Topic: Final Fantasy XIV

Well I am not sure if I am the only one but I have been fairly addicted to FF XIV on Xbox since the beta started last week.
For the record I have dabbled a bit a few years ago on PC but as nowadays I don't have a proper setup for comfortable gaming on it I fell off after 10-15h (although I was enjoying it).
On start I did not remember a lot story wise so I did not bother to start from fresh and after a while I realized I chose a character almost the same as previously lol (same race and class but on the first one I went with a female gender).
I am just now on new grounds (entering my first grand company) and I feel I am going for the long run at least while it is free but maybe I will pay a month or two for the story bits when I get there (which as I also realized the "noob" pin on your character will stay there until you have a minimum of 300h in game and finish w good amount of the story it will take quite a while...)

Anyone else trying the Beta on Xbox?

I already have an active account which i can play on my PS5 and my PC/Legion Go. It's an absolutely fantastic MMORPG. The story starts out a bit slow and especially the end of A Realm Reborn can be a bit boring and repetitive, but after that the story becomes better and better each expansion. The content you can play is insane. You can chose to do 80/90% of the game solo or chose to do everything with other people and just that kind of freedom is what I love about the game. I can chose to play it as a single player game or do stuff with my Free Company, Friends or just do dungeons with randoms.
The community is super welcoming and friendly and if you tell them you are new to the game there are a lot of people who will help you with explaining things.

Since I already have an existing account I can't play the Beta, but i am planning to buy the full version on Xbox as well once it releases so i can chose to play it whenever and wherever I want to. For me it's a game which still play every now and then in between other games or when new expansions release. Especially since its pretty easy to pick even if you only play it every now and then.

I have heard nothing but good things about this game, definitely one of the better MMORPGs. Mainly times I have been wanting to try it myself but not having a PC for awhile stopped me from playing it. Unfortunately now for me I ended up going back to WoW when I got a PC again, mainly due to my son, and I only have time for one MMORPG in my life.

@Lavalera yeah, on the free trial you cannot easily chat though and for the most part I intend to do it solo (but the duty finder works great for dungeons and a YouTube video here and there does the rest).

@Balta666 Yeah that is one of the downsides of the free trial. You also can't join a Free Company (guild), cant use the market board to buy items, can't trade etc. The great thing is, there is no time limit. THe only real limit is the level 70 part and only being able to do the content from the base game and the first 2 expansions, but that alone can be worth 100's of hours depending on what you do in the game. So you can basically play the game for free for ages.

And yeah the duty finder is great. Most dungeons aren't that hard and most bosses use pretty straightforward telegraphed attacks, so they are easy to evade. The first dungeon that has some different mechanics is Cutters Cry i think nowadays (a lot of the older dungeons got reworked to support duty support ) and that dungeon isn't part of the MSQ so fully optional.

I hope you keep having fun with it!

@Lavaleraet let me ask you for some advice. Early on I was doing all side quests and everything thrown my way (first 5h or so) and it ended that only when I got to MSQ 10 or so that I decided to focus on it. Basically now I am doing MSQ levels 29 and I am a Warrior level 52...
I really like playing as the tank though and not sure if it will mess up my brain to mix other roles right now or wait until later (at least finishing A Realm Reborn)
Thoughts?

Looking to get into this at some point but it's kind of intimidating if I'm being honest. Can I simply play through a campaign by myself? Assuming there is a campaign of course. Any tips or tricks to get started?

@NintendoByNature for the most part you can play by yourself and even on dungeons where you need to play as a group if you do not have a friends to tag along, you have the option to either bring npc companions with you use Duty finder to have rando's to join you and works really well too. Still a newbie so cannot really tell you many trucks or tips but it is not that crazy to start if you pay attention to the tutorials.

@Balta666 ok that's reassuring. Maybe when I'm done with turnip boy I'll check it out and at least get a few hours under my belt. Its technically a free to start game yes?

@NintendoByNature it has a free trial that just for the main campaign accessible to it it takes in the house of 300h.... The free trial does not have a time limit but does not allow to do some things in game but nothing that major for someone that cares mostly about the story campaign. That is the only option currently available during Beta on Xbox by the way.

@Balta666 Kinda depends on your own preferences. When i started the game i played through the whole MSQ with 1 class first. That way i could learn the game with the job which felt most comfortable for me. When i ended the MSQ i started to level some of the other classes and try some stuff out to see which jobs i liked and which I didnt like. Some jobs I still have at like level 40 since I don't really enjoy them that much. If I can give you an advice: try to level up the same type of jobs at once. Like all magical range dds. It's because they share a lot of gear and if you level them all completely seperate your armory or retainers will clog up quite fast with gear you keep for the other jobs. Also if you want to level chars from 1 to 15 (when you can do dungeons) go do the hunt logs.
With the Main job you can skip almost all side stuff, the MSQ alone is more than enough to level you "main job" to max and you can keep the side quests for the other jobs.

@NintendoByNature It's such an amazing experience and pretty easy to learn even if you are not very familiar with MMORPG's. The tutorials are pretty straightforward and as a novice player you get added to the Novice Network where you can ask advise from Mentors. That whole channel is dedicated to newer players so don't be afraid to ask questions there. The community is generally very welcoming and helpful towards other players.

And A Realm Reborn is completed! Have to say I felt the end part quite rushed and was expecting the opponents to stay for at least one extra expansion (but as it is pretty much my first MMO, it is probably common to have a sort of arcs closing with every campaign).

So I thought I had finished A Realm Reborn but not only there are more storylines but they give you access to A LOT of harder dungeons including the first time going with a party of more than 4 (also not allowed to go with NPCs)

Pure Xbox clan? I plan on getting it today as today is the official launch on Xbox. I have about 420 something hours on steam (idling will do that though unfortunately) and about 20 hours on Playstation but will have to relearn it all.

Think a Pure Xbox clan would be amazing. You guys are a great community.

@K1LLEGAL I am going for the long run as since the beta started I have put nearly 100h into it, however I will keep the trial version as long as I can as I feel the monthly subscription is a lit too much. Having said that I cannot see a world where I just drop it after that so I will definitely subscribe for a month or two to take on the following expansions.

@Balta666 are you enjoying the story? I remember like 10 years ago I played A Realm Reborn and I didn’t pay too much attention to the story. And I regret it. I am mid Heavensward now so will need to read a re-cap or something.

@K1LLEGAL nothing groundbreaking but it is enjoyable. The story up to 50 has some good story arcs but it nearly none voice acted cutscenes, the updates prior to Heavensward up that beat and it is quite noticeable improvement and I already read the VA are swapped to much better quality from the expansions so very much looking forward to it (and to the point where people say it is the best FF story so far)

@K1LLEGAL I’m definitely tempted but not sure if it’ll be too much of an undertaking 🤔 I haven’t played any other Final Fantasy games, would that matter? @Balta666

@Bundersvessel all fantasy games are independent from each other (characters, world story, etc) apart from similar motifs like chocobos, moogles, etc. obviously if you are a series veteran you'll know that some lore was made referencing previous entries for nostalgia sake but imo it is not mandatory to enjoy each game. Also FF XIV is completely different gameplay wise as it is an MMO and it is a HUGE time sink (just to finish the main story of the free trial it is around 200h+). So really up to you lol