New to FFXIV – Feeling a little overwhelmed and disheartened

[UnluckyXIII]

Hey guys,

I’ve recently started playing FFXIV with my brother… well, when I say recently I mean since yesterday evening, we would have got in sooner but the Phoenix server was locked out for new characters until 01:00 :O (we have friends who have played for a few years on Phoenix so wanted to join up with them and it was a toss-up between FFXIV and ES:O but we went FFXIV since we already know people that are playing).

[UnluckyXIII]

I have to say, I was impressed with the character creation part of the game, it has reasonable depth to help everyone feel like an “individual” rather than feeling like you are just another of the same. The choice of hair styles and a range of other customisable options made the character creation part feel immersive and fun (or at least as much fun as one can have creating a character).

Unfortunately, this seem to be where the fun stopped and the confusion and feeling of being overwhelmed kicked in… The game itself looks beautiful and the initial cutscene with opening storey section leading you into the starter town were nice, although disappointing that it wasn’t voice acted…

[UnluckyXIII]

Once into the starter town and after doing the initial back-and-forth for the opening quest line I thought I was finally on my way, but no, I can’t leave the starting room unless I also take the side quest which is offered here… strange, as I’ve never had this in an MMO before. Either way, I picked up the quest and continued out into the starting area. Only to be greeted by what I can only describe as the most confusing and obscurely laid out town I have ever come across :S after around 20-30 mins of running around I finally thought I had got my bearings but nope, I’m still lost and confused lol!

But the confusion doesn’t end there, the separate bags for EVERYTHING also seems a little strange and confusing, I completed a quest, opened my inventory but no quest reward… I had to Google to find out where it had gone and to discover that aside from the standard inventory for item I pick up on my travels, each piece of kit also has its own bag section just for that specific type of item.

[UnluckyXIII]

Continuing on, I do the typical gather up the quests in a specific town/zone/area and then systematically work my way through them (god there seems to be a lot of quests!), for the most part the quests are the typical fetch/gather/talk which I’m used to from previous MMO’s. After completing a few more quests I finally get one that points me outside of the starting town.

I head out of town with a few quests requiring me to kill this-or-that, start combat… and wait…. And attack….. and wait….. and attack…. And wait…. Is it just me or does FFXIV have possibly the slowest combat in a MMO? For a moment I wasn’t sure if it was turn based like the old FF games… but no, it’s not, it’s just really slow…

[UnluckyXIII]

There are loads of other little things which also feel cumbersome, almost like they have been designed in such a way to be “different” from other MMO’s but making them either overly complex or just plain difficult for the sake of being “different” to norm. Take the chat system, I had someone talking to me for 5 mins but I didn’t even notice because the chat box is down out of the way in the left-hand corner and its sooooo small that I need to totally take focus off everything else going on, on screen just to read what someone has typed to me. Or the sheer amount of quests, there everywhere, continuously, like non stop on every street corner, at every tree/bush or bridge… is there any reason why there are so many quests?

[UnluckyXIII]

I did a little reading while the download took place and the Class / Job system seems even more confusing and the game progression seems heavily about the main story and questing solo though the game.... sounds fun.... ..... ...... I also haven’t been able to find out anything in regards to PvP or how/what its like here on FFXIV, does it even have PvP??

[UnluckyXIII]

After a few hours of playing I’m feeling fairly disheartened, everyone else I know (all Lv.60) including my brother who’s just started out seem to love everything about FFXIV but I just can’t seem to get into it, it feels clunky, slow and overly complex for no reason other than… well just being overly complex. Christ, even to post on these forums was a chore with the funny character selection mechanic to post on the forums with no instructions to say “no it’s not just clicking on the character bar and turning it brown, you’ve got to click that little grey star next to their picture, yeah that’s the one, that’s not obvious at all but how we’ve made the forums work”…

[UnluckyXIII]

I really really really want to like FFXIV, and not just because I’ve paid “x” amount for the game and then “x” amount for a subscription but because its where my brother and friends all play and the best part about an MMO is getting to play with friends, but if the first few hours are anything to go by I can’t see me continuing on with it, please tell me things get better and that the game starts to feel less overly complex and just plain difficult for no reason….

[UnluckyXIII]

Insult to injury.... 1000 character limit.... 30 second lock out between posts.... I lolled!! XD

[Gogofoo]

Oh my goodness it bring back old memeory lol. Unlucky ff14 gets way better. You will feel excitement when you first face off ur first primal. Ff15 does have slow combat and now u probabaly only have 2-3 skills to used so combat can be extreme boring. Once you high up there in level u will have lot more skills to manage . Story is always but part of ff series so progress in main story is a must.

Pvp In ff14 is okay, while pve content such as dungon trail raid is a main focus for ff14.

Hang in there, after about lvl 25 story pick up, u will have several dungeons and trail to tackle which will be better game