How to get started in one of our favorite MMOs.
Final Fantasy 14 has always been a good MMORPG (at least since its 2013 makeover), but over the once many times it's morphed into the stylish overall MMORPG you can play moment. It's so good, in fact, that its story has evolved beyond simply being" good for an MMO"and into one that can stand proudly beside any of the singleplayer games from the series.
There is noway been a better time to play. Square Enix's Patch5.3 greatly expanded the free trial for new players from position 35 all the way to position 60, which means you can play through the base"A Realm Reborn" game and 2015's excellent Heavensward expansion entirely for free.
Square Enix also trimmed much of the fat from A Realm Reborn's sprawling plot and introduced some welcome quality of life changes, including the capability to fly in any of A Realm Reborn's zones. Each FF14 expansion has been better than the last, and updates have tensed up some of the original crusade's failings (and help you get through the whole thing more snappily too). Trial players can also play the Au Ra race and the Astrologian, Dark Knight, and Machinist classes, which preliminarily were not available without buying specific expansions.
These are each great and demanded changes. But Final Fantasy 14 can still be inviting, so I am then to help. I have played a lot of Final Fantasy 14 — hours since 2013 — and with that experience I have put together this companion to ease the way for both new and returning players.
BEFORE YOU START THE FREE TRIAL
Square Enix expanded Final Fantasy 14's trial to allow new players to play the Heavensward expansion and to position 60 without paying a penny. The catch there's" new."The free trial will not work if you've ever spent plutocrat on your FF14 account ahead, indeed if you bought it seven times agone and just piddled around in the starting zones. But if you only had a trial account before Patch5.3, that trial account should now support the increased position cap from 35 to 60. The corollary of all this is that it may be wiser to make an entirely new account if you want to play through A Realm Reborn and Heavenward with the free trial. Keep in mind some of the limitations, though .You can not use the Request Boards (which means you can not buy or vend stuff) You also can not join Free Companies, which are FF14's interpretation of player orders . Still, however (and that is generally a good reason to play FF14), these are offerings you should be suitable to live with, If you are substantially playing for the story. And if you ever decide those limitations are too burdensome? You can remove them by buying the FF14 Starter Edition, which gives you access to the same playable content as the free trial and only costs$ 20.
WHY YOU SHOULD PLAY FF14
Final Fantasy 14's story remains the stylish reason to play. Important as in a good singleplayer RPG, much of the narrative unfolds in cinematic cutscenes, and its mature themes touch on everything from loss to redemption. Square Enix does a good job of making the members of the large cast come off as real people, and some of the main characters have experienced credible changes over the times. It's only gotten better since launch. The music is also constantly amazing, and, well, all the characters are just frickin'beautiful.
Beyond that, Final Fantasy 14 has the friendliest community of any major MMORPG. That is not to say you will not stumble across the occasional poisonous haul, but grounded on particular experience, they are nowhere near as common as they're in World of Warcraft's heroic dungeons or The Elder Scrolls Online's Stager content. FF14 indeed has a commendation system for satisfying players who are especially professed or helpful, so there is some incitement to be kind.
FF14 does have an windup spoil grind, but it noway feels as essential as it does in a game like World of Warcraft. You can play FF14 largely as you would any single- player RPG — away from the fact that you do have to share in some raids or dungeons to progress the story — but it does not pressure you to share. That is incompletely because there is such a ridiculously wide range of other effects to do
Unleashing the numerous raids and trials
Getting involved in player casing
Participating in the numerous forms of instanced PvP
Getting involved in the rich casting scene
Joining"hunts"to fight important open- world heads
Contending your chocobo against other players
Getting hooked on a collectible card game
Challenging other players to a many rounds of Mahjong
Announcement
And that is not indeed touching on the glamour system, which allows you to dress up your character in nearly any way you want. Some players call the glamour system the" true" windup.
Stylish of all, you can do all this and position every single combat and casting class on the same character. To play another class, you simply need to equip the armament associated with that class. And you should do everything on one character, too There is really no reason to make a traditional"alt"in Final Fantasy 14.
Sounds great, right? Alas, there are some downsides, and the biggest one is that Final Fantasy 14 does an awful job of making a good first print. The story for the core A Realm Revived experience is the weakest of the bunch by far, and it will presumably take you further than 100 hours to finish indeed with the streamlining from Patch5.3. It's such a slog that I know of numerous players who've quit long before they got to the corridor that keep so numerous players raving about FF14, which generally begin at Heavensward. For that matter, utmost classes simply are not as fun or as presto- paced in the early situations as they're from 60-80.
It's also occasionally a pain in the burro to play with your musketeers (which I will bandy in the coming section), and Square Enix's"Mog Station" point for managing your account is not exactly intuitive, to put it smoothly.
FF14 also may not satisfy you if you are looking for a deep challenge unless you are willing to devote time to windup" extreme"and" savage"content. Indeed also, utmost of the normal content is fairly easy compared to what you will find in, say, World of Warcraft, and utmost of the biggest challenges calculate on knowing when to stand in a specific spot. A single misstep can frequently mean the difference between life and death. On the bright side, this is incompletely what energies the comparatively friendly atmosphere You can frequently correct a inadequately performing player with a smart piece of advice.
