Final Fantasy 14 (FFXIV) beginner's guide: Quick tips for new players

Ffxiv 31072021 090159 Source: Windows Central

Final Fantasy Fourteen has seen a flake of a surge lately on the back of a weak offer from competing MMO, World of Warcraft. That's not entirely off-white to country, however. FFXIV didn't exactly do anything dissimilar that it hasn't already been doing for years, only more and more players are eager to try information technology for the first time, seeking greener pastures.

FFXIV is a massively multiplayer online RPG set across a multifariousness of persistent world servers. The game has a generous free trial offering, only generally costs around $6 per month to assist pay for the costs of its servers. Not everybody fancies paying for a subscription-based MMO, only I find the constant refresh of content, deject-based servers, and loftier-quality ongoing development to exist more than worth the request price.

FFXIV borrows from the various Final Fantasy games over the ages, and fifty-fifty features content from other games such every bit Monster Hunter and NieR:Automata. You'll do battle with legendary dragons such every bit Bahamut, consort with iconic figures like Shiva and Cid, and dive into a complex political intrigue spanning nations. The story is probably the best part of FFXIV (for me, so far), which is delivered via an affluence of in-game cutscenes, complete with choreographed scenes and frequent vocalisation interim. Even so, getting to the real meat of FFXIV can be an incredible uphill slog for newcomers, specially those used to other types of games (or even other MMOs).

As a newbie "sprout" myself, hither are some of the tips and tricks I wish I knew when I initially went into the game.

Journey to Eorzea

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FFXIV: Consummate Edition

Final Fantasy MMO

Final Fantasy Xiv is a leading MMO ready in the world of Eorzea. Filled with creatures and characters from Final Fantasy legend, FFXIV has taken a place at the top of the MMO pack in recent years, attributable to high-quality story delivery and spectacular gainsay and raids.

FFXIV: Picking a class

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Final Fantasy XIV differs from some other MMOs out there past letting you train multiple grapheme classes at one time. In FFXIV, classes are known as jobs," inspired by classic Final Fantasy games, and come in a variety of roles and playstyles.

Some jobs first as a basic version, and through story progression graduate into more avant-garde jobs. For example, to play as the classic Dragoon or Black Mage jobs of other Final Fantasy games, you must start as a Lancer or a Thaumaturge respectively.

Different previous MMO Final Fantasy XI, your chose race is purely cosmetic in FFXIV, and has no begetting on your capabilities in battle. Some jobs are likewise restricted to certain expansions, and can only exist unlocked after progressing through the story to that bespeak.

We have a full guide on every job in FFXIV here, but here'southward an overview of the main roles yous can undertake in FFXIV.

Tanks

Tanking classes are classic MMO staples. If you pick a tank, you're a defender and lead the groups by keeping the monster's attention firmly on y'all. By generating loftier "enmity," you ensure that enemies target you commencement, rather than the less defensive damage dealing and healing classes, who can't really take many hits (if whatsoever) from larger enemies. Tanks also bargain moderately good damage too, contributing to the overall harm output of the grouping.

Marauder/Warrior: Starting as the Marauder, the Warrior class is the quintessential MMO staple. Rocking a two-handed axe, you'll charge into boxing first while defending your allies with powerful attacks.
Guardian/Paladin: Wielding a sword and shield, the Paladin is a more magical variant of the Warrior, using holy magic to augment your force and prowess.
Night Knight: The opposite of a Paladin, a Dark Knight labors for justice using their inner torment equally a weapon. Dark magic coupled with the power to steal health from enemies keeps you alive against threats that would vanquish others.
Gunbreaker: One of the newer classes, the Gunbreaker is inspired past Squall of Last Fantasy Seven. Using a unique gunblade, rapid technical attacks make quick work of enemies.

Healers

Healers are responsible for keeping the group alive. Various types of damage tin hit your party in combat, ranging from unavoidable passive expanse of effect (AoE) damage to direct hits that can rip chunks out of your tank's wellness puddle. Managing your mana points (MP) and gauging which heals to utilize how and when is the hallmark of a good healer, and the classes of FFXIV offer a good variety for getting stuck in.

Conjurer/White Mage: The reverse of the more destructive Black Mage, the White Mage is a holy-oriented caster that uses a variety of spells to repair wounds and defend the party from damage.
Arcanist/Scholar: Scholars are studious healers who utilise their knowledge of the arcane to mitigate damage. Wielding an apocryphal book of knowledge, the Scholar is a formidable defender that tin also summon faerie sprites to aid allies.
Astrologian: Astrologians are a newer healing form that uses their knowledge of the stars and zodiac to conjure mystical healing spells.

Damage Dealers (DPS)

DPS (harm-per-second) classes are the spear of the group, dealing big amounts of damage to a monster's health pool. They aren't very defensive, though, meaning that their role is to avert as much damage equally possible to maximize their own damage output. Although, like all jobs in FFXIV, they do get some emergency defensive spells on longer cooldown timers.

Thaumaturge/Black Mage: Blackness Mages are the iconic wizards of the Concluding Fantasy earth, wielding spells like Fire, Blizzard, and Thunder to dish out massive amounts of impairment from range. They are generally squishy, though, and quick to die when targeted. They're as well liable to losing DPS if forced to move around.
Machinist: Among the newer classes, the Machinist is a technician that uses a gun and other ranged mechanical tools to bargain harm.
Lancer/Dragoon: The Dragoon is a risk-taking damage dealer who wields a lance and the power of the dragons themselves. The Dragoon is an agile damage dealer for those who like to get up close and personal.
Rogue/Ninja: The Ninja is some other close-range damage dealer who uses twin daggers and ninjutsu magic to acceleration foes.
Samurai: The Samurai is an advanced harm dealer who uses a large 2-handed katana and blade combos, dishing large amounts of harm with effortless manner to boot.
Ruby Mage: The Red Mage is another Final Fantasy staple that combines close-range sword fighting with long-range spell-slinging, creating a hybridized playstyle that combines aspects of melee, white magic, and black magic.
Archer/Bard: Using songs to inspire party members, the Bard is an archer class that fights from range. A unique song approximate grants potent buffs to your political party, aiding every level of gainsay.
Arcanist/Summoner: The summoner is a unique pet-oriented range class that calls upon powerful elemental creatures to aid them in battle.

Miscellaneous

Blue Mage: The Blue Mage is a solo-oriented job that can't participate in regular events or dungeons. Instead, the Blueish Mage has its own storyline and unique challenge modes, which offer decent rewards. Blue Mage largely revolves around its unique spell-acquisition system, which has players hunting down mobs throughout the game to steal abilities from. This is in some ways side-content for those who desire to try something dissimilar.

FFXIV: Configuring your HUD

Ffxiv Guide Source: Windows Fundamental

Final Fantasy 14 and MMOs in full general are notorious for their complex user interface (also known equally UI or HUD). MMORPGs characteristic diverse intersecting and overlapping systems, making them quite daunting for newcomers. While the UI can be daunting at commencement, information technology doesn't take as well long to learn, and comes with a ton of customizability for your own unique playstyle.

You can customize the UI in FFXIV by hitting ESC, and selecting "Customize HUD," this gives you a new mode that lets you lot move around UI elements, resize them to your liking, including the ability to hide them completely. Here are some tips on how to customize your HUD.

General UI elements: Nigh things like the map, your hitting points, and and so on probably don't demand to be moved effectually unless y'all're avant-garde and want to effort something new. You can, however, alter their size by selecting an element, then hitting the cogwheel icon and changing its scale.

Ffxiv Guide Source: Windows Central

Chat logs: The chat log in the bottom left shows all the letters from various players and system features. It tin can go extremely busy, though, especially if you join a Free Company (similar to a guild or a association, with friends). What I do is add a second log for "social" messages, separately from the other i. To do this, hit the + symbol adjacent to the chat box at the bottom. Then, y'all can hit the cogwheel icon to configure filters for each tab. I filter out everything except tells, complimentary company chat, party and raid chat, and linkshell chatter in the top box, and leave everything else going on as usual in the bottom ane.
Hot bars: These are your chief ability bars, generally beyond the bottom of your UI. Y'all can assign keybinds to your liking via the ESC carte. I by and large use WASD for motility (using the right mouse button to plow my grapheme). I then assign 1, 2, 3, 4, Q, E, R, F, and combinations of left Shift and left Ctrl every bit modifiers on those buttons to add together more than spells. You get two hotbars by default, but I ready a third hotbar to the side for things like potions and random actress abilities. By the end of the game, yous may observe you need three ability hotbars too, due to the large volume of spells some job roles get.

FFXIV: Leveling period: quests to accept, and quests to skip

Ffxiv Quest Source: Windows Cardinal

Final Fantasy Fourteen features relatively linear progression, at least to begin with. It's a heavily story-based MMORPG with a single-threaded main story quest (also known every bit the MSQ), which is required play for unlocking dungeons, raids, jobs, and other content. The MSQ should exist your primary focus as yous play. The main story quest is symbolized with a fiery exclamation marker, and is also depicted in the top left corner of your screen at all times. There are a variety of quest types, though. Here'south a quick explainer.

The easiest way to find where the quest objective is to open your periodical (J key by default), select a quest, then hit the map. Clicking on the map and teleporting to the nearest aetherite (a blueish crystal symbol) will assistance you get to where you need to go the quickest, although you need to have physically traveled in that location on human foot the commencement fourth dimension.

Main scenario quest (MSQ): The MSQ is the real meat of FFXIV, giving you story context, dungeon unlocks, boss battles, trial events, gear upgrades, and more. Since FFXIV is at present moving into its fourth expansion, the MSQ gives you a mountain of EXP while playing, plenty that you tin can level ii or even three jobs side by side quite comfortably without really touching whatever side quests. EXP gains are boosted for older content to aid players become upwardly to speed, although y'all may detect that you have to explore additional dungeon runs or side quests while leveling into the latest expansion.
Job quests: Underneath the MSQ banner on the top left, y'all may as well see a smaller quest below it. This indicates that you take a new task story quest available. Task quests unlock new abilities, advantage chore-styled gear, and more. Generally, a new chore quest is unlocked every few levels, and the game will notify you when a new one has become available.
Side quests with unlocks: When you meet a quest marking with a blue color and a + symbol inside information technology, that denotes some form of unlockable content. This can be a new job to unlock, a new gameplay characteristic similar materia, crafting, or aether currents for learning flying. It may unlock a new dungeon or a raid, and various other things. Generally, if you see a blue quest marking with a + symbol, it'due south worth checking out.
Regular side quests: Standard golden quest markers are side quests. The vast majority of these are skippable, since they don't reward skilful EXP, and generally don't have interesting rewards. Some offer dances, emotes, and other "fun" things here and at that place. Nonetheless, besides lore, the vast majority aren't worth doing unless you find yourself admittedly starved of EXP.

FFXIV: Dungeons, raids, and gearing up

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The cornerstone of whatsoever self-respecting MMO is the dungeoneering layer. Beyond the main overworld, most areas are attached to a dungeon or two, denoted as a bluish cave entrance symbol on the map. Near of these are unlocked via the master scenario quest, although a few (especially in the case of difficult modes) must be unlocked through side quests that announced as and when you lot encounter the criteria (generally a specific level).

You lot can queue upward for whatsoever dungeon you've unlocked past opening the duty tab (U by default). This gives you the ability to queue for specific dungeons and raids, teleporting y'all into them once a suitable party has been matchmade. Additionally, there are duty roulettes and daily quests you can undertake, rewarding tomestones that tin be traded in for gear starting at level 50 (from an NPC in Revenant's Price, Mor Dhona). Group content in FFXIV are dissever betwixt linear 4-actor dungeons, 4- and 8-man boss events chosen trials, eight-man raids, and 24+ player raid alliances. There are a few "raids" required for the main story quest which don't necessarily reward boodle, just may give you tomestones for trading in for gear.

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Dungeons in FFXIV are fairly easy for the virtually part, at least until you start getting deeper into hard and extreme difficulty trials and modes. For beginners, here are a few tips:

If you're DPS, brand sure you let the tank lead, and let the tank engage combat. Mostly, you want to attack the target the tank is focusing on. If you pull enmity (agro), yous'll take a lot of damage, and make things more hard for the healer.
If y'all have time, it's worth taking a quick glance at boss tactics earlier entering a new dungeon by searching for the proper name of the dungeon in your favorite search engine. If you're entering college-end content, studying the tactics more in-depth becomes more necessary.
Near bosses telegraph their attacks with a cast bar or blitheness. Effort to avoid all expanse of event attacks (AoE) by moving as presently as you lot encounter orange damage markers appear on the floor.
If yous're tanking, it's worth moving the enemy list in the HUD to somewhere more visible, as it makes it easier to track when adds spawn for choice upwardly.
In larger raids, some bosses put a debuff on the tank that causes them to take increased damage. The second tank should use provoke in this scenarios in what is generally known as a "tank swap" to mitigate incoming damage, and make life easier for the healers.
In dungeons, don't be agape to use cooldowns frequently. This is especially truthful for tanks. If yous're willing to apply your big damage mitigation cooldowns frequently, y'all can make larger pulls and assist the dungeon run go faster. You lot should try to make sure they're off cooldown for the boss battles, though.

FFXIV: The hereafter

Final Fantasy Xiv Endwalker Dragon Source: Foursquare Enix

The next big FFXIV expansion is called Endwalker, and volition serve to circular off the master story that revolves effectually the crystal Hydaelyn, a deity that bestows the player character and their allies with the ability of Light. Endwalker will add new areas, new content, new bosses, and new classes.

Endwalker adds the Sage healer job and the Reaper melee DPS job, equally well as a male person Viera (bunny people) playable race. The level cap increases from eighty to 90, extending the story into new zones and areas. Some of the new trials include the summon Anima, who debuted in Final Fantasy Ten. It will likewise add Oceania data centers, and also give players the ability to play with friends from other continents, due to broad server upgrades. Endwalker volition as well add together a new "Island Sanctuary" system, which looks to be inspired past the likes of Animal Crossing, where players can enjoy a coincidental solo feel.

Final Fantasy 14 has completely hooked me as I sought greener pastures attributable to the refuse of one of the best multiplayer PC games. The customs has been incredibly warm and welcoming, and fifty-fifty eager to encourage and assist accommodate new players.

I program to aggrandize this guide further in the futurity, so if in that location are any oversights or tips you'd like more information on, driblet your questions in the comments, and I'll exist certain to respond them.

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