, or being in an FC, is you can ask what you actually want to know, rather than being overwhelmed with things you don't need to know right now.

The most common question, as you said, are things like...

• "when do I get a mount?"
• "why am I not gaining any exp?" (the reason is because patch quests don't give much, but new players can't distinguish between expansion quests and patch quests)

You might get better inspiration from Square Enix themselves, who make guides for sprouts themselves:

• https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/uiguide/
• https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/game_manual/
• https://starter-guide.finalfantasyxiv.com/

It is important to stress that Square Enix does explain almost everything in Active Help popups, as well as at the end of blue unlock quests. It's just that a lot of players seem to click these off and ignore them, then ask questions as if they didn't read it.

For example, Active Help does explain what a FATE is, but you might see a new player ask about them later on...

You should teach sprouts how to use the glamour dresser/armoire and make glamour plates.

"These DPS queues are taking so long! What should I do while I wait?"

The ones I usually always see is what is the fastest and most efficient way to farm pretty much anything.
Fastest way to get through the MSQ and catch up.
Fastest way to get endgame gear late to the party.
How to get into endgame raiding with no experience at all and how to find the resources necessary.
Not knowing when primetime is for certain activities and end up waiting in queues for much longer than they need to.
Not knowing the benefits of DC Visit and World Travel, and when you might want to use them.
EVERYTHING related to PvP.
ANYTHING related to endgame. The game doesn't teach people how to play their jobs very well.
The classic is what jobs are best and why. Which jobs are most new player-friendly? Which jobs can I not get yelled at for not being good at, ect.
All the different quest markers on the minimap, how to find the Aether Currents, and how to tell if something has an unlockable or meaningful reward. (The number of people that don't have flight when I do map parties is kind of staggering)
I see a lot of sprouts asking how to get involved with RP and how to find mods but that one is uhem. Goodluck.

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Originally Posted by Bonoki

I see a lot of sprouts asking how to get involved with RP

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I don't, so I suppose that has something to do with being on Balmung.

My riff's on this poster's list. Note this is not a tit-for-tat response, please.

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Originally Posted by Bonoki

ANYTHING related to endgame. The game doesn't teach people how to play their jobs very well.

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There have been multiple videos on "how to play <pick a job> at endgame" over the last ten years. Most are outdated at this point.

There have not been videos on "how to level <pick a job> with an eye to prepare for endgame". These could actually be role-based, with discussions of mitigation, learning how to determine higher DPS through tooltips, observing mechanics, and how-to-heal with and without specific job examples.

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I see a lot of sprouts asking how to get involved with RP

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A whole series about this topic would be welcome. Mechanics, etiquette, where to find announcements, how to develop your background, and acting tips would be great. There are a lot of good RolePlayers out there ... interviews and example venues (no, I don't mean Clubs) would be good topics.

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

A whole series about this topic would be welcome. Mechanics, etiquette, where to find announcements, how to develop your background, and acting tips would be great. There are a lot of good RolePlayers out there ... interviews and example venues (no, I don't mean Clubs) would be good topics.

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I think if this is going to be a thing, then they definitely need to be really selective about what venues are picked. I honestly rarely see anything these days outside of clubs, brothels and casinos so unsure of what exactly to highlight outside of it. Maybe a couple of years ago this would be a different story but most venues now are very nightlife/nsfw oriented.

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Originally Posted by Mithron

"These DPS queues are taking so long! What should I do while I wait?"

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That's another good one. Especially considering the number of people who don't turn on all languages and only get matched with the whole pool of players after an hour of waiting in queue or so.

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Originally Posted by Astrus

That's another good one. Especially considering the number of people who don't turn on all languages and only get matched with the whole pool of players after an hour of waiting in queue or so.

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Good point. That's not much of an issue in the NA region, because most people don't have other languages set. But in the JP and EU regions many people have different languages set.

I recently lost my sprout thingie and tbh, I have never asked a question about the game. The internet is full of tips, tricks, tutorials, how to's...so asking is ofcourse free, but I think people should read first and ask questions later. Mind you, for the very sensitive among the public, this is my personal opinion.

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Originally Posted by SanibelIsland

I recently lost my sprout thingie and tbh, I have never asked a question about the game. The internet is full of tips, tricks, tutorials, how to's...so asking is ofcourse free, but I think people should read first and ask questions later. Mind you, for the very sensitive among the public, this is my personal opinion.

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While I agree people could seek out information instead of asking in many cases, it can be difficult to do this via google in this game.

A lot of sprouts tell me that when they google it comes up with an answer not related to their question, an answer relating to something similar but that pertains to max level or raiding and not to new players, an incomplete answer, a mixture of different answers that doesn't give them a single clear answer, a confusing answer that uses terminology that a sprout does not yet know (we have a lot of acronyms and concepts that we use in this game such as NN, PF, DF, FC, GC, GS, LB, TP, snapshotting, NG+, P1S, ex, trusts, relic, gpose, invuln, mit, pot, rotation, CD).

I like to remind sprouts to save their gil and not to buy gear. Gear gotten from MSQ and dungeons will get you comfortably through the whole game. The poetics set at the end of every expansion will get them through the next expansion until they get their new job gear.

I've leveled a few alts, redoing the MSQ, and using the poetic gear also lets one sell the gear you get from MSQ and it adds up. About 3.5m by the end of Shadowbringers, and that's speed-leveling crafters via Ishgard for repair purposes.

I'd add the difference between Buffs (icons with the point facing up) and Debuffs ( icons with the point facing down) and maybe just a quick rundown of what a buff/debuff is, just in case this is their first MMO.:cool: