If you're struggling: please don't give up!

Story time!

I have been seeing a lot of discouraged new and old players alike, and they all remind me of myself when I first started playing almost exactly 4 years ago. We travel back to the Moonfire Faire of 2020...

When I first started playing FF14, I was abysmal at it all. AOEs were an entirely new concept to me, as were the actions and traits, controls, and of course any game-specific mechanics. I had friends at the time who carried me through all of MSQ until I reached endgame around patch 5.4.

I think I cried even more times about how bad I was doing than the MSQ itself. I have severe mental illness affecting my cognition and chronic illness including chronic pain, this was my first MMO, I'd hardly been playing video games at all besides some Nintendo stuff, and I just have a notorious reputation of being really, really mean to myself.

My friends liked to joke around about my mistakes, too, which sometimes hurt my feelings and other times cheered me up because I knew they weren't taking it seriously; they weren't actually upset at me or bullying me.

Eventually I got fed up with myself and how I loved the game, but at the same time felt dread whenever I logged on. I decided to start really learning my job, bit by bit by bit, and it took a long time but I started to get better. By the time Endwalker was released I was doing much better at the game as a whole.

At the end of Endwalker, I was able to do the current extreme trials, although for the second-to-last one in the expansion, my friends absolutely had to carry my corpse through the last mechanic or two, haha. So, this happened over the course of 2+ years, probably. And I continue to learn and improve every day.

The point of all this is to say, please don't give up.

In a point in my life where I rarely leave the house or am able to do things to take care of myself, FF14 has given me the chance to prove to myself I'm not actually incompetent like my brain's always telling me. I want it to do that for you, too, if at all possible (and I really believe it is, and I don't even know you!).

It took a long time but I was able to turn that energy 180 degrees on myself and use it to motivate myself to get better. It took patience, determination, persistence, repetition, a bit of reading and video-watching, and some other stuff I'm probably forgetting.


Please give yourself as much grace as you can (easier said than done, I know) and be patient with yourself. If you have an experience with a toxic player, I'm really, really sorry. I've had a few of those myself, but you can't let those people win! You can't let your own self-criticism and helplessness win!!! Prove them wrong, and mentally stomp on their faces while you do it!!


Keep going and keep trying to improve because it will pay off, I promise! You CAN do it, too. You got this! <3

When I first started, I chose to play paladin because hey, sword and board. I had no idea what a tank was or what tanking was or what enmity was or why I'd want it. It wasn't until someone made a chart that illustrated it (keep in mind this was before The Hall of the Novice was a thing) that I was like OH. That's my job. GOT IT. And I came to love tanking!

Hang in there :)

Very wholesome :) Thanks OP, you're great.

Love seeing stories like this. Keep that spirit alive!

Thank you OP, I really relate!

I actually started in 1.0 but I was really, really bad for the longest of time. FF14 was also my first proper game after years of not playing.

I was so afraid to mess up that I was unable to queue into dungeons without my friend. At some point that friend wasn't able to play for a prolonged period of time so I was in the middle of a conflict between "I really want to play" and "but I can't because xyz isn't here".

In the end my will to play won and I started queueing on my own. In the beginning I had so much anxiety (sweaty hands, pounding heart and all) and would never go into a dungeon without watching a guide, but over time I got used to it, despite still being bad.
So to become better I started to look up strategies and job guides which helped me to actually engage with and understand the game's fight philosophy. It also gave me the courage to go into new dungeons without watching guides and accept if I mess up. Turns out, the world keeps turning.
By the end of EW I finally dared to go into my first EX trial, but I took more than 5 pages of notes while watching guides on repeat.

Fast forward to DT and now running every dungeon and trial blind is my explicit highlight out of all the content and I have cleared both EX trials (after watching guides 1-2 times and without taking 5 pages of notes).

(I too have some issues affecting my cognitive speed such as sensory processing and attention problems. They make it really, really hard to process visual information and thus read visual tells fast enough sometimes. Not because I don't understand how the mechanic works in theory but because the signal from my eye to my brain that tells me, what is even going on, has the speed of a snail. As a result, it takes me longer to learn fights because I need more attempts to even decipher what is visually going on during certain mechanics before it is engraved into my memory. Only then I can finally automatically recognise and respond to the shapes of mech indicators.)

OP is gigachad and got gud. Good on you OP.

I will try to get back into Scholar, and White mage, its been ages and Scholar has changed so much, but ill try it.

I think a lot of people forget that failing, learning, and improving are all important, enjoyable parts of the journey. Maybe it has something to do with the way so many of us are raised? There are plenty of parts of life where it's vital to succeed, where failure is truly scary...but video games you play in your leisure time aren't among them. It's safe to fail here, so embrace the failure, savor it, for the brief time that it lasts before you overcome it. If you can truly enjoy having your butt handed to you by a cartoon, then you'll get so much more joy out of video games.

I'll never be upset at someone for being bad at the game; I only care about the attitude they bring. As long as you just keep trying, as long as you don't point fingers, as long as you stay constructive rather than destructive, that's all I want. Let's just have fun getting over this hurdle together, until we finally do and have something to celebrate!

Love the post :3

As long as you are caring, I think that is the biggest thing. Sounds like you have that checked off in troves. You developing skills at what you care about is the consequence for that one. You are awesome for keeping at it :3

Because of the new encounters, mechanics before Dawntrails feel very slow, like I have ages to move out of the way. So I agree with OP, dont give up. We rise, fall and rise again.

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Originally Posted by LilimoLimomo

I think a lot of people forget that failing, learning, and improving are all important, enjoyable parts of the journey.

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I completely agree! I can't say much regarding external factors but I think the ingame culture also sometimes contributes to the fear of failure.

Currently it feels like failure is not seen as an integral part of the learning process, ergo an expected part of your gameplay experience, but an undesired and unordinary one that should be avoided at all costs.
The game is (supposedly) so easy that you can learn everything without any notable trouble, so dying is a sign of failure and regression (having to start over when you "should" have cleared something in one go), not a sign of making progress.

I wish dying was considered part of the norm so we could have more of a "learning from failure" and "earning our victory" mentality in casual play (would also allow us to have a bit more challenge in casual mode) as opposed to "everything needs to be over as fast and frictionless as possible".

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Originally Posted by Anemoshi

I think I cried even more times about how bad I was doing than the MSQ itself.

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y'all crying over your performance in a video game?

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Originally Posted by Anemoshi

In a point in my life where I rarely leave the house or am able to do things to take care of myself, FF14 has given me the chance

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I can relate to video games giving opportunities to live generally when disabled, because I suffered chronic fatigue and lots of other issues when I was younger and the only way to really do anything at all was through games, because everything else was too taxing.

This reminds me when I was a sprout back in ARR and at that time I was doing msq enjoying the world, I choose pld for my first class and since this was my first mmo, I had no idea about the class systems until in some dungeons some people tought me how to move as a tank XD (in my mind I thought that those instances were like any other online game with no class system).
Then I faced my first wall, the first garuda in ARR, that party asked me in chat if I saw a video or a guide and I was like "no, totally blind (I was doing everything blind -still doing this though on msq xD)" and then one of them explain me in chat what I needed to do, that was something new for me that I need to study for a fight, I tried to do what they explained but probably I didn't understand very well (as my first language is not english). The duty was dissolved and then I was afraid of doing that again.... but I needed to do it in order to advance in the msq...
Back in that day I was on an ffxiv online community in google+ I explained my experience with Garuda and that people gave some advice that has to do with my lvl or ilvl and where to gear up and they cheer me to try again, so I did what they told me and also I saw a video on youtube about that fight and then I tried again, everything went so well and I felt awesome also in party chat one of them told me "thank you for not being a shitty tank" that comment was also so good read but that person didn't know that in my first run I was a shitty tank xD.

And nowadays I have done savage and ultimates (just missing TOP) so everyone can improve over time you just need the courage to do it.

Excellent post, and good on you for persisting! Everyone is capable of getting through any level of content in this game if they practice and work on improving. I started playing in late Heavensward and honestly, I sucked. It took me a month to clear Susano EX when it was new and that fight wasn't even that hard. I would later go on to keep practicing, reading up on how to be better, watch videos, etc. would clear every savage tier on content from E1S to P12S, clear 3 ultimates and have plans to clear the other 2. I still struggle sometimes and I'm still really bad at very specific types of mechanics, but I think I'm pretty okay at the game now.

Just did some Bozja content, and having dwindling players in the content plus not getting the drops from instance raids, is super depressing cause you really have to work to get them to only then not get the reward.

I'm giving up on FFXIV when I can't even pass the first solo duty with Wuk Lamat fight. 6 straight fails in a row 5 on very easy which isn't very easy.

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Originally Posted by hynaku

I'm giving up on FFXIV when I can't even pass the first solo duty with Wuk Lamat fight. 6 straight fails in a row 5 on very easy which isn't very easy.

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Congratulations! You're the target audience!

OP getting a like from me and i wish them good luck and to keep going! I know how it can be with being hard on oneself... i have dealt with that entire life due to a mental illness that is close to social anxiety, so much overthinking and worries of how others perceived me. It didn't help i came from world of warcraft where people got super toxic over dps and other things that had me avoid multiplayer for years, in FFxiv i played a rather poor healer that half the time just winged it when i had a partner that played tank. But moment she weren't around the anxiety of queue up got worse and worse that i dropped the game around start of endwalker, it were a mix of being alone, fearing randoms and reading guides telling me how i played was wrong..

But returned to the game around a month ago with the goal of learning tank and challenging the anxiety and nervousness i get, so reading the posts here is like super motivational and can say finding a good group to talk and hangout with helps so much too. Yet still there is that "Am i using this or that ability right." and "Am i moving fast enough, pulling enough, doing mechanics right.." going through the mind despite saying fudge it and just go or double checking guides on the content i queue for. I just want to try get to a point of being able to consider myself a tank mama that take care of the party i'm with xD Silly goal i know, and made harder by preferring dark knight.

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Originally Posted by hynaku

I'm giving up on FFXIV when I can't even pass the first solo duty with Wuk Lamat fight. 6 straight fails in a row 5 on very easy which isn't very easy.

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I'm sorry, but this is a case of not even putting in the minimum effort. You have to read what Wuk's skills do, and they give you time to read them all before the battle starts.

Whenever I see players struggling in dungeon and trial, I always give them my tank mits, cover, or self heal to try and make them take less damage. Thats because I get it. When i first played the game I was probably worse than even the most casual players. Thats because I came from WoW doing strictly PvP so I was terrible in PvE mechanics and memorization, XIV is all about memorization of the dance.

It will get better as you get more used to it. And trust me when I say, mechanics in this game are not designed to be mastered in one go. What matters is trying again or check out guides if youre impatient. I was a very casual player for 2 years, raided only savage for 2 years after that, and now Im raiding ultimates. And yes I still died several times in Dawntrail dungeon and trial. Dont get frustrated, thats the key.