Some questions

[swordrain]

I've got a probably pretty normal story here, but I played this game at release and needless to say I didn't stick around, even to play it for free. Well, I'm returning now, and would just like to ask a couple of questions about the game. I do realize that 2.0 is close by, and that's really the only reason I'm coming back.

I'm a longtime WoW player, so when it comes to MMORPGs that aren't WoW clones, I kind of am clueless to what's going on in them, or what exactly the goal of the game is.

I've logged into this game a couple of times, and I find myself usually running around doing "levequests." My question is, are "levequests" the equivalent of quests from WoW? Or is there normal quests and levequests? I don't think there are, because I've never seen or heard of them, but I thought it was a question worth asking.

What exactly is there to do in this game so far? Normally I find myself just logging in, doing a levequest or two, and logging out. I usually never see another person, and the times where I've run into town to look around, I can't find anything else to do other than run back to the crystal and keep doing levequests, and that's really dull. Is there anything else to do in this game? Is there more stuff to do at a higher level? I don't mind leveling up if there's more to do at the finish line, but I haven't seen anything so far.

Is there still a limit on the number of levequests you can do in a day? And now that physical levels are gone, is there any advantage to leveling multiple jobs/classes on a single character other than more versatility?

And a question I can never seem to find the answer too (and will probably seem obvious to most of you), but I really like playing a healer and tank in WoW, moreso healer than tank, but I really do like both a whole lot. I know that tanks are covered from what I've seen, but is tanking limited to just one job? Or can other jobs do it, albeit differently? And is there a pure healer job in the game?

Sorry if these have been asked before, but I just haven't found much info on this game since its been out. Thanks for reading : )

[JukeboxHero]

Levequests are a viable leveling method for solo play, and are very different from the actual quests within the game. The quests can be found pretty much all over the three towns, whenever a character has an exclamation point over their head. You only see the exclamation point if you are of a level to do the quest though, so starting out, you won't see many at first. Also, you can't see quest givers on your map, as I recall, which can make it a pain to actually find some of them.

The main difference in quests in FFXIV from a standard MMO is their presentation and purpose. As far as presentation goes, they tend to actually have story and character, which I personally find nice, though some may find it to be tedious I suppose. There is some nice cutscenes/lore/story in some of the random quests though. What I mean by purpose is that unlike most western MMO's you do not level from quests. Most of the XP from quests is pretty pathetic outside of the main story ones. You do get some nice gear for lower levels from some though.

In short, Levequests for leveling, quests for story progression and breaking up the pace of the game a bit.

As far as leveling multiple classes, it is necessary to an extent, especially if you are playing mainly solo. Most of the really useful stuff you can pick up at pretty low levels though (Cure for instance). I've heard stories of the more established players being kind of mean in parties when it comes to players not having specific things leveled and what not, but I really can't comment on that.

Aaaaaand cue someone else now to give a much better explanation to your other questions...

[Zidclo]

I'm still new, my highest class is only level 21, but I can say that you can do up to 99 levequests a day (good luck getting through that many!) and they seem to recharge (I believe I heard) 4 leves every 12 hours. If you are getting bored from simple leve quests try switching to a crafter class and making some items for a while to mix it up. Other than that, maybe look for some people (I still haven't met anyone) because I hear it is a lot more fun completing objectives in groups than trying to solo everything! I mean, this is an MMO, so I suppose I should have grouped or at least talked with someone by now ;P As for a single healer class, there is a white mage job that you can unlock once you have a certain class at 30. Otherwise I'm still too new to know what the best tank/heal set-up is for groups. Best of luck, and happy adventuring!

~Zid

[VydarrTyr]

Good advice from Jukebox and Zid.

First, welcome back to the game. If you haven't played since release, it's a whole lot different now. And YoshiP has said that in 2.0, the goal is to make the UI and gameplay achieve more of the "MMO Standard" (which some people assume means more like WoW). So many more changes are coming in 2.0. But I'll try to address your questions as best I can below.

I've logged into this game a couple of times, and I find myself usually running around doing "levequests." My question is, are "levequests" the equivalent of quests from WoW? Or is there normal quests and levequests? I don't think there are, because I've never seen or heard of them, but I thought it was a question worth asking.

There are generally several different types of quests in FFXIV:

1) Leves -- These are sort of like daily quests. You can pick up Battle Quests, crafting quests, or gathering quests. Sounds like you're mainly concerned with Battle. You'll also change camps about every 10 levels, so the mobs you'll be fighting move up as you level up. If I remember correctly, you get 4 leves per 12 hours. If you don't use all 4 in any 12 hour period, you can "store" those leves, up to a total of 99. The advantage of leves is that they give an XP bonus for each mob killed, and give you an XP bonus (plus usually some other reward -- money, gear, etc.) at the end of the leve. Also, you can adjust the level of the mobs you're fighting according to how many stars you set the leve to be. 1 star = level 1/10/20/30/40; 2 stars = level 4/13/23/33/43, etc. The higher the level of the mobs you're fighting, the more XP you get. So the key is to run the leves on the highest number of stars you can manage, so you'll get the most XP. However, leves seem to be going away -- or at least they're going to be minimized -- in 2.0.

2) Behest -- Every 30 minutes (real time), a "battlewarden" will appear at each camp and invite adventurers to fight the encroaching mob menace. When he appears, just click on the Battlewarden, party up with whoever else is running the behest, and then you run out and kill a bunch of mobs. It's basically a free leve that you can get every 30 minutes.

3) Sidequests -- As you level up, you'll start to see NPCs with exclamation points over their heads. Click on those people and they'll give you quests. You get XP and other rewards (gil/gear/food/etc.).

4) Class Quests -- Each class has its own quest line that starts at around level 20. When you reach that level, go to the respective guild (i.e., Gladiator's Guild, Marauder's Guild, etc.) and talk to the Guildmaster behind the counter there. As you continue to level up, more Class quests will become available about every 5-10 levels.

5) Job Quests -- Jobs are more specialized forms of Classes. For each Job, you generally have to have 2 pertinent classes leveled up. If you're high enough level in those 2 classes, you can do "Job" quests, which unlock the Job and certain Job abilities.

6) Grand Company Quests -- I believe around level 20, you can do a quest to join a Grand Company. Each starting city has its own Grand Company, which was formed to combat the impending threat to Eorzea. Choose your Grand Company wisely, because right now you can't change after you've chosen one. I believe Grand Companies are going to be the main focus of the quests and gameplay in 2.0. But as you level up in the Grand Company by completing more quests, you'll get more quests from the Grand Company, along with repeatable quests like Chocobo Caravans and Hamlet Defense.

7) Main Storyline Quests -- Starting at about level 20, there's a quest line that follows the main story. You'll get one of these about every 5-10 levels.

What exactly is there to do in this game so far? Normally I find myself just logging in, doing a levequest or two, and logging out. I usually never see another person, and the times where I've run into town to look around, I can't find anything else to do other than run back to the crystal and keep doing levequests, and that's really dull. Is there anything else to do in this game? Is there more stuff to do at a higher level? I don't mind leveling up if there's more to do at the finish line, but I haven't seen anything so far.

There is all the stuff above, plus open world NMs (high and low level), instanced NMs, open world dungeons (high and low level), instanced dungeons, etc. You can also craft (Disciples of the Hand) or gather (Disciples of the Land). And like most other MMOs, you can play the economy and make lots of money.

The game's been out for a while now, so most of the new content is geared towards higher level players. But in 2.0, there's apparently going to be enough quests to level to 50 just off questing. You won't need to do leves at all.

If you don't see other people, there are a couple of possible explanations. First, most people have gone to Uldah. It's the city in the middle of Eorzea. Second, most people are now high level. So the lower level camps can be kind of empty. The good news is that it doesn't take too long to level up in this game.

I'd suggest trying to join a LS. Check the forums for your world, there are usually LS recruitment posts in each world's forum. It will make your leveling much faster, give you some people to ask for advice, and just generally give you some people to talk to.

Is there still a limit on the number of levequests you can do in a day? And now that physical levels are gone, is there any advantage to leveling multiple jobs/classes on a single character other than more versatility?

As I said above, you get about 4 leves every 12 hours. If you don't use them all, you can bank leves up to 99. Judging by your level, I'd say that you've probably got quite a few leves banked that you can run through. At the lowest levels, you can generally go up a level for each leve. And if you run them with high enough stars, you can get more than one level for each leve.

And a question I can never seem to find the answer too (and will probably seem obvious to most of you), but I really like playing a healer and tank in WoW, moreso healer than tank, but I really do like both a whole lot. I know that tanks are covered from what I've seen, but is tanking limited to just one job? Or can other jobs do it, albeit differently? And is there a pure healer job in the game?

Several different classes can tank. Gladiator is basically a tank class. Paladin is the tank for much end-game content, and Paladin is the Job for the Gladiator class. Marauder is also a good tank, and Warrior -- the Job for Marauder -- is a good tank for some endgame content. Marauder/Warrior can serve as either a tank or DPS, depending on what you need. Pugilist also has some tanking abilities, and ends up being kind of an evasion tank. Monk is the Job that splits off Pugilist.

The closest that this game has to a healing class is White Mage. Conjurer is a good healer, and WHM is the Job for Conjurer. But both Conj and WHM can still do some DPS.

Hope that helps.

[Zidclo]

This is an awesome post. I've been looking for a breakdown like this for the past week! Thank you so much for clarifying all of this VydarrTyr! Seriously, I didn't even realize I could start a quest for my Lancer class now that I'm level 21. I also have been worried that I'm not grouping much, but i'm starting to see that I've just been soloing wrong. Though that is largely due to how little time I have to play. Thanks again for the wonderful insight into the leveling structure of FFXIV, I will be looking back at this post for reference as I progress. ^_^

[VydarrTyr]

This is an awesome post. I've been looking for a breakdown like this for the past week! Thank you so much for clarifying all of this VydarrTyr! Seriously, I didn't even realize I could start a quest for my Lancer class now that I'm level 21. I also have been worried that I'm not grouping much, but i'm starting to see that I've just been soloing wrong. Though that is largely due to how little time I have to play. Thanks again for the wonderful insight into the leveling structure of FFXIV, I will be looking back at this post for reference as I progress. ^_^

Glad to hear it's helpful. I was a little worried I was typing for too long. tl;dr

Here's a link to a page that has the Lancer quests. Looks like they're offered at 20, 30, and 36. If you're not in Gridania, you'll have to go there to pick up the first Lancer quest. But that's a good excuse to take a ride on an airship.

And according to this page, your next Main Storyline quest will be at level 22.

Keep in mind that if you're having fun, you're not doing it wrong. Although I would encourage you to try to get into a LS. They can be hugely helpful in offering advice and assistance along the way. With more people in your party, you'll level much faster because you can kill higher level mobs and kill them quicker. And they're just people to interact with, which is fun in itself. Heck, some of the most fun times I've ever had playing MMOs are in grind parties, which can be really boring, or can be an absolute blast if you're doing it with fun people.

[Zidclo]

Yea I had a great time with several linkshells back in FFXI just grinding xp. I'm excited to continue the story, i'm at the part where I'm supposed to head to Uldah I think. Those links are awesome, it looks like I need to go to Uldah first before I can do the next quest "Fade to white" that is a prerequisite for Lancer class quest-line. Again, thank you so much for the info. This is more or less all I need to keep me busy until Nov. 1! I'm looking forward to finding some chunks of time to sit down and work through a couple of main quests and get up past 30 in the next week.

[swordrain]

Oh wow, thank you all so much for your replies! That was a lot more than I was expecting! Very helpful, thanks so much!

Another strange question if anyone knows the answer to it, kind of a different kind of question though...

I live in Alaska and well...it's kind of hard to find people to play with most times on any online game around the time I get home at night. Are the different servers on different time zones or are we all just kinda thrown together?

[VydarrTyr]

Forgot to answer this part:

And now that physical levels are gone, is there any advantage to leveling multiple jobs/classes on a single character other than more versatility?

Yes. Very much so. Each class has some abilities that are exclusive to that class, and each class has a few abilities that can be equipped on other classes. Most classes have at least one low level ability that will be really helpful on other classes. Level Conjurer until you get Cure, Protect, Stoneskin, and Raise. Level Pugilist until you get Second Wind. Level Marauder until you get Bloodbath. Level Lancer until you get Invigorate and Feint. Level Archer until you get Hawk's Eye. And then you can equip those abilities on any other class, and they'll make your life much easier.

In that way, the game encourages everyone to level several different classes. It helps you be more versatile and well rounded.

[JukeboxHero]

Ha! I knew someone competent would pick up my slack.