Hi everyone
I’m thinking of giving FFXIV a try. I played WoW but honestly besides hanging out with guild members, I was bored to tears and while I love GW2, there is something missing for me. I was wondering, how is the FFXIV experience and do you think its something I should a try? I’m want to either healer or some type of support role, would I have trouble leveling up in this game? Thank you in advance for your feedback
Q-
FF14 was great when i used to play. The leveling grind isnt as bad as most games and there is plenty to do. The job system allows some customization to create a “dual class” so you can be a white mage “healer” mixed with something else like arcanist “the other healer class”. there are plenty of “roles” but the bigger fights require knowledge of mechanics and such so it does get kinda boring once you grind the same dungeons “aka Duties” to grind for gear drops. in the end, its a great game and beautifully done. only thing i didnt like was the subscription…$25 a month was meh for me…
or you can hurry over to BDO and try to snag you a free copy!
Thank you for the feedback Rei. This is great, but $25 a month… ouch. I thought it was $15 but i have to double check again. I love the idea of a duel class and grinding doesn’t bother me as much as long as there is other things to do. I read crafting is a great experience also, so that would be interesting and meaningful to do. Thank you again 
Hmmm, thanks E i have to check this out
well, it is $15 a month to play ff14. then you got added costs that rise up as you play more and get deeper into the rabbit hole. i had extra retainers to expand my inventory storage because i went deep into crafting. i quit playing before the first expansion and i had all jobs maxed out.
AHH that makes sense… gotcha
This initial game is ok, but it really picks up in the patches AFTER the initial story ends for the original game. The first expansion, Heavensward, is where the story and gameplay really pick up.
If you do buy the original game now, you can get the first expansion for free. Even if you quit, you will still have gotten the first expansion for nothing.
Oh thanks DB, that’s good to know. The more I read and the feedback from you all, the more I’m liking the sound of FFXIV. I’m downloading the free trial now to test out
FFXIV to me is about the story. Each class has it’s on progression story as you level up. In addition, there is the main story line and many side quests. There is currently over 200 hours of story content with a new expansion dropping this weekend for pre-orders. (next week for normal orders).
It is definitely not a twitch game. Global cool downs and slow recast timers make combat a bit easier for old folks like me.
You don’t have to play an alt. Your first character can be every job in the game. Starting at level 10, talk to a new trainer and equip the weapon associated with that job and off you go.
Completing the initial A Realm Reborn (ARR) content, is required to open most expansions / classes. It will also be your largest time sink initially. Stick to the Story line missions and you will level pretty quickly though.
There are no add-ons to FFXIV, but the UI is editable to suit your preferences.
There are currently three healers you can choose from. White mage, Astrologian and Scholar. The new expansion is bringing many changes to all classes so I’ll just give simple descriptions of each.
White mage - pure healer. To me it feels like the old EQ1 cleric.
Astrologian - hybrid - has skills similar to white mage and scholar with buff cards thrown in the mix.
Scholar - has a healing pet plus shields - leveling a scholar also has the added benifit of concurrently leveling a summoner (magical dps with pets). They share a base job and when one levels so does the other.
They are introducing a new support class in the expansion called the Dancer. it has melee and ranged physical attacks that can add buffs to the party.
There are a lot of videos on youtube atm covering the classes in the expansions. I like stuff from MrHappy, but google can bring up tons to check out. You can also see some game play that way.
There is also a free trial for FFXIV. It does have some restrictions, but you can play to level 30 to see how you like the game. (one restriction is you can’t join a guild as FTP)
Oh and we (OTG) are on Excalibur which can be difficult to create a character on. The typical advice if you aren’t having luck getting on the server is to do it in the wee hours of the morning.
Airen (Ariki Ko FFXIV CO)
Awesome Airen, thank you for the feedback. I was looking at MrHappy’s videos earlier and they were very informative. I was looking over the healers and I think either the Scholar or the Astreologian would suit my play style, but I’m going to try all 3 before I decide. HAHA Also, thanks because I was trying to create a character there with no luck. I’ll try again in the morning.
Check the server status page before trying to create a character. It will tell you at any given time if character creation is open or not. Green icon by the server name, go create your character. Also … you might want to go through character creation anyway, regardless of the time, and come up with the race and appearance you want, and then save it to a template. You do that before getting to the server selection. This way, when the realm is open for character creation, you can jump start the process and select your saved character template and reduce the risk of the servers becoming closed to character creation while you are still fiddling around with what hair style to wear. 
LMAO, ok cool, sounds like a plan 
I’ll do that now since I just checked and all the servers are on lock down.
yea I know how you feel I was bored in WOW also and came here and tried it. I am leveling from scratch. All you need to do is follow the main quest line and class quest to level easy. Also once in a while some extra recommended quest will pop up on the left side screen as recommended also do those. That will be for your mount and battle mount. When hit around level 15 do your once a day Leveling que dungeon and get tons exp from it and some gear. Main reason to do that dungeon is the massize exp. While running around questing you will run into world events forgetting name of them lol but do them if can good exp also and most are easy.
Darknard
Oh that’s good to know, thanks. So far its interesting. I like the character models and combat animations. Unfortunately I can’t join the Excalibur server. Its congested with and X next to it. I was doing some research and it looks like its a hard lock, so I’ll have to play on another server until it opens up. 
It’s not really a hard lock, at least not usually. It just opens up only during certain times of the day, typically very early morning hours, and only for a short time.
Oh ok, I’ll check it again this morning. I was up until 3am to see if the servers opened up but the congested ones didn’t.
2-3am EST typically does it from what I’ve been told. It’s entirely possible that this close to the expansion it’s just remaining too active at all times.
OK cool, sounds good. I’ll check again tonight. LOL wish me luck 
Thanks