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??

[Niwashi]

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.

This has to do with how open FFXIV's multi-classing options are. In a game where you can advance 13 combat jobs, 8 crafting classes, and 3 gathering classes on the same character, and swap between them at will, you may need 24 different sets of equipment just to gear each of them (particularly if they're at different levels so not able to share equipment). That warranted a dedicated space just for holding all of our current gear, one that wouldn't be needed in a game where each character was dedicated to a particular class (like in most MMOs).

(The game could probably have done a better job of introducing you to where to find stuff, though.)

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?

Part of this is a stylistic choice. The game is designed to be strategic rather than fast paced action, so even at max level, it's not going to be about rapid button mashing. And part is simply that you're low level. There isn't a whole lot of strategy available at level 1 when you have only 1 skill to choose from. At level 60, when you have 37 of them, many on separate timers or needing special conditions, it's a lot more involved.

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.

Drag the upper right corner of the chat box to re-size it. Or drag the first ("General") tab on the bottom left to move it. Most other HUD elements can be rearranged and resized through the HUD Layout menu.

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?

Weird. Coming from LOTRO, which has probably around a hundred times as many quests, my biggest adjustment when starting FFXIV was getting used to how few quests this game has, especially once you get out of the starting towns and the first few levels. But if it's more than you want, you can skip a lot of the sidequests.

The Main Scenario is marked with a special quest icon that has a flaming circle around it. Those ones are important. And any sidequests with a blue icon that has a plus sign in the corner are ones that unlock features or content. So those are important, too.

The others, where the icon is just a brown oval with a tail (I never quite figured out whether it's supposed to represent a speech balloon or the letter Q) are just regular sidequests. They might sometimes provide a minor bit of background lore. And they can reward items and XP that can be useful. But that's about it. You can skip them if you feel like it, or wait to do them later. Some players deliberately skip them on their first class in order to have them available when leveling other classes.

I did a little reading while the download took place and the Class / Job system seems even more confusing

It's not all that confusing in practice. Each combat class can be upgraded to a job (or to a couple jobs in the case of Arcanist) at level 30, provided you also advance another complimentary class as well. After that, your class quests are replaced by job quests (which are essentially the same thing, just from a different NPC and with a new storyline attached) and a higher proportion of your skills are learned from those quests. With the job upgrade, you get a boost to your stats and a different name for doing what you had been doing all along.

(Later, SE decided the change of name was unnecessary, so the new jobs introduced with Heavensward and Stormblood use a single name that covers both the class and job together, eliminating the advancement from one to the other. They also start later, for players who don't want to start every job from the beginning.)

the game progression seems heavily about the main story and questing solo though the game.... sounds fun....

Progression is certainly heavily tied to the main story. (It is a Final Fantasy game after all, and storytelling has always been one of the franchise's big selling points.) While that involves a lot of solo content, it also includes quite a few party dungeons and trials. I seem to hear people complain about requiring so much solo content at about the same rate as other people complain about requiring group content, so I don't think they're too badly balanced.

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??

There's PvP at levels 50 and 60. (It used to start at level 30, but that part didn't get enough participation to remain viable, so they removed it.) The level 60 PvP is a lot more popular than the level 50 is, both because they added additional options there that 50 didn't get, but probably even more so just by the fact that it's the current level cap and PvP is seen by many as a way to pass the time when you're stuck at endgame and have run out of other content.

I haven't done enough PvP myself to comment on how good it is. The people who like it seem to like it, but many (probably the majority of) players either never try it or (like me) have tried it out once or twice and that's it. It's definitely sideline content compared to PvE where the game's main focus lies.

[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