new player, few things

[hawkemoon]

so first off, its was very hard and annoying to finally be allowed to post
i purchased game, and was installing (after disks it was a 15 gig DL from launcher) i came to forums to ask some newbie questions and was promptly told i cannot post until registration is complete, which is AFTER the download, so i waited, and once it was finished, and i completed the registrations, created a character i came back to post, questions like,
race vs class? starting area?
this was during basic character creation, i am hoping that since there was no information at that time, that it makes no difference
anyway, back to being frustrated, i came back to forums to post and was allowed to login, and promptly directed OUT of forums, stating that my character/account couldn't be verified in last 14 days,
so i gave up, and here we are 4 days later, it finally recognizes me
now i can post , and vent a lil,
IT WAS NOT A FRIENDLY PLEASANT TIME.

[hawkemoon]

i am currently lvl 15, have been doing storyline/class quests mostly, i went back to see about starting leather or wood worker, i am an archer, and it wont let me, says i am too low lvl and i need to finish my lvl 10 class quest, which i have,
how effective is crafting?
i usually enjoy it as an aspect of gameplay and i am curious if its worth spending time and effort on it in this game,
i am not trying to power lvl, but i also would like to get up to endgame content in a reasonable amount of time, are there methods that are more efficient ?
how locked are you to class? i most recently have played rift and wow, rift is completely wide open to changes, like from tank, to dps to healing, etc, while wow is a bit more restrictive, but still allows you to choose and maintain 3 diff "builds" that can be easily changed between.
as an archer do i have other paths to follow? i usually choose to play a rogue/stealth type, an archer ranger type and as another alt, a paladin/tanky type

[hawkemoon]

thanks in advance for any information you can share. i am enjoying the game so far, just seems a bit solo'ish, at the lower lvls i am sure that is is kinda lonely,
ohh,
which leads me to ask,
how is endgame, and "what" is the current endgame content?

[ManuelBravo]

To begin did you read the forums instructions first? Have plenty of friends and had no issues like the ones your mentioning. Now as per your concerns;

For the most parts as you progress trough the game everything falls into place. Here are some tips;

First: You can just post then edit and you can exceeded the character limit.

Second: Welcome to MMO Cross class requirements. It's a must.

Third: at level 15 you can get challenge book for faster progress.

Do main story current endgame is with expansion Heavansward for Lvl 60 lvl cap and 3 classes Mechanic , Drk, and AST

Over all a lot of jobs do require some type of leveling of other class. Eventually you want to have most to lvl 30 at a min, overall you want to have them to 50 for endgame, will unlock most classes with the exception of expansion ones. From what I can see your getting a bit frustrated without actually analyzing your option. Breath, play at your own pace, go to the beginners hall, unlock all jobs, ect. It's a big game, and lots of fun but you need to take the time to explore and learn about it. If your already thinking about endgame you will get frustrated. Finish First Main story line and then focus on Endgame. Or you can continue to be as youa re and really get discourage. Breath, stretch, make friends, find a friendly Free company, and people will help.

READ YOUR MANUAL IT'S THERE FOR A REASON.

[Hasrat]

Forum accounts are tied to characters in some way, probably related to registration woes.

Not sure about your carpenter issues. As long as you've been going back to the archer guild every 5 levels for new quests, you should be reaching a point where you can talk to whoever at the front desk to get you started. You're completely free in the game to pick up any classes you want, but you do need to progress through some early story stuff probably before the game starts unlocking those things for you.

Crafting is subjective. You likely won't be too great unless you pick up every crafting class, simply because they all offer a few skills that every one will use as a cross class ability. It can be pretty easy to level up fast, though. Between leves and turn-ins, some players even pick up with an FC or have friends craft all the items for them to turn in. If you find someone high level willing to help, they can craft what you need no problem, and you can power-level crafters very quickly.

[hawkemoon]

I didn't realize I had both the storyline AND class quests, somewhere along the line I lost my lvl 5 class quest and was progressing along storyline, I have since gone back and gotten both quest lines up to lvl 18 or so, so that's working right now. I was looking in the instructions for the diff icons around quest icon to tell what they are, and had to have someone explain to me the purple with a + since that isn't in the in game/online manual, tho the fire border for storyline is. thanks for the info on crafting. it would be nice to be able to craft relevant lvl useful items as I explore/lvl up.

[Hasrat]

Yyyup. The quest icon thing for unlocking content is a fairly new addition, sometime last year. Could be why it was neglected. But also as a new player, you might get a bit of an information overload early on anyway, especially given how many random side quests there are to begin with. Easy to overlook.

Crafting can be nice for keeping gear on par. But then you can also ask whether you want to spend the time gathering your crafting materials yourself, or simply purchase them. Most materials for early gear are readily available at various NPCs, and between leves and class quests, you can usually have enough shards to keep crafting. But gathering the materials yourself can be a nice way of making your crafts easier, if you take the time to gather HQ ingredients. This can be a bit of a personal choice. Gathering can get a bit tedious, and, given how quickly you go through gear at early levels, it's probably not super important to HQ all your gear all the time. But at the same time, if you're just making NQ gear, it might be just as easy to simply buy it from NPCs, until it starts getting harder to find upgrades.

Crafting also comes with the added benefit of being able to repair your own gear rather than stopping at a mender. This can save you money, and you're also able to repair gear above 100% (up to 200% I think) so that it can last longer before getting close to breaking. As well, you can add your own materia (which you get from "converting" gear with 100% Spirit Bond) to gear for small stat boosts. Like HQ gear, this probably isn't totally necessary, and, personally, I skipped on the materia altogether while I was leveling, just because you go through gear so fast it felt a bit of a waste.

Also on the subject of keeping up with gear, at your level you should just about have gotten the ability to travel to other city-states while unlocking the first few dungeons. In Western La Noseca, near the first dungeon, Sastasha, is the Hall of the Novice. You should stop in there for some quick and easy training, which will provide you with a decent set of gear for that level range, as well as an accessory that boosts EXP up until level 30.

[Frizze]

Some of your questions and concerns have already been addressed, but ill go for a few answers too.

Race vs class/starting area/class lock: Makes very little difference. Once you complete the level 10 class quest(and i saw that you had) you open up the armory system. This lets you switch to any class in the game that you have unlocked just by equipping the proper tool/weapon. So your class becomes whatever you want after a short while. You can level up everything on one character, and are encouraged(but rarely required) to try new things. The difference in stats between the races is almost non-existent, and any race can play any class at a high level. You can also buy a potion on the mogstation to change your race, should you choose. As for the starting area, the main storyline has 3 different versions, based on which town you started in. However, around level 15 the quest from your hometown sends you to visit the other two towns, and at this point all 3 versions converge and its the same for everyone the rest of the way to 60. You eventually are asked to join one of the 3 grand companies, but you can pick one from whichever town you like(not stuck with where you started) and can even change this later on if you want. You can buy housing in any of the 3 cities(provided you meet the requirements and find an open plot). Really, city only affects your opening 15 levels of quests.

Crafting: Crafting is completely optional. The very best gear isnt crafted. And it can be a lot of work to get all the way into. With that said, id recommend trying it. You could level woodworker to 15 or so without even leaving the guild, and it would likely take you less then an hour to do. That would certainly give you a taste of it. Most people who get into it eventually level all 8 classes all the way. This is because the cross-class skills you get along the way make it MUCH easier to finish/hq the items you decide to make. A single class character can succeed in crafting, but its a lot more work. Also, many crafters pick up botany and mining(and maybe fishing) so they can get some of their own materials to save money. So with the costs covered, what are the benefits? Theres good gear you can make for yourself at all level ranges. None of it is the best, but you can make sure you always have something serviceable. This is especially helpful when leveling up a 2nd or 3rd(4th 5th whatever) class, as you can outfit yourself with decent stuff while working on getting good stuff. Alchemy and culinary disciplines also make things that are in short supply from quests/npcs. They can make potions and food to give you advantages. The medicines from alchemy arent amazing, and the potions have long enough cool-downs that you cant guzzle them to fight completely over your head, but they can help(and the stat enhancing potions are often staples of end-game raiding). Food boosts your stats a little, as well as your experience. You can buy cheap stuff in town, but you can make better stuff if you choose. Final point on crafting/gathering. The levels all line up fairly well. What i mean by that is that a level 20 crafter will mostly use level 20(and lower) gathered/killed for materials to make gear that is usable by a level 20 adventurer. So if you are up to date with these, youll be able to make items that are currently useful to you. That strong looking tree in the level 30 area might be harvested by a level 30 botanist and used by a level 30 carpenter to make you a new level 30 bow.

Leveling: Do the main story quests, do your class quests, do any unlock quests you see(those are the ones with the plus sign). When you get there, do the hall of the novice training in western la nosca. Already mentioned i know, but the bonus exp ring is nice and you can use it for every class you level. There are many additional ways to level, and you should try all of them to see what you enjoy. You can run dungeons, clear your hunting log(full of big one time bonuses for each adventuring class), run fates, do sidequests, complete entries in your challenge log(resets weekly so can be used multiple times), explore potd, and a few other options. The one that ill highlight though is your roulettes. Once you unlock your 2nd dungeon(happens around level 17) the duty finder will unlock your first roulette - leveling. It randomely puts you and a group of 3 others into a scenario from a list based on your level and what you have unlocked. The leveling roulette has all the 4 man dungeons from level 15-59 and all the 4 man trials from the same range. Once per day you get a big bonus for completing each roulette - for the leveling roulette the bonus is a ton of exp(usually close to a levels worth). Theres also a guildhest roulette you can unlock by doing the first few guildhests - same principal as leveling, but shorter instance and smaller exp bonus. You open up more roulettes at level 50 and 60.

Classes and jobs: Eventually you will want to graduate from your base class into a job. To do this you need to level your base class to 30 and complete all the class quests. You also need to level a side class to 15. For archer, this means leveling pugilist to 15 so that you can unlock bard. While playing as a bard your archer level continues to go up, you continue to have access to all your archer skills and you still use archer equipment, but you get extra bard skills you can use as well. For the most part, once you unlock a job theres no reason to go back and be a class again. You can customize your class/job a little with your choice of cross class skills. As a bard you can pick from a set of pugilist and lancer skills. With that said, for most classes its pretty obvious which skills are the most useful. Bard is still a DPS class, so youll probly pick the the skills that boost your damage(internal release, blood for blood) or improve your abilities(invigorate - gives you back some tp). Therefore, to get your stealthy type and your tanky type you like youll likely end up leveling up extra classes and jobs at some point. Ninja is a stealthy one, paladin is very tanky. As mentioned, you can be everything so you are encouraged to try these out.

Player experience: One of the reasons this game feels more "solo'ish" is that there arent any public chat channels like there are in other games. Oh sure, you can shout at the guy across the bazaar, but the person on the other side of town doesnt hear it. This feeling will change a bit if you get into some more channels(also, some cities/hubs are just busier feeling then others). Youre still low level, so i would recommend the novice network. Any mentor can invite you. You could join also join an FC. Either of those options also potentially provide in-game help and answers to your questions. The game also uses Linkshells as a means of communicating. These are private chat channels that can be devoted to anything or nothing. You might join one only for crafters, one devoted to lala worship, or just one where people can chat while they play. I see that youre on my server, and im in one of the chatty ones. Shoot me a tell in game, and ill send you an invite if you want.

Endgame: So currently the cap is 60. Endgame content is therefore level 60 dungeons(sorta), and level 60 raids. There are 12 group raids(each has a normal and a "savage" difficulty) and 3 alliance raids(these are 24 man instances). The most up to date gear comes from the most recent 4 group raids(hard versions) and the most recent alliance one. Dungeon gear isnt as good as raid gear, and the dungeons are all fairly easy to beat. However, all level 60 content rewards currency(tomestones - as does level 50 but with a different version) that can be used to buy very good stuff(the best available will be a combination of raided and bought for many classes). The most recent patch also re-introduced the diadem, a level 60 multi-group instance where you explore and fight tough monsters for rewards that are sometimes great(and other times not so much). PotD isnt strictly end game content(you can unlock it at level 18), but the deepest floors are plenty tough.

Forums: Sorry for your difficulty. Already mentioned, but ill restate. If you edit your post, you can exceed the character limit. For instance, this post is 8610 characters long. I typed the whole thing out, cut out most of it, then opened edit and pasted back what i removed. Its annoying, but its a work-around that actually works.

Come back with any further questions, continue enjoying the game, and happy hunting!

[Niwashi]

questions like, race vs class? starting area? this was during basic character creation, i am hoping that since there was no information at that time, that it makes no difference

Race is almost entirely cosmetic. Although there are a few slight stat differences, they're so negligibly small you can ignore them and just make the character you like the look of, or if you're a lore buff choose a race whose lore interests you (though within the game there are actually very few references to racial lore).

Class is fundamental to how you play at any given time, but this game has the most open multi-classing system of any game I'm familiar with. You can unlock other classes and take any or all of them all the way to endgame if you want to. There are lots of players with all 13 combat jobs, all 8 crafting classes and 3 gathering classes advanced to level 60. It takes a while to manage that, since they're leveled up separately, alternating between them, but there's no limit on it. There are limits, however, on which skills can be cross-classed and to where (skills learned by one class that are then usable while you're on another). Anyway, with the ability to learn and advance multiple classes, which one you start off the game with really doesn't matter after the fist few levels. After the level 10 class quest from your starting class, you can unlock whichever other ones you're interested in, and if you later decide that one of those others is more interesting, it can become your main class any time you wish, or you can continue alternating and not even choose one to be your main focus (though by endgame, gearing them up gets hard that way).

Starting area: The first 15 levels worth of the main story will take place in your starting city (which in turn is determined by your starting class). The stories in each of the cities are different, and the only way to see the other cities' storylines for those 15 levels is to make three different characters, one starting in each of the three cities. However, at level 15, the story will send you as an envoy to the other two cities, and after that the three storylines merge into one. From then on everyone gets the same quests. There might here and there be a slight difference in the dialog wording depending on whether you've already met a character before (during that first 15 levels) or are meeting them for the first time, but there are no other differences that depend on your starting city after you reach the point where the stories merge. It's really just for the first 15 levels that it matters.

how effective is crafting? i usually enjoy it as an aspect of gameplay and i am curious if its worth spending time and effort on it in this game

It's not necessary. Many players choose to ignore crafting altogether, and they get by just fine without it. But many others (myself included) find it a significant boost to the game.

For some players, crafting is purely a way to make gil. There are a lot of crafted items that sell for quite a bit on the Market Board, and most of the richest players got that way through crafting. It can also be very useful for making your own gear while leveling up, but to do that you need to keep your crafting classes at least on par with your combat classes. If you're willing to put the time in to do that, it's quite useful, but many players don't want to slow down advancement through the game enough for their crafting to keep up. A widely used middle ground is to allow your first combat job to outstrip your crafting level, so you can keep going though the main story at a fairly fast rate, but keep advancing crafting so that later, when you decide to go back and level additional combat jobs, your crafting classes are already advanced enough to provide gear for those.

One of the reasons leveling crafting takes so much time is that to be really effective at it, you need to level up all of them (and the gathering classes as well, or at least Botanist and Miner, if you don't want to spend a fortune on materials). There are a few reasons for this. One is cross-class skills. As mentioned, there are only certain skills that can be used cross-class, but some of them are pretty important, and the crafting classes can all share their cross-class skills. They each learn a different skill at levels 15, 37, 50, and 54, and those ones can be shared with other DoH classes. Another reason is materials. It's common for Weaver recipes to use some leather from Leatherworker, or Leatherworker recipes to use rivets made by Armourer, and so on. (Culinarian is somewhat separate in this regard, though. It neither uses nor contributes materals to/from other classes the way most of them do.) By leveling your crafting classes up together, you can make the materials you'll need. It's not too necessary in the early few levels while materials are cheaply available from NPC vendors, but at later levels a lot of those materials can only be acquired by crafting them or buying them from someone else who did. That's the point where it can get really expensive if you can't make them yourself.

Personally, I really like the crafting system itself. In some games, crafting is little more than gathering the materials and then choosing "craft X" and after a slight pause with crafting animation, you get "success, you made X". Here, it's a whole system of skills to advance quality or progress or restore durability or crafting points, while timing them to correspond to the material's current condition that turn. You're actively doing stuff trying to gain as much quality as possible while still having enough durability to finish the progress bar as well to complete the craft. It's a much more involved and interesting system (and gets more involved the higher you level up and more skills you gain).

i am not trying to power lvl, but i also would like to get up to endgame content in a reasonable amount of time, are there methods that are more efficient ?

There's kind of a priority system. As you've found out already, quests that unlock features or content have that special icon with the plus sign in the corner (a relatively new addition that I'm rather glad of, since we used to get a lot of players missing basic features for a long time and not being aware of it). And the main story quests have the fiery ring around the icon, and that's also necessary to unlocking a great deal of the content and features of the game (in addition, obviously, to providing the story). Both of those are signs that the quest is important, and they'll be the primary concern of the first combat class/job you advance through the game.

For when you need additional XP beyond what that provides, there are quite a few options.

Once you've completed at least two dungeons you'll unlock Duty Roulette, a feature that puts you into any of the dungeons or trials you've done before. Once per day it gives a really big XP bonus for doing that, and when that bonus is active, it becomes the best XP source in the game. So if you have time, do a leveling roulette once each day. If your main class is running short on XP and barely able to keep up with the main scenario, then do the roulette dungeon with your main class. If your main is outleveling your main scenario progress, then it can be better to use the leveling roulette to boost another secondary combat class instead.

For your main class that's doing all the main scenario quests and other important quests, that's likely to be as much extra XP as you need. If you decide to level up all the others as well, you'll need more XP sources. Here's a good place to use any extra sidequests that weren't important enough to do with your first class. (Their XP is good when done on-level, not so much if you're significantly over the level of the quest.) Each class has its own hunting log targets that give an extra XP boost. FATEs give good XP and are also a good source of Grand Company seals (once you advance far enough into the story to join a Grand Company, which is at level 20 IIRC). You can run dungeons again to get both XP and another chance at good loot drops. At level 17 you can unlock access to the Palace of the Dead, which is a special type of dungeon with its own leveling system. Levequests can be another source of XP, but if you're advancing the crafting classes as well as combat, you might want to save the leve allowance for crafting leves rather than combat leves as they're an even better way to advance crafting quickly. There is a weekly challenge log unlockable at level 15 that gives extra XP for doing a variety of things.

In general, I'd recommend doing a bit of a wide variety of those. Don't just pick one and spam it over and over until you're sick of it, because that can lead too easily to being sick of the game overall. Doing a bit of various different things is much better for avoiding burnout.

as an archer do i have other paths to follow? i usually choose to play a rogue/stealth type, an archer ranger type and as another alt, a paladin/tanky type

Well, as said before, you can advance as many of the classes as you want to. There is also an advancement for the combat classes to unlock a job at level 30. Archer becomes Bard. Rogue becomes Ninja. Gladiator becomes Paladin. Arcanist is the only one that branches out. At 30 Arcanist can advance to Summoner or Scholar (or both). To do so, you need the job's base class at level 30, and there's a second class that needs to be at least 15:

Bard: Archer (30), Pugilist (15)
Paladin: Gladiator (30), Conjurer (15)
Dragoon: Lancer (30), Marauder (15)
Warrior: Marauder (30), Gladiator (15)
Ninja: Rogue (30), Pugilist (15)
Monk: Pugilist (30), Lancer (15)
Scholar: Arcanist (30), Conjurer(15)
Summoner: Arcanist (30), Thaumaturge (15)
Black Mage: Thaumaturge (30), Archer (15)
White Mage: Conjurer (30), Arcanist (15)

[hawkemoon]

first off thanks for some very detailed and useful information, it would have saved me and I imagine other new players a lot of time if something like this was in the sticky notes on new player information
I have progressed thru my class quest to lvl 25, and main storyline to 18 and have just been given the retainer unlock
as a feedback it says who to contact for retainers, but not where, other than in the city, would be helpful if the person for retainers was a quest completion so you could find him, luckily someone in general area chat told me to look at the market, and there he was.
a follow up on class, when you hit lvl 30 class and do side for your job
so if I follow up with archer I will become a bard
can I choose a different class?
can I decide once I am a lvl 50 bard, to go back and level gladiator/conjurer and have a second "job" as a paladin?
or do I need to level and alt to be able to do that

on crafting
i do enjoy it, and as a MMO junky i have always done the gathering and crafting, so it fits well with my personal characteristics, gathering is smooth and easy, though i don't like that i cannot "gather" or even see nodes unless i am in gather class, so i cannot gather while questing/leveling you have to actually change to gather and activate the radar. but i do like that you don't have to go searching too much, that the nodes are spawned specifically for you and you can run the 4 spawns in a circle until you feel like stopping

and as a final note, could you explain "place of the dead"

and sorry, but one of the first things i did do was open the play manual and was trying to find out what the purple with a + quest was, and manual didn't have answer, nor does it have the information that you all have shared, it is fine for some basic how to stuff, but doesn't even come close to the information an experienced player starting a new game is interested in.