Any start advice ? Leveling etc (Leviathan server)

[Aescwhisky]

Jumping back into MMO's here on the ps4. Played others for years on PC and took a break, new baby, moved 900 miles and such.

I've rolled an Arcanist with intent to play SCH and SMN(solo time). Lots of different things to learn here. Finding my way around especially as the map is not immediately intuitive. Thinking MSQ is going to be the best way to level and access content. Will those keep my gear up to date?

Any and all advice is very appreciated. Out of town until Sunday night. My typical play time is 8-10ish pm EST longer Fri and Sat. Hoping to raid in the future (will adjust schedule if I can to do so)

[Corleone]

Yes, pretty much MSQ and all side quests are the way to go as far as leveling and staying geared up on your first character. I am pretty sure you will always have semi up to date gear so long as you complete all quests in each area. Sprinkle in a couple runs of each dungeon as you go and you'll be cap in no time.

[Aescwhisky]

Thanks for the feedback

[Niwashi]

If you do just the main scenario quests and important sidequests (ones with the plus sign on the icon), you'll get a lot of your gear from those, but might occasionally want to craft or purchase some gear upgrades to supplement your quest rewards.

If you also do other sidequests, you'll generally get enough gear from quest rewards (and the occasional dungeon drop when you get lucky) that you won't need to.

For the first 20 or so levels especially, doing all the sidequests will level you much faster than you progress through the story. I'm not sure whether you care about that, but if you're the type of player who prefers to be on-level with their main story quests, then you might want to skip a lot of the optional sidequests on your first class (leaving them for if/when you level up additional classes) at least through the early part of the game. (As you get further in and it starts taking more XP to keep leveling up, you could start including more of those optional sidequests again.)

Take your time to explore and have fun.

There's a lot of general advice we could offer here, but without knowing which parts of the game you'll find obvious and which you could use help with, I'm not sure what advice to give. So maybe it's best to leave it at that and you can come back and ask more questions as you get them.

[Aescwhisky]

Thanks. I will definitely get more specific as I go. Likely I will level another class down the road but from a bit of reading of reading it does not seem like saving specific side quests is really necessary for that. POTD seems to make it pretty fast from what I saw.

Will go healer once I can, not sure what the best time to get the 15 in CNJ will be, also not sure it really matters.

[Niwashi]

Will go healer once I can, not sure what the best time to get the 15 in CNJ will be, also not sure it really matters.

It doesn't really matter. Well, you'll need to reach the Lominsan Envoy quest in your MSQ to reach Gridania and its Conjurer's guild. But any time between then and when you reach level 30 as Arcanist is fine.

Favoring doing it earlier rather than later would give you earlier access to its cross-class skills, but most of them become more useful once you become a healer anyway. Being able to cast Protect on yourself while soloing as ACN could come in handy, but in dungeons the healer will do that for you.

There are a couple more milestones in the MSQ coming up soon after that envoy quest, though, and you might want to prioritize them ahead of cross-classing. You can get access to retainers (item storage and market board selling) at level 17 and mounts at level 20 in the MSQ.

[Aescwhisky]

Excellent. Level 20 is definitely worth reaching in order to speed up travel time. Assuming the world while not as large is similar to WoW in that having a mount can seriously speed up leveling in the open world.

[Frizze]

Yeah, ill agree with the others here. Doing the main storyline quests, your class quests, and any unlock quests you come across will take care of 95% of your leveling for your main class. Unlocking mounts certainly speeds up travel, and getting to where you want to be can speed up leveling so ill agree with you there. Another thing to keep an eye on to help with that is your chocobo. At level 30 youll be able to find a quest to train your chocobo mount to fight alongside you in the open world. Your chocobo will synchronize with your character level, but it has a secondary leveling mechanic where it gets skill points you can use to specialize it toward healing, tanking or dealing damage(if you level it high enough it can master all 3).

Oh, and dont worry about the confusing map too much. You happened to start in the most confusingly-laid-out of the 3 starting cities. Which i guess makes sense. Gridania and Ul Dah are towns that have mostly stood for hundreds of years, laid out around a river and an oasis respectively. Limsa is largely made up of beached ships with rigging thrown up around them, and an active port.

[Aescwhisky]

Mount leveling interesting! Will be home to start playing again tomorrow and get the full game as to not be limited by the trial. Thanks for more advice.

[Maero]

I cannot add to what others have already said but will say if you ever need help feel free to add me in game, i also am on Leviathan