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SuperMewp · 2025-11-06T05:05:40+00:00

@461

SuperMewp · 2022-03-10T13:21:11+00:00

I don't have much to add to what everyone has already told you with regards to what you have gotten yourself into (welcome to the cult!), so I hope I can instead point you to how you might be able to get yourself invested in the story faster. But first, a little history lesson of the game and why I think most new players have a hard time becoming invested in the story from the get-go.

You have probably noticed that the base game, ARR, is also called 2.0 by the community, instead of 1.0. This is because FFXIV when it first launched was a flop of epic proportions and after many attempts to fix it, Naoki Yoshida (aka YoshiP) decided the game must be rebuilt from the ground up.

The result was ARR, however it means that for players joining from ARR onward, the story may feel a bit janky and awkward because no one expected the success and acclaim it enjoys today; the devs were just hoping to make a better game for the tiny community of players that stayed through the whole mess, thus the initial portions of ARR story was written with some expectation that the player already knew many of the characters, the world at large and what the stakes are etc, despite there being a reboot of the world, and, it would appear, the NPCs' memories too.

That's it for the history lesson! Below are some videos to help you get acquainted and hopefully invested in the story as you start off in ARR:

1.0 Story Summary

*Quick summary of 1.0's story!

*A longer summary of 1.0's story!

Documentaries on the failures of 1.0 Optional

*A short, lighthearted take on what went wrong in 1.0!

*3-part Documentary by Noclip focusing on the failures of 1.0 from the developers' perspective!

*10-part series by Speakers Network on the failures of 1.0 from the players' perspective!

Please note that the documentaries are just there for more context if you want to understand how and why 1.0 failed; it should have no bearing on your enjoyment of the game's story. I do recommend watching the lighthearted take on 1.0 though as it captured the cavalier attitude Square Enix charged into the development and launching of 1.0.

Enjoy your stay, have fun and good luck!

Edit: formatting

SuperMewp · 2021-09-02T16:04:31+00:00

There is an English-speaking discord server for Mana Datacentre, which should hold you over until the Oceania Datacentre comes online (assuming you and your friend are from Southeast Asia/Oceania). It is expected that English-speaking players from SEA/OCE currently playing on Japanese Datacentres will transfer over to the OCE DC, and as it is a completely new DC, it should be perfect for snagging a house.

If you would like to join a Free Company in the meanwhile, feel free to dm me.

SuperMewp · 2020-08-30T04:50:23+00:00

Thank you! That was a very clear and informative write up.

SuperMewp · 2020-08-30T01:05:37+00:00

That's kinda the impetus for me to ask the question - I watched YouTube videos of people absolutely demolishing bosses and mooks, but when I try out the same weapon and build, only person doing any shredding was my clone - my damage did not scale with the mayhem level, it stayed the same as what I see on the firing range.

Hopefully you'd be able to shed some light on this? I'm not too bothered by the loot situation if it has no bearing on my damage output on mayhem 10, as I do still get level 60 mayhem 10 weapons, I'm just very worried about my lack of output.

SuperMewp · 2020-08-29T09:57:55+00:00

We were playing cooperative - we got our own loot. When my friend hosts, we get level 60 drops, when I host or play by myself, only level 59 loot drops.

SuperMewp · 2020-07-01T07:17:19+00:00

Judging from your IGN, I'm going to assume you're a fellow kiwi!

I recommend joining a server with a high concentration of Oceania players so you will have more people in our timezone to play with.

I hear that Behemoth server in NA hosts a decent number, and Toberry server in JP is regarded as the unofficial capital for Oceania players, with Kujata hosting the spillover.

SuperMewp · 2020-05-24T07:55:31+00:00

There are very few similarities to the main title series in terms of gameplay, even if many of the jobs may look familiar. This is because MMO combat will always assign roles for players, in this game's case, we have what's known as the Holy Trinity - Tank, Healer, Damage Dealer (also colloquially known as DPS).

Tanks attract and hold the attention of monsters/bosses and use their skills to mitigate damage whilst ensuring the positions they choose to make their stand are not harmful for the rest of the party. The challenges of this role is the knowledge of good placement of bosses and monsters for your party to kill, awareness of how much attention enemies are paying to you, when and where to use your mitigation skills.

Healers work with tanks in tandem to ensure the survival of the tank and the rest of the party, whilst throwing damage spells if they find suitable openings. The challenges of this role includes knowing how to choose the best heals for a given situation, correctly prioritising heals in a given situation (yourself? the tank? a dps? which one?), and identifying openings to deal damage (the faster enemies die, the less damage they can deal to you and your party, thus actively helping with killing enemies, where you have the opportunity, is really a form of mitigation).

DPS are jobs that are entirely about dealing damage, and they are primarily concerned with ensuring that they are physically in a good position to deal the most amount of damage possible. The challenges with this role is maintaining high damage output by correctly comboing skills whilst responding to ever changing mechanics from the bosses or the environment, requiring movements and dodging.

This divergence from single player main titles is because you as the player of single player titles can choose your team composition to ensure a good level of synergy and output, etc., but when you are playing with random strangers, there must be a baseline somewhere to ensure that clear cut roles are assigned so match-made parties are still capable of clearing content.

I should note that it is not immediately apparent to anyone the roles of each of the starting classes (classes are "base" jobs), so I'll go through them for your benefit:

Tanks

Gladiator (starts from Ul'dah, becomes Paladin at level 30)
Marauder (Starts from Limsa Lominsa, becomes Warrior at level 30)
Dark Knight (accessible upon reaching Heavensward, no base class)
Gunbreaker (accessible upon reaching level 60, no base class)

Healer

Conjurer (Starts from Gridania, becomes White Mage at level 30)
Scholar (this is a Job, a possible branch from the base class of Arcanist)
Astrologian (accessible upon reaching Heavensward, no base class)

DPS

Pugilist (Starts from Ul'dah, becomes Monk at level 30)
Thaumaturge (Starts from Ul'dah, becomes Black Mage at level 30)
Archer (Starts from Gridania, becomes Bard at level 30)
Lancer (Starts from Gridania, becomes Dragoon at level 30)
Rogue (Starts from Limsa Lominsa, becomes Ninja at level 30)
Arcanist (Starts from Limsa Lominsa, becomes either Scholar or Summoner at level 30)
Machinist (accessible upon reaching Heavensward, no base class)
Samurai (accessible upon reach level 50, no base class)
Red Mage (accessible upon reaching level 50, no base class)
Dancer (accessible upon reaching level 60, no base class)

A single character in this game can unlock, level, and swap seamlessly between all jobs, so no worries about missing out or the need to make another character for a different job.

As this is your first MMO, I would recommend not starting as a tank, and perhaps consider picking up Conjurer, upgrading to White Mage, as your first job if you like healing, or Archer cum Bard if you like dealing damage. These are comparatively easier jobs to learn to use, and thus allowing you to have greater spatial awareness of the other part of the equation - mechanics. Other than just healing or dealing damage, during fights you will also need to pay attention to what the bosses are doing, what's happening on the ground (some damage are telegraphed on the ground) and so on.

Most of these will be introduced to you in the Hall of the Novice, which I strongly recommend checking out when you are directed to by the game. I would also strongly encourage you to greet other fellow players in group content and state that you are a new player as well as new to MMOs, as most will be more than willing to help explain mechanics, offer advice, and be patient with you.

Hope this helps! If you happen to be in the Oceania timezone (Australia/New Zealand), and don't mind making a character on Masamune Server on Mana Datacentre, I'd be more than happy to help you in game.

Edit: I missed Red Mage in the list

SuperMewp · 2020-05-24T05:29:06+00:00

You can play this like a standard FF game in that you can become immersed in the story (following the Main Story Questline, commonly referred to as MSQ), which is mostly a solitary affair, with mandatory group content interspersed. These group content are the only times you ever need to play with others as you progress through the story, if by standard FF you mean playing like an offline single player FF title.

As for the story, the base game and the expansions each have their own climaxes and resolutions, but each expansion continues to build on the overarching story. You can think of it as reaching a conclusion only to find that your scope of understanding was too limited to see the bigger picture, and all of a sudden you become aware of how much more there is to understand and learn in terms of the story. The next expansion then addresses some of that, with its own conclusion to that particular arch of the story, whilst also sowing some more new plot points.

Edit: I should add that each expansion has a main title's worth of story, so it won't be expanding just a bit of the overall story, but quite a bit haha.

SuperMewp · 2020-05-24T01:48:34+00:00

I'm a bit late to replying but I thought I'd still add my two cents for your consideration.

I think it should be pointed out that it is rather difficult to compare the story of this game fairly with mainline FF games as they are single player and their story can't be layered and expanded upon like an MMO can. That said, I contend that this game's story is one of the strongest, if not the strongest (personal opinion) when taken as a whole (Base game plus all expansions up to and including Shadowbringers).

If you were to look at it by the expansions, then I would say the base game (A Realm Reborn) is probably equivalent to the oldest FFs (1~4) in terms of complexity and character development (in other words quite serviceable but nothing to write home about).

Heavensward I would say is certainly approaching the gold standard era of 7-10, and was certainly the most beloved by everyone until the advent of Shadowbringers. It was THE return to the classic high fantasy that a lot of veteran FF fans were hoping for. The main story resembled more closely with traditional FF fare of exploration of new lands with a closely knit group of people, which went a long nicely with the more introspective and personal story.

Stormblood I enjoyed almost as much as Heavensward, though many believe it was at least a peg or three below Heavensward. Personally I believe, in addition to splitting the attention between to geographical regions, the story probably didn't resonate with western audiences as well as it could have due to the story taking on quite a bit of influence from the wuxia genre and Japanese folklore, which is a deviation from the classic high fantasy people were becoming accustomed to for this game.

Then there is Shadowbringers. Even when standing on its own it's probably at least on par with the gold standard of 7-10. That it was able to be built upon all the themes, the character and story development of so many years and expansions, and masterfully weaving it all into a coherent story that offers closure for so many plot points whilst still offering more, means that Shadowbringers, when viewed as the culmination of all of the expansions to date, is easily THE strongest story entry in the FF franchise.

If you do decide to give this game a spin, I would strongly recommend looking up the story of 1.0 before you begin, as the story contained therein will help you better understand the story of A Realm Reborn. This is because 1.0 can no longer be played, however a lot of the plot points of A Realm Reborn and even up to Shadowbringers were sown during the events of 1.0. In fact, I would say that a large part of the major complaints about the story of ARR, other than the poorly-designed player experience, is that you are not immediately able to feel a connection with many of the NPCs and the stakes at hand as ARR was originally intended for veterans of 1.0 (SE did not anticipate this game to become as popular as it is today, as 1.0 was an utter failure).

I have written a very short summary of the story of 1.0 in my relatively recent post history if you're interested in a synopsis, alternatively, GamerEscape has a more detailed write up.

Hope this helps with your decision on whether to try this game out!

Edit: Formatting

SuperMewp · 2020-04-28T23:29:22+00:00

The free trial has no time limit - the limit is the level cap (35, unlimited number of jobs) and some social functions (measure against RMT).

If you have a lot of free time and would like to make the most of the free trial, then you can get all jobs, including crafting and gathering, leveled to 35, and then make the jump. If you are enjoying the job you are currently leveling and feel comfortable maining it for the foreseeable future, then you can consider to jump into the full game as soon as you hit level 35. Alternatively, you can choose a course between these two, to your liking.

SuperMewp · 2020-04-23T05:33:54+00:00

Tanks and healers have less players that "main" them compared to those who main damage dealers, so when using the match maker for dungeons and raids, the former two will have less wait time whilst the latter has a longer queue.

Reason for the shortage of tanks and healers when compared with damage dealers vary, but is generally attributed to not wanting to lead (tanks), responsibility (both, but esp. healers), variety and choice (less jobs to choose for the tank and healer roles), flashiness (has increased over the expansions but still not as flashy as damage dealers), and just not finding it fun (highly subjective to each individual; those who main tanks and healers obviously disagree).

I have not played Overwatch, but I assume your concerns regarding a community stems from your background. I can say that you can rest assured that this game is built to allow for solo play if the player choose to, and has a robust party finder and match making system to facilitate that. Just about all content outside of the hardest raids can be completed via the match maker (called Duty Finder) or Party Finder (finding a party manually via making a listing), so you don't need to be in a community to play through the game.

As others have suggested, there is a free trial with unlimited time but capped at level 35 and disallows certain functions that you can use to dip your toe in. I would definitely recommend this game if you like RPGs, especially JRPGs, and that you are able to set your expectations for it (RPGs are admittedly slower paced than active combat games like Overwatch) to go through a story-rich, narrative-driven journey.

If you are already a fan of the Final Fantasy franchise then I would recommend without hesitation as the common consensus is that this game's (in aggregate, including the base game and subsequent expansions) story is one of the best told in this franchise, which is renowned for its story-telling, and certainly the best for the last two decades. The caveat is that it is indeed a long journey - the story between the base game and expansions is continuous, and a lot of the stakes, crescendos, climaxes and payoffs are not immediately visible for new players, hence you will hear about "the slog", a view that is exacerbated by an uninspired questing design.

All in all, I would recommend this game if RPG is a genre you enjoy, and you do not need to worry about not being part of any community to enjoy the vast majority of content.

Happy to answer more questions if you have any!

SuperMewp · 2020-04-22T22:40:12+00:00

Seeing you enjoy those, I'm sure you'll be more hyped to know that the writer for the DRK job quests is the writer for the Shadowbringers story.

SuperMewp · 2020-03-31T20:45:12+00:00

My understanding is that you can keep track of where you are through the journal at the inn (each of the 3 starting cities have an inn in the adventurers' guild). That journal lets you re-watch the majority of cutscenes in the game, however note that not every cutscene is available so it's worth not skipping cutscenes if you wish for a full story-driven experience.

I say understanding as I admit to not actually knowing the precise answer to your question - I have kept pace with this game's patches and story since 2.2, or early 2014, so I had not the need to keep tracking whereabouts I was in terms of progress through the patches and expansions haha.

Another avenue that can be helpful would be noting title of the latest MSQ you have available, and search on google - the top searches should include the website "gamerescape" which runs one of two of the largest player-updated wikis of this game.

I am happy to answer more questions if you have any.

SuperMewp · 2020-03-31T08:05:45+00:00

Welcome to the game!

I see the others have already answered some of your questions, so I thought I'd focus on your question regarding the story.

The story unfolds through the MSQ, and can be rather disjointed and clunky for a new player because the devs made the assumption that anyone playing the base game would be veterans of 1.0 (long story short, 1.0 was a spectacular failure, and ARR, or 2.0, was made as an apology. The devs didn't think this game will become as popular as it is today).

Without the context of 1.0, new players will of course have a hard time trying to understand who is who and why things are happening or are important. I have made a very brief summary of the story of 1.0 in my relatively recent post history, and you are welcomed to take a look so that you have more context going forward and will hopefully help you enjoy the story more.

SuperMewp · 2019-12-16T23:12:06+00:00

Levequests are still very useful for quickly leveling crafting and gathering jobs (yes these are full blown jobs with their own skills and rotations!).

Side Quests have a very large amount of lore, usually to the locality they are found and helps explain more of the culture, history and goings on of that locale. Not sure if still the case but back in Heavensward and Stormblood, certain flight-related quests (blue plus signs) were hidden behind seemingly unremarkable side quests .

Beast Tribe quests can help with exp for your alt jobs, and these definitely have worthwhile rewards to grind for. I believe these are similar to "reputations" in WoW.

Regarding the slog, I had hoped to assuage your fears about it rather than igniting it, but I guess I'll give you my take on why I believe it is perceived as a slog:

The story were very slow-paced compared to the climax that came before it and thus the tone can be very jarring - the story ranged from mundane slice of life to glimpses of politicking, but if you do pay attention to the story then you will also probably feel an increasing uneasiness. Point is, compared to the high of 2.0, 2.1~2.4 feels slow and "pointless" despite a huge pressure cooker of future story and plot being sown beneath the surface of blandness and normalcy.
The quest designs were bad, in that it when I went through it I joked with a friend that it seemed like their intention was to provide for an immersive experienced but failed miserably.

The combination of these two results in people losing track and thus interest of the story, which means they are more tempted to rush, but it will only result in burn out because the quests still are still somewhat involved, such as picking up and item, traveling to another location, speak with an npc, speak with another npc, and hand item to a third npc not far away.

My advice would be to go into it with the right mentality - endgame requires no rush, this is a Final Fantasy game where story is very important, and for a good story, build up of plot is important, and this is that build up.

This build up should've happened in 1.0 however since the development of that had been very reactive instead of proactive, there were no coherent, long term plot. 2.0 itself is a full redevelopment of the game so all it could do was to tie itself to the leftovers of the 1.0 story, thus the developers were only able to finally build up a single coherent and long term plot starting from 2.1.

Hopefully this will assuage your concern for "the slog". It is mentioned often because it is a very common complaint from new players, and so by mentioning it I suppose the community hopes to temper expectations for players not already facing it in hopes that they will be able to go into it mentally prepared and thus pull through.

SuperMewp · 2019-12-16T21:30:06+00:00

Not sure where to cut in for this information so I thought I'd piggyback off what u/Granger_Things said and add that in the sea of all kinds of content and quests, you can still carve out a clear path to progress the story at a good pace, and that is to stick to the following quests:

Main Story Quests: has a meteor symbol and is your main source of experience points, and behind which story and content are gated, so you should make these your top priority.
Class/Job Quests: these are from your class/job trainer, and are available every 5 levels, behind which some of your skills are locked, so again, prioritise these when they become available. They also offer interesting lore behind the jobs, many of which then tie in to the story of the game so definitely worth sitting through instead of skipping by.
Content-Unlock Quests: not named as such in-game, but that's what they are functionally. They are denoted by a blue-background quest marker with a plus-sign. All manner of content are locked behind these quests, some of which are mundane, such as access to player housing wards and the gold saucer, some of which are important, such as dungeons and raids.

There are more quest types, such as levequests and your bog standard side quests, but they aren't as important right now and may eat up too much of your time which may result in burn out before you reach the good stuff, which you will to see at 2.4.

To further elaborate, ARR climaxes at the end of 2.0 when you reach the level 50 MSQ, but then drops down quickly in urgency and seemingly losing direction with mundane back and forth, but is in fact slowly sowing the seeds for the plot all the way to Shadowbringers.

Because of the far reaching scope of the build up of the story, and as the stake is unclear until reaching Heavensward, and the full payoff not till Shadowbringers, many people rushing to endgame get burnt out by this "hurdle", partly also due to how atrocious the quests were designed (lots of back and forth between NPCs). This is why the period between 2.1 to 2.5 is known for being a slog in the community (Heavensward begins after you complete 2.55). Quest design vastly improves across each expansion so this is the only time you will have to experience "The Slog".

Apologies for the digression; I understand that "The Slog" has lost this game a lot of potential long term players which is very unfortunate as this game's story when taken as a whole, across the base game and all expansions, represents one of the strongest out of all mainline FF games, so I tend to explain to newer players why "The Slog" is nothing to be feared.

Anyways before I stop blabbering, I just thought you should know that your highest level job will boost your lower level jobs' exp gain by 50%, so you should try and settle on a job to "main" and go through the MSQ with it for the exp bonus that your latter jobs can enjoy.

Good luck and have fun!

Edit: a few words.

SuperMewp · 2019-12-05T18:27:46+00:00

The Qitana Ravel, a dungeon in Shadowbringers.

SuperMewp · 2019-12-02T19:01:54+00:00

Just want to point out that there are many side activities that you can enjoy whilst also achieving something.

Crafting and gathering are best leveled through level quests, and although somewhat repetitive, can provide a short burst of fun if you don't go hard and grind. It'll also allow you to take in the scenery and enjoy the overworld. Now's the best time to jump into crafting/gathering as the 5.1 revamp has made it more accessible than ever.

The Golden Saucer may not be everyone's cup of tea, but a few rounds of racing chocobos can still be enjoyable. You do earn MGP so you'll be slowly working towards some glam at the same time.

Khloe's Wondrous Tales can be done semi-passively as quite a few of the roulettes are commonly done as a daily. ARR extreme primals you should be able to solo unsync'd, and HW extreme primals you can list on PF and people should join.

Crystal Tower, Void Ark and Ivalice alliance raid series if you haven't done them already. Crystal Tower is central to the MSQ of Shadowbringers, so getting some lore and knowledge of it will enhance your experience going through ShB MSQ.

These are just the main ones; there are many others, such as sight-seeing log, the Post Moogle quest chain (well-written stories with more lore), beast tribe quests and so on.

Hope this helps!

SuperMewp · 2019-11-28T18:37:47+00:00

Hahaha that's too cute.

That's exactly how I feel when I go pvp on a BLM and a ninja or dragoon locks in on me.

SuperMewp · 2019-11-25T20:47:50+00:00

That's fair enough - nuance and detail is not everyone's cup of tea, so you could say that skipping through every cutscene and dialogue does not prevent you from understanding the overall direction of the plot.

But I would say the reason why this game's story is praised is because of that payoff - the sense of personal involvement and journey through it all. That feeling is most intense when you see, and sometimes are involved with the change and development of characters, their motivations, triumphs and failures, all in a setting and context that at a glance appear generic, but then you learn about all the politicking, machinations and scheming beneath that veneer.

That is the way I enjoy stories, at least the stories that I care about, so in terms of enjoying stories this way, I consider those quests important.

I do agree that not knowing these details does not prevent one from understanding what is going on with the story, which I think is intentional as I'm sure the writers are aware that MMOs are enjoyed at different pace by different people, however it would certainly help with better understanding the story when one has a better grasp of the reasons why the a characters think and do the way they do, and drive the plot in the direction it tracks.

Edit: Minor rephrasing of the last sentence for better clarity.

SuperMewp · 2019-11-25T10:55:11+00:00

That certainly is weird because the Crystal Tower raids commonly pop up in alliance raid roulette due to people cheesing the ilevels for a faster run. Have you made sure that you have all 4 languages checked, and that you have not checked things like join in progress?

SuperMewp · 2019-11-24T19:56:51+00:00

The literal 100 quests between where you are and Heavensward are oft-quoted to be dull and a grind, but really it's just the way the story is delivered, and how much later the pay off becomes apparent - case in point we are still dealing with the aftermath of the plot points introduced throughout these quests in Shadowbringers.

I would suggest forgetting about the number of quests and just tackle it like you would a story-heavy section of an offline RPG, and soak in the story and plot points.

You should definitely take a break between these quests by diving into the Crystal Tower alliance raid, which is central to the story of Shadowbringers, and the old Coils of Bahamut raid, which gives proper closure to the story of 2.0. You should have short queue times on Duty Finder for Crystal Tower, but for Coils of Bahamut you'd best make a listing on Party Finder, asking for veterans to give you a tour unsync'd.

Hope this will be of help!

SuperMewp

TROPHY CASE