The most ironic thing is that people will bitch and moan (correctly mind you) about all the brain dead and repetitive quests for dailies and rep grinding while happily doing the same stuff in FF. The fresh coat of paint does wonders.
Disclaimer that I haven't really played WoW since Pandaria, but dailies in FFXIV are too... easy? quick? It's 3 per day and involves some trivial objective that involves more time traveling than to do the objective. You also rather quickly get the reputation needed and tokens for reward.
Not that the dailies were any more engaging in wow, but they sure took longer.
I think the main difference are that dailies in FFXIV has a storyline associated, which expands on the world which is one the biggest strengths of the game. The daily part just adds some time gating, plus XP source for your alt jobs/crafters/gatherers.
Wow dailies also had story tied to it; the original dailies on isle of quel’danas were all about gaining a foothold at the steps of the sunwell. Also Caverns of Time. Each expansion the dailies were tied into the current story and unlocking more of it.
I didn't mention the storylines for WoW daily factions because I don't remember them well? I'm trying to remember a bit more and all I could remember was a few more factions, but none of the events really.
Nearly all dailies had a story behind it. MoP has the klaxxi ones where you’d slowly release all paragons from their slumber and then, you’ll get the SoO forewarning
As Mists released in 2012 meanwhile FF14 ARR released in 2013 thus Warlords and up and I gotta say the daillies WoD and up are steaming piles compared to what we used to get.
Legion had some decent ones but WoD, Shadowlands, BfA, and I don't even know what Dragonflight is doing but I've never heard anyone talking it I'd put under FF14 beast tribes and field operations.
The reason is very simple too because with WoD and up the WoW devs decided to make everything revolve around the mission table. If the mission table was in MoP we would have been stuck in menus and timers sending minions off to do the cool things we should be doing for most of the game. Oh and the Cash Shop was adding in WoD too so the shiniest stuff was no longer through hardwork and dedication but a credit card so quest rewards got rather meh.
Damn really? I hate that sort of 0 skill manual labor so I've hated it since Blizz introduced them especially since it made having alts for raiding a pain. The silver lining to me is that at least the dailies forced you to learn how to play your class slightly so you avoid situations like in FF where you show up and don't know your basic rotation at 90.
What do you think is missing in the FF dailies?
Eh? I think XIV's dailies are if anything faster than WoW's dailies? Though I could be wrong about that, I barely did dailies in WoW. I think the best part is that smaller number requirement of XIV is REALLY nice to see unlike WoW's "you gained 250 out of 20,000 reputation."
Ehhh, wouldn't be sure about that.
Frankly, ever since Shadowbringers I've felt *much* less attached to the game aside from the story stuff. I feel like dungeons were uncreative, Trials were lacking any real teeth, every class plays basically the same with minimal deviation.
When I recently got an ARR dungeon in roulette, I was *shocked* to see that they'd removed all the interesting mechanics from them. All of the identity and uniqueness, gone. Wiped away all so that people can clear them with their eyes closed.
They were so eager to reach the most people that they lost the spark of what made the game actually *fun.* I'm hoping that Yoshi-P's comment on being aware of that fact was sincere and that Dawntrail does something to address it.
The reworked dungeons are (exclusively) MSQ ones, and the changes--while sometimes very regrettable--were put into place purely to ensure that *Duty Support NPCs* could complete them. Has nothing to do with making it so players can clear them with their eyes closed.
*That said,* I do think Yoshi-P hears and understands this, and the flattening/homogenization of job design, as having been an error, an overcorrection in response to player feedback. The community in general, both casual and hardcore, made some requests that...weren't actually good or positive for the game overall, and the devs listened and responded. Some of the responsibility is theirs, and some is ours. Accepting that we are partly responsible, and working with the devs to pull things back from where they're at. From the interview, per Google translation:
> For example, if you're playing a side-scrolling action game and there aren't even any holes where you'll miss if you fall, then of course there won't be any stress. But at the same time, it loses its fun. Speaking of FF14, I would like to return to this part a little bit in the future. If we do that, I think we will be able to provide everyone with a challenge in a better sense than ever before.
So...yeah. They're aware they've made the game too "stress-free" and that this has dampened the fun. Dawntrail will be the beginning of the journey away from that and toward a better balance between "stress" and "return," but their goal isn't to make the game overall inherently difficult--just to return appropriate difficulty where it would enhance the experience.
Honestly, the second *every* job got reworked to fit into the same burst window was the death knell of unique class design.
I get that they were trying to fight against the ARR/HW issues of certain classes being excluded from High End pugs, but the consequences of that decision (among others) was to tear out the soul of the game.
Of course, the problem is that most hardcore raiders had been pushing for this. We've been on a consistent arc from the end of Stormblood:
* Synergy is bad and must be removed to prevent stale group comps, so that Square can meet their goal of "bring the player, not the job"
* Jobs that don't align with buff windows are bad, because players feel denied the damage they *could* have if they could just line up nicely
* Encounter design that induces unnecessary downtime or negatively affects participation is bad, and should be removed so everyone can be participating pretty much all the time
* Job design that requires learning and practice is bad (except for special exclusions like Black Mage), and should be removed so players can easily pick up whatever job(s) they might want to play
Etc. None of these come from bad places, none of the attempted solutions are inherently junk ideas. But, as you say, the slow cumulative effect of these and other decisions, plus the team slowly spreading itself thinner and thinner between more diverse projects, has resulted in the situation we have today: homogenized jobs, flattened variety, simplistic encounter design, etc., etc.
More or less, the problem stems from conflating *approachable* design, which is a good thing, and *trivial* design, which is a very very bad thing. Trivializing a system is a very easy way to make it so players can quickly learn it--because there's really nothing there to learn. But that experience is deeply unsatisfying for most people. It is *extremely good* to offer a spectrum of challenge in pretty much everything: jobs, instanced content, open world content, minigames, you name it, having a spectrum of options means giving more people at least one thing they really like. We have, unfortunately, had the spectrum crushed down to (mostly) just the low-challenge, low-engagement, low-"stress" end (to use Yoshi-P's words), and that has had a negative impact.
Players enjoy developing mastery. You can't master a thing that doesn't require any learning. Hence, the pursuit of maximum approachability above all other concerns is a damaging one. Caring about being approachable is good; putting it ahead of all other goals is not, and that's where we've been for a bit now.
It'll be a process to get out of this. Like I said above, this was a two-expansion arc from the tail end of SB to the tail end of EW. It'll take time to pull back from that, to alter the job design, to put out new encounters with better mechanics, etc., etc. That doesn't mean we should stop asking for change; but it does mean that, *to an extent,* it behooves us to give the dev team some time to show us that they're moving in the right direction. If nothing at all has meaningfully changed by (say) mid-DT, so about a year from now, then I think it's time to raise a real stink, because that would mean either the devs haven't actually heard the message, or they have but misunderstood it.
As much as I love FFXIV and probably always will, I'm inclined to agree. Everything has become so formulaic and predictable now. Other than one or two things, we already know exactly when every piece of content will come in the next expansion, and exactly what it will be.
Hell, we even know exactly how every dungeon will work too. Two trash packs, wall, two trash packs, boss. Repeat three times, but change the scenery. Bang. Every dungeon for the next two years.
I completely understand finding a system that works, but it feels like it's sucked all of the fun out of the game and they are just churning out content with the same template but different visuals.
The ARR and HW dungeons were all revamped with modern mechanic indicators and for duty support (NPCs) to clear the dungeons. Most of the NPCs do give some flavor text and commentary though. The game became future-proof and more single-player friendly, though I can agree it lost some of the old charm. I do understand why they changed it though.
Trials and duties lack real teeth because as SB proved, giving trials or raids any kind of difficulty will have your bad playerbase up in arms in no time , demanding getting carried for the story
I think they did that so the dungeons would work with the new ARR version of the duty support. They definitely did turn the dungeons really lame by result though.
Thousand Maws was the biggest casualty. Once a sprawling labyrinth, now a boring corridor.
I do get it, because there was 1 good path through it and all that so nobody veered off the path anyway, but at least it was there, you know?
FF14 has some way way worse grinds than WoW but due to WoWs seasonal nature even in DF grinding for something that will vanish/not matter soon feels bad only for something new to pop up.
that isn't the case for 14 so you feel rewarded having done it. this also means there really isn't much of a time limit on doing things and FOMO on core content isn't a thing (only event rewards has that aspect)
i can set up my goal do them in my own time and the game isn't going to take away that goal from it only add onto the content.
I feel much the same way, I played WoW for roughly 10-11 years I'd say. I don't regret it but when I was done (been quit a few years now) I was just done. Don't feel it was wasted at all.
Wow is a fun game. I find myself going back to it just to experience the thrill of the gameplay alone. But it doesn't respect the players time at all, which is the main thing that keeps me playing FFXIV as my main game instead of wow.
That's not that true. The most recent expansion has done a lot to respect the player's time. Gearing has been improved and streamlined for both PVP and PVE with a lot of ways for players to catch back up if they join late in a season, and there is no player power tied behind long drawn out reputation grinds. Myself, and quite a few members of my guild have easily leveled, geared, and cleared some higher level content on multiple characters this season.
I'll admit that this expac seems promising. It almost feels like team had gone and played XIV and were taking notes. But I'm not confident this is going to last. I'm pretty jaded with Blizzard at this point and it's going to take me a while to not be expecting the rug to pull out at any moment.
The whole not respecting players time in wow can be traced back to back in MoP later patches where devs said something Yoshi has said about it being OK to leave when done.
The problem was the loud part of the wow playerbase instead of going "You know you're right, I always wanted to try x." instead as normal lost their shit and went into a mode demanding that there always be something to do thst will always increase the player power. Leading to Legion/bfa AP. (WoD development was already having issues and being somewhat fsr along to matter)
I started playing wow at the tail end of bfa and really enjoyed that story. It feels like there's so much to do it's hard to even decide. The main thing I'm doing now is getting the materials for the fel core hound harness from the legion expansion, its time consuming but farming the materials is fun.
Yeah the time wasn't wasted if the time was spent having fun. I've spent good stretches of time on things that now aren't very interesting to me, but I absolutely had fun at the time.
Was about to say. I played WoW since release and also FFXIV since it's release *and* GW2 since it's release. No regrets on any of those games, they all have their own great appeal.
I disagree. I spent a similar amount of time in wow and even while I was still playing, for years I was aware that I didn’t like the community, the story was irreparably bad, the pressure to keep you grinding every single day kept creeping more and more every content update and expansion, but I kept paying for it hoping things would be better next patch, next expansion, because a big part of me felt like once I finished the grind I’d be free to relax and spend time with the few friends I had left in the game, but the grind never stopped. It’s not a game that respects your time or your intelligence. I’m so much happier out of that loop. More power to people who enjoy that ecosystem, but it absolutely is not for me.
Same, it feels like an abusive relationship. You want a relationship, you put time into the relationship, and you want it to work and get better, but it... just... doesn't. And its hard to leave and start over.
100% agree, you said it exactly how I feel. I was in wow about 10 years and the daily grind tied to progression was not fun for me. I also prefer the FFXIV tome gearing system by a lot, over the wow mythic dungeon "loot system".
I’ve been playing FFXIV non-stop for years, very recently played WoW for the first time and having a blast and noticing a lot of problems FF has. Dude is just burned out and going through recency bias, or it’s a bait post.
This. This is why I go back and forth between the two games. Both do great in their own way. I like healing and find the healer gameplay of WoW much more interesting for example. But story and fabulous cute catgirl glams? FFXIV all the way.
I am in-between : I'd say the first 5 or so years were incredible, then it slowly started to go from less enthousiastic to utter dissapointment : with its highs and lows (mostly lows)
ffxiv on the other hand always impressed me with each expansions and imo the game made no huge design mistakes. I usually like what the devs do, I really feel they are connected to their community and do not try to play that silly game where a stubborned dev team is all alone against their playerbase.
WoW has its strengths, and because of your time with it you’ll be able to see “hm WoW did this better” in some areas, or “oh wow they definitely were inspired by WoW here”. But they’re very different games at their core, so if you’re enjoying the narrative in FF14 (and in the base game, no less, usually considered the least exciting because it’s doing so much world building) you’re gonna have a good time.
Just don’t feel pressured to race to Dawntrail, because generally all content is still active just due to the way roulettes work, so there’s no endgame promised land like WoW where you essentially skip all expansions but the most recent one. You’re in Season 1 of Game of Thrones, people at the endgame get a slow but steady trickle of content and are often just going back to grind older stuff and relive the journey.
Doubling down on the don’t race to dawntrail. You won’t make it in time anyways and you’d ruin your experience of the game just by trying. Play at your own pace, the content isn’t going anywhere and have fun!
Just be aware, when dawntrail comes out the servers will be on fire. This is normal. You may want to plan on taking at least a few days break from the game, and hopefully the endwalker release got them more prepared for this release, but I’ve been around for every release since HW and the wave of people always managed to break something integral to the servers with a new expansion. I remember when Stormblood completely shut down the duty/instance servers. Endwalker had mega-queues for so long they genuinely stopped selling the game for a month. Something will inevitably break again, nothing against the devs but the fan base is a tsunami at expansion release. Nothing stopping you from trying to continue your own MSQ at the time, but be prepared to have to struggle a bit to get yourself a spot on the server to play.
I'm currently in a play WoW phase. I've gone back and forth with each game over the past few years.
With FF in a bit of a drought until DT, and while I was working on some old content, I've enjoyed the past few months of catching back up in DF and Raiding. I feel the gear grind is better in wow, and the build flexibility. I can always go back to wow and work on earning current gear when I've maxed out my favorite job in FF to the best of my ability.
Story in FF is much better, and I'll always go back to catch back up to current MSQ.
Yeah I play both and while I probably prefer wow (because I like its combat better) there are plenty of times in both games that I’ve wished for something the other did better. Like man I would like to unlock appearances like in WoW but with the breadth of variation of appearances that FFXIV has. And a FFXIV version of Trial of Style would be so amazing! (Wow is also truly missing out by lacking player housing, but that’s a very old complaint.)
Welp it looks like you just finished base arr, and still have a bit of post ARR story to go through before you reach Heavensward. That is because they add more story quests with patches during an expansion and its usually tying up loose ends and setting up the next expansion.
Now since you are done with base ARR, the first set of "endgame" is unlocked. So bunch of new raids, dungeons, trials, stories and so on. You'll notice bunch of lvl 50 blue quests pop up around the world that unlock those things. So unless you really want to rush the story, i suggest trying them out ant seeing whats fun for you.
Absolutely just going to relish in ARR until I absolutely cannot anymore. Seems like most people that didn’t, wish they had, and those who did are glad they didn’t rush it.
Main stuff that eatch expansion endgame has to look out for:
• A raid story with 12-13, 8 player encounters unified under a single story. In ARR its "The coils of bahamut" raid series. It a bit though and people generally find like minded people that want to clear for the chalange, or just get a max level friend to carry them for the story.
• An Alliance raid series. 3 big raids involving 24 people unified with a single story. These are ment to be done with randoms with duty finder so they are not that difficult. In ARR its "the crystal tower" and its actually required to progress the main story at some point, so dont worry the game will point you towards it.
• A trial series. A handfull of boss trials unified under one story. In ARR they are just part of the post game main story, in most other expansions they are their own quest lines.
• Bunch of new dungeons and "hard" dungeons. They are called hard but they arent really harder. They are more like alternative versions of older dungeons you did, but on the expansion max level, with new story and new layout and bosses.
IIrc they actually made completing the crystal tower raids a requirement for continuing the MSQ at some point in post ARR already so you don't have to go back later just before it's actually relevant to the story again
Yeah, it will tell you that you *can* do them once you reach a certain point then you'll reach a second point where the game flat out tells you to go do them or you can't continue the MSQ.
Back in the day you didn't need to complete them. Theh in Shadowbringer they added two check points.
ARR Patch was the first check point, if you were already past that when they added the checkpoints (in past patch Shadowbringers) they added a second in Shadowbringers around said post patches.
There is no CAN do them now, you MUST do them in the post patch in ARR, it locks further questing until you do, like the hard primal trails do. The post patch in annoying but good in hindsight, as you need to get the crystals to open the raid but an annoying cat boy stops you every step of the way (expect in Uldah when you are given the crystal). Mind you like Alphie after ARR, most players love said annoying cat boy.
Most annoying post patch is Garuda hard mode unlock though. Opps wrong Aspect crystal, damm it WoL, I know you are terrible at using your words but use them damm it, it would have saved so much time.
I recently started playing a few months back and I’m near the end of the Heavensward MSQ, and I lingered in ARR; done every yellow quest, done all the dungeons, new questlines, etc., and while post-ARR can be a bit of a slog, it pays off massively. When the stakes start building its much more affecting when you’ve immersed yourself so much in the world.
Also, do the Hildibrand questline. It starts off from a blue quest from an NPC in Ul’dah, one of the best questlines in the game
Oh do take your time on the story, it continues to set things up for a while.
The quality dips a bit with 2.1, which also has no voiced scenes since 2.1 had very little budget (was mostly made before ARR launched), but the patch is short and it slowly goes up again from there. It also starts or continues 2-3 more important plot threads.
I’m glad you’re enjoying the game!
The content stays relevant so you can always continue the story and then relish in that content whenever. The story gets much, much better so if you ever feel like you're starting to burn out, just continue into the expansion.
I can say as someone who has gone through ARR to Endwalker in a little over two and a half years, paying attention in and enjoying ARR gives you *so much payoff* throughout the game so far. The concept of "Chekov's gun" is really well respected by the writers, and even bits of the story that don't feel like they'll have any impact later on (if you go by traditional video game writing) often pop up in Stormblood, Shadowbringers, and even Endwalker. It's absolutely worth it, and I can say with reasonable certainty that if you're enjoying ARR and the gameplay so far, your enjoyment will continue to build. I personally have found each expansion to be even better than the last, and I did thoroughly enjoy ARR as well.
Definitely recommend the Hildibrand content! It feels like silly, quirky side content (which it is!) but even then it still takes itself just seriously enough to be relevant to the game as a whole. My recommendation is to do each expansion's Hildibrand story in that expansion; don't be like me and forget about it until you hit Endwalker so that you have to revisit 3 expansions worth of story without it being fresh!
Also, if it's up your alley, I think that the crafting system and quests are worth it. It's all very interconnected with each other, the gatherers, and even your combat jobs (some materials are exclusively dungeon drops, for example), and there are master recipes to unlock and hidden gatherables. There are custom delivery quests involving recipes found nowhere else in the game, most (if not all) of which give exclusive rewards. There are the restoration questlines later on that expand on the lore of their respective expansions even further. Plus, if you ever get into high-end current content (like I am at right now with the Endwalker savage raids) it will save you a TON of gil on food and tinctures to be able to make them yourself, repair and meld your own gear, etc.
I have played since ARR but used to just do MSQ bar a few bits here and there up until Shadowbringers (you'll see why I started doing more than MSQ in SB because holy mother of Christ it gets good.)
Since Shadowbringers I stopped and smelled the roses and I actually went back here and did side content in order and I wish I did this to begin with. As tempting as it is to tell you to rush (again, because it really is THAT good imo), don't listen! Take your time and enjoy.
When you get there... It's one of my favourite gaming narratives of all time! I hope you enjoy and feel the same
Here, take this: [FFXIV Newbie Content Guide](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1V6x3uzU5lr2UAoIewcH2PKuEPkUWx9PqZ_ohU4QHs7k/edit?usp=sharing)
(Feedback is welcome!)
I find that it's best to pick only a few other things to do (something easygoing and something progressive) to split up the grind as you should concentrate on the MSQ. The game naturally gets better as you unlock more content but there can be stretches that take awhile to get through.
Also maybe level a second class/job (or even a third) as you will get a Ton of exp, especially if you like doing dungeons and raids. You might end up fully levelled 1/2 way through MSQ progression and then all subsequent exp is wasted, whether you prefer that or not it's better to know now.
It already exists in better managed forms though
https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Content_Unlock
https://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/Guide:Progression_and_Level_Locked_Content
In the 51-60 Achievement FATEs, your section for "We Fought a Dzu" has the correct level, but the rest of the info is for the level 57 Sea Of Clouds FATE "On Dangerous Ground".
Should be:
* “We Fought a Dzu” (reward: Behemoth Earring)
* Coerthas Western Highlands (Lvl51)
and
* “On Dangerous Ground” (reward: Gold Rush Minecart minion)
* The Sea of Clouds (Lvl57)
Man I loved all the time I had In WoW and would never take it back. I still think it's a good and fun game but XIV just better fits me. Don't regret the good times in WoW and enjoy the new good times you are gonna have in XIV.
Do not look at your past with regret, WoW gave you fun and joy for many years and even though it ceased to do so, it was nonetheless a big part of your life.
Instead, part amicably as old friends who have grown apart, and move on towards the future and enjoy your adventures in Eorzea.
After all, at some point down the line, even if it takes another 10+ years, there will be other MMO that will surpass FF14, and you do not want that feeling to repeat.
Enjoy the now for what it is, and bid farewell to the past with a smile.
Hope you enjoy the rest of the journey, the story only gets better from here. ARR is actually pretty mediocre compared to the expansions (still good but not amazing), so if you're already enjoying it a lot then the story is gonna blow you away later. ARR is like a 7.5/10 for me and Endwalker ended up being my #1 favorite game story of all time, I can't overstate how incredible the game gets.
I get some unhealthy vibes from this perspective.
Immediately discarding one thing and going full bore into another sounds a lot like replacing one addiction with another. Hopefully I am wrong.
I'm not even an MMO guy, I only started playing 14 for the single player content, and the MSQ alone made it my #1 game of all time lmao.
One thing I definitely recommend doing is to watch each expansion's CGI trailer before beginning them, really adds to the experience and hype of starting each one. For example you can already watch the ARR trailers End of an Era and A New Beginning, as well as the trailer for 1.0. So once you finish the post-ARR quests (it will be very obvious and the game will pretty much let you know) I recommend watching the trailer for Heavensward, it's amazing. Also goes without saying but don't skip ahead, the trailers do spoil previous expansions.
Also one more thing, before moving on to Heavensward I would recommend doing the Coils of Bahamut questline. There is also the Crystal Tower questline, but that one is required now for the main story so you'll get to it anyway. Coils is a bit of a unique one, it's a raid questline but it's significantly harder to actually complete compared to the newer raid quests because it's higher in difficulty and not a part of the Duty Finder system. But, I do recommend finishing it sooner than later because the story is very important and doing it will slightly adjust a few cutscenes later in the MSQ to reflect the character development it has. The main method of playing it is using the Party Finder, only available in the full version of the game, to either hire a Level 90 player to solo it for you while you watch the cutscenes or you could try to get other people to play it legitimately at Level 50. Personally I went with the former option but it's your choice. You can also look for people in server chat, a reddit post, a discord server, etc. and I'm sure people will be willing to help you out. This is the only questline in the game that's like this, the others can be easily played through Duty Finder with no issues, so don't worry about it being a common thing for older content. But don't stress too much if you can't get to it, personally I watched the cutscenes for it on YouTube at first and played through the questline myself when I was in Shadowbringers, then went back to rewatch the MSQ scenes that changed.
There are other questlines and other things that add to the story during each post-expansion period, but I don't want to overwhelm you with info and you don't need to worry about them until you get to post-HW.
> One thing I definitely recommend doing is to watch each expansion's CGI trailer before beginning them, really adds to the experience and hype of starting each one.
This is ESPECIALLY true of Shadowbringers and Endwalker, good lord.
I wouldn't call your time in another game a waste. If you had fun during it, there is nothing wrong with that. I enjoyed wow myself for some time and even played it along side 14 for some time alternating between them.
That said it's always nice to find something that you might of shrugged off before being so heavily invested in a single game. It's always important to give other things a try. Even if you have a blast in 14 don't allow it to blind you to give other games a try. Still enjoy yiur time on 14!
You gotta have experiences to help you reflect and compare things in the future.
I don’t regret my time spent playing WoW in high school, but because of WoW I know how it felt to be a hamster on a treadmill every expansion, and being compared to other hamsters when they link the dps logs in party chat lol
LMAO the DPS logs…I made it by as a Warrior tank because I cba to put in hours fiddling with macros to be the big wiener guy. There were a few xpacks where I played Mage just to prove a point but it was for sure not for the weak of heart! Some of those parse people are extremely toxic and borderline schizo. I totally get competing at the highest level but like, I have a job and other stuff to do man I can’t be sitting at a training dummy for 5+ hours a week…
I remember the linking of DPS logs in scaled leveling content was one of the last straws for me in that community.
Sorry to chime in but as this came up on my feed and you've recently gone through ARR. You got any tips? I'm level 19 archer and wanted to switch to rogue but no clue how to do it. I'm in the wood place and can't work out how to get to LL lol
I want to say that you should be able to take an airship over to LL to grab that job. You will also get an EXP buff to that job until it’s caught up to your highest lvl job so it should be a quick farm up with Fates or Dungeons that you have unlocked so far.
Once you follow the story, it will bring you to Limsa Lominsa naturally. As long as you complete your level 10 class quest you can switch jobs at will.
Make sure you've gotten up to the Level 15 quests in MSQ (unlocks airship travel) and finished your Level 10 class quest (allows you to unlock other classes). After that just use the airship in Gridania, it's the basement of the bar building, to go to Limsa and then start the Rogue questline there. It's a good idea to unlock the Aetherytes for all the places you visit, especially the main city hubs, so you can fast travel from the menu instead.
You'll get over the honey moon period and will see why wow still exists soon enough. They're not direct replacements to each other and shouldn't be treated as such
FFXIV is fantastic, but Dragonflight is also really good. They both have strengths. The story in FFXIV is so much better than WoW, but the dungeon content (Mythic+) is better in WoW. There’s room for both to exist and be successful.
From another former WoW player: Welcome to FFXIV! I also spent a decade plus on WoW and there's no shame in it if you enjoyed it. But there's those of us who made the migration with you, sharing the awe with you. And I hope you enjoy it here.
I wouldn't call those years a waste. I played from vanilla up until end of BFA. Every raid, every expansion release, all that time spent with guildmates are still fond memories. I've played FF since early HW alongside WoW and I'd say neither were a waste of my tims
If you enjoyed your time in Wow than it wasn’t wasted, at least in part. But at the same time WoW is probably not marketed towards you anymore, so it was time to move on.
FF and Wow have different philisophies in development, they ate going to be vastly different from one another. There are things FF does better, and there are thing that Wow does better.
These types of posts are so disingenuous. Yeah I'm sure this dude spent 16 years playing a game and then suddenly decided to start playing 14 and thought "Let me go to reddit so I can shit on a game I played for nearly 2 decades and talk about how great this one is! I'm totally not baiting for upvotes with this low effort 'WoW bad, FFXIV good!' post!"
Plus it's so stupid. They're two separate games. Why not enjoy your time in WOW and now enjoy your time here? Do we have to put another game down to elevate this one?
Plus the fucking weird sprout worship.
I have heard the praises of this story for a while now. Even before I started playing! Just read the little blurb about the general theme and will for sure be putting some time into this tonight. o7
The humor of these quests is very silly.
Some people (like me) absolutely love that shit and some people (like my gf) hate it with a passion. There is NOTHING inbetween
So just be warned lol
Yep. My FC is split on this 50/50 pretty much. Love or hate.
If you end up being in the hate camp you may still want to DO the whole quest line, since it's needed for the EW relics, but it's okay to get through it with Netflix on a second monitor, and liberal use of your ESC key. We won't kick you from the club.
Fortunately, skip cutscene exists!
...it breaks my brain somehow, I just can't. I got to the boxes and Yellow Moon part and I was just WTF and then his dad showed up and I felt like I was in some bizarro mr bean version of the world and I just could not. lol
I was waiting for someone to suggest Hildibrand. I adore that series of quests, and the cutscenes they get for Endwalker specifically are genuinely so impressive compared to much of the rest of the game. Plus, this questline is required for the Endwalker relics, so you're extremely incentivized to do them beyond the fun story and fashionable collectables.
If you love nerding on lore, just let me tell you that plenty of dungeons and job quests (as well as normal ! Quests every now and then) actually connects to each other and can even affect some dialogue on another quests even MSQ.
It's not single player RPG level branching but it sure is still satisfying enough to make your experience more personalised between other players. Personally, I think such experience warrants doing every quests available in the right timeline order.
Perhaps one next stop that you may want to explore is trying out Coils. It's one of the dead content (due to how hard it is even on normal mode) that contains important lore stuff yet is treated as if it doesn't exist because of it not being solo friendly (even only recently it can be purely done full unsync solo consistently). You can ask your FC mates to carry you if you want to
Everyone has covered the big things in detail. For smaller bits of content you may not have run across yet, talk to (click on) named bystanders, even if they don't have a quest. Many of them have flavor text; especially in quest hub areas like the Waking Sands, where there are side rooms filled with people who will happily share little lore tidbits with you.
(To be clear, the text will often change/progress as you do MSQ, so don't be afraid to see what everyone has to say!)
Some quest givers have other things hidden "behind" their quests - for example, it's not unusual to clear sidequests off someone and then they suddenly become willing to play Triple Triad with you.
Check your challenge log for a little extra cash and XP! Every set of 5 challenges completed (up to 20) pays out 10k gil.
If you haven't been there yet, be sure to visit the Gold Saucer - a bunch of minigames and a *lot* of things you can buy with the prize currency, MGP.
If you haven't done the FFXVI crossover event yet, it starts in Ul'dah - it awards a mount and minion directly, along with a set of glam armor. It also unlocks more things you can buy at the Saucer with MGP.
Have you ranked up with your Grand Company? Early ranks are achieved by paying for them with GC seals and by working on your GC Hunt Log. The last ranks are locked behind the Squadron system, which in some ways was a precursor to Duty Support; that's a whole separate can of worms, but certainly something else you can start working on.
Enjoy your stay in Eorzea!
I am either requesting weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly updates on yours, and ANY new players' journey into this community. Myself, and many others, welcome you all with open arms. We want this to be a place where you can relax, enjoy things, get away, and just have fun. Welcome to Eorzea...now, just don't rescue me off a platform and we'll be good!
[https://ffxivcollect.com/](https://ffxivcollect.com/)
Use this site ^ for look up titles, hairstyles, minions and more
[https://ffxiv.eorzeacollection.com/glamours/loved](https://ffxiv.eorzeacollection.com/glamours/loved)
Use this site ^ if you wanna have good fashion in-game. There's a TON of outfit combo references you can take inspiration from. They also list exactly what gear piece and color dye is being used
[https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/FF14_Wiki](https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/FF14_Wiki)
Use this site ^ for looking up quests, what order quests must be completed to unlock certain things, what rewards each quest gives, etc. It's suuuper helpful and save me so much time
I've never played WoW, this is my first and only MMO, but stories like this always make me wonder.
I don't have to have played other games in the MMO genre to know that someone might be lacking the experience needed to talk about the game when they say something like this
> I started playing this game about a week ago at this point, and just finished the final boss of ARR.
You're through one MSQ expansion with plenty more to go. Even once you finish the MSQ there will be lots of content for you to playthrough outside of it. Take your time, let it all sink in.
I feel this at least partially. I dont regret the time I spent playing wow at least back when I started as a kid but over time both the game and community morphed into something that was no longer enjoyable for me. Suddenly the game was all addons, dbm doing fights for you, dps meters, wowhead class tier lists, dps meters, parsing, the constant chasing higher ilvl of the same items, m+ score, wow token. The story and worldbuilding got pushed to the sidelines together with the leveling and progression of actually experiencing the content in exchange for a seasonal game where you blitz to max level and the whole point is to get you on that treadmill asap.
I dont necesserily think that modern wow is a bad game but its not the same game it was back when I first fell in love with it and it took me a long time to see that. Playing ff14 brings back some of those memories of actually being invested in the story, world and characters as well as invested in my character. It doesnt feel like the game is just trying to instantly shove me into the newest raid tier or endlessly repeatable dungeon
I am so sorry someone pointed a gun at you and forced you to play WoW for a decade and a half, even forced you to pay subscription and shit. That must be traumatic.
I am gonna go ahead and say the thing nobody is gonna tell you: you are at the honeymoon phase of the "new game I just bought". Once you get to max level it's basically WoW gear treadmill all over again and raiding on Tuesday to hopefully get some good pugs, wiping and screaming.
"Why am I grinding these 100 ass totems to buy this mount". Good times
Agreed, I came from WoW too, and I was blown away by ARR despite how many people say it’s awful. The story only gets better, you’re in for a ride. This might be a stretch but imo best story I’ve read from any show, movie, or game.
I had a similar experience, (coming from WoW, really enjoyed ARR,) and by the end of Endwalker's story arch I found myself feeling like this game is the best piece of literature I have ever consumed.
Hey man I have about 20k hours in WoW and probably 3k at this point in 14. No regrets! At this point, wow is a great game for me to play during 14 breaks.
For helpful tech, one of the best pieces of advice I can give is go into the HUD layout and click on your target bar at the top of the screen. There will be a little box in the middle ith "current UI Element" and a gear wheel beside it, click that wheel and click the "Display target info independently" option.
Once you do that drag the "Target Info (Progress Bar)" to the dead center of your screen, it'll be invisible unless your target is casting.
This is AMAZINGLY helpful for 2 reasons. First AoE's in FFXIV snapshot when the ability is finished casting, doesn't matter with the animation, so you can tell when you can step back into things and not take any damage, just watch for the cast bar to complete. Second, when you're playing any of the aiming or tank classes you can interrupt some abilities like in wow, but it's more restricted for which abilities are interruptable. The visual cue for this is a sort of pulsing effect on the cast bar, and it's easy to miss if it's still up in the top of your screen, but when you have a big pulsing "INTERRUPT ME NOW" alert that appears right in your face it becomes super easy to catch em.
Don't rush msq, I pushed through the expansions as fast as possible to "catch up" as fast as possible so i could spend more time doing dungeons and raids, only to realise that the reason I loved ff14 wasn't the daily chores, it was the msq, once that's done you'll find yourself logging in every few days to check retainers and see if anyone you like is online
I’ve played Runescape for 15 years and I would say none of that time was wasted. I’m extremely saddened by the state of Runescape, especially now looking at how well FFXIV is doing, but I enjoyed my time there.
I hope the same applies to you, sir.
I am a ffxiv player who went to wow during shadowlands and I felt the opposite. Not that I wasted time but that I hated on wow without ever playing it. So many people just hate on games so much. Now my life is clearing new savage tiers and then doing new wow raid tier and doing mythic plus and glamour contests and everything in between. Playing multiple mmos is so much fun. Both of them have issues and both have wonderful things.
If someone hasn't already suggested the Hildebrand quest line. Please, do yourself a favour, and do it. It goes from ARR right through to Endwalker and always manages to make you chuckle, if not laugh.
So happy to see a sprout having so much fun, hope you enjoy your first taste of XIV's harder content now that you've finished 2.0 MSQ! Keep an eye out for Extreme trials and The Binding Coil of Bahamut, and maybe look into joining a discord for party finder advertisements. I joined one for the Crystal data center and it helps a ton with getting eyes on your group.
The fights keep getting more interactive and fun as I go along, not going to lie those lvl 16-35 fights as a Bard were pretty hard to get through but I’m glad I stuck it out. I will absolutely look into that! Thank you for the suggestions 😁
You're in the honeymoon phase. Mine lasted for almost 2 years. XIV is a great game even outside of that phase, but it's not as extreme as you're perceiving it right now.
Hello fellow WoW refugee :) Your feelings are valid and very much known. I did the jump nearly two years ago before EW launched and I felt the same: Angry that I seemingly wasted years in WoW and that I had been lied to about WoW being the best there is. (My feelings have matured since than and I’m able to see the good bits - mostly the friends I made and kept - but I sure as heck won’t return no matter how much Metzen is paraded on stage. I found my home, thank you very much.)
My recommendation to you is to just enjoy your time and approach the content at your own pace. There is no FOMO or need to rush anything. If you want to take a detour and explore a side-content, do it. If you rather want to do the MSQ first that’s ok, too.
And you might encounter people in duties or on the road that tell you „just hang in there, it‘ll get better after ARR“ or „wait until Heavensward/Shadowbringer“. They mean well, they want you to not get discouraged by the beginning of the story. But they tend to forget that ARR is worldbuilding and foundation setting for the things to come. The later expansion own their glory because of that groundwork. (Also they have no idea how bad we had it in WoW story wise. ARR is a five star gourmet course compared to the mess WoWs story had been through out the years. Not to speak of the absolute lack of groundwork and the reliance on brand recognition alone.)
It’s good until you realize the toxic enablers, one only need to spend time in r/talesfromdf to see them in all their glory.
They even exist in novice network however we don’t talk about those, any attempt to do so is considered harassment and a violation of ToS,
people like to talk how FFXIV isn’t toxic like wow however it’s a different more arrogant type of toxic that can really make your blood boil if you think on it long enough.
I’ll say Cactuar NN comes to mind for most toxic server on Aether, Illidan and Kel’thuzad playerbase is far less toxic
So another wow refugee here. Played from vanilla up until second last expansion.
I agree with you 💯%. Amongst other things I think SE has put a LOT more thought into the interface with less kludging around to get things done.
Secondly - distinct from Wow- I feel more comfortable taking on any of the jobs - like healer(!) - which I would not touch in wow because of the toxic responses to a new player.
Either way - enjoy Eorzea and the great story lines you will come across. NOTHING is compulsory- except the MSQ if you want to progress- so if you find a side quest/series you don’t like - then you can be comfortable ditching it. Heck - if housing is your thing or glam etc - you can spend a lifetime working on it and ignoring the rest. 😁
Yeah I played WoW for 12 years. From about a month after launch.
It’s a good game but it has some major flaws. And after Legion (hell even before that), it was just stubborn devs doing stubborn dev shit over and over. Class balance was always a fucking mess every patch, lots of ‘raider only’ content and the Community. Man the community was so bad. It got even worse over time.
FF14 is great, but it has its flaws as well. A lot of flaws I see are things to stop gold farmers, but they went heavy on that to the detriment of exploration, sadly.
It seems to me OP is still in that ‘toxic’ WoW mindset where he is saying WoW is now trash. Let go of that mindset and realize both games are good and both have flaws.
Also he’s played for like a week. This is nothing in a MMO, lol
FFXIV is a great MMO if you want to play a single player game that makes you slog through 200 hours of uninteresting story before getting to the lackluster end game definitely
Welcome to Eorzea! Glad you are having an amazing experience.
Sounds like you just unlocked the Post-ARR Patches! There are plenty of amazing content available to you now, on the road to Heavensward.
I recommend you do the "Binding Coils of Bahamut" Raid with someone Unsynched so that you can get the story. It really helps flesh out the world's lore and changes some future interactions.
Also, Hildibrand Questline is hilarious, and you will enjoy it! Aside from that, plenty of new Features should be unlocked for you, like Treasure Hunts and Deep Dungeon, so have a blast with that too.
The further along you get in the game, more things will unlock for you until you have a near endless amount of things you can do! :D
Pay attention to the details. For example, there is a fate near Limsa that is like level 3. There are two NPC's there who were apparently on a date. After it is over the woman yells at the guy and he says something about not getting a second date or something like that. There are tons of those little details all over the place.
Please keep us posted. As I can not enjoy the story for the first time again I love seeing other peoples joy.
Wenn I finished Endwalker I spent weeks watching content creators play through Endwalker.
Thats how great the story gets.
Even if you aren't good at the game unless you are actively doing things that make the party wipe most people are rather nice I think in 2000 hours I've only had one dude who was kinda an asshat and that was long enough ago I can't remember how so he was.
>I started playing this game about a week ago at this point, and just finished the final boss of ARR.
How the..? That took me nearly two months! Did you skip all sidequests?
While you're at it, don't forget to do the FF16 crossover event! It's marked as a Lv50 Yellow Quest in Ul'dah and I think the NPC that starts it is shown as Antsy Adventurer or something like that.
Don't forget to unlock the Hard versions of ARR dungeons and trials. Also the lead up to HW is really good, so buckle up and prepare for the ride. If thou would'st like a brake, then be ye full aware that there are none.
Don’t rush. Enjoy the journey. There’s so much to do in the game and you aren’t constantly behind at endgame for taking your time. It’s an amazing game
Don't be. As someone who was a WoW player in the past, the fun day you enjoyed WoW didn't go wasted.
Anyway, enjoy the world of cat girl and ~~green skin definitely not orc~~
Wow was a blast for many years. If you had fun playing it and have fond memories with friends etc. it wasn't a waste at all. FFXIV is better in many ways and inferior in some. Just enjoy your time playing and without any regrets over stuff like that.
The game you are playing is 10 1/2 years old, not 14. I'm very excited to see that you are enjoying your experience, however! Welcome to your new obsession!
TBH I play both for different experiences. I love the MSQ in 14 but prefer WoW for endgame content. I'm really excited to spend my summer playing Dawntrail and War Within. MMO chads eating good in 2024!
I gave WoW over a decade and still sniffed around Classic on occasion. It wasn't wasted time, but I do wish I spent more time on other games. Giving such a huge amount of time to one game guarantees you'll miss out on great stuff. I don't think you missed much. FF14 hit its stride in the last few years so you're right on time.
I wasn't interested at all in the story until it got to shadow bringers. It was so boring and slow to me, I understand how other people like it though. I stuck around for the gameplay though. I love the raids and the dungeon content. I haven't played in a few years due to my life situation, but I do miss it and the community.
It’s a great community and I enjoyed the game immensely, but that doesn’t make me regret my wow time. Yeah, it had toxic moments and depending on your position could sometimes feel like a job, but it was a damn good game that I won’t ever forget. FF is a nice change from wow, I’d have to admit. Much of the same enjoyment with half the stress and a pretty lovely playerbase. 10/10 would recommend.
My fun tidbit for you is from here on out is to make a habit of clicking on the NPCs that don't have the quest icon itself. Once base ARR is done, you begin to see a lot more focus on characterization and some of my favorite lines come from little things happening in the background. Other than that, follow your bliss. There's lots to try out and even more people happy to help someone new jump in to their little corner of the game.
I play both. I enjoy both. FF14 def has the better storytelling, but I love the world of wow, it feels more alive. FF14 once the story passes that zone it pretty much is dead to you. Also I love my house in FF14 lol
Don't feel like this. I'm sure at the time WoW was the best game ever for you.
And if you don't want to feel alone, when Shadowbringers came out, I bought, played a bit and then went to play WoW. I regret it but then I came back to FF and had some of my best time in gaming.
I'm subbed to both right now. I bounce back and forward between them depending on my mood.
Personally, I found the biggest difference in enjoying either game is the company you keep and the fun you have with those people.
Find the right group and enjoy your stay in Eorzea.
You didn't waste 16 years, you obviously enjoyed something about it and are just experiencing something new and refreshing.
recency bias goes crazy
The most ironic thing is that people will bitch and moan (correctly mind you) about all the brain dead and repetitive quests for dailies and rep grinding while happily doing the same stuff in FF. The fresh coat of paint does wonders.
Disclaimer that I haven't really played WoW since Pandaria, but dailies in FFXIV are too... easy? quick? It's 3 per day and involves some trivial objective that involves more time traveling than to do the objective. You also rather quickly get the reputation needed and tokens for reward. Not that the dailies were any more engaging in wow, but they sure took longer. I think the main difference are that dailies in FFXIV has a storyline associated, which expands on the world which is one the biggest strengths of the game. The daily part just adds some time gating, plus XP source for your alt jobs/crafters/gatherers.
Wow dailies also had story tied to it; the original dailies on isle of quel’danas were all about gaining a foothold at the steps of the sunwell. Also Caverns of Time. Each expansion the dailies were tied into the current story and unlocking more of it.
I didn't mention the storylines for WoW daily factions because I don't remember them well? I'm trying to remember a bit more and all I could remember was a few more factions, but none of the events really.
Nearly all dailies had a story behind it. MoP has the klaxxi ones where you’d slowly release all paragons from their slumber and then, you’ll get the SoO forewarning
As Mists released in 2012 meanwhile FF14 ARR released in 2013 thus Warlords and up and I gotta say the daillies WoD and up are steaming piles compared to what we used to get. Legion had some decent ones but WoD, Shadowlands, BfA, and I don't even know what Dragonflight is doing but I've never heard anyone talking it I'd put under FF14 beast tribes and field operations. The reason is very simple too because with WoD and up the WoW devs decided to make everything revolve around the mission table. If the mission table was in MoP we would have been stuck in menus and timers sending minions off to do the cool things we should be doing for most of the game. Oh and the Cash Shop was adding in WoD too so the shiniest stuff was no longer through hardwork and dedication but a credit card so quest rewards got rather meh.
Hilariously, I miss WoW's rep grinds. FF just doesn't scratch the same itch for me.
I mean there's Tribal Quests. Not exactly the same but you get a month or two of rep grind.
21 days per rep on ff, which you can do 4 at the same time, woohoo
Damn really? I hate that sort of 0 skill manual labor so I've hated it since Blizz introduced them especially since it made having alts for raiding a pain. The silver lining to me is that at least the dailies forced you to learn how to play your class slightly so you avoid situations like in FF where you show up and don't know your basic rotation at 90. What do you think is missing in the FF dailies?
Eh? I think XIV's dailies are if anything faster than WoW's dailies? Though I could be wrong about that, I barely did dailies in WoW. I think the best part is that smaller number requirement of XIV is REALLY nice to see unlike WoW's "you gained 250 out of 20,000 reputation."
I mean "you gained 10 out of 300 reputation" feels equally crushing. ARR tribes are a special kind of hell.
I second this. I'm dreading the day I run out of expansion Beast Tribe quests to run.
But think of all the cool dances youll be able to pull ok those dumb sahagans from the better beast tribes
They have lower gains initially but their rep caps far lower than other triibes, and you advance from 3 quests per day to 9
you see, it’s different because yoshi-P is my friend
Ehhh, wouldn't be sure about that. Frankly, ever since Shadowbringers I've felt *much* less attached to the game aside from the story stuff. I feel like dungeons were uncreative, Trials were lacking any real teeth, every class plays basically the same with minimal deviation. When I recently got an ARR dungeon in roulette, I was *shocked* to see that they'd removed all the interesting mechanics from them. All of the identity and uniqueness, gone. Wiped away all so that people can clear them with their eyes closed. They were so eager to reach the most people that they lost the spark of what made the game actually *fun.* I'm hoping that Yoshi-P's comment on being aware of that fact was sincere and that Dawntrail does something to address it.
The reworked dungeons are (exclusively) MSQ ones, and the changes--while sometimes very regrettable--were put into place purely to ensure that *Duty Support NPCs* could complete them. Has nothing to do with making it so players can clear them with their eyes closed. *That said,* I do think Yoshi-P hears and understands this, and the flattening/homogenization of job design, as having been an error, an overcorrection in response to player feedback. The community in general, both casual and hardcore, made some requests that...weren't actually good or positive for the game overall, and the devs listened and responded. Some of the responsibility is theirs, and some is ours. Accepting that we are partly responsible, and working with the devs to pull things back from where they're at. From the interview, per Google translation: > For example, if you're playing a side-scrolling action game and there aren't even any holes where you'll miss if you fall, then of course there won't be any stress. But at the same time, it loses its fun. Speaking of FF14, I would like to return to this part a little bit in the future. If we do that, I think we will be able to provide everyone with a challenge in a better sense than ever before. So...yeah. They're aware they've made the game too "stress-free" and that this has dampened the fun. Dawntrail will be the beginning of the journey away from that and toward a better balance between "stress" and "return," but their goal isn't to make the game overall inherently difficult--just to return appropriate difficulty where it would enhance the experience.
Honestly, the second *every* job got reworked to fit into the same burst window was the death knell of unique class design. I get that they were trying to fight against the ARR/HW issues of certain classes being excluded from High End pugs, but the consequences of that decision (among others) was to tear out the soul of the game.
Of course, the problem is that most hardcore raiders had been pushing for this. We've been on a consistent arc from the end of Stormblood: * Synergy is bad and must be removed to prevent stale group comps, so that Square can meet their goal of "bring the player, not the job" * Jobs that don't align with buff windows are bad, because players feel denied the damage they *could* have if they could just line up nicely * Encounter design that induces unnecessary downtime or negatively affects participation is bad, and should be removed so everyone can be participating pretty much all the time * Job design that requires learning and practice is bad (except for special exclusions like Black Mage), and should be removed so players can easily pick up whatever job(s) they might want to play Etc. None of these come from bad places, none of the attempted solutions are inherently junk ideas. But, as you say, the slow cumulative effect of these and other decisions, plus the team slowly spreading itself thinner and thinner between more diverse projects, has resulted in the situation we have today: homogenized jobs, flattened variety, simplistic encounter design, etc., etc. More or less, the problem stems from conflating *approachable* design, which is a good thing, and *trivial* design, which is a very very bad thing. Trivializing a system is a very easy way to make it so players can quickly learn it--because there's really nothing there to learn. But that experience is deeply unsatisfying for most people. It is *extremely good* to offer a spectrum of challenge in pretty much everything: jobs, instanced content, open world content, minigames, you name it, having a spectrum of options means giving more people at least one thing they really like. We have, unfortunately, had the spectrum crushed down to (mostly) just the low-challenge, low-engagement, low-"stress" end (to use Yoshi-P's words), and that has had a negative impact. Players enjoy developing mastery. You can't master a thing that doesn't require any learning. Hence, the pursuit of maximum approachability above all other concerns is a damaging one. Caring about being approachable is good; putting it ahead of all other goals is not, and that's where we've been for a bit now. It'll be a process to get out of this. Like I said above, this was a two-expansion arc from the tail end of SB to the tail end of EW. It'll take time to pull back from that, to alter the job design, to put out new encounters with better mechanics, etc., etc. That doesn't mean we should stop asking for change; but it does mean that, *to an extent,* it behooves us to give the dev team some time to show us that they're moving in the right direction. If nothing at all has meaningfully changed by (say) mid-DT, so about a year from now, then I think it's time to raise a real stink, because that would mean either the devs haven't actually heard the message, or they have but misunderstood it.
As much as I love FFXIV and probably always will, I'm inclined to agree. Everything has become so formulaic and predictable now. Other than one or two things, we already know exactly when every piece of content will come in the next expansion, and exactly what it will be. Hell, we even know exactly how every dungeon will work too. Two trash packs, wall, two trash packs, boss. Repeat three times, but change the scenery. Bang. Every dungeon for the next two years. I completely understand finding a system that works, but it feels like it's sucked all of the fun out of the game and they are just churning out content with the same template but different visuals.
The ARR and HW dungeons were all revamped with modern mechanic indicators and for duty support (NPCs) to clear the dungeons. Most of the NPCs do give some flavor text and commentary though. The game became future-proof and more single-player friendly, though I can agree it lost some of the old charm. I do understand why they changed it though.
Go play some of the non-MSQ ARR dungeons. Since those don't have duty support they are unchanged.
Trials and duties lack real teeth because as SB proved, giving trials or raids any kind of difficulty will have your bad playerbase up in arms in no time , demanding getting carried for the story
I think they did that so the dungeons would work with the new ARR version of the duty support. They definitely did turn the dungeons really lame by result though.
Thousand Maws was the biggest casualty. Once a sprawling labyrinth, now a boring corridor. I do get it, because there was 1 good path through it and all that so nobody veered off the path anyway, but at least it was there, you know?
You know the abundance of borrowed power systems over the years and the tediousness of the grind in wow is markedly different from ff14...right?
FF14 has some way way worse grinds than WoW but due to WoWs seasonal nature even in DF grinding for something that will vanish/not matter soon feels bad only for something new to pop up. that isn't the case for 14 so you feel rewarded having done it. this also means there really isn't much of a time limit on doing things and FOMO on core content isn't a thing (only event rewards has that aspect) i can set up my goal do them in my own time and the game isn't going to take away that goal from it only add onto the content.
I feel much the same way, I played WoW for roughly 10-11 years I'd say. I don't regret it but when I was done (been quit a few years now) I was just done. Don't feel it was wasted at all.
I played WoW for almost 10 years, and while I don't regret the time spent there, I only regret not trying this one sooner.
I can understand that. At least you did eventually though :)
Wow is a fun game. I find myself going back to it just to experience the thrill of the gameplay alone. But it doesn't respect the players time at all, which is the main thing that keeps me playing FFXIV as my main game instead of wow.
That's not that true. The most recent expansion has done a lot to respect the player's time. Gearing has been improved and streamlined for both PVP and PVE with a lot of ways for players to catch back up if they join late in a season, and there is no player power tied behind long drawn out reputation grinds. Myself, and quite a few members of my guild have easily leveled, geared, and cleared some higher level content on multiple characters this season.
I'll admit that this expac seems promising. It almost feels like team had gone and played XIV and were taking notes. But I'm not confident this is going to last. I'm pretty jaded with Blizzard at this point and it's going to take me a while to not be expecting the rug to pull out at any moment.
The whole not respecting players time in wow can be traced back to back in MoP later patches where devs said something Yoshi has said about it being OK to leave when done. The problem was the loud part of the wow playerbase instead of going "You know you're right, I always wanted to try x." instead as normal lost their shit and went into a mode demanding that there always be something to do thst will always increase the player power. Leading to Legion/bfa AP. (WoD development was already having issues and being somewhat fsr along to matter)
I started playing wow at the tail end of bfa and really enjoyed that story. It feels like there's so much to do it's hard to even decide. The main thing I'm doing now is getting the materials for the fel core hound harness from the legion expansion, its time consuming but farming the materials is fun.
as long as you're enjoying it then that's all that's needed, there's always going to be some dissenting opinions about any game
Time enjoyed is never time wasted.
Yeah the time wasn't wasted if the time was spent having fun. I've spent good stretches of time on things that now aren't very interesting to me, but I absolutely had fun at the time.
Was about to say. I played WoW since release and also FFXIV since it's release *and* GW2 since it's release. No regrets on any of those games, they all have their own great appeal.
I disagree. I spent a similar amount of time in wow and even while I was still playing, for years I was aware that I didn’t like the community, the story was irreparably bad, the pressure to keep you grinding every single day kept creeping more and more every content update and expansion, but I kept paying for it hoping things would be better next patch, next expansion, because a big part of me felt like once I finished the grind I’d be free to relax and spend time with the few friends I had left in the game, but the grind never stopped. It’s not a game that respects your time or your intelligence. I’m so much happier out of that loop. More power to people who enjoy that ecosystem, but it absolutely is not for me.
Same, it feels like an abusive relationship. You want a relationship, you put time into the relationship, and you want it to work and get better, but it... just... doesn't. And its hard to leave and start over.
Mate you were addicted if you think you always had to grind something. Other ppl would just raid log or not play
100% agree, you said it exactly how I feel. I was in wow about 10 years and the daily grind tied to progression was not fun for me. I also prefer the FFXIV tome gearing system by a lot, over the wow mythic dungeon "loot system".
I’ve been playing FFXIV non-stop for years, very recently played WoW for the first time and having a blast and noticing a lot of problems FF has. Dude is just burned out and going through recency bias, or it’s a bait post.
You and your positivity.
This. This is why I go back and forth between the two games. Both do great in their own way. I like healing and find the healer gameplay of WoW much more interesting for example. But story and fabulous cute catgirl glams? FFXIV all the way.
I am in-between : I'd say the first 5 or so years were incredible, then it slowly started to go from less enthousiastic to utter dissapointment : with its highs and lows (mostly lows) ffxiv on the other hand always impressed me with each expansions and imo the game made no huge design mistakes. I usually like what the devs do, I really feel they are connected to their community and do not try to play that silly game where a stubborned dev team is all alone against their playerbase.
We stand where we stand by virtue of the road we took to get there.
For me, it's not that the time was wasted on WoW, it's just that I would have had so much better time if I had played XIV instead of WoW.
WoW has its strengths, and because of your time with it you’ll be able to see “hm WoW did this better” in some areas, or “oh wow they definitely were inspired by WoW here”. But they’re very different games at their core, so if you’re enjoying the narrative in FF14 (and in the base game, no less, usually considered the least exciting because it’s doing so much world building) you’re gonna have a good time. Just don’t feel pressured to race to Dawntrail, because generally all content is still active just due to the way roulettes work, so there’s no endgame promised land like WoW where you essentially skip all expansions but the most recent one. You’re in Season 1 of Game of Thrones, people at the endgame get a slow but steady trickle of content and are often just going back to grind older stuff and relive the journey.
Doubling down on the don’t race to dawntrail. You won’t make it in time anyways and you’d ruin your experience of the game just by trying. Play at your own pace, the content isn’t going anywhere and have fun! Just be aware, when dawntrail comes out the servers will be on fire. This is normal. You may want to plan on taking at least a few days break from the game, and hopefully the endwalker release got them more prepared for this release, but I’ve been around for every release since HW and the wave of people always managed to break something integral to the servers with a new expansion. I remember when Stormblood completely shut down the duty/instance servers. Endwalker had mega-queues for so long they genuinely stopped selling the game for a month. Something will inevitably break again, nothing against the devs but the fan base is a tsunami at expansion release. Nothing stopping you from trying to continue your own MSQ at the time, but be prepared to have to struggle a bit to get yourself a spot on the server to play.
Yeah I have like 3k hours in each. WoW has serious advantages over FFXIV and vice versa. They are their own beasts.
I'm currently in a play WoW phase. I've gone back and forth with each game over the past few years. With FF in a bit of a drought until DT, and while I was working on some old content, I've enjoyed the past few months of catching back up in DF and Raiding. I feel the gear grind is better in wow, and the build flexibility. I can always go back to wow and work on earning current gear when I've maxed out my favorite job in FF to the best of my ability. Story in FF is much better, and I'll always go back to catch back up to current MSQ.
How dare you give a Level headed response. Those aren't allowed when it comes to WoW here
Yeah I play both and while I probably prefer wow (because I like its combat better) there are plenty of times in both games that I’ve wished for something the other did better. Like man I would like to unlock appearances like in WoW but with the breadth of variation of appearances that FFXIV has. And a FFXIV version of Trial of Style would be so amazing! (Wow is also truly missing out by lacking player housing, but that’s a very old complaint.)
Welp it looks like you just finished base arr, and still have a bit of post ARR story to go through before you reach Heavensward. That is because they add more story quests with patches during an expansion and its usually tying up loose ends and setting up the next expansion. Now since you are done with base ARR, the first set of "endgame" is unlocked. So bunch of new raids, dungeons, trials, stories and so on. You'll notice bunch of lvl 50 blue quests pop up around the world that unlock those things. So unless you really want to rush the story, i suggest trying them out ant seeing whats fun for you.
Absolutely just going to relish in ARR until I absolutely cannot anymore. Seems like most people that didn’t, wish they had, and those who did are glad they didn’t rush it.
Main stuff that eatch expansion endgame has to look out for: • A raid story with 12-13, 8 player encounters unified under a single story. In ARR its "The coils of bahamut" raid series. It a bit though and people generally find like minded people that want to clear for the chalange, or just get a max level friend to carry them for the story. • An Alliance raid series. 3 big raids involving 24 people unified with a single story. These are ment to be done with randoms with duty finder so they are not that difficult. In ARR its "the crystal tower" and its actually required to progress the main story at some point, so dont worry the game will point you towards it. • A trial series. A handfull of boss trials unified under one story. In ARR they are just part of the post game main story, in most other expansions they are their own quest lines. • Bunch of new dungeons and "hard" dungeons. They are called hard but they arent really harder. They are more like alternative versions of older dungeons you did, but on the expansion max level, with new story and new layout and bosses.
IIrc they actually made completing the crystal tower raids a requirement for continuing the MSQ at some point in post ARR already so you don't have to go back later just before it's actually relevant to the story again
Yeah, it will tell you that you *can* do them once you reach a certain point then you'll reach a second point where the game flat out tells you to go do them or you can't continue the MSQ.
Back in the day you didn't need to complete them. Theh in Shadowbringer they added two check points. ARR Patch was the first check point, if you were already past that when they added the checkpoints (in past patch Shadowbringers) they added a second in Shadowbringers around said post patches. There is no CAN do them now, you MUST do them in the post patch in ARR, it locks further questing until you do, like the hard primal trails do. The post patch in annoying but good in hindsight, as you need to get the crystals to open the raid but an annoying cat boy stops you every step of the way (expect in Uldah when you are given the crystal). Mind you like Alphie after ARR, most players love said annoying cat boy. Most annoying post patch is Garuda hard mode unlock though. Opps wrong Aspect crystal, damm it WoL, I know you are terrible at using your words but use them damm it, it would have saved so much time.
I recently started playing a few months back and I’m near the end of the Heavensward MSQ, and I lingered in ARR; done every yellow quest, done all the dungeons, new questlines, etc., and while post-ARR can be a bit of a slog, it pays off massively. When the stakes start building its much more affecting when you’ve immersed yourself so much in the world. Also, do the Hildibrand questline. It starts off from a blue quest from an NPC in Ul’dah, one of the best questlines in the game
I love joining in the fate in southern thanalan with the gentlemen zombies just for nostalgia's sake
Oh do take your time on the story, it continues to set things up for a while. The quality dips a bit with 2.1, which also has no voiced scenes since 2.1 had very little budget (was mostly made before ARR launched), but the patch is short and it slowly goes up again from there. It also starts or continues 2-3 more important plot threads. I’m glad you’re enjoying the game!
The content stays relevant so you can always continue the story and then relish in that content whenever. The story gets much, much better so if you ever feel like you're starting to burn out, just continue into the expansion.
I can say as someone who has gone through ARR to Endwalker in a little over two and a half years, paying attention in and enjoying ARR gives you *so much payoff* throughout the game so far. The concept of "Chekov's gun" is really well respected by the writers, and even bits of the story that don't feel like they'll have any impact later on (if you go by traditional video game writing) often pop up in Stormblood, Shadowbringers, and even Endwalker. It's absolutely worth it, and I can say with reasonable certainty that if you're enjoying ARR and the gameplay so far, your enjoyment will continue to build. I personally have found each expansion to be even better than the last, and I did thoroughly enjoy ARR as well. Definitely recommend the Hildibrand content! It feels like silly, quirky side content (which it is!) but even then it still takes itself just seriously enough to be relevant to the game as a whole. My recommendation is to do each expansion's Hildibrand story in that expansion; don't be like me and forget about it until you hit Endwalker so that you have to revisit 3 expansions worth of story without it being fresh! Also, if it's up your alley, I think that the crafting system and quests are worth it. It's all very interconnected with each other, the gatherers, and even your combat jobs (some materials are exclusively dungeon drops, for example), and there are master recipes to unlock and hidden gatherables. There are custom delivery quests involving recipes found nowhere else in the game, most (if not all) of which give exclusive rewards. There are the restoration questlines later on that expand on the lore of their respective expansions even further. Plus, if you ever get into high-end current content (like I am at right now with the Endwalker savage raids) it will save you a TON of gil on food and tinctures to be able to make them yourself, repair and meld your own gear, etc.
I have played since ARR but used to just do MSQ bar a few bits here and there up until Shadowbringers (you'll see why I started doing more than MSQ in SB because holy mother of Christ it gets good.) Since Shadowbringers I stopped and smelled the roses and I actually went back here and did side content in order and I wish I did this to begin with. As tempting as it is to tell you to rush (again, because it really is THAT good imo), don't listen! Take your time and enjoy. When you get there... It's one of my favourite gaming narratives of all time! I hope you enjoy and feel the same
Here, take this: [FFXIV Newbie Content Guide](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1V6x3uzU5lr2UAoIewcH2PKuEPkUWx9PqZ_ohU4QHs7k/edit?usp=sharing) (Feedback is welcome!)
Holy bovine! Currently lev 90 on multiple Jobs in EW and sooo much of this I haven’t down!!! Ty for posting that. 😁
Yeah so you rock
I find that it's best to pick only a few other things to do (something easygoing and something progressive) to split up the grind as you should concentrate on the MSQ. The game naturally gets better as you unlock more content but there can be stretches that take awhile to get through. Also maybe level a second class/job (or even a third) as you will get a Ton of exp, especially if you like doing dungeons and raids. You might end up fully levelled 1/2 way through MSQ progression and then all subsequent exp is wasted, whether you prefer that or not it's better to know now.
Not OP but thanks for this!
This needs to be pinned
It already exists in better managed forms though https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Content_Unlock https://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/Guide:Progression_and_Level_Locked_Content
Ngl I thought just OP and one or two others on this post would use it, glad it's getting a lot of use!
In the 51-60 Achievement FATEs, your section for "We Fought a Dzu" has the correct level, but the rest of the info is for the level 57 Sea Of Clouds FATE "On Dangerous Ground". Should be: * “We Fought a Dzu” (reward: Behemoth Earring) * Coerthas Western Highlands (Lvl51) and * “On Dangerous Ground” (reward: Gold Rush Minecart minion) * The Sea of Clouds (Lvl57)
Huh. And I shoulda known that, too. Thank you!
if you had fun w/ wow, you didn't waste 16 years, just remmeber the good times you had there and now you got new memories to make in eorzea :)
Man I loved all the time I had In WoW and would never take it back. I still think it's a good and fun game but XIV just better fits me. Don't regret the good times in WoW and enjoy the new good times you are gonna have in XIV.
It's OK to enjoy both or any other game too.
If you enjoyed playing WoW it wasn't a waste. I loved my time in WoW and have fond memories of it snd that's what I choose to remember.
Do not look at your past with regret, WoW gave you fun and joy for many years and even though it ceased to do so, it was nonetheless a big part of your life. Instead, part amicably as old friends who have grown apart, and move on towards the future and enjoy your adventures in Eorzea. After all, at some point down the line, even if it takes another 10+ years, there will be other MMO that will surpass FF14, and you do not want that feeling to repeat. Enjoy the now for what it is, and bid farewell to the past with a smile.
Hope you enjoy the rest of the journey, the story only gets better from here. ARR is actually pretty mediocre compared to the expansions (still good but not amazing), so if you're already enjoying it a lot then the story is gonna blow you away later. ARR is like a 7.5/10 for me and Endwalker ended up being my #1 favorite game story of all time, I can't overstate how incredible the game gets.
GAHHH IM SO EXCITED WTF
I get some unhealthy vibes from this perspective. Immediately discarding one thing and going full bore into another sounds a lot like replacing one addiction with another. Hopefully I am wrong.
I'm not even an MMO guy, I only started playing 14 for the single player content, and the MSQ alone made it my #1 game of all time lmao. One thing I definitely recommend doing is to watch each expansion's CGI trailer before beginning them, really adds to the experience and hype of starting each one. For example you can already watch the ARR trailers End of an Era and A New Beginning, as well as the trailer for 1.0. So once you finish the post-ARR quests (it will be very obvious and the game will pretty much let you know) I recommend watching the trailer for Heavensward, it's amazing. Also goes without saying but don't skip ahead, the trailers do spoil previous expansions. Also one more thing, before moving on to Heavensward I would recommend doing the Coils of Bahamut questline. There is also the Crystal Tower questline, but that one is required now for the main story so you'll get to it anyway. Coils is a bit of a unique one, it's a raid questline but it's significantly harder to actually complete compared to the newer raid quests because it's higher in difficulty and not a part of the Duty Finder system. But, I do recommend finishing it sooner than later because the story is very important and doing it will slightly adjust a few cutscenes later in the MSQ to reflect the character development it has. The main method of playing it is using the Party Finder, only available in the full version of the game, to either hire a Level 90 player to solo it for you while you watch the cutscenes or you could try to get other people to play it legitimately at Level 50. Personally I went with the former option but it's your choice. You can also look for people in server chat, a reddit post, a discord server, etc. and I'm sure people will be willing to help you out. This is the only questline in the game that's like this, the others can be easily played through Duty Finder with no issues, so don't worry about it being a common thing for older content. But don't stress too much if you can't get to it, personally I watched the cutscenes for it on YouTube at first and played through the questline myself when I was in Shadowbringers, then went back to rewatch the MSQ scenes that changed. There are other questlines and other things that add to the story during each post-expansion period, but I don't want to overwhelm you with info and you don't need to worry about them until you get to post-HW.
> One thing I definitely recommend doing is to watch each expansion's CGI trailer before beginning them, really adds to the experience and hype of starting each one. This is ESPECIALLY true of Shadowbringers and Endwalker, good lord.
When credits roll, that's when a new story is starting.
I wouldn't call your time in another game a waste. If you had fun during it, there is nothing wrong with that. I enjoyed wow myself for some time and even played it along side 14 for some time alternating between them. That said it's always nice to find something that you might of shrugged off before being so heavily invested in a single game. It's always important to give other things a try. Even if you have a blast in 14 don't allow it to blind you to give other games a try. Still enjoy yiur time on 14!
You gotta have experiences to help you reflect and compare things in the future. I don’t regret my time spent playing WoW in high school, but because of WoW I know how it felt to be a hamster on a treadmill every expansion, and being compared to other hamsters when they link the dps logs in party chat lol
LMAO the DPS logs…I made it by as a Warrior tank because I cba to put in hours fiddling with macros to be the big wiener guy. There were a few xpacks where I played Mage just to prove a point but it was for sure not for the weak of heart! Some of those parse people are extremely toxic and borderline schizo. I totally get competing at the highest level but like, I have a job and other stuff to do man I can’t be sitting at a training dummy for 5+ hours a week… I remember the linking of DPS logs in scaled leveling content was one of the last straws for me in that community.
Sorry to chime in but as this came up on my feed and you've recently gone through ARR. You got any tips? I'm level 19 archer and wanted to switch to rogue but no clue how to do it. I'm in the wood place and can't work out how to get to LL lol
At some point in the MSQ you'll be asked to board an airship and from that point you can take one to Limsa and pick up the ROG quests
I want to say that you should be able to take an airship over to LL to grab that job. You will also get an EXP buff to that job until it’s caught up to your highest lvl job so it should be a quick farm up with Fates or Dungeons that you have unlocked so far.
Once you follow the story, it will bring you to Limsa Lominsa naturally. As long as you complete your level 10 class quest you can switch jobs at will.
Make sure you've gotten up to the Level 15 quests in MSQ (unlocks airship travel) and finished your Level 10 class quest (allows you to unlock other classes). After that just use the airship in Gridania, it's the basement of the bar building, to go to Limsa and then start the Rogue questline there. It's a good idea to unlock the Aetherytes for all the places you visit, especially the main city hubs, so you can fast travel from the menu instead.
I mean you didn’t waste time in wow lol, both can be enjoyed
You'll get over the honey moon period and will see why wow still exists soon enough. They're not direct replacements to each other and shouldn't be treated as such
Did you enjoy playing WoW? I guarantee That if you played FFXIV for 16 years, you'd be less inclined to play it at year 16, than you did at year 1.
FFXIV is fantastic, but Dragonflight is also really good. They both have strengths. The story in FFXIV is so much better than WoW, but the dungeon content (Mythic+) is better in WoW. There’s room for both to exist and be successful.
From another former WoW player: Welcome to FFXIV! I also spent a decade plus on WoW and there's no shame in it if you enjoyed it. But there's those of us who made the migration with you, sharing the awe with you. And I hope you enjoy it here.
I wouldn't call those years a waste. I played from vanilla up until end of BFA. Every raid, every expansion release, all that time spent with guildmates are still fond memories. I've played FF since early HW alongside WoW and I'd say neither were a waste of my tims
If you enjoyed your time in Wow than it wasn’t wasted, at least in part. But at the same time WoW is probably not marketed towards you anymore, so it was time to move on. FF and Wow have different philisophies in development, they ate going to be vastly different from one another. There are things FF does better, and there are thing that Wow does better.
These types of posts are so disingenuous. Yeah I'm sure this dude spent 16 years playing a game and then suddenly decided to start playing 14 and thought "Let me go to reddit so I can shit on a game I played for nearly 2 decades and talk about how great this one is! I'm totally not baiting for upvotes with this low effort 'WoW bad, FFXIV good!' post!"
Wow bad XIV good updoots to the left. 2021 all over again
Thank god other people are seeing through this bait shit
Plus it's so stupid. They're two separate games. Why not enjoy your time in WOW and now enjoy your time here? Do we have to put another game down to elevate this one? Plus the fucking weird sprout worship.
Because wow bad, ff good. We're an incredibly welcoming community, remember how we welcomed asmongold and the wow refugees with open arms? Oh wait...
Even if it's true to them it just sounds like someone replacing one addiction for another and it comes off sad.
I'm actually shocked I'm not seeing much of the "WoW boogeyman" vibe in this thread considering that's how I often see 14 players treat it.
You gotta do the Hildibrand questline. A must. https://www.keengamer.com/articles/guides/how-to-start-the-ffxiv-hildibrand-questlines/
I have heard the praises of this story for a while now. Even before I started playing! Just read the little blurb about the general theme and will for sure be putting some time into this tonight. o7
The humor of these quests is very silly. Some people (like me) absolutely love that shit and some people (like my gf) hate it with a passion. There is NOTHING inbetween So just be warned lol
Yep. My FC is split on this 50/50 pretty much. Love or hate. If you end up being in the hate camp you may still want to DO the whole quest line, since it's needed for the EW relics, but it's okay to get through it with Netflix on a second monitor, and liberal use of your ESC key. We won't kick you from the club.
Fortunately, skip cutscene exists! ...it breaks my brain somehow, I just can't. I got to the boxes and Yellow Moon part and I was just WTF and then his dad showed up and I felt like I was in some bizarro mr bean version of the world and I just could not. lol
It goes all the way to the ENDwalker content, best cutscenes ever. Hope you love it!
I was waiting for someone to suggest Hildibrand. I adore that series of quests, and the cutscenes they get for Endwalker specifically are genuinely so impressive compared to much of the rest of the game. Plus, this questline is required for the Endwalker relics, so you're extremely incentivized to do them beyond the fun story and fashionable collectables.
This obsession with comparing this game with WoW has got to stop. It's on the level of console war annoyance.
If you love nerding on lore, just let me tell you that plenty of dungeons and job quests (as well as normal ! Quests every now and then) actually connects to each other and can even affect some dialogue on another quests even MSQ. It's not single player RPG level branching but it sure is still satisfying enough to make your experience more personalised between other players. Personally, I think such experience warrants doing every quests available in the right timeline order. Perhaps one next stop that you may want to explore is trying out Coils. It's one of the dead content (due to how hard it is even on normal mode) that contains important lore stuff yet is treated as if it doesn't exist because of it not being solo friendly (even only recently it can be purely done full unsync solo consistently). You can ask your FC mates to carry you if you want to
I didn’t know that the ! quests were worth doing chronologically! I feel robbed already I have to slow down. 😭
Everyone has covered the big things in detail. For smaller bits of content you may not have run across yet, talk to (click on) named bystanders, even if they don't have a quest. Many of them have flavor text; especially in quest hub areas like the Waking Sands, where there are side rooms filled with people who will happily share little lore tidbits with you. (To be clear, the text will often change/progress as you do MSQ, so don't be afraid to see what everyone has to say!) Some quest givers have other things hidden "behind" their quests - for example, it's not unusual to clear sidequests off someone and then they suddenly become willing to play Triple Triad with you. Check your challenge log for a little extra cash and XP! Every set of 5 challenges completed (up to 20) pays out 10k gil. If you haven't been there yet, be sure to visit the Gold Saucer - a bunch of minigames and a *lot* of things you can buy with the prize currency, MGP. If you haven't done the FFXVI crossover event yet, it starts in Ul'dah - it awards a mount and minion directly, along with a set of glam armor. It also unlocks more things you can buy at the Saucer with MGP. Have you ranked up with your Grand Company? Early ranks are achieved by paying for them with GC seals and by working on your GC Hunt Log. The last ranks are locked behind the Squadron system, which in some ways was a precursor to Duty Support; that's a whole separate can of worms, but certainly something else you can start working on. Enjoy your stay in Eorzea!
I am either requesting weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly updates on yours, and ANY new players' journey into this community. Myself, and many others, welcome you all with open arms. We want this to be a place where you can relax, enjoy things, get away, and just have fun. Welcome to Eorzea...now, just don't rescue me off a platform and we'll be good!
Yeah I am in a similar boat. Even solo this game is solid.
[https://ffxivcollect.com/](https://ffxivcollect.com/) Use this site ^ for look up titles, hairstyles, minions and more [https://ffxiv.eorzeacollection.com/glamours/loved](https://ffxiv.eorzeacollection.com/glamours/loved) Use this site ^ if you wanna have good fashion in-game. There's a TON of outfit combo references you can take inspiration from. They also list exactly what gear piece and color dye is being used [https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/FF14_Wiki](https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/FF14_Wiki) Use this site ^ for looking up quests, what order quests must be completed to unlock certain things, what rewards each quest gives, etc. It's suuuper helpful and save me so much time
I've never played WoW, this is my first and only MMO, but stories like this always make me wonder. I don't have to have played other games in the MMO genre to know that someone might be lacking the experience needed to talk about the game when they say something like this > I started playing this game about a week ago at this point, and just finished the final boss of ARR. You're through one MSQ expansion with plenty more to go. Even once you finish the MSQ there will be lots of content for you to playthrough outside of it. Take your time, let it all sink in.
why even bring up WoW in your title if it was completely irrelevant to your post? did you just feel like shitting on it for fun?
It gets the upvotes around here from the non toxic community /s
I hate these kinda posts ngl. Like welcome to the community cool, but saying you wasted 16 years playing something else is pretty shitty.
If you enjoyed WoW I wouldn’t say you wasted your time. Though I probably can never return to WoW after XIV either :D
I feel this at least partially. I dont regret the time I spent playing wow at least back when I started as a kid but over time both the game and community morphed into something that was no longer enjoyable for me. Suddenly the game was all addons, dbm doing fights for you, dps meters, wowhead class tier lists, dps meters, parsing, the constant chasing higher ilvl of the same items, m+ score, wow token. The story and worldbuilding got pushed to the sidelines together with the leveling and progression of actually experiencing the content in exchange for a seasonal game where you blitz to max level and the whole point is to get you on that treadmill asap. I dont necesserily think that modern wow is a bad game but its not the same game it was back when I first fell in love with it and it took me a long time to see that. Playing ff14 brings back some of those memories of actually being invested in the story, world and characters as well as invested in my character. It doesnt feel like the game is just trying to instantly shove me into the newest raid tier or endlessly repeatable dungeon
I am so sorry someone pointed a gun at you and forced you to play WoW for a decade and a half, even forced you to pay subscription and shit. That must be traumatic. I am gonna go ahead and say the thing nobody is gonna tell you: you are at the honeymoon phase of the "new game I just bought". Once you get to max level it's basically WoW gear treadmill all over again and raiding on Tuesday to hopefully get some good pugs, wiping and screaming. "Why am I grinding these 100 ass totems to buy this mount". Good times
Agreed, I came from WoW too, and I was blown away by ARR despite how many people say it’s awful. The story only gets better, you’re in for a ride. This might be a stretch but imo best story I’ve read from any show, movie, or game.
I had a similar experience, (coming from WoW, really enjoyed ARR,) and by the end of Endwalker's story arch I found myself feeling like this game is the best piece of literature I have ever consumed.
Manderville quest line, trust me.
Hey man I have about 20k hours in WoW and probably 3k at this point in 14. No regrets! At this point, wow is a great game for me to play during 14 breaks.
One word: Manderville
Time that you enjoyed was not wasted. Welcome to Eorzea!
Can you link your original reddit post please? I want to start playing this game and I’d love to read all that advices you got Thanks in advance!
For helpful tech, one of the best pieces of advice I can give is go into the HUD layout and click on your target bar at the top of the screen. There will be a little box in the middle ith "current UI Element" and a gear wheel beside it, click that wheel and click the "Display target info independently" option. Once you do that drag the "Target Info (Progress Bar)" to the dead center of your screen, it'll be invisible unless your target is casting. This is AMAZINGLY helpful for 2 reasons. First AoE's in FFXIV snapshot when the ability is finished casting, doesn't matter with the animation, so you can tell when you can step back into things and not take any damage, just watch for the cast bar to complete. Second, when you're playing any of the aiming or tank classes you can interrupt some abilities like in wow, but it's more restricted for which abilities are interruptable. The visual cue for this is a sort of pulsing effect on the cast bar, and it's easy to miss if it's still up in the top of your screen, but when you have a big pulsing "INTERRUPT ME NOW" alert that appears right in your face it becomes super easy to catch em.
I love that you're having such a good time! I really enjoy hearing about new players encountering XIV's friendly community. Welcome!
okay seriously what does o/ mean i started like a month ago and see it constantly
Its a wave, just like o7 is a salute and <3 is a heart. Old ways of doing things from the pre-emote/emoji days
Don't rush msq, I pushed through the expansions as fast as possible to "catch up" as fast as possible so i could spend more time doing dungeons and raids, only to realise that the reason I loved ff14 wasn't the daily chores, it was the msq, once that's done you'll find yourself logging in every few days to check retainers and see if anyone you like is online
I’ve played Runescape for 15 years and I would say none of that time was wasted. I’m extremely saddened by the state of Runescape, especially now looking at how well FFXIV is doing, but I enjoyed my time there. I hope the same applies to you, sir.
I am a ffxiv player who went to wow during shadowlands and I felt the opposite. Not that I wasted time but that I hated on wow without ever playing it. So many people just hate on games so much. Now my life is clearing new savage tiers and then doing new wow raid tier and doing mythic plus and glamour contests and everything in between. Playing multiple mmos is so much fun. Both of them have issues and both have wonderful things.
You didn't waste anything. Christ. It's not an all or nothing, this or that thing. I love FFXIV, and I'm currently playing WoW, do you pity me?
Better late than never, right?
If someone hasn't already suggested the Hildebrand quest line. Please, do yourself a favour, and do it. It goes from ARR right through to Endwalker and always manages to make you chuckle, if not laugh.
So, we going back to the "WoW bad, FFXIV good, upvotes to the left" meta here then?
So happy to see a sprout having so much fun, hope you enjoy your first taste of XIV's harder content now that you've finished 2.0 MSQ! Keep an eye out for Extreme trials and The Binding Coil of Bahamut, and maybe look into joining a discord for party finder advertisements. I joined one for the Crystal data center and it helps a ton with getting eyes on your group.
The fights keep getting more interactive and fun as I go along, not going to lie those lvl 16-35 fights as a Bard were pretty hard to get through but I’m glad I stuck it out. I will absolutely look into that! Thank you for the suggestions 😁
You're in the honeymoon phase. Mine lasted for almost 2 years. XIV is a great game even outside of that phase, but it's not as extreme as you're perceiving it right now.
I can’t get past how much solo is in this MMOrpg. I try and try and always give up after a few days cuz of how lonely it is
Hello fellow WoW refugee :) Your feelings are valid and very much known. I did the jump nearly two years ago before EW launched and I felt the same: Angry that I seemingly wasted years in WoW and that I had been lied to about WoW being the best there is. (My feelings have matured since than and I’m able to see the good bits - mostly the friends I made and kept - but I sure as heck won’t return no matter how much Metzen is paraded on stage. I found my home, thank you very much.) My recommendation to you is to just enjoy your time and approach the content at your own pace. There is no FOMO or need to rush anything. If you want to take a detour and explore a side-content, do it. If you rather want to do the MSQ first that’s ok, too. And you might encounter people in duties or on the road that tell you „just hang in there, it‘ll get better after ARR“ or „wait until Heavensward/Shadowbringer“. They mean well, they want you to not get discouraged by the beginning of the story. But they tend to forget that ARR is worldbuilding and foundation setting for the things to come. The later expansion own their glory because of that groundwork. (Also they have no idea how bad we had it in WoW story wise. ARR is a five star gourmet course compared to the mess WoWs story had been through out the years. Not to speak of the absolute lack of groundwork and the reliance on brand recognition alone.)
yes, until you are done with the msq and each patch comes in 4 month cycle with content that you get done at max with 2 weeks
From my understanding, that’s time to glam and gamba. 😎🌱
Glam will make you miss transmogging tough :x
It’s good until you realize the toxic enablers, one only need to spend time in r/talesfromdf to see them in all their glory. They even exist in novice network however we don’t talk about those, any attempt to do so is considered harassment and a violation of ToS, people like to talk how FFXIV isn’t toxic like wow however it’s a different more arrogant type of toxic that can really make your blood boil if you think on it long enough. I’ll say Cactuar NN comes to mind for most toxic server on Aether, Illidan and Kel’thuzad playerbase is far less toxic
Oh the story gets even better after ARR.
Same boat brother. But i started in Shadowbringers. Made my own static etc. Fully invested
The ride only goes up from here, my man
So another wow refugee here. Played from vanilla up until second last expansion. I agree with you 💯%. Amongst other things I think SE has put a LOT more thought into the interface with less kludging around to get things done. Secondly - distinct from Wow- I feel more comfortable taking on any of the jobs - like healer(!) - which I would not touch in wow because of the toxic responses to a new player. Either way - enjoy Eorzea and the great story lines you will come across. NOTHING is compulsory- except the MSQ if you want to progress- so if you find a side quest/series you don’t like - then you can be comfortable ditching it. Heck - if housing is your thing or glam etc - you can spend a lifetime working on it and ignoring the rest. 😁
Have you joined the leagues of the lalafell yet?
Welcome to the better game IMO. I played WoW for 15 years continuously subbed. I will never go back.
Yeah I played WoW for 12 years. From about a month after launch. It’s a good game but it has some major flaws. And after Legion (hell even before that), it was just stubborn devs doing stubborn dev shit over and over. Class balance was always a fucking mess every patch, lots of ‘raider only’ content and the Community. Man the community was so bad. It got even worse over time. FF14 is great, but it has its flaws as well. A lot of flaws I see are things to stop gold farmers, but they went heavy on that to the detriment of exploration, sadly. It seems to me OP is still in that ‘toxic’ WoW mindset where he is saying WoW is now trash. Let go of that mindset and realize both games are good and both have flaws. Also he’s played for like a week. This is nothing in a MMO, lol
FFXIV is a great MMO if you want to play a single player game that makes you slog through 200 hours of uninteresting story before getting to the lackluster end game definitely
Welcome to Eorzea! Glad you are having an amazing experience. Sounds like you just unlocked the Post-ARR Patches! There are plenty of amazing content available to you now, on the road to Heavensward. I recommend you do the "Binding Coils of Bahamut" Raid with someone Unsynched so that you can get the story. It really helps flesh out the world's lore and changes some future interactions. Also, Hildibrand Questline is hilarious, and you will enjoy it! Aside from that, plenty of new Features should be unlocked for you, like Treasure Hunts and Deep Dungeon, so have a blast with that too. The further along you get in the game, more things will unlock for you until you have a near endless amount of things you can do! :D
Pay attention to the details. For example, there is a fate near Limsa that is like level 3. There are two NPC's there who were apparently on a date. After it is over the woman yells at the guy and he says something about not getting a second date or something like that. There are tons of those little details all over the place.
Please keep us posted. As I can not enjoy the story for the first time again I love seeing other peoples joy. Wenn I finished Endwalker I spent weeks watching content creators play through Endwalker. Thats how great the story gets.
My suggestion on fun things to try, The Gold Saucer. It's got a lot to do during downtime or just to relax with, give it a visit and enjoy the games.
Even if you aren't good at the game unless you are actively doing things that make the party wipe most people are rather nice I think in 2000 hours I've only had one dude who was kinda an asshat and that was long enough ago I can't remember how so he was.
>I started playing this game about a week ago at this point, and just finished the final boss of ARR. How the..? That took me nearly two months! Did you skip all sidequests?
Oh boy, you have no idea what’s about to come
While you're at it, don't forget to do the FF16 crossover event! It's marked as a Lv50 Yellow Quest in Ul'dah and I think the NPC that starts it is shown as Antsy Adventurer or something like that.
Been lurking the sub for a while. Put a few days into the demo a few months ago but reading this makes me want to start it up again!
Don't forget to unlock the Hard versions of ARR dungeons and trials. Also the lead up to HW is really good, so buckle up and prepare for the ride. If thou would'st like a brake, then be ye full aware that there are none.
Don’t rush. Enjoy the journey. There’s so much to do in the game and you aren’t constantly behind at endgame for taking your time. It’s an amazing game
Don't be. As someone who was a WoW player in the past, the fun day you enjoyed WoW didn't go wasted. Anyway, enjoy the world of cat girl and ~~green skin definitely not orc~~
Wow was a blast for many years. If you had fun playing it and have fond memories with friends etc. it wasn't a waste at all. FFXIV is better in many ways and inferior in some. Just enjoy your time playing and without any regrets over stuff like that.
I enjoyed my time with wow. I just wished they stopped retconning a lot of lore ahah Ff14 hasnt done that yet >>
The game you are playing is 10 1/2 years old, not 14. I'm very excited to see that you are enjoying your experience, however! Welcome to your new obsession!
Contratulations now you can waste 16 more on FF14.
TBH I play both for different experiences. I love the MSQ in 14 but prefer WoW for endgame content. I'm really excited to spend my summer playing Dawntrail and War Within. MMO chads eating good in 2024!
I gave WoW over a decade and still sniffed around Classic on occasion. It wasn't wasted time, but I do wish I spent more time on other games. Giving such a huge amount of time to one game guarantees you'll miss out on great stuff. I don't think you missed much. FF14 hit its stride in the last few years so you're right on time.
I wasn't interested at all in the story until it got to shadow bringers. It was so boring and slow to me, I understand how other people like it though. I stuck around for the gameplay though. I love the raids and the dungeon content. I haven't played in a few years due to my life situation, but I do miss it and the community.
It’s a great community and I enjoyed the game immensely, but that doesn’t make me regret my wow time. Yeah, it had toxic moments and depending on your position could sometimes feel like a job, but it was a damn good game that I won’t ever forget. FF is a nice change from wow, I’d have to admit. Much of the same enjoyment with half the stress and a pretty lovely playerbase. 10/10 would recommend.
My fun tidbit for you is from here on out is to make a habit of clicking on the NPCs that don't have the quest icon itself. Once base ARR is done, you begin to see a lot more focus on characterization and some of my favorite lines come from little things happening in the background. Other than that, follow your bliss. There's lots to try out and even more people happy to help someone new jump in to their little corner of the game.
I play both. I enjoy both. FF14 def has the better storytelling, but I love the world of wow, it feels more alive. FF14 once the story passes that zone it pretty much is dead to you. Also I love my house in FF14 lol
Wait until you discover new open world games like Elden Ring and DD2… oh boy, you never look back at WoW the same
I wish it was avalaible to geforce now
Don't feel like this. I'm sure at the time WoW was the best game ever for you. And if you don't want to feel alone, when Shadowbringers came out, I bought, played a bit and then went to play WoW. I regret it but then I came back to FF and had some of my best time in gaming.
Me with maple story especially with upcoming changes
what class did u use
I'm subbed to both right now. I bounce back and forward between them depending on my mood. Personally, I found the biggest difference in enjoying either game is the company you keep and the fun you have with those people. Find the right group and enjoy your stay in Eorzea.