Hall of Novice

[MysticWoolie]

Hello everyone,

I am wondering, how and when can I start this questline?
I know it exists, and i would love to start it, but I am not sure how?

Love to hear it!

[Legion88]

You have to be at least level 15 and talk to a Smith NPC in the Adventures guildes or next to the first dungeons.

[Frizze]

The main story quests will take you into your first dungeon around level 15, which happens to be located right near the physical location of the Hall of the Novice. At the same time, an NPC will suggest checking it out. So basically, just keep following the storyline(the quests with the comet icon) and it will be revealed. As you continue to level up and progress, the main story quests will unlock a lot of things so try to keep up with them.

[MysticWoolie]

Noted. I discovered this yesterday - the main story unlocking things that is.
I have yet to reach my first dungeon, but i did finally manage to get my Airship ability.

[Retry]

First dungeon quest is called "It's probably Pirates" and will take you to the dungeon called Satasha.
I believe the novice hall HQ is set up near there (as well as having a Smith npc outside the inn npc for each major city). You can identify the icon easily cause its basically a sprout crest haha.

Hope you enjoy learning this world and are blown away at your first primal fight like I was back when I was a sprout

[Niwashi]

Many things are unlocked through the Main Scenario. This feature is actually unlocked just by reaching the right level (15). But then the Main Scenario will also suggest doing it if you haven't yet, to make sure everyone knows about it by the time they reach the first dungeon.

Also, if (or more like when) you're leveling additional classes, you should repeat the Novice Hall training for each role you play. Most of the lessons and most of the rewards depend on your current role: tank, physical DPS, magical DPS, or healer. (Magical DPS and healer share the same rewards, a set that's good for any Disciple of Magic, but they have different lessons. Physical and magical DPS have some of the same lessons, but different gear rewards. Even the two tank classes, Gladiator and Marauder, which have most of their lessons in common, have one lesson that's specific to learning the pattern of that particular class's AoE aggro skill.) In fact, despite some duplication this way, it's not a bad idea to just repeat the full set of lessons with every class that you take to level 15.

[MysticWoolie]

Definitely want to do this on both Healer and DPS, both for the rewards but also to get more acquainted with the PS4 targeting controls in both roles.

Still struggling a little to have it work the way I want, perhaps its simple inexperience.

[Niwashi]

I just did this on a new alt and noticed something else. Since the first lesson (avoiding AoE attacks) is the same lesson for all roles, once you've done it on one role (for instance, I did it first as Lancer for the DPS training), then when you go to the Smith with a class from another role (Conjurer in my case) it will default to starting you off at lesson 2. The gloves, however, are a reward from lesson 1. So if I'd just done the lessons as the Smith recommended them, I would have had only the DoW gloves but not the DoM gloves.

So, while doing the lessons as he recommends them will get you all the actual training, you may need to repeat some lessons in order to get all the gear rewards.

[Niwashi]

... to get more acquainted with the PS4 targeting controls in both roles.

Still struggling a little to have it work the way I want, perhaps its simple inexperience.

I play on PS4, too, and I find this helps for me:

Under Character Configuration, Filters tab, uncheck "Enable Target Cycling" (if it's set), and instead check "Enable Filter Customization".

Under that are four sections of targeting filters you can swap between. I find it good to have one of them set to Friends and another to Enemies. You can customize the other two however you want. (Mine are Friends, Enemies, All, and a custom one where I checked only the marked targets box.)

Once that's set up, you can adjust your targeting controls using L1 + a face button. In my case for instance, L1 + [square] will set me to "Friends" targeting mode, while L1 + [circle] will set me to "Enemies" targeting mode. These targeting modes control the way the right/left buttons work for selecting targets. If you're in a quest that needs you to heal an NPC, or at a FATE where another player (not in your party) needs a heal or raise, switch to "Friends" targeting mode and your right/left buttons will now skip over all the mobs in the area and only target players and friendly NPCs. Then when you want to attack, switch to "Enemies" targeting mode using L1 + whichever face button you assigned it to. Now the left/right buttons will cycle only between enemies, skipping over players and NPCs.

The reason I specified Friends mode being for healing those not in your party is because you have another option for targeting party members. The up/down controller buttons cycle between party members in the order they appear on your party list. Since that maintains a consistent order independent of where they're at at the time, and since it displays all their health bars and status effects right there, it's the easier way to select the party member currently most in need of your aid.

Similar to up/down for the party list, L1 + up/down cycles through the enemy list once you have aggro on enemies. It's not quite as reliable as the party list, since enemies don't appear there until after you have at least some aggro. (An enemy can arrive and start attacking one of your teammates, but until you attack it or heal the member that it's attacking, it might not notice you in order to show up on your enemy list.) But it's frequently the easiest way to target the mob that's currently taking the most damage, or for tanks to target the one they just lost aggro on.

(L1 + right/left cycles through the alliance list, but you won't get to full sized raids that actually have an alliance of parties until at least level 50, and it's optional content then, so don't worry about it for now.)

[MysticWoolie]

I play on PS4, too, and I find this helps for me:

I played with this last night and it helps alot.

Since i do have me some controller questions, I think that probably is best left to another thread.
It will pop up shortly.