FF14: A Realm Reborn

[Yegolev]

May 2010 would have been a few months before the beta even. It’s possible he made a Square-Enix account for some other reason although I have no idea what.

Possibly FFXI was the reason. I played that for a minute.

[Velorath]

Was on a bit of a roll with crafting for a bit, and got Alchemist and Carpenter up to 50 and just about everything else up 2-5 levels each. DRG is up to 68 with just a little bit left to go to close out that level so I can move on to the next MSQ.

Also got WHM up a few more levels to 49 and I'm starting to realize that the other big issue I have with leveling up through the duty roulette is that it doesn't really help you learn your class. Sub-50 the only option you get is the leveling roulette, but a lot of the time you end up in really low level dungeons where you're stuck with only a few of your abilities and things are really easy. I'm not getting any sort of progression in difficulty and I'm not really learning how to use new abilities effectively as I get them. I'm leveling quickly though I guess.

I'm thinking the better course of action might be to level up by queuing for the highest level dungeons I have access to at the time. You lose out on the bonus roulette exp, but you can at least look up the dungeon you're queuing for, and also do appropriate level content. I'll save the roulettes when I've trying to close out a level on DRG. At least with DPS I can generally muddle through something even if I'm not entirely familiar with it.

[Reg]

I've been leveling BLM and WHM since I came back to the game and I stopped doing the roulette in the early 40s and started to pick out the higher level dungeons that made me use my full abilities. I honestly haven't noticed any big slowing of my progress since then and being able to concentrate on dungeons that make me use rarely used powers like esuna has been helpful.

At 50 you get a whole bunch of quests that make you infiltrate the deepest dankest parts of enemy bases to steal something. I swear I don't know what I'd do if I could use gatherer's Stealth to get where I need to go. Then I switch to the class of my quest, steal the object and teleport out. Usually with no fighting at all.

[RhyssaFireheart]

I've been leveling BLM and WHM since I came back to the game and I stopped doing the roulette in the early 40s and started to pick out the higher level dungeons that made me use my full abilities. I honestly haven't noticed any big slowing of my progress since then and being able to concentrate on dungeons that make me use rarely used powers like esuna has been helpful.

At 50 you get a whole bunch of quests that make you infiltrate the deepest dankest parts of enemy bases to steal something. I swear I don't know what I'd do if I could use gatherer's Stealth to get where I need to go. Then I switch to the class of my quest, steal the object and teleport out. Usually with no fighting at all.

 
Only because I never thought about doing that before.  Why did I never think of that?

I was on last night finally, hadn't played since Saturday because we'd been having issues with our internet and AT&T decided it was the modem.  So they sent us a new one that didn't arrive until Tuesday.  Husband got it all set up and it's been great since then.  Anyways, decided to take a break from working on the DRG and went into Eureka Anemos for a while with an FC-mate.  Ended up dying a lot because I was in an NM train that was all level 20 except for me at level 13, lol.  I ended up getting an attack tag put on me as a joke since I was apparently monster bait.  Still, I was level 15 by the time I left so that was fun.

Switched over to DRK because I've determined that I'm never getting over my tanking fears/issues if I don't try, so forcing myself to play is the way to go.  I ended up in Aurum Vale, Haukke Manor (Hard), Coldwind Point trial, Lab of the Ancient, random guildhest, Castrum MSQ and things went fairly smoothly.  Aurum Vale was probably the worst because that place is just a PITA in general plus the healer and one DPS were literally on their only jobs and were first timers.  The other DPS had maybe one other job started?  Which meant I was the most experienced player in there, lol!  I've done LotA and the MSQ both so many times that it's easy to tank them, plus at this point in time it's basically a free-for-all anyways.  I am amazed that I know the mechanics better than I think I do, which means at some level I really am paying attention to what's going on.

Mentioned in our FC Discord that while leveling the tank, I'm seeing more of the older dungeons that I don't remember doing or haven't done in ages.  It's actually kind of fun and nice though, to see some of these older places.  Haukke Manor (Hard) ended up being a nice smooth run, despite everyone in the group saying they didn't remember the place.  The Coldwind Point trial - I'd forgotten what I queued for so when we killed the boss and got the rewards, I was surprised.  Because it was and felt really easy.  Not going to complain though, I ended up just barely ticking over to 57 (started at 54.5)  by the time I was done for the night.

[RhyssaFireheart]

You know, it's bad enough when you're tanking and you get an impatient DPS who keeps pulling stuff ahead of you because they want to speed run the dungeon or something.

It's even more extra annoying when the freaking healer is doing it for... reasons?  I dunno.  Especially since we did wipe once because they were being so impatient, and I was trying to gather three different groups of mobs into one spot to start fighting them down, and oh yeah, the roaming mob that you can't target caught us, so it wasn't good (Wandering Palace with the Tonberry stalker).  The thing that pissed me off the most though was the damn healer "rescued" me a few times to pull me farther long the path when I was trying to finish a mob off.  Yeah, that shit ain't nice. 

But on the plus side, I'm level 59 now on my DRK which means I'm that much closer to 60 and moving up into another level of dungeons and raids.  Which is scary but oh well.  I'll figure it out.

Discovered levemetes for gathering and those have been terrific to get my BTN up to level 43 already.  I could do the same for WVR but that involves using my own materials and it gets pricey fast doing that.  Especially since I had to drop so much money on doing my WVR job quest (let's make a hat using not common mats and it has to be HQ!).  I'll just stick to the Moggle quests and level that way.

[Reg]

Towards 50 weaver gets very, very expensive unless you have the right gathering and craft classes to support it. On the other hand at 50 you can make stuff that sells easily for 10--30k on the market. I'm very glad that I got botany and fishing to 50. Having them at that level made it cheap and easy to level culinarian, weaver and carpenter. At the high levels I routinely left my weaver class quests undone until I had outlevelled them by at least four or five. It's the only way I was actually able to make the HQ items I needed without spending 30-50k for them on the market. BTW, I found that it was fairly cheap to buy upgraded weaver tools and clothing on the market. So there's usually no need to rush that class quest just to get the new toys.

My plan is to get mining to 50 next and then go to work on the metal using crafts.

I think I need to get a little further along the main questline before I'll be able to get my crafts much past 50 now.

[Rendakor]

Rhyssa, stuff like that is why I gave up on my 50 WAR when I came back. Tanking in this game isn't a lot of fun as-is, nevermind impatient DPS (and healers, apparently) insisting on speed runs.

[RhyssaFireheart]

The really sad thing was I did outlevel the weaver quest by like 3 levels and it was still a pain in the arse to do.  Didn't help that I had to make a "holy rainbow" HQ item and I mistakenly made a "rainbow" item not once, but twice (a different item each time)!  Ugh.  I'm gong back to ignoring the weaver job quests again for a long while.  I do need to eventually figure out scripts and what they're for since that seems to be a big thing along with collectibles.

Rendakor - I've mostly enjoyed the tanking as I've done it more, but one annoying run makes things seem bad.  I'm mostly doing this so that I can get DRK to 80 (*shudder*) and do that role quest line.  Once you've done all four role quests in ShB, there's apparently another quest to do that explains some things about Ardbert and his team.  That is literally the only reason I'm leveling a tank even though I'm really dreading tanking any of the 70+ content.  It'll be a long while before I go back to pick up any of the other tanks.

[Velorath]

Finally got through all the SB MSQ stuff and have gotten into ShB. SB's story was ok but it was more of the same of building alliances to fight back against the Garlean Empire. ShB's so far seems a lot more interesting at least early on, and there's even a bit of horror to it (the Sin Eaters). Nice change of pace so far.

I've been ignoring a lot of the crafter job quests. I know I'll have to catch up on them again at some point, but I didn't really get some of the nuances of crafting until recently (there's a guide out there that's like 400 pages). I just want to get everything to 50 first (except fishing which is lagging behind) at which point I think it will be easier to start leveling everything up at the same time again. I've heard that 1-50 is a bigger pain than post-50. We'll see.

Tanking for me might just end up being a command mission/trust thing for most of the leveling.

[RhyssaFireheart]

Tanking for me might just end up being a command mission/trust thing for most of the leveling.

Don't forget PotD / HoH for tanking.  I think I've already decided that I'll likely use trusts when I tank post-70 content.  If only to get more familiar with any mechanics so I don't make a fool of myself.  Plus, it'll level up the trust team as well.

[Goldenmean]

Leveling crafting classes definitely gets easier as you go along. I just got everyone to 80 after having some still down in the 40s going in to Shadowbringers. Definitely unlock the moogle dailies for 51-60 if you haven't already (it's a gigantic non-obvious PITA questline. One of the few things that adds content that doesn't have the different styled quest icons calling attention to them, though maybe they've fixed that now?). The Namazu quests for 61-70 are a lot more obvious from my recollection. On top of that, you can guarantee a metric buttload of xp by doing the weekly turn-ins, which also give you a pretty good chunk of crafting scrip you can use to buy gear/materia to help you on the way even more.

The Crystarium quests for 71-80 are also all like a guaranteed level each, and it feels like the xp you get from crafting levequests is better in that range also. It probably helped that by that time I could entirely self craft my own BiS gear and do 1 button guaranteed HQ from NQ components macros.

[Velorath]

Tanking for me might just end up being a command mission/trust thing for most of the leveling.

Don't forget PotD / HoH for tanking.  I think I've already decided that I'll likely use trusts when I tank post-70 content.  If only to get more familiar with any mechanics so I don't make a fool of myself.  Plus, it'll level up the trust team as well.

I'm ok with PotD but I'm less a fan of HoH. Might be a necessary evil though as the highest command mission dungeon is 60.

[Yegolev]

Wife and I had our first real session this past weekend, and we have questions. So many questions.

I'd like to get into whatever in-game group you guys are in. Can't speak for her but I think it would help me deflate my ignorance.

[Rendakor]

We're all scattered on different world groups I believe. I'm on Diabolos with a few RL friends.

[RhyssaFireheart]

Wife and I had our first real session this past weekend, and we have questions. So many questions.

I'd like to get into whatever in-game group you guys are in. Can't speak for her but I think it would help me deflate my ignorance.

Don't really have anything in-game for all of us since several are cross data centers.  Cadaverine was also on Faerie so I got them into my FC.  Siren is the same DC so we could possibly do a linkshell but those don't cross data centers, so it would basically be me and anyone else on the Aether DC that wanted to join.  Definitely willing to answer any questions here if you want to type them out.

Oh, you guys have the sprout next to your names?  Should be able to get an invite to the Novice Network chat channel from a mentor.  That channel is supposed to be for people to ask questions and have mentors respond but it can be very chatty, too.  You're allowed in there until level 60, I think.

I leveled my DRK to 60 (yay!) and my NIN to 54 or 55, can't remember.  Despite all the roulettes looking for tanks or healers, the DPS queues weren't too bad at all.  It's still kind of weird for me when I check the party info and see the other people are legitimately sprouts and this is the only char they have leveled so far, making me the most experienced player in the group, lol!  I know that's a cosmic joke somehow.

I also farmed a bunch of cotton and diremite webs so I could craft glamour prisms.  Did that so I could finally just toss all my class gear (the level 50, 60, and 70 job specific stuff) into the glamour chest and clear out some inventory on my retainers.  After a certain point, I didn't even bother to open the gear chests you get as a reward because I had no space and after leveling up other jobs, it's easy to already have better gear to wear.  And I'm annoyed that you can only put the level 50 gear into the armoire and not the level 60 or 70 stuff.  Opened up a fair amount of space and I still don't think I'm at 200/400 pieces in there yet.

[Yegolev]

My wife asked me what a FC was, and I said Football Club.  #atlutd

[RhyssaFireheart]

My wife asked me what a FC was, and I said Football Club.  #atlutd

 

I still call it a guild and occasionally, FC-mates ask what I mean making me want to rage at them.  But then I tell myself they might not have played any other MMO before so Free Company is all they know.  And then I cry.

[Yegolev]

Maybe it will make you feel better (?) to know that my wife says FFXIV completely ripped off LotRO, which is the only other MMO she has played.

It probably does not.

She basically recreated her character from LotRO, which I find lends itself to her argument. Of course, I know it's because both MMO designers and Japanese are unable to deviate from the original EQ design. The standing nail is driven.

We don't know what soulbound means, how to get it, or why it matters if it is reset to zero.

[RhyssaFireheart]

We don't know what soulbound means, how to get it, or why it matters if it is reset to zero.

You mean spiritbond for your armor?  It's really only used for converting an item to materia once the bond is at 100% (if it's something that can be converted).  Otherwise it really doesn't seem to have any effect.  I think having the spiritbond at 100% helps you get extra items if you're synthesizing something as well but I haven't done that too much.

https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Spiritbond - apparently there's a science to getting your items bound to you.  Oh, and having 1% spiritbond means an item can't be sold on the market board anymore, too.

[Rendakor]

It seems you get some spiritbond for every mob you kill, and once you've killed at least one mob it binds the item so you can't trade/sell it.

[Yegolev]

Super. We are already mystified by the various ways that equipment can become untradeable.

[RhyssaFireheart]

Super. We are already mystified by the various ways that equipment can become untradeable.

Yeah, you pretty much get used to it, tbh.  OTOH, once you join a Grand Company, you can sell all that pink/green/blue gear to the supply sergeant (or whatever their name is) in exchange for GC seals and then use the seals to buy items.  Or just sell to any merchant and get coin for them.  There's a lot or gear that is untradeable which is really frustrating, but since you can have any job on the same character, holding on to gear for other jobs is viable as well.  I forget what level you need to be and which quest you have to complete, but you also get two free retainers to use to sell items on the mb.  And they can hold gear as well if you want to keep it for another job.

[Yegolev]

My wife and I won't be joining any groups, Grand or otherwise. Too much social anxiety. Although in my case it's both anxiety and the firm belief that people suck. Online, at least. I'll drink a beer with anyone.

I might join one, though, if the plusses outweigh the minuses. Normally my best friend and I just create our own group. In Warframe, we are in a 2-person clan. In Martyr, we are in a 2-person Cabal. Unfortunately for us, you need 4 people to create a football club in FFXIV.

[Trippy]

You can always dual-box

[RhyssaFireheart]

Grand Companies don't grant you anything but the ability to take some quests and buy/sell items at the GC main offices - no interactions with other people required.

FCs can be solo-ish, depending on how active one you join.  They also have buffs they can put up every 24 hours (so basically can run around the clock).  At rank 8 our FC usually has the teleport one (gives a discount on teleporting around) and the leveling one (earn 10% extra XP in battle) which is pretty nice. 

If you just want an FC with your wife, I'm willing to create a character over on Siren to be a dead body.  We'd need another person to be the fourth though.  I have alts on other servers/DCs and I think the highest is like level 15 max.  I'm barely managing to level my main over on Faerie in a coordinated manner, much less worry about alts anywhere else, lol!

[Yegolev]

You can always dual-box

Which is funny as I am downloading the free trial on my MBP. However... no. 

Apparently I can get a free teleport to a location of my choice by using 2FA.

[Rendakor]

As Rhyssa said, Grand Companies are more like NPC factions than player guilds; I don't actually think you can avoid joining one, as they're important to the story, but I could be wrong.

[01101010]

As Rhyssa said, Grand Companies are more like NPC factions than player guilds; I don't actually think you can avoid joining one, as they're important to the story, but I could be wrong.

No you are correct. The MSQ makes you pick one.

[Yegolev]

Do I need to pay real money to become a White/Black Mage?

[01101010]

Do I need to pay real money to become a White/Black Mage?

I believe so. IIRC, you unlock that stuff at lvl 30 and that is when the free stuff ends.

[RhyssaFireheart]

Do I need to pay real money to become a White/Black Mage?

I believe so. IIRC, you unlock that stuff at lvl 30 and that is when the free stuff ends.

I thought the free trial takes you to 35 and jobs convert at level 30.  So you can get a taste of the job in the free trial but that's about it.

I made little to no progress on leveling jobs this weekend because... I have no idea.  Right now, my inventory bags are so full I can't even change to RDM.  I can change to every other job I have available BUT red mage.  Which means I need to clean some crap out of my armory bags and figure out what to do with it.  Really, inventory management is what pisses me off the most.  I did manage to do the Eden raid questline almost by accident.  I didn't realized that's what I'd picked up before I started doing the quest and then it was BOOMdone.  The Titan 8-man raid was some very, very painful learning curve stuff and I didn't do so well.  The Leviathan one was pretty fun as was the other ones.  So I don't think I'll mind doing them.

Oh, I take it back - I leveled up a char on Siren (Wikked Whyte - because I can't use "Wicked White" as a name, it's not allowed) to 7-8-ish.  And I leveled another char that I have on Faerie that I started so I could do the MSQ as a male to see the changes, got my GLD to 27 before I ran out of rested bonus.  It goes so dang quick at the lower levels.

[01101010]

Do I need to pay real money to become a White/Black Mage?

I believe so. IIRC, you unlock that stuff at lvl 30 and that is when the free stuff ends.

I thought the free trial takes you to 35 and jobs convert at level 30.  So you can get a taste of the job in the free trial but that's about it.

Ah that's sounds right... I might be thinking of the original level cap on a trial account... or I could just be drunk.

[Yegolev]

I already bought the thing. This information may change previous answers.

Our next question is: What is the function of the Poor, Good, Excellent information when crafting something?

[Goldenmean]

Our next question is: What is the function of the Poor, Good, Excellent information when crafting something?

It changes the amount of quality you get when you use a quality increasing skill that turn. Poor decreases it. Good increases it, and Excellent increases it a ridiculous amount, but is always followed up by a poor.

[Velorath]

Finally got DRG to 80 and finished up the MSQ (and the DRG lv. 80 job quest). The story had some lulls in it but overall it was pretty good. Don't know if I feel like continuing to play now or to take another break from it until more content is out. I generally don't have much interest in doing raids.

I was leveling Paladin up a bit because I generally like the look of Pally gear, but my god was it boring to play. Mechanically, I like Gunbreaker, but conceptually it feels less like a defined FF Job and more like an FFVIII reference if that makes any sense. Still I leveled Gunbreaker up a couple levels doing HoH and had an ok time doing it.