Hello - New to FFXIV, wondering some things ^^

[UrbanLucrece]

Hello!

I've started to try out FFXIV again, been playing FFXI for like 7 years =P And I thought I could ask here, as I'm curious about the etiquette in FFXIV.

How does Exp PT work? Is it usually 6 people? Same roles/construciton as in FFXI?(Level ranges?) How do you find people or how do they find you? Do you have and tips? As in FFXI I always came prepared and used the best food for my job etc, waited for everyone, and met up together and so on.

Thank you!

[Laughlyn]

Well one things for sure... food / pots here have little meaning as for now.
(most seems to eb rather useless)

Exp PT's in FFXIV works much like in FFXI, but gettings SP/EXP in
FFXIV now is really easy compared to launch day.
(i quit FFXI 2010 so after that idk how it is)

I did a test a few hours ago, me & a friend decided to Rapid-level our mules for fun.
We picked up 7 battle-leves each from rank 1-10.

I went as Thaumaturge rank 1 & my friend as Conjurer rank 1.

Since we both spent atleast 3-5years in FFXI & we both have atleast
1x rank 50 class in FFXIV, so we more or less knew what to do and
knew the classes from 1-50 already.

Anywayz, we managed to level from 1-15 in less than 1hour 30min,
with atleast 1-2 short breaks in between.
(im sure we could have duo'd the leves faster but it was just for fun)
Oh ya... and we did this entire thing in starter gear & weapons.
The only thing we bought was a r17 Headgear (mask) with some mp+ on it.

Video of the Rapid Leveling: (no super sexy editing lol)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weKO-S9OLw4

- The video more or less show you what to do & how to start the "Leves",
a good option for anyone new to the game i guess.
(as you can see its not too hard)

So if your no total stranger to FFXI you wont have any major problems
leveling at a decent rate even playing Solo.
The spells and abilities are much alike, just not as fast or perfect as in FFXI.

There's isnt much grind parties mostly because Battle-leves gives you
a decent amount of SP/EXP.

It's better to party and share leves by linking the same leves
together and use the Guardian buff to increase the sp/exp gain.

Looking for parties...well.. its not hard to find one if there's people around,
just shout LF party or "Let me join", then there's behest every 30min or so i think.
Everything you need is in the menu, how to invite ppl, change gear etc.

[UrbanLucrece]

Thank you for your answer!

Interesting video ^^ Have a few follow-up questions,
So exping is done by doing Battle-leves? It's not hunting a certain mob at a certain camp and defeating them for exp-chains or anything like that? Generally join a group travel to an Aetheryte(sp) and do the quests over and over?^^ (And parties group by the level of the class, not physical?)

Also I miss my auction house =P But I notice, and read about the retainers (Nice to have your own little "shop"), but I have a few things that I miss, and want to ask since maybe theres a way to do it.

I usually enjoy/look forward to hitting a certain level to be able to use certain items for that level, and that's mainly done by scouting the AH and browsing to find items? =P

Also it's exhausting to run and look at ppl's shop one at a time, is there a way some kind of search function that gather them all together so you can for example just look at "Swords"? Or am I just blind in the menus ^^

[Laughlyn]

Well, it's true that there is no AH atm, instead we have Retainers
wich are located in something called the "Wards".

There's 1 in each of the 3 cities, before entering the wards an
option will pop up asking your to either look for an item in particular, when you find that
item you get the option to "Mark" the retainers selling these" (cheapest first), so ya
much like an Auction house. They also act as your personal storage NPC. (like the Moogle in FFXI)

It's a fairly easy system, some like it & some dont.

Leveling atm currently involves Doing the Quests-leves where you
gain both class rank (SP) & physical (Exp).

A maximum of 8 battle / Gathering leves /reset is allowed.
If you fail some or all you can redo them again next day and still get 8 new leves.

It's kind of repeatative doing these leves, find X amount of monsters & kill them.
Gathering leves are abit diffrent, like fishing for example you need to go to a
specific spot & fish up X amount of fishes.

You usually get rewards such as Gil, Cystals, some item or Guildmarks.

Craft leves usually involves making X amount of crafted items & then hand them in to
some NPC (mentioned in the Journal, also shown at map), for these you dont need to buy
materials / crystals. (you get these from the quest giver)

Then there faction leves wich could grant you access to try defeat some NM's etc.
You usually gain access to these by collection factions points from regular leves.

Atm there's no such thing as exp chains implemented at all in the game, however
using AoE attacks on mobs not realated to the Leve-monsters will most likely yield less
SP/Exp, or doing damage to more than 1 monster at the time.
To get best sp/EXP per kill, take down 1 enemy at the time.

For parties, its more or less the same thing, however since you have the
ability to teleport to "Aethers" you have located you can invite ppl inside
the city & then teleport to the Aether when everyone is ready.

Only the player thats teleporting needs to have found the
Aether crystal to be able to teleport the entire party there.
(Even if someone in the PT dont have that Aether yet.)

Might not sound much, but if leveling a battleclass gets boring you should
really try one of the Gathering classes & some craftclasses.

Currently there's no sub-cap for the classes so you can level any class
and as many as you like to 50. (maximum level cap on all atm)

If you looking to make profit & get a decent start in FFXIV,
i suggest starting as Botanist, cut some tree's (specially marked)
Sell some of what you find, buy a Scythe to cut grass. (alot of loot / profit from this)
Then when you have enough, buy a weapon for the class you wish to level & go to it.

If going botanist to make profit i also suggest, leveling Clothcraft & Alchemy or Cooking.
Many of the required regegants comes from botany for those craft classes.

Hope this helps & justifies the game abit. ^^

And if all else fails, try Explore no matter how far the road takes you.

- Sorry for any typos.

[UrbanLucrece]

Thank you very much for typing that together!

Been playing some more, and found the wards and got a good hang of it, it's kinda interesting! =P A bit limited to only seek for 1 item at a time, but other than thats it's nice, feels more social than just standing by the AH

Also been leveling a lot solo so far, and found it nice that changing class gave lots of exp for your physical level from the lower level mobs

So far enjoying a lot more than I did when the game was released, think I'm hooked xD Though! I'm 99% certain that when I played it long ago I redid the levequest over and over, but now I can only do them 1 time, has that changed?