Some Questions From A Newb

[Aelin_Ashryver]

1. My friend gifted me an outfit from the "optional extras" shop. I see this game does not make the outfit act like a skin so how can I wear it? I just used it as my armour till I ended up needing to swap it out.
2. My friend also gifted me some chocobo barding, I got it in my inventory and clicked "use" and it has gone poof! Am I right in assuming once I get a chocobo I can equip it from some menu? Also when do I get said birdie?
3. The navigation for quests in this game can be kinda funky, any tips for learning to get around? Sometimes there is a marker to show which path to take and then it vanishes when I go to the next area but I am still not in the correct place know what I mean?
4. The housing interests me but I am guildless along with my friend and I dunno how much buying personal housing is. Is it doable for us?

And lastly if you have any advice for things like making gil, how to progress properly etc it would be much appreciated!

[MicahZerrshia]

1: you will unlock glamour options at around lvl 15 or 18 in west thanalan. just wait til it sends you to the waking sands, the unlock npc is near the giant statue of one of those horrible little lala
2: the barding will be available once you unlock mounts at lvl 20, you can change your chocobo's barding in the companion tab
3: just open your map and look for the destination, you can also open the quest in the journal and it will show you where to go on the map. If you don't have an indicator you are not on the right map. It wont lead you with a lit path or anything like a few of the Korean mmos do
4: you need to reach lvl 50 to unlock housing, get enough gils for a house then hope and pray you find one open. You can also just get an apartment for 500k. A small house is going to run you at least 2-3m (which to be fair is not that much) and a mansion can be as high as 50m but housing is in high demand and depending on your server hard to find. If you are on a high pop server you need to camp wards to find one open and even then its not guaranteed to be ready for sale yet. Its really a poorly designed crapshoot.

Gil is easy to make and there are tons of methods. Some easy things are to level your retainers when they unlock and use them to gather items, you can also craft/gather, do maps/treasure hunts, etc. Just kindda watch the marketboard and see whats in demand. The only real gil sink in the game is housing, the game will throw gear at you like crazy and at lvl cap you don't use gil to get gear anyway. You can buy high lvl gear but its not always needed nor the best, its really situational and only really needed if you are fairly hardcore.

[Aelin_Ashryver]

Cheers for the response! The housing I can be patient with once I eventually hit 50. I still play other MMO with instanced housing but the customisation in it is so very expensive. Looking forward to running around in my maid outfit with my Butler chocobo following me around ^^ I'll be sure to level retainers and things once I get to them thank you.

[Niwashi]

1. There is a level 15 sidequest called If I Had a Glamour that unlocks a feature letting you make one piece of gear look like another. That will allow you to choose your equipped gear according to its stats but make you look like you're wearing the gear you find more attractive. Oh, and there's also another quest nearby that unlocks the ability to dye your gear different colors: Color Your World.

Those quests are in Western Thanalan, though, so if you started in Limsa Lominsa and haven't gotten there yet, you'll need to wait until you can reach the other two major cities of Eorzea before you can reach it. Following the main scenario up to The Lominsan Envoy will get you to the city of Ul'dah, and Western Thanalan is just outside its westernmost gate.

2. Yes. Once you join one of the three Grand Companies of Eorzea (which will happen in the level 20 main scenario quest The Company You Keep) you'll be able to do the sidequest My Little Chocobo to get your chocobo mount. Once you have it, you can use the "Companion" window from the main menu to select its barding and, once you level it up, assign its skills.

3. If you're in the region where your quest destination is, and its one of the five listed in your quest tracker, the destination should show up on your map as either a quest icon (if it's a specific spot, like where you need to talk to a particular NPC) or as a reddish circle if you need to find several of something within a certain area. If you're in an adjacent region, there will be a quest icon on the path leading to the region where your quest is.

There's a few reasons why it might not show up: (a) If you have more than five active quests, so not all of them fit on your quest tracker, only the ones that do will show up on the map. (b) If your quest destination is neither in your current region, nor an adjacent region, there won't be a map marker for it. (c) And there are a few quest objectives that don't have a specific location (e.g. get a certain widely available item, which could be bought from an NPC, or crafted, or bought off the marketboard, or maybe a friend would give you one, etc.) Since there isn't a particular spot you need to go to complete an objective like that, there's no map marker for it.

(In the case of (a) or (b) above, you can go to the quest in your Quest Journal and click the "map" link, and it will show you where to go.)

4. You'll need to reach level 50, as well as I believe it's second lieutenant in your Grand Company, before you'll be able to buy a personal house or apartment. For houses, it will also depend on one being available, which isn't guaranteed. (Big crowded servers still have a major issue with shortages, particularly for the larger housing plots. Most of the less crowded servers, however, have reached the point where houses are more readily available. I don't know where Zodiark fits in that, though.) The cost is in the millions, but that'll seem far more reasonable once you reach the necessary level than it does now.

[Ceridwenae]

4. You'll need to reach level 50, as well as I believe it's second lieutenant in your Grand Company, before you'll be able to buy a personal house or apartment. For houses, it will also depend on one being available, which isn't guaranteed. (Big crowded servers still have a major issue with shortages, particularly for the larger housing plots. Most of the less crowded servers, however, have reached the point where houses are more readily available. I don't know where Zodiark fits in that, though.) The cost is in the millions, but that'll seem far more reasonable once you reach the necessary level than it does now.

Haven't checked in depth, but certainly in my ward in Mist there's reasonably priced small housing available off and on. I imagine it's the same in other housing areas too.

Hey, OP! Welcome to the game and to Zodiark!

[Niwashi]

As far as making gil, as Micah mentioned there are lots of ways. My favorite is crafting. I suggest everyone at least try out the game's crafting system far enough to see if they like it or not. Before you get far into that, though, you'll want retainers. They're NPC assistants who do various things for you: They hold excess items. They sell items for you on the marketboard. And they can gather stuff for you. They're unlocked in the level 17 main scenario quest The Scions of the Seventh Dawn. Once you've done that, you can hire retainers by talking to the Retainer Vocate at the shopping area of any of the main cities.

[Aelin_Ashryver]

Thanks for the responses! It's very helpful. I do love crafting so that's definitely something I will look into once I get there. Glad to hear housing situation is not so bad on my world as well

[Frizze]

If Ceridwenae is right about housing in Mist, then you should be on a good server for it. On most worlds Mist is the second most popular housing zone(Shiro is first, some worlds swap Mist with Lavender for third, Goblet is least popular pretty much everywhere), so if there are houses open in Mist then you likely have dozens(honestly it could possibly be a couple hundred) of plots to eventually pick from. Good luck!

And since you asked about "progressing properly" and no one answered that particular nugget yet, ill toss in a bit of info too. As an MMO the game has a TON of things for you to see and do. But the most important thing for progress is to keep on top of your Main Scenario Quests. These are the quests with the flaming meteor icon. Running those main quests are what unlock 75% of the game. Some things unlock directly(game tells you to clear dungeon X, dungeon X is now unlocked), some unlock indirectly(working with friendly beast tribes is possible after you complete quest Y in the mainline). There are entire regions you cant explore until you get sent there. So keep up with these quests to keep your options open. Also, any quest-bubble with a plus sign built in is one that will unlock optional content, so those are good to do too. And lastly, make sure you do your class quests. Aside from the exp and story, several of them unlock new combat moves.

Hope that helps a bit!

[Aelin_Ashryver]

Thread revival!

Got myself up a few levels and now I can hire retainers. I hired 2 and I can see they can put things up on the market for me but how do I send them to go gather things? The help says I can send them on ventures but when I summon them with the bell only thing I have to choose from is market or storage stuff
I'm all glamoured now though so I'm happy with that \o/

Nevermiiind I found the quest to unlock it <3

I see people talk of gearing the retainer? Can someone give a little more insight into them? I wanna eventually get this mameshiba pet from the ventures.

[Frizze]

First note: Your retainer can not outlevel you. If they catch up to you they stop earning exp until you pull ahead again. Keep this in mind, especially if using gathering class retainers(combat class retainers tend to take care of themselves unless you switch your main class). You dont want to bottleneck them. So to your actual question. Retainers wear equipment, same as you. With better equipment, they perform their job better so its good to give them hand-me-downs that youve outgrown. For a combat class retainer, the stat that matters is item level - more is better. For gathering classed retainers the stat that matters is the Gathering skill. You dont really need to go nuts giving them amazing gear until you get pretty high in level. At a certain point the exploration ventures you can assign them will have minimum stat requirements - thats when it starts to matter(if your stat isnt high enough to DO the exploration that finds you a shiba then youll be stuck like the rest of us having to pay an outrageous fee on the market).