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Any tips for new players in phase 4?
McDaniels92
Member Posts: 22
As most of you probably know, phase 4 characters will be carried over to launch.
I just became interested in this game a few days ago and haven't had a chance to play in any of the prior betas, and I think theres probably quite a few people in the same boat as me.
We can all agree that leveling in any mmo is never smooth the first time, and players are bound to make a lot of mistakes and waste a lot of time.
So I was hoping some of you who have played previous betas could give some tips to those of us who haven't. Basically anything you learned that you would really want to know as a new player coming into the game, and this can relate to any aspect of the game. I am also hoping that some people can give some tips regarding how to level optimally because I plan to play in a progression raiding guild and don't want to be stuck at a low level for longer than my guildies.
Thanks.
Comments
First thing you should do when you log in is run around and do the starter quest's. They basically give you a tour of your starter city. You can basically level your first class to level 15 just by doing the quest's in and around the starter cities.
If you don't wanna do quest's though, once you get so far in your main storyline, you will unlock leve quest's. Those are solo timed events you can do. You select a leve, then go to the area marked on your map and initiate it. Timer starts and you hafta kill a certain number of mobs or maybe gather some shinies in the area.
There is what they call Guildheast, which start at level 10, those are group focused. All the early ones consist of 4 players. Those are private instanced zones.
There is also a thing called the monster hunter log. It list monstors and how many you need to kill to complete the log. They increase in difficulty over time. You start with rank 1, once you complete all those, you unlock rank 2 and so on.
All those methods give xp and gill rewards, quest's and leve's give items to, sometimes armor. They do give you a viriaty of things to do to level your job.
One thing to note is, once you do a quest, you canot repeat um. So when you get to level 10 and switch to a new class, if you want to, you have to do one of the other methods I mentioned to get xp.
One character can be all classes and jobs in this game, you just havta go and talk to the respective guild master to switch.
Edit: forgot to mention, they also have "Fate" which are random events that spawn around the map, those give xp and gill to.
They also implemented the dungeon finder, so you can q up for guildheast and dungeons (dungeons are a bit later In the game, they start at level 15, those are unlocked through the main storyline)
Thanks guys, very helpful so far. One quick question I just remembered, I plan on playing monk but have heard some conflicting information about how to unlock the job. I've heard you need puglist level 30 and lancer level 15, and then i've heard you just need puglist level 30. Which is correct?
Also in terms of unlocking abilities from other classes to use on your primary class, do you need to level up those classes to unlock their respective transferable abilities? And how many of these abilities can you use at once, I think I heard it is 10 and 5 for jobs?
Thanks again.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
The jobs are basically an extention of your class. Each job in the game requires a level 15 and a level 30. Once you accomplish that you get to do a quest at level 30 to unlock your job. Once you complete that quest you get a sole orb you equip, if I heard right. When you equip that item it changes you to your job.
The way the classes work is that your weapon is tide to what class you are. You switch your weapon you switch your class. Or orb you switch your job.
I heard classes are more solo oriented, but jobs are more specific to certain roles, and fit group content better.
Once you unlock your job it will be a level 30, it matches the level of your main class, since its basically a specialty of sorts of that class.
When I unlocked a second class to level, I noticed that I could still select the abilities that I learned on my other one, no matter what level it was. I just had to add those abilities to the hotbar.
All clases you hafta level from level 1, but jobs are level 30, you cant be a job until level 30 though.
Not shure how it works with jobs though, they wont be adding the quest's to unlock those until phase 4.
Basically, if you have never played the game, are at level 10 or so on your first character, and are contemplating gouging your eyeballs out with a fork, stop playing and do something else. Whether you don't like this type of game or are sick to death of this type of game, you've seen enough to know you won't like it.
If you like or can tolerate it at 10, then keep going to 15-17 and get the airship pass to go to the other cities. Then you can pick up all the other classes and the game opens up nicely.
Also, do your main story quest on your first character or you'll be locked out of moving forward.
Avatars are people too
All good tips.
Here's one that no one seem to mention when peeps say Characters in phase 4 WILL CARRY OVER. This is assuming there are no major bugs/exploits.
IF some are discovered they reserve to right to wipe it all. Just something to keep in mind.
Brenics ~ Just to point out I do believe Chris Roberts is going down as the man who cheated backers and took down crowdfunding for gaming.
So do jobs have levels or just classes? Like when I get the monk job is that a separate level from my puglist class? How does that work?
Also if I need puglist 30 and lancer 15, when and how should I go about getting those 15 lancer levels? Should i get to 15 on puglist then do the 15 lancer levels then get monk to 30? Or just got o 30 on puglist then do lancer?
Waiting for the return of the sandbox for that.... Sorry I can't get lost in a themepark game. I don't play MMOs for the storylines and I don't want to explore small instanced areas... Until sandbox makes a comeback I'll be playing with a progression mindset because thats how I can have fun. To each his own.
Honestly I think the best tip is to not over read, over plan, or over anticipate. In this game everything you do grows your character in some way that will always stay with the character. It is similar to a sandbox game in this way with character development and classes. Go into it with an open mind, explore, try things, especially things that are different than what you would normally spend too much time planning like what class to play, etc. It is all valuable.
That being said, there is one very important choice. Character creation. Make sure the character you make is one you can stick with for a very long time. In these games it really does benefit you to have one character, and like picking a tattoo you want one that will mean something to you for a long period of time. Luckily on 8/1 they will be releasing a public character creation tool that you can then use to run the FFXIV Benchmark to see your character in action.
This really is the most important decision I think, and anything else can be a learning experience or something that grows you in some way. I am almost envious of anyone that has very little knowledge of FFXI or FFXIV as it is such a great experience as you grow with the game.
Don't sweat any of this right now. Make a char you like, with a job you like, starting in a city that seems to fit your style at the time and dive in. Just trust me, don't worry about these small things.
So true, but running around naked is sort of fun...
I didn't like the level 1-15 tutorial since it resembles everything else on the market. If it wasn't for the "MMO standard" of doing things we could avoid this all together, but not everyone is open to new things. I remember playing FFXI and new player complaints were always the same about questing, grinding, forced parties, foreign UI, and no direction for new players. FFXIV is addressing those problems with the easy mode early game.
I would get to level 15-20 before making any decisions, since levels 1-15 are like every other MMO. Level 10 in this game is not a good representation of what you will see later on.
Each job comes a new set of hotbars, clean with the exception of a few generic abilities. To keep things familiar down the road I would move the generic abilities (sprint, teleport, etc) to the next hotbar in the same place for every job as soon as you start the job, this will give you plenty of room for job abilities and make things familiar across all jobs in the short and long run.
What you should do if you want quick XP (loosely in order of priority from highest to lowest):
Focus on the main story quests. Do your class quests at each 5 level interval.
Guildhests give a huge chunk of easy xp the first time you do each one; if you're planning on leveling more than one class very high, you might want to consider saving them for the second or third class you level. Otherwise, definitely do those when they are available (usually 2 at each 5 level interval starting at level 10).
If you happen to be questing in or passing through an area and you see a FATE nearby (even a tad out of your way) which is your level or only a few levels below you - it's usually worth it to go and contribute what you can to it, even if it's just running in and hitting a mob once before the event ends - the xp to effort ratio is good, especially in such cases (however, note that some FATEs will just be boss monster fights - you likely will be unable to solo these, so don't try unless you see at least a few people going for it - you'll eventually learn which FATEs these are by their names - avoid bothering with them at your discretion).
Keep your hunting log up to date with your level (especially before you start going into dungeons at level 15, because many of the targets you need will be in dungeons, and if you haven't unlocked the right tier of your log, you will have to repeat those dungeons to get the targets).
If none of the above is available, default to world quests (the ones normal NPCs give) - if you are playing a tank or healer, there is a chance it will be faster to grind dungeons than to solo-quest, but I have not tested this (probably it isn't unless you have a consistent group of reliable players).
Also (roughly equivalent or only slightly above world quests in priority), do one guildleve near your level in each new hub (explained more below).
If absolutely none of the above is available, then do Guildleves (best if you can organize a group for this and coordinate such that everyone takes different levequests and you all help each other complete them - this will give faster xp and you will not have leve allowances used up when helping others on their levequests).
What you may be tempted to do but should avoid:
Conserve your guildleve allowances if you can - normally, you should only tap into them when you have no other options to reach that next level (which shouldn't really happen on your first class/job). However, DO complete one guildleve at every new hub for them (usually each outpost out in the adventuring zones has its own guildleves - completing one in a new location awards bonus xp).
Don't bother leveling crafting or gathering professions in an attempt to keep their products up with your level (this also means not to bother stopping to switch classes and gather when you are out questing). This can be very time-consuming. Save the mats you acquire through your adventures and level them later.
Don't bother with FATEs that are either several levels higher than you or significantly lower level (6 or more levels) than you, as your xp rewards will be reduced in both cases.
Don't attempt to greatly outstrip your own level in the content you're doing - especially don't bother trying to hunt too far ahead in the hunting log.
Don't do a new dungeon until you a) have a quest for it, usually a story quest, AND b) have your hunting log appropriately caught up to its level/tier, so that if your class's hunting log requires any target mobs from that dungeon, you will get credit for them in your first run. Again, don't bother to spam dungeons unless you have a guild group or some such.
Once you've unlocked grand companies, don't bother with their leves, especially after you've gotten your chocobo - they take up your guildleve allowances, don't give any more xp than guildleves, and there are better ways to get grand company seals/tokens, namely FATEs (I've heard that at later levels, the hunting log requires mobs that only show up in these grand company leves - if this is true, only at that point should you bother with them).
Thanks! That was exactly the kind of info i was looking for.
Avoid Gladiator. They call it a tank but the main level 10 quest, they have you playing hopscotch with a very weak NPC and you face a 'boss mob' with a strong area attack. Later you will be able to do it with little difficulty but for anyone unfamiliar with the combat, running and what they want you to do, it can bring you to a standstill. Because the level 10 quest is required to explore the other classes, if like many people you are stuck there, it's keep dying or delete. End objective is to get everything to 50 but level 10 in your first class and being stapled to fail is a hardcore killjoy.
Development have said they plan to improve experience on 2nd and beyond class leveling. The first one doesn't need it. You don't really need advice. You will understand when you get in game. The only way they could spoon feed it to you any more would be to have an SE Developer come over to your house and play the game for you. There will be content to explore but getting that first 50 isn't part of it.
Glad to be of service. Of course, I should qualify that everything I said is subject to change and the phase 4 patch notes aren't out yet. Probably there won't be any significant departures from what I said though.
I also recommend taking your time and exploring the different features the game has to offer rather than rushing too quickly to level cap, but if that's how your guild does things and they will be similarly well-informed, I can understand.
Keep in mind too that you will have to level at least one other class to about level 26 in order to get all your job's abilities and be optimal in endgame content (as of right now, each job has 1-2 auxilliary classes that they draw abilities from besides the one that the job grew out of; for example, as a White Mage, you need to level Conjurer to unlock the job, but you need to level Thaumaturge to at least level 26 to get all the useful abilities the White Mage is capable of using).
Edit: Included a link to a spreadsheet to show you what I mean.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/lv?key=0AsPI9Wq6z6GwdHJEYmR0Qjk4QzV2SmYzVzhYTVdCSkE&f=true&noheader=true&gid=0&pli=1
P.S. Made a couple minor edits to my original post to clarify things.
Waiting for the return of the sandbox for that.... Sorry I can't get lost in a themepark game. I don't play MMOs for the storylines and I don't want to explore small instanced areas... Until sandbox makes a comeback I'll be playing with a progression mindset because thats how I can have fun. To each his own.
If you don't care about the story, you're playing the wrong game. This is Final Fantasy. Sandbox isn't necessary to enjoy the story, get Immersed, socialize, adventure, craft, etc.Looks I got here a bit late and no need to rehash what has been covered so well already. So instead let me give kudos to my fellow mmorpg brethren for a job well done. There is some great information in this thread that will help people looking to play this game. If you are new to this game, take the time to read the posts on here. They will serve you well.