Thoughts from a brand new player

[enderandrew]

I've been playing Final Fantasy XIV for just over two weeks now, being a new player who bought the game on the day Shadowbringers was released.

There are plenty of reviews of the expansion for existing players, but I'm not seeing anyone offering a review of the base game itself for new players in 2019. I wanted to share some of my thoughts two weeks in.

Gameplay is exactly what I expected. It is tab-target gameplay with a rotation of abilities in a hotbar following DPS/Tank/Healer conventions. It is pretty much like every MMO that has come out since WOW and that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

The graphics and overall art style is much nicer than I anticipated for a very old game, save for over the top animations that I've come to expect from Final Fantasy titles.

I LOVE the concept that one character can have multiple classes and multiple gear sets.

I was told the game had a free initial month trial, and elsewhere that the game is free up until level 35. But after buying the base game (Collector's Edition), Heavensward, Stormblood and the Shadowbringers (Collector's Edition) I couldn't log into the game without buying a subscription. That seemed counter to what I heard, but I happily bought a subscription to try it out. Apparently buying the game takes away the trial, which seems really counter-intuitive.

Earrings frustration - I was looking at the game with all the news and focus on Shadowbringers and how all my friends had been bragging up the game. I had Shadowbringers in my cart, but went out at night and forgot to check out. I bought it the next morning, which was release day. I missed the pre-order by a few hours, not realizing it was release day and not realizing I permanently missed out on an XP bonus for every class under level 70. This seems like a huge missed opportunity that really frustrates me. Obviously the devs realize the ARR content is a slow grind, the new content is good and they want players to progress to it. Many people feel that end-game is when a MMO really comes into its own. If this was unlocked by a digital purchase of collector's editional items for $20 like the other collector's edition items, I'd happily pay for it. In fact, I did buy the Collector's Edition of Shadowbringers. I was tempted to pay to get the Collector's Edition content for Heavensword and Stormblood as well, but I don't know if I want to throw even more money at the game yet. But I screwed myself over out of ignorance because I'm a new player who didn't realize the release day or what I was missing. I opened a support ticket and asked if Square-Enix could hook a new player up who just dropped a bunch of money on day one to try out this game, and they closed the ticket without really an answer or explanation. But I guess I'm screwed and that is that. I don't want to sound entitled, but it did kill a little of my excitement for the game, so I'm less interested in paying the extra $5 a month for the mobile app and such.

[enderandrew]

I see the game has a cash shop. I really with the earrings were in the cash shop. It is really off-putting knowing I permanently missed out on something huge like that literally by a few hours simply because I didn't know any better. Someone offered me a pre-order bonus code, but apparently they're region locked and it was only good for EU. Is there any place to purchase a NA pre-order bonus code?

Experience at the low levels comes quickly. With the Hall of Novice ring, being in a FC and Road to 70 (not sure how long does that buff last) I can level up super quick at low levels. So I decided to try each of the base classes. I have them all up to 15 or 20. I'm trying to figure out which class I enjoy most and want to make my main class, though I also want to see the story for ALL of the classes/jobs in time. But I know that XP progression is often on a curve and it will slow down greatly for higher levels, not to mention some of the XP bonuses are only up to level 25/35. I'm really kicking myself for missing out on the earrings.

Leveling solo - As far as all the classes go, it is far easier to level tank classes or certain DPS classes. Healers can't do much DPS so they are a pain to level up solo. They're designed to work in groups, but my healer is squishy. So just trading damage to the enemy and myself over time doesn't work well solo. SWTOR is a game I played for years. I really loved the companion system in that game. It was great for story and also for gameplay. Leveling a healer allowed you to pull out a tank or DPS companion and heal them as they were fighting. Some of the magic ranged DPS classes are also a pain to level. I have a slow cast, but have to move out of the way of AoE attacks breaking my cast. These magic classes are also squishy. This reminds me of the Sniper class in SWTOR. They were a turret that couldn't move and could apply high burst DPS with a long "cast" time, and work well in a group setting, but not solo where you need to move. And at low levels, I'm not even seeing the high burst DPS from them.

Leveling some of these classes almost requires a group. But it seems most players are doing the end-game or new expansion content.

Frustration with creating first character - I do have friends, and they're all on other servers. I couldn't play with them if I wanted. Most servers are not allowing new characters to be made. In fact, when I bought the game, I could not play right away. I saw that "Preferred servers" have an XP boost so I wanted to create on Brunhildr, but had to wait a full day to log in during off hours to even create my character early in the morning. If I didn't have time to log on in early hours, I basically wouldn't have been able to start as a new player really. Not allowing me to create a character on servers with my friends, and not really allowing me to create a character at all initially is not a great first experience.

[RoyalBeef]

Leveling solo - As far as all the classes go, it is far easier to level tank classes or certain DPS classes. Healers can't do much DPS so they are a pain to level up solo. They're designed to work in groups, but my healer is squishy. So just trading damage to the enemy and myself over time doesn't work well solo. SWTOR is a game I played for years. I really loved the companion system in that game. It was great for story and also for gameplay. Leveling a healer allowed you to pull out a tank or DPS companion and heal them as they were fighting. Some of the magic ranged DPS classes are also a pain to level. I have a slow cast, but have to move out of the way of AoE attacks breaking my cast. These magic classes are also squishy. This reminds me of the Sniper class in SWTOR. They were a turret that couldn't move and could apply high burst DPS with a long "cast" time, and work well in a group setting, but not solo where you need to move. And at low levels, I'm not even seeing the high burst DPS from them.

Leveling some of these classes almost requires a group. But it seems most players are doing the end-game or new expansion content.

Solo leveling as in grinding mobs in the open world is pretty inefficient anyway. You really want to queue up for the highest dungeon you can run and do some FATEs while you wait for the queue to pop. Also afaik there is a nice exp bonus when you kill stuff that is your level, so you want to make use of that as well and not "waste" the levelling roulette on those levels but do it on the inbetween levels that don't yield an exp bonus for a dungeon. So ie. when you are Level 44 you run Dzemael Darkhold 1-2 times till you level up to 45, making full use of the exp bonus as mobs will also be level 44, then when you hit 45 you do the leveling roulette which might get you to 47 where you have the next dungeon available which will again yield that exp bonus for equal level.

Since even endgame players use the levelling roulette for endgame currency or levelling alt jobs there shouldn't be too much trouble queuing up for any low dungeon. I'm levelling a MCH alt atm and my queue times are between insta-pop to like 7-8 mins max so far.

[Bakari_Pridemane]

Is there any place to purchase a NA pre-order bonus code?

Yesterday i saw an preorder code for NA on ebay. I have the same problem, i was looking for an european pre-order code.

Hopefully they have it in cash shop one day :/

[enderandrew]

Yesterday i saw an preorder code for NA on ebay. I have the same problem, i was looking for an european pre-order code.

Hopefully they have it in cash shop one day :/

I don't know what SE's policy is, but I know with other companies and games they often frown on third party RMTs. I'm forced to go the eBay route myself now, but I would encourage SE to consider putting them in their own first party cash shop on Mog Station.

[Niwashi]

Hopefully they have it in cash shop one day :/

Pre-order items have a promise of exclusivity for pre-ordering. They're never made available any other way. (The closest was when ARR was released on PS4 several months after it had been released on PS3 and PC. The new platform release led to players getting a second opportunity to pre-order it.)

SE could, however, create other items with a similar bonus. For instance, there's now several hats in the game that provide an XP buff for low-level classes. I believe the Aetherite Earrings are the first to combine that with level-adjusted stats (which make extending it into higher levels feasible), but I'd be surprised if they're the last.

[enderandrew]

Early story isn't great - So far the story is barely present, but I've been warned that ARR isn't that great and it gets much better as you go along. The class story quests up to 20 don't have much going on. I was shocked that a few quests I assumed where minor side quests in the world prompted full cut scenes are were in fact major story quests, but it wasn't immediately obvious to me that they were different from all the other minor side quests I was picking up everywhere.

My big early mistake - I screwed myself over by trying different classes and crafting classes before unlocking my mount because my inventory very quickly filled up. Apparently your mount gets you saddlebags, but I basically had to dump a bunch of crafting mats and items, which is causing me to burn gil to buy them later when I realize I needed them, but I simply don't have inventory space to hold them all. In other games I've played, you can pay to unlock more inventory space and I was shocked that wasn't an option here. One player very graciously gave me some starting gil, and frankly without it I wouldn't have been able to start on crafting classes as I'm just burning gil buying mats to make items to sell to a vendor often for a measley 1 gil. I see low level crafted items (such as a level 15 armor piece) selling for 10,000 gil on the market boards, but I didn't see any option for me to sell the items I'm crafting on the market boards. Apparently, again this was me screwing myself over by leveling all the classes at once and not moving the main MSQ forward fast enough to unlock retainers which I finally did last night.

Also, I was told there is an XP bonus for any class with a lower level than your highest/main class. But now someone is telling me it is proportional, so you really need to max one class first to get a proper bonus on the others. But this isn't obvious or explained in game that I've seen.

I asked a bunch of players if there was anything I should know as a new player going in, and no one warned me that trying to level multiple classes early was a mistake because it slows down getting to retainers and your mount and clutters your limited inventory. I wish I had known to at least get to your mount first and this is the biggest piece of advice I'd give to other new players now.

FCs - I hear that FCs have levels and abilities you get from them, but I don't understand what these are other than the combat bonus. I don't know if it matters which FC I'm in and if I should be looking for a higher level FC for better perks.

[enderandrew]

Gathering class quests - Most of the quests and content are very self-explanatory with the map markers are such. I've found some of the gathering class quests aren't. There isn't a map marker for where I should look for mats. I found it really hard to start the Botanist level 5 quest. The map marker is there at the guild, but it tells me to go to Treespeak. I have no idea where Treespeak is. I Googled it, and apparently it is North Shroud. So Aethernet didn't have a teleport to North Shroud. In Central Shroud on the map I see you can go from there to North Shroud, but only through a portion of Central Shroud that is gated off. East Shroud doesn't connect to North Shroud. I couldn't figure out how to get to North Shroud for a bit until I realized I missed one exit from the city that went to North Shroud. But as a new player, a map marker or better text in the Journal would have helped.

You can't play completely solo - The main quest requires you to do dungeons. I was told you can play the main story completely solo, but that isn't entirely true. You sit in queue for a while as a DPS. I'm not sure I want to tank my tank into queue even though I know how to tank from other games, just because I don't know the dungeons and no one wants a tank who doesn't know where to go or what the mechanics are.

Class Mechanics - With a few of the classes, the mechanics are fairly obvious early on. With my Gladiator, I need to do a basic combo rotation (Fast/Savage) to generate Enemity/Threat. I am a little shocked that by level 23 I don't have an AoE taunt however, which is a fairly basic Tank move. Some of the classes I'm a little confused on mechanics. For example, with Archer Heavy Shot has a 20% chance of enabling Steady Shot, so there is no consistent rotation or combo. And then I unlocked Bloodletter which does the same damage, doesn't apply a buff/debuff/DoT or anything like that. It does the exact same damage as Heavy Shot, but then I have no chance to enable Steady Shot. Bloodletter seemed completely pointless because the tooltip lists the same cast time, but apparently it doesn't eat a global cooldown. I understand it now, but this really should be explained better in game.

With THM I initially had no idea when to use Ice or Fire or how to manage MP consumption. It looked like Ice and Fire did the same damage, but Fire would eat up all my MP quickly. I understand it now, but I wish this mechanic was better explained in game. I was in the middle of combat at it said I unlocked a meter or gauge of something, but I had to click off the help tip to finish fighting mobs.

I'm also shocked there is no skill tree. I like being able to customize my character and having player agency.

[Enkidoh]

You can't play completely solo - The main quest requires you to do dungeons. I was told you can play the main story completely solo, but that isn't entirely true. You sit in queue for a while as a DPS. I'm not sure I want to tank my tank into queue even though I know how to tank from other games, just because I don't know the dungeons and no one wants a tank who doesn't know where to go or what the mechanics are.

Actually, the ARR era dungeons can be run solo... buuuuuuut, there is a catch. You can set dungeons and trials as 'undermanned and unsynced' by clicking on the small button in the top left corner of the Duty Finder that looks like a cog wheel). This then removes party requirements for every duty (dungeon and trial and even certain raids) in the Duty Finder allowing you to enter them completely solo. However, going into, say, Stone Vigil solo as level 40 is tantamount to suicide. In these situations it's better to get a high level friend to duo with you and run you through them, but that does kind of defeat the 'solo' aspect (you could also hold off and keep levelling to a higher level and enter them then as you'd have a much higher chance of survival).

SE did eventually learn from their mistakes though and main scenario dungeons and trials in Shadowbringers allow you to take a party of story npcs called 'Trusts' in with you instead of having to form a party with other players, but alas that's just for SHB content and not earlier content.

Class Mechanics - With a few of the classes, the mechanics are fairly obvious early on. With my Gladiator, I need to do a basic combo rotation (Fast/Savage) to generate Enemity/Threat. I am a little shocked that by level 23 I don't have an AoE taunt however, which is a fairly basic Tank move

GLA/PLD did have an AoE hate generating ability called Flash that was gained at level 6, but it was removed at Shadowbringer's launch recently after constant player demands to add an AoE damage attack at that level instead, so now we have the weaponskill Total Eclipse at that level instead, which basically does the same thing but does AoE damage as well. I still miss Flash's simple utility however.

I'm also shocked there is no skill tree. I like being able to customize my character and having player agency.

Well, a lot of that is SE looked at their earlier FF MMO FFXI which had a fully customizable Job system (where you could add a secondary Job to the first one and at higher levels unlock customizable abilities), and saw that players were still just finding the most optimal path and sticking with that. And hence FFXIV has continuosly stripped down ability freedom in preference of a default ability path based on your class/Job's role. I do miss certain abilities that were formerly available (such as being able to set low level healing spells to GLA/PLD such as Raise and Protect), but new abilities do compensate for that mostly.

Really, all SE have done is taken the player's blinders off - no matter how liberal or varied the ability system may be in how you can set abilities, players will always inevitably find the 'meta' setup that gives the best return for the least effort, and will insist on only using that (and attacking/shunning other players who dared think outside the box - FFXI suffered from that terribly as I mentioned). Of course the trade off is everyone more or less looks and plays the same, but it's a small price to pay.

Either way, welcome to Eorzea!

[enderandrew]

Actually, the ARR era dungeons can be run solo... buuuuuuut, there is a catch. You can set dungeons and trials as 'undermanned and unsynced' by clicking on the small button in the top left corner of the Duty Finder that looks like a cog wheel). This then removes party requirements for every duty (dungeon and trial and even certain raids) in the Duty Finder allowing you to enter them completely solo. However, going into, say, Stone Vigil solo as level 40 is tantamount to suicide. In these situations it's better to get a high level friend to duo with you and run you through them, but that does kind of defeat the 'solo' aspect (you could also hold off and keep levelling to a higher level and enter them then as you'd have a much higher chance of survival).

What kind of level difference would you need? Could you run a level 20 dungeon solo at level 25? 30? Would you need to be higher? I've been encouraged to hop in queue with my tank, and that people will apparently be patient if I don't know the dungeon. But I'm still curious about running solo. When I'm really high level, could I run through dungeons solo with my high level character to make sure I get all the drops to help get gear for my alt classes?

Right now I'm 25 about to do the level 19 MSQ and should hit Infrit and my Chocobo soon. It makes me wonder if I could solo a 20 dungeon at 25 or so.