New player-some questions

[Ecosmith]

Hello!

New player to FFXIV:ARR. I have a few questions:

1. I notice that the official forum posting restrictions are incredibly severe. I like to be pretty active on the forums of an MMO I play, so I was wondering if there are any UN official forums that players have gone to instead.

2. A friend has this game, he got it a bit before me. He's now lvl 10 and counting, and i'm still on lvl 2. Is there a way we can team up for quests wothout him power-levelling me, and without me being useless or him being overpowered on our respective quests?

3. I note that I have a 20-second sprint power. Can I expect any faster travel speed in future? Mounts, perhaps?

[Ecosmith]

4. Can someone give me a basic rundown of the classes or whatever they are? The descriptions in the character generation aren't very good. I played City of Heroes for 8 years, and I played WoW long enough to get a rough idea of that game's classes, so if you couch it in those terms I would understand what I'mdoing better. I like to play support classes mostly, and buff/debuffers more than outright healers if possible. I also like pet control classes and ranged weapons, but I'm not a huge fan of magic.

5. How does loot degredation work? I generally cant be arsed with faffing about fixing things, I'd rather have fun, but i think that I'm going to have to do a bit of boring makework in FFXIV:ARR.

[Ecosmith]

6. Is there a shorter acronym accepted by the community than FFXIV:ARR?

7. Are there factions?

8. Is it really impossible to skip the intro cinematic video in space and on the cart with the moogles stealing wine etc? The first time was ok, but the second time I was trying to iron a shirt whilst getting an alt to the starting position, and I realised that its in redibly annoying. Not only couldn't I skip, I couldn't even just let it run whilst i did my ironing, as I kept on having to hit a button to advance the conversation with the tramp on the bus.

I'll probably think of some more, but that'll do for now. Loving the game so far, it's beautiful, and the score is amazing. And it runs like a dream! I played The Secret World for a while, or 'The Sec-runtime error 77464 The Secret World Has Stopped Responding', as I call it. After that lagfest, FFXIV:ARR is wonderful.

Eco

[sylent09]

1. Not sure. Don't flame, or post pics of people's names though.

2. Do leves. Goggle search it. Can get to level 15 in about 2 hours at most.

3. Around level 20 following storyline you get chocobo mount.

5. Takes a while, dying hurts more. Cheap to repair. I know I skipped 4.

6. Most people can know just arr.

7. There is three. You pick before you get mount.

8. You can skip. On Playstation it's OK unsure on pc.

[Sagittarian]

1. I notice that the official forum posting restrictions are incredibly severe. I like to be pretty active on the forums of an MMO I play, so I was wondering if there are any UN official forums that players have gone to instead.

There is a facebook group, xivpads.com, and some free companies will have their own web pages.

2. A friend has this game, he got it a bit before me. He's now lvl 10 and counting, and i'm still on lvl 2. Is there a way we can team up for quests without him power-levelling me, and without me being useless or him being overpowered on our respective quests?

The only areas where you can even out is during FATE events (which require a level sync if you are more than 5 levels above the FATE level) and dungeons (which all have a max level characters will be synced to).

3. I note that I have a 20-second sprint power. Can I expect any faster travel speed in future? Mounts, perhaps?

Faster, no. You do get mounts but they are the same speed as sprinting. They stick around until you dismount though, so overall they are faster than trying to run between places.
You will also get the ability to teleport between the large aetheryte crystals when you find your second one.

4. Can someone give me a basic rundown of the classes or whatever they are? The descriptions in the character generation aren't very good. I played City of Heroes for 8 years, and I played WoW long enough to get a rough idea of that game's classes, so if you couch it in those terms I would understand what I'm doing better. I like to play support classes mostly, and buff/debuffers more than outright healers if possible. I also like pet control classes and ranged weapons, but I'm not a huge fan of magic.

http://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Classes
http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Final_Fantasy_XIV
The pet class is Arcanist (dps) which turns into Scholar (heal) and Summoner (dps). They are all magic though. I think Scholar has more buffs than White Mage though, which is the other healing job.
The only real support job is Bard which starts as Archer (dps).

5. How does loot degradation work? I generally cant be arsed with faffing about fixing things, I'd rather have fun, but i think that I'm going to have to do a bit of boring makework in FFXIV:ARR.

There are menders in every sanctuary/city who will repair everything you have equipped all at once.

6. Is there a shorter acronym accepted by the community than FFXIV:ARR?

FFXIV, ARR, or just AWESOMESAUCE!

7. Are there factions?

No. Which is to say there are not groups which fight each other. The only pvp right now is in the Wolves Den which you enter with a party.
There are 3 different grand companies but they work together.

8. Is it really impossible to skip the intro cinematic video in space and on the cart with the moogles stealing wine etc? The first time was ok, but the second time I was trying to iron a shirt whilst getting an alt to the starting position, and I realised that its incredibly annoying. Not only couldn't I skip, I couldn't even just let it run whilst i did my ironing, as I kept on having to hit a button to advance the conversation with the tramp on the bus.

I haven't managed to skip it yet and I have 6 characters. :/

9. I didn't actually ask this but how do you get posts with more than 1000 characters?

The 1000 character limit does not get applied if you edit your post. So write it, copy/cut, put in a placeholder to post, then immediately edit.

[Ecosmith]

Thanks for the responses

Eco

[Niwashi]

1. I notice that the official forum posting restrictions are incredibly severe. I like to be pretty active on the forums of an MMO I play, so I was wondering if there are any UN official forums that players have gone to instead.

I'm not sure about other forums. I've just been using this one, despite its ridiculously restrictive posting rules.

The limitations on number of posts and threads don't apply here in the New Player Help section. And to get around the 1000 character limit, post the first part of your message and then edit it to fill in the rest. (It's a good idea to have the whole thing written out in advance, so you can copy it and just click Edit Post and paste it in. That way you don't leave the introductory stub of a post you put in initially hanging there for long.)

2. A friend has this game, he got it a bit before me. He's now lvl 10 and counting, and i'm still on lvl 2. Is there a way we can team up for quests wothout him power-levelling me, and without me being useless or him being overpowered on our respective quests?

Not really on quests. When you reach dungeon content, everyone entering the dungeon gets level-synced to within a couple levels of the level which that particular dungeon was designed for, so you'll be able to work together more effectively there. You reach the first full dungeons at level 15. There's also some quick mini-instances called guildhests that start at level 10, and those level-sync everyone the same way.

3. I note that I have a 20-second sprint power. Can I expect any faster travel speed in future? Mounts, perhaps?

You can get a mount once you've joined one of the three Grand Companies, which happens at level 20 in the main storyline. They're not much faster than sprinting, but at least you can keep up the speed continuously as long as you're mounted rather than just for 20 seconds at a time.

I like to play support classes mostly, and buff/debuffers more than outright healers if possible. I also like pet control classes and ranged weapons, but I'm not a huge fan of magic.

Arcanist is a pet class and ranged debuff-oriented damage dealer (in that most of its attacks cause Damage over Time rather than a single burst of damage). One of it's advanced jobs, Scholar, is then the more buff oriented of the two healer jobs. (White Mages are a bit more reactionary, healing damage after it occurs, whereas Scholars have more skills for preventing damage.) It misses on one of your criteria, however, as it's a magic class.

The other one to consider is Archer. It's a ranged weapon, non-magic, damage dealer class with some support functions as well, at least once you advance to its associated job, Bard, which gets songs that can help your party members regain MP or TP. It's not, however, a pet control class.

5. How does loot degredation work? I generally cant be arsed with faffing about fixing things, I'd rather have fun, but i think that I'm going to have to do a bit of boring makework in FFXIV:ARR.

In the early levels, you're going to be outleveling and so replacing equipment faster than it degrades, so fixing it isn't much of an issue. Once you gain a few levels and are holding on to gear longer, you'll want to keep an eye on its condition and repair items that are getting close to breaking, but it's pretty cheap and easy, and not something that you need to do very often.

7. Are there factions?

There are three Grand Companies, one associated with each of the three city-states of Eorzea, and you'll join one of them when you get to level 20 in the storyline. They're allies of each other, though, and you'll be assisting all of them regardless of which one you join. There's little difference to which you choose besides the color of barding your chocobo will wear. (And once you reach max rank, you'll have the option of changing if you want.)

8. Is it really impossible to skip the intro cinematic video in space and on the cart with the moogles stealing wine etc?

Most cutscenes can be skipped. (It's the circle button on PS3/PS4 controllers. I'm not certain on keyboard, but Esc is a good bet.) There are a few that can't be skipped, however, and that long intro cutscene may be one of them. It has one point where you have to answer a question, and your answer will determine one piece of your starting equipment (a ring the old peddler you were traveling with gives you when you arrive). You can't skip that part, so if it's implemented as one really long scene rather than multiple scenes one after the other, then you wouldn't be able to skip any of it. (I'm not entirely certain on whether you can skip any of the rest of it, since I've never tried, but I know you can't skip the part that needs your dialog selection.)

[Niwashi]

5. How does loot degredation work? I generally cant be arsed with faffing about fixing things, I'd rather have fun, but i think that I'm going to have to do a bit of boring makework in FFXIV:ARR.

In the early levels, you're going to be outleveling and so replacing equipment faster than it degrades, so fixing it isn't much of an issue. Once you gain a few levels and are holding on to gear longer, you'll want to keep an eye on its condition and repair items that are getting close to breaking, but it's pretty cheap and easy, and not something that you need to do very often.

Oh, one more thing about equipment repairs. If you get into crafting, it's possible to repair your own equipment using a catalyst called Dark Matter. It's rather awkward, though, primarily because you need to be (not just have unlocked, but currently be set to) the class that makes that type of item. So you'd have to switch to Weaver to repair any cloth gear you're using, then switch to Leatherworker to repair any leather gear you're using, then switch to Jeweler to repair any metal jewelry you're using, etc. It's enough of a hassle that even on my character who has all the crafting classes, I usually just go to one of the Mender NPCs and pay them a few gil to repair everything at once. That's much easier.

[Slatervonjager]

Just a tip, use edit when you want to post past the 1000 character limit in stead of posting multiple times. The edit feature negates the character limit.