FFXIV: catch all

Not quite. On April 23rd, a new Data Center will be added that's called Crystal. It will pull servers from Aether and Primal, so if you're concerned about matchmaking with Midgardsormr, you might want to plan ahead and pick a server that's not going to get moved from Aether to Crystal.

The good news is that after this Data Center split, you'll be able to visit and play on other servers in the Data Center fairly freely, as I understand it.

That's right, I forgot about the Data Center changes coming soon.

Whelp, started it up tonight. I'm on Zalera as they are giving bonus XP for folks who join it. It was on the list with other servers I was considering based on the list Clock linked, and should help me advance through levels faster than I otherwise would.

I have done something I never thought I would do in my life. I chose the Cat Man race. Granted, I did so because GoldenDog had me all ready to pick Rogue and either that class isn't available to that race or it's not part of the vanilla package. Ah well. I chose Lancer anyway, and did... not a lot of quests.

Aesthetically, this is what I want the next Final Fantasy to be. Cripes, if FF16 was just this same world but single player, I'd be totally down. I love the look of the world and I even love seeing a Moogle get drunk off some other dude's booze. But cripes, is it ever an MMO.

I imagine I'll get use to the cluster-truck of UI all over the place, but honestly, it makes me want an MMO designed specifically for consoles rather than one with PC and console in mind. That's probably never gonna happen, but eh. I suppose I'll deal and learn it. Only got to do a bit of combat, but what I've gleaned and looked at reminds me of Xenoblade Chronicles... which makes sense, seeing as that game was effectively a single-player MMO.

I look forward to playing more.

Rogue has a random limitation where it’s only available once you get another class to level 10. It’s available in Limsa Lominsa.

beanman101283 wrote:

Rogue has a random limitation where it’s only available once you get another class to level 10. It’s available in Limsa Lominsa.

Does Blue Mage have a similar limitation for unlock? I know it is available with the base game (though it can't be used for match-made content).

TylorWayne wrote:
beanman101283 wrote:

Rogue has a random limitation where it’s only available once you get another class to level 10. It’s available in Limsa Lominsa.

Does Blue Mage have a similar limitation for unlock? I know it is available with the base game (though it can't be used for match-made content).

You have to have completed the main story in the base game, which requires a job at level 50.

So I'm just about at level 20 after four nights of playing. I still got the newbie experience bonus on the server, though I dunno if that stops at some point. I can tell I'm far beyond what I normally would be at, and have effectively tried to give up optional quests in order to just push forward with story quests. I've ended up spending gil on purchasing armor and stuff because I'm always beyond the level of equipment I'm getting from quests.

I'm both enjoying myself and also feeling like this game model of constantly grabbing quests like a shopping list is supremely obsolete and outdated. It's also weird being in such a public space as this where you're not about to interact with anyone. I wanted to excitedly tell someone that I understood their character name of Merle Fanel was a reference to Escaflowne, but is there really any good way of doing that? No. No there isn't, and thus there's no point.

It's so different from my time playing Destiny in that regard. Instead, I found myself thinking back to Breath of the Wild, and missing how organic exploration felt in that. I started to pick up some smaller details of the environment of Gridania, and I realized that I hadn't been paying attention since I was chasing objective markers. At the same time, could Breath of the Wild's style and approach work in an MMO? Possibly, but no doubt without a lot of modification (after all, BotW has side quests, too).

I dunno. I'm having a good enough time but am not yet convinced I'll be paying for expansions or a monthly subscription.

That opening cinematic is gorgeous, though. Makes me wish Square Enix would make some sort of FFXIV TV show (not Dad of Light) or movie. Instead they went and wasted all their resources on flippin' Kingsglaive.

Anywho, as I said, I'll be trying to speed through the story and Lancer guild quests while ignoring side stuff. I imagine that's the purpose of the experience booster anyway, to both draw players into those servers and also get new players to catch up on content in a hasty manner.

You can use a keyboard on PS4 to make chatting with folks easier if you want. If nothing else it’ll let you give other players a heads-up that you’re new once you start doing dungeons and trials.

Dungeons and trials will always sync you down to the appropriate level, so you don’t have to spend gil on gear if you don’t want. The main quest will keep you geared and early on the Hall of the Novice quests will give you a full set of gear for completing them.

I'm not even touching that stuff right now. I'm not sure how I feel about playing with others yet. I'd much rather play with human beings I know then complete strangers, and I think that's going to be the real thing that determines whether I keep up with FFXIV after my free month.

Somehow, I have even more social anxiety online than I do in person. A complete reversal from high school.

ccesarano wrote:

It's also weird being in such a public space as this where you're not about to interact with anyone. I wanted to excitedly tell someone that I understood their character name of Merle Fanel was a reference to Escaflowne, but is there really any good way of doing that? No. No there isn't, and thus there's no point.

ccesarano wrote:

I'm not even touching that stuff right now. I'm not sure how I feel about playing with others yet.

I think I spotted your problem.

You're saying that being in a public, social space is awkward because you're not interacting with other players, but then you're deliberately avoiding interacting with other players. It's way easier in this game than others to tell Merle Fanel that you like their handle. The chat box is right there.

Likewise, the meat of the game's inter-player interaction are in the dungeons, if you're not in a guild. Tell the other players that you're new! Ask for advice! Unless you're in a trading area, most of the stuff in the overworld (if you will) are just people doing their own things until you get to know each other.

I think what I even failed to grasp is that I myself am feeling contradictory about the social aspect of the game. I want to play with others, but at the same time I perceive all kinds of pressures that may or may not exist, and therefore would rather insist on playing alone than risk putting myself out there. It's funny, because I haven't even felt this sort of social anxiety in physical meatspace in a long time, and as I said it's a complete reversal from high school where I was more comfortable online than face to face. If anything, I'm more afraid of reaching out to complete strangers online.

The game no doubt does provide tools to help with that, and I've already seen some of them in the tutorial for Guildleves and the Smiths describing dungeon tasks and tutorials. Nevertheless, I'm afraid of interacting with someone on the other side of the net connection. I want to interact and connect with others that I see wandering the game world, but I'm also afraid to. It's something I'll no doubt have to get over.

On a subject change, I actually had two questions, but I keep forgetting one of them. The first question is: how do I use Roles on PS4? I might have skipped the tutorial and couldn't find the log. I can equip them, but they look like they're on a separate hotbar than the L2 or R2 hotkeys. They don't seem like they're passive actions, and I couldn't see a spot in the menu to tie them to a key.

EDIT: And as soon as I look for FFXIV reddits to see if that might help, I remembered the second question.

When I hit Level 14 I received an invite to... a free company? I forget the wording, but a tutorial informed me that such things are Player-driven and require three players to create together. At first I thought it was an automated process since it happened exactly as I hit a new level, but then it didn't seem to make sense to receive an invite to something that's player driven as part of the game's programming. So was that a legit invite?

Which would seem really, really hypocritical of me to have been reached out to and I just ignored it, and my first assumptions are that the person just snipes newbies in hopes of padding their company numbers. That sort of cynicism is precisely what paralyzes me from reaching out to other players and yet here I am expressing it myself.

Free companies are basically guilds, so yes, you were invited by another player to join them. As a new, low level player who isn't in a guild yet, you'll probably get them somewhat often. Different guilds have different focuses (social, raiding, newbie training, etc) and usually say as much in their invite. Did you get a message from someone at the same time? That's usually how they do it: an invite plus a private message in chat explaining who they are.

I'm about to go play some so I'll check. I'm assuming there's a place where such messages are stored. I know I skimmed around to see if I could find it in the menu's logs as the chat log itself is itty bitty. If there's anything I appreciate about Destiny it's in how clearly it's designed with a console in mind.

Which I imagine pisses a lot of PC gamers off, but FFXIV's interface is precisely why I appreciate it. Tell you what, though, it finally gave me reason to use the PS4's touchpad functionality.

FWIW, I’ve found the FFXIV community to be the nicest I’ve experienced in an MMO. I haven’t been super social on there or anything. I am in a Free Company but don’t talk much, etc. But, I haven’t had any bad interactions I can recall. I’m sure they’re out there, I can imagine any online game is free of them, but, in contrast to, say, WoW, it’s much better. For example, I started playing again earlier this year and I was pretty rusty on my white mage. I was struggling a bit healing a dungeon. Instead of raging at me, one of the players, who was experienced with the class, offered me a bunch of helpful tips. Interactions like that typify my experience with FFXIV, more good than bad, whereas with WoW, I’d say it’s the stereotypical opposite of more bad than good.

So I did a quick Google and it seems FFXIV is free up to level 35? But the only confirmation I can find is from two years ago. Is that still the case or did they revert back to a 30-day trial?

EDIT: Nevermind, just found the info on the support page. Basically, if you purchase A Realm Reborn, like I did on sale several years ago, then you screwed yourself out of the Free Trial. On PS4, at least. On PC it just needs you to not have the game installed. But on PSN, installation or no, Sony knows you bought A Realm Reborn and thus won't allow you to download the Free Trial. That's unfortunate because, given events in Destiny 2 happening next week that I want to play with my friends, it is doubtful I'll be getting that much further in FFXIV. Especially as I hit a point where I think they are demanding I group up and do a dungeon for a story quest.

So I might try and fend off this anxiety and group up with randoms, but then I'm just gonna not have time to play FFXIV because of an event I didn't know about in Destiny 2. Bleh.

ccesarano wrote:

So I did a quick Google and it seems FFXIV is free up to level 35? But the only confirmation I can find is from two years ago. Is that still the case or did they revert back to a 30-day trial?

Level 35 is still the case: http://support.na.square-enix.com/fa...

So you can play the main story up to the level 35 quests, and level every available job to 35 if you want.

Is there a Cross-world linkshell ?

There is a linkshell, but it is not cross-world, or active really.

I just started playing. Not on your server because I was supposed to play with some work friends, but they literally are never on and invite me to the FC... so is the GWJ still active? If so, I'd love to be in your FC so I can talk to people!

This is as long as I'm able to transfer my guy over.

For what it's worth, this is my first time playing FFXIV, but I played Dark Age of Camelot a lot, and dabbled in WoW off and on for years.

New launch trailer for Shadowbringers. The very end could be considered spoilers, depending on if you want to be surprised or not.

I need to finish Stormblood, I guess.
Actually, I need to start Stormblood.

Vrikk wrote:

so is the GWJ still active? If so, I'd love to be in your FC so I can talk to people!

This is as long as I'm able to transfer my guy over.

I don't know if the GWJ guild is active, but I would guess that it's not very. I and three other Goodjers are in Kefka. Kefka is ok for leveling, but they don't have regular events or extreme raids. For those I just grab random people.

Up to you if you want to transfer or just find the biggest active guild on your server and join them.

Yeah GWJ is not active.

FWIW, it’s now super easy to visit any other server in your data center, in case you know someone on another that you want to play with. There’s 3 NA centers and 2 EU centers, FYI.

My character is on Leviathan, Primal center.

Also there’s 14 chat on the GWJ discord sometimes.

Oh, I'm in Exodus/Primal.

Is there a cross-server linkshell ?

Currently playing as a WHM 40.

I don’t know of any CW linkshell. That might be a cool idea though if there isn’t one!

One FREE Black Fat Chocobo mount code, first come, first served : FAED ZL7G 74SW H7Z3 FEAD

Redeem like other FFXIV codes via Mogstation.com

ShynDarkly wrote:

One FREE Black Fat Chocobo mount code, first come, first served : FAED ZL7G 74SW H7Z3 FEAD

Redeem like other FFXIV codes via Mogstation.com

Thank you!

I'm tempted to ask as well, if one of you have such a code, I would gladly use it. I'm in Canada, and we don't have that offer here.

Thanks.