#ffxiv new player guide

[gatheredfates]

SEA'S COMMUNITY COMPENDIUM UPDATE

We have a massive one today! Huge thanks to a close friend of mine who sent me every single bookmark of xiv resources she had. 💖

Additionally, a good handful of these resources were sourced from a list originally created by @rinhkitty, which you can find here. I have tried to include the more recent/active of the lot, so it's not a one-for-one. Thank them for a lot of the large scale resources you'll find below! ✨

As of 04/12, I have added the following resources (in no particular order) to Sea's Community Compendium for FFXIV Creatives:

LARGE SCALE

GARLAND TOOLS — Contains XIV resources such as Garland Data, everything database, crafting lists and equipment calculators; Garland Bell, gathering timers, collectable resources and hunt windows; and FFXIV Fisher, daily fishing windows, bait paths and catch checklist. Maintained by Clorifex Ezalor of Zalera.

TEAMCRAFT — Create crafting lists and collaborate with others, set gathering alarms, simulate crafting rotations, and more!

CAT BECAME HUNGRY - FFXIV ANGLER — Contains everything and anything to know about fishing including specific fish guides, location, baits, aquarium fish and more!

FFXIV - CRAFTING AS A SERVICE — Crafting information and planning for FFXIV!

FFXIV GARDENING — The FFXIV Gardening Database is a collection of everything related to gardening in Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. It was created to organize and visualize the results obtained from crossbreeding.

SIGHTSEEING LOG HELPER — This tool will help those trying to complete their pesky Sightseeing Log by letting them know upcoming weather patterns for each zone!

EUREKA TRACKER — For everything and anything to do with Eureka mobs, tracking and weather patterns.

FFLOGOS — for tracking of items/actions related to Eureka.

FFXIVSQUADRON — A comprehensive tool that helps you assess the success rate of various squadron missions.

FFXIV CHOCOBO COLOUR CALCULATOR — Will calculate what chocobo feed you will need to get from your current colour to your desired colour. *rng not included.

FFXIV HOUSING — A site specialising in the documentation of all housing items available in game.

HOUSING SNAP — A compilation of player-made housing designs. Can be used for inspiration or places to visit!

MISC

NPC CHAT BUBBLES — Would you like more NPC chat bubbles for edits? Say no more! Created by @alexoisxiv.

OLD TUMBLR LAYOUT BY PIXIEL — While not XIV specific I know a lot of people aren't fans of the new Tumblr layout, so this is a fix that will revert it to an as close as possible approximation of the new one. I won't tag the creator as I don't think they're in the xiv community, but it's run by @/pixiel!

HOW TO CURSE LIKE AN ISHGARDIAN — Do you want to make the church blush? Do you want to incur the wrath of Halone? @stars-and-clouds has compiled a list of appropriate curses/swear words for you!

FINAL FANTASY XIV SIDEQUEST GUIDE - HEAVENSWARD EDITION — maintained by @chatty-moogle, this guide explores interesting sidequests in Heavensward that will give you more information about the lore, titbits about locals and other interesting information!

TRUST BANNERS FOR XIV — If you have ever wondered how people mimic the Trust banners used in XIV, look no further! @locke-rinannis has a template for you.

MAKING USE OF RECOMMENDATIONS — created by @autumnslance, this guide will help you make your recommendations tab useful rather than annoying.

BOTANICA EORZEA — A guide to the flora of Eitherys and her reflections, including fungi and seedkin. For reference in writing and roleplaying. Maintained by @tinolqa.

GPOSE TIPS — A tutorial on how to achieve clarity and detail in your XIV screenshots! Created by @aryalaenkha.

UI MACRO MENUS — A guide on how to use macros to create small UI menus for XIV. Written by @diskwrite-ffxiv.

TYPHON GATE RESEARCH — Created by @mcstronghuge, these are the statistically best places for your character to stand for the Typhon Gate!

CHANGELOG

HYDAELYN HEALTH HAVEN has been removed at the request of the owner.

Moved THE BALANCE higher on the list to reflect alphabetical sorting, excluding names that start with The.

Misc formatting as needed.

Added some additional clarification around large-scale discords/spaces; in particular: Large-scale community discords such as the XIV Reddit Discord, Hunts, GPOSE promotions and broad-space roleplay servers that harbour a large number of people and are publicly available to all. These may not have an RP focus but will assist in other aspects of the game. Also includes well-known tools/resources that are utilised by large groups of people and assist in gameplay elements.

Added a quick-jump menu to the bottom of each of the table of contents menus to assist in navigation.

Want to submit? You can either fill out the google form here, send me an ask with the relevant information contained on the Compendium, or join my Discord at SEAFLOOR (21+ only)!

I am sure there's probably a couple of things I have missed or links/formatting that might be broken. Please don't hesitate to let me know if anything is out of place. I'm going to take a break now. I'm pretty sure that's the biggest edit that's ever going to occur on this document!

[rontra]

your failteacher comic is so cool…. i can’t stop thinking about how masterfully textured your characterizations are, and while i had no context for the games (aside from, well, the Adult Women In Persona Curse lmao) being an ffxiv player made those gags really fun to read too ^_^

the best part of everything is that i genuinely want to try making comics about my own yuri rarepairs now… i was wondering if you’d ever be open to talking about your process when tackling these comics wrt the writing process and layout? you have such a strong understanding of panel composition that ive found myself admiring even small technical things things like your text and panel spacing. thank you so much for sharing your work!!

AUUYFDH THAJNK YOU .... this is so sweet 😭 i'm really glad you're enjoying it so much!!

if you're insane like me (been in pain like me) i totally recommend trying to make your own comics . its a very fun medium to work in!! comics have their own toolkit and language that i think is really strong and fun to play with. if you have specific questions for me about it i don't mind, but i will say that i'm kind of like ... yknow

FTyuri is drawn really loosely. i make a lot of "mistakes" (or at the very least, sub-optimal choices) in my paneling/layouts because i don't really have a plan for each page (LOL). i'm "self-taught" in the sense of "guy who reads a lot of comics and has internalized a lot of things as a result", so sometimes i do things based on intuition and vibe more than anything (and sometimes that does not work out super well!)

i guess what i'm saying is i'm a hobbyist who just kinda does whatever feels good, so my advice won't be particularly Scholarly AHJBHF but i love comics (reading AND making) a lot, so i don't mind if you're wondering about specific things i've done or how i approach them

i think... most importantly, you know, a comic is kind of a huge undertaking. it's A Lot of drawing. but it's also very fun. so pace yourself and choose a project with a length you think is manageable, but do try it! 😤😤

the second thing is... a comic is not just a collection of pictures, right? it's important to guide the reader through each page in the correct order, while also controlling the pace and flow of the story. you place speech bubbles or eyecatching elements where you want the reader's eye to go, and use things like the size and placement of panels and the gutters between them to slow down or speed up time. i have done some FUCKED UP text box placements in FTyuri that are totally wrong and it makes me crazy whenever i see them in hindsight but THATS OKAYYYY

'cause the third thing is you're always learning new things. even if you make a not-so-great layout or even if you never actually finish the comic, you're still learning stuff that will go into your next comic. and so on...

now, here's the "maybe don't actually do what i do" part AJHREDHB

i actually don't really plan anything at all. sometimes i have a specific idea for a page layout and have it in my mind beforehand, but most of the time i just pull up a canvas and start adding panels to it willy-nilly. i also don't write anything down in advance. at most i have a loose "i want to someday draw a scene where X happens" in my mind, but all the layout and dialogue happens when i get there

YOU SHOULD PROBABLY WRITE DOWN AT LEAST A ROUGH SCRIPT/OUTLINE. AND DO SOME THUMBNAILS FOR YUOUR PAGES. ESPECIALLY IF YOURE JUST STARTING OUT

edit: check the replies for a cool link about planning out a comic!!!

planning out the scope of your project is important! i'm just not that kind of girl 😭 and that does result in a lot of mistakes! but the alternative is that i never get around to actually making anythign at all, which is worse to me

for me, that stuff slows me down and drains all my energy before i even start. but this approach uh. does not work for everyone and its probably best to start with a more planned-out approach 😂 though, if you do try to pre-plan and find it makes your brain explode like mine does, you can try just drawing it and seeing what happens. bc like. hey. it works for me . i dunno

but yeah like i said if you have a specific topic/question i don't mind answering that more specifically!!! comics is a very broad subject so it's hard to know what to say about it just like Generally hahaha. thank you so much <3

[escherstrange-ffxiv]

Because @lynxden somehow missed [this post], I am going to make up for it with a slightly longer, wordier post, because, well, nine years, folks.

This involved digging into my external HDD and Facebook for old pics since everything pre-SB was lost. Buckle up and enjoy the ride.

Feb 2015

When I finally jumped into the PS3 Free Trial (it only had 20 days playtime and would delete your chara if you didn't buy the game in 90 days so no meme) I was in a very shitpost-y mood, giggling during character creation.

Pink hair so healers could see him a mile away. Make pink his thing. Give him facial hair because SE men don't have enough facial hair. The scar is from a shaving accident (you can tell I don't shave).

There was no gpose function, only hide HUD but back then screenshots were only to show funny ingame things, not as a form of photography. He wore this robe for AGES because apparently no other gear was better.

2017

"What do you mean I have three lights and they all shine into his face- oh."

The first Gpose I put on IG! This is special because I read a guide that told me how to position lights.

And then I learned how to pretend he was taking a selfie. The world of Gpose was opening up.

I also removed Escher's facial hair because it didn't go with the Aymeric hair. Suddenly he was ✨handsome✨!

Oh no.

2019

Permanently free from my mother's voice in my head telling me to be a functional member of society, I dived into FFXIV with a gusto I never had in any other MMORPG in my life. I actively spoke to my FC, joined raids at 3 AM because EU, started looking up screenshots on Twitter wanting to replicate certain shots for practice.

And then the prevalence of shaders and mods hit me like a brick to my PS4.

A new feeling was born: Spite.

Spite converted my FC room into a studio. Spite that said I would take good shots from my PS4 as the biggest middle finger to anyone who said, "oh vanilla pics will never be good without shaders/mods".

Spite earned me almost USD 50 worth of Mogstation credit from winning screenshot contests so don't knock it until you've tried it!

Escher also turned into a Lala! Lalascher was suuuper cute but it made ingame relationships weird (their words, not mine) and I didn't like the jump animation so back to-

-I MEAN I BOUGHT A SET OF 3, MIGHT AS WELL USE IT?!

Catscher lasted even shorter than Lalascher. I REALLY couldn't stand the tail sticking out of everything, even long skirts (shouldn't a tail technically be under a skirt and pop out like a bustle or-).

2021

In 2019 my house burned down so I had to get an emergency laptop. I finally had a PC capable of playing games so I installed FFXIV on it...with Gshade.

But then stuff happened. You know, the point in every FFXIV player's life where interpersonal relationships affect their mental health. Yeah, that.

I resubbed wanting to use more shaders EXCEPT my laptop's framerate would drop to single digits if I activated anything above gameplay presets so my laptop was only used to log RP chats.

I still play on console because I can play on a big TV screen while still looking at Discord without the overlay wigging out on me. So if I take pictures in new expansions it's always going to be vanilla.

The spite had calmed down a LOT but I already knew what I was capable of. The next step was just figuring out more new and interesting shots.

I also went back to taking pictures of interesting things in game.

2022

I bit the bullet and built a PC. For Gshade. I am 100% serious. Then the whole Gshade thing happened but I ALREADY HAVE A NICE PC FOR THIS, YOU THINK SOME DRAMA IS GOING TO STOP ME? FOOL, SPITE IS MY BLOOD. (I use reshade now)

So have more vanilla pics!

Also Escher became a bani! He was very handsome but the lack of hats was a dealbreaker. Bunnyscher lasted 6 months and was incorporated into the lore as Campanella Strange, First of Their Name, who kicked Escher's soul into the lifestream and borrowed his body-

I'll stop here. Feel free to ask for more details.

Learning to use crime tools meant I could take an alt to JP studios and pose different characters in them. Guilty? Yes. Thrilling? Hell yes.

2023-2024

Aka "The Moon Years". That's it, that's all you need to know. Gosh, there sure are some beautiful clothes out there. Also Escher finally changed his hairstyle after...five years???

I will still die on the vanilla hill though.

Bonus shot of Escher's hairstyles:

And that's it! Thank you for reading the great wall of text, I hope you found it worth your time!

Tagging? I don't know, looks like everyone on tumblr has done this by now, but I'd tag @furys-mercy just because I'd like to see what Mercer looked like in the early days.

[achromant]

hello, I just followed for your orctober stuff and scrolled through some of your blog and wanted to ask, what is guild wars 2?

OOOH BOY HERE I GO! ahem.

Guild Wars 2 is a high fantasy MMO, similar to maybe Final Fantasy Online. Guid Wars as a series is about as old as World of Warcraft, but has a much smaller fanbase; mostly because the company behind it, ArenaNet, seems to be allergic to advertisements (it's gotten better since the last two expansions).

These days, the core game is free, with only the expansions costing money. Well, some expansions, as they just throw in older expacs for free now. Even if you start with a free account, you can technically buy an upgrade by just... using ingame currency, which is a WILD concept to me.

Most notable features of the game are probably the character customization, free dyeing of armor, and a few thousand unique armor and weapon skins. Players often joke that the true endgame of GW2 is fashion (and they are RIGHT goddamnit). All five playable races are so ridiculously detailed in lore and design, it's incredible. Sylvari for example are not plain elves, they are full on plant constructs that grow from fruits on the mother tree. Asura are not just gnomes/goblins, they are a highly educated society of geniuses that would openly strive for world domination if it werent for their inherent bureaucratic tendencies.

The mounts in GW2 are among the best you will find anywhere, so much that World of Warcraft just copied some for their Dragonflight expansion.

Guild Wars 2 has a medium sized active player base, smaller than WoW or FFXIV, but they are an amazing community. We have veteran players, including me, who routinely patrol the starter maps to offer advice and maybe some healing to newbies (supported by the ingame mentor system). You might receive random mail from players gifting some cake. There's festivals, community parties, role playing, fashion contests, races and minigames.

If you are a seasoned MMO player, GW2 offers raids and the smaller strike system, which is being constantly expanded. Extreme MMO experts might find the game a bit flat, but that's only superficial. For beginners, I'd say the story is beatifully written. You can explore the open world, meeting players along the way (every map holds around 50-80 player at a time). You can choose any class and complete any content, including endgame. Any class, any race, (almost) any playstyle is viable, and nothing about your build is permanent, you can adjust your whole build on the fly.

Aside from the obvious MMO parts, GW2 also has structured PvP (5 vs 5 players) and the so called World vs World, which is a large scale week-long epic battle of three teams of around 50 players on each side (which btw is not as draining on the CPU as you'd think)

If you plan on giving it a try, I'd be more than happy to give you a more detailed overview of the game. This little chaotic hellhole of an MMO is very dear to my heart <3

This is by the way for ANYONE reading this: If any of you want to try the game, hit me up. DM me here on tumblr, or on discord (@ achromant). Even if you already play the game and are still new or just lost - ask me anything you want. I have close to 18k ingame hours.

[leonaquitaine]

Sights of Eorzea: beta version is out!

Drumroll, please - https://www.sightsofeorzea.com is live, and there are lots of new features!

Photo Studios

You can now not only search for studios and photo booths across all regions and data centers, but you can also filter by Server and even if they're accessible by free-trial players!

Character Settings

You can now look up (and contribute your own) character setups - search by race, tribe, or attributes like Face number!

Save your favorites!

Found the perfect Photo Studio, or maybe keeping that gorgeous Au Ra configuration for a future alt? You can now sign in and just add it to your Favorites!

Meanwhile, on our Discord server...

We're seeing a lot of contributions from our community - Preset creators, Guide authors, and Gposers sharing their work on our Community Resources forum.

We already have over 200 Gpose locations listed, and the list keeps growing!

This is all a work in progress. Come join us and help us build a truly useful resource space for the GPose community!

[alicelufenia]

Get To Know You Game

Tagged by @coolseabird, thank you 💜

Last Song: Within Temptation - Wireless

From my Durge's playlist :)

Last Book/Fic: Pale Lights by ErraticErrata. A dark fantasy story of shifty spies, scheming nobles, and Faustian bargains with capricious gods. Notable for its intriguing world building, with Vesper being a very unique take on a "perpetual dark world" setting where those who control access to the isolated islands of light, or "Glare" that shines from firmament, command immense power and are at near constant war with each other and those creatures and people who call the hostile "Gloam" their home. At the heart of these conflicts that threaten to send this fragile world over the edge, a para-national military organization called the Watch stands as keepers of that line.

I finished book 1, and am currently 2/3rds through book 2. Very much enjoying it, I adore the characters, of which there are SO MANY, like gosh darn! You really need a chapter by chapter visual aid to keep up with them all, luckily that exists thanks to Gwennafran's helpful character charts so you know who's who, and who's still alive (I mean you don't NEED it, but it helps me)

Favorite Color: Purple! Also red, but especially purple 💜

Last Movie: Duuuuude it's been a while cause it was Alien: Romulus. I went to see that with my static leader, was enjoyable. I'm glad I'm blissfully ignorant of all the Prometheus stuff everyone's mad about.

Last TV Show: We're counting anime, right? My wife and I have both been enjoying Ameku M.D.: Doctor Detective. It's Sherlock Holmes but she's a doctor! (which was already House M.D., minus the she part) It's fantastic, we've actually been able to figure out some of the medical mysteries before their reveal too.

Spicy/Sweet/Savory: I have a shameless sweet tooth, but after that spicy is where it's at.

Last Thing I searched For: "NSR ttrpg term" Stands for New School Revolution, basically an offshoot/subset of OSR (Old School Renaissance/Revival) of traditional tabletop rpg play with a focus on player input determining outcomes over character ability and referees making Rulings rather than having a Rule for everything.

The main difference, aside from not necessarily being based on original D&D, is NSR games incorporate a lot of modern game design, and usually feature minimalist rules, an emphasis on "odd" or "weird" settings over traditional fantasy, and emergent narrative over storygame "genre emulation."

Current Obsession: Playing Minecraft with my friends and wife, reading Pale Lights and re-reading A Practical Guide to Evil and its webtoon adaptation (seriously EE might be my favorite author), game design, and getting back into writing!

Looking Forward To: ffxiv 7.2 and the new raid tier. I miss savage raiding.

[anneapocalypse]

My eternal biggest struggles in FFXIV--and really in any game, but it matters way more when you're playing with other people--are visual perception and by extension reaction time. I have figured out just from talking to other people about how they perceive things that I simply do not process visual information as quickly or comprehensively as some people do. If I am focusing on one part of the screen I am not seeing what's happening in the other corner. When I'm looking at the party list I am not seeing my hotbar. When I'm looking at my hotbar I am not seeing the boss's cast bar. And so forth. The ability that most people seem to have to just absorb all or most of the information on their screen just by looking? I don't have that. I have to constantly, consciously be scanning all the places where I know there's important information. It is not automatic.

Which means that unless I know to look for a specific tell--like a specific cast or a symbol over my character's head--there is a good chance I just will not see it. I hesitate to even explain this to people because it sounds like I'm making excuses or not paying attention when I say "I just didn't see it." But it doesn't matter how much I'm paying attention if I don't know what I'm looking for. I will not process it, which is functionally the same as not seeing it.

And I can learn, is the thing. I know to watch for Ancient Flare in Labyrinth of the Ancients. I know that in Shadowbringers onward, where you'll get strings of really unforgiving, rapid-fire AOEs, that it's better to focus on getting myself to safety and sacrifice a heal or two and then do damage control when they let up, than to miss an AOE because I was trying to heal, and die and force another player to interrupt their rotation to rez me. It just takes practice, and there are things I won't get on the first run, no matter how hard I try.

I do care about playing my job well. I watch guides. I practice. I do my best to learn, because I love the game and it's satisfying to play well, especially as a healer--I want to be the kind of healer that when I'm in the party, you know I've got you, that if you mess up I'll catch you, and it'll be fine. Playing a support role well is very, very satisfying and rewarding to me! And so none of the above means I'm not going to do my best, or that I'm not trying to be better.

I don't get better from people yelling at me or calling me stupid. I get flustered, I lose my flow, I blank out on things that actually are obvious. I get worse.

And the all-or-nothing attitudes from that small but real subset of veteran players is just utterly discouraging. "Either you're playing your job correctly or you're sabotaging." "There are no non-obvious mechanics in regular duties." It reads to me as "Be perfect on the first try or go fuck yourself." That is a standard I will literally never be able to meet. And I'm not saying "poor me," that's not my point. Somehow I doubt that it's a standard the majority of players are able to meet--based on my own experiences playing with sprouts in many, many roulettes.

Everyone has to start somewhere. Everyone learns differently, perceives differently, no matter how rigid the rotation of their job, no matter how "obvious" the mechanics. And for someone else who's struggling I would much rather be the person who gave them a better experience in the game than the person who gave them a shittier one. I don't want to be the person who makes someone quit trying to learn tanking for six months (as someone did to me). If you need to vent about how someone sucks, fine, do it in private. And even then, you know, maybe consider how you talk about it and to whom. Are your comments going to be the reason someone in your linkshell is terrified of learning a new role? Or the reason they're excited to try?

Personally I would rather come out of a duty with a party that struggled a bit but pressed on being kind and helping and encouraging one another and celebrated victory together, than leave someone never wanting to play again.

[fisherrprince]

hi! I know you're probably busy with dawntrail right now, but I was wondering. in your tips for new ffxiv players, you said to always select the recommended option for gear. ignoring glamours, at what point would you recommend to start like. manually picking for stats instead of going with the recommended?

sorry if this is worded confusingly I tried my best to make it coherent,,

hi!

Um, never, unless you start savage raiding. Your “stats” are always going to be sufficient enough to do big damage and keep yourself competitive in normal content. The reason why is the listed stats (determination, skill speed, piety, etc) make such a tiny difference on your gameplay that it doesn’t matter until you’re getting really in the weeds with materia, potions, food for stats… and by that point, there’s tons of guides out there for what you want. What’s really important for MSQ and combat is item level! Which is what the recommended button prioritizes.

How I’ve played normally is I/the automatic button picks the gear with the highest ilvl I can, and then all of my materia (you’ll unlock materia if you haven’t yet) is the red kind. I like to add critical hit and spell speed. Is that savage/ultimate raid viable? Iunno. But you really don’t need to be worrying about it unless you’re hardcore lol

[cinnabun-faerie]

*virtual hugs* I finally have internet so I can play ffxiv the free trial at least 😅 it's currently downloading on my playstation 4.. any advice for a new player/sprout?

Hi there! Hope you are doing well! ^-^

A/N: This might be a bit lengthy so I do apologize! I also don't want to frighten you, but I do want to say what I remember. And honestly I wish I had some of this advice when I was a sprout 5 or 6 years ago. I probably forgot a bunch of things, so if you want additional tips, you can always look it up online.

First and foremost, welcome to rhe world of FFXIV!

Go into the game with an open mind

Don't rush through the game, take your time and experience the story, characters and the world. There is much for you to explore!

Go at your own pace. This is your journey in Eorzea

If you want to get into the story and understand what's going on, I reccomend not skipping cutscenes

If you don't wish to be spoiled, avoid any sort of spoilers like the plague

It's okay to not know mechanics in the game, you are still learning and you will learn them eventually

Attune to the athrytes (Big crystal thingies in different areas as well as tiny crystals in the main cities)

If it's your first time, do your main story quests (It's a ! icon with fire around it) it will level you to make through the story!

Your class/job quests should take priority before MSQ (Main Story Quests) whenever they are available to you. They give you skills and armor

Speaking of job/class, if you don't think one works for you, switch until you find the one that you like the most

Hunting logs are great to do for experience, even if it may seem a bit tedius. If you can't find what you're looking for, there are help guides online for them

When you get to it, do the Hall of Novice beginner stuff - It will help you learn the start of your class and it will give you an armor set for your first dungeon!

Glamour is a big thing with ffxiv, but if you're just starting out, don't stress about it. You have lots of time later to pretty-ify your character later. Save up your gil (in game money)

But if you do want to wear pretty things right away, there's a quest you can get in Vesper Bay that you can do at level 15 "If I Had a Glamour" and "Color Your World" that will unlock glamours for you. Once you have an outfit you want to make a glamour, you can go to an inn and go to your glamour chest and make it so!

But most importantly, have fun! And it's okay to step away from the game from time to time. Eorzea will always be waiting for you when you return.

[fandaniel]

ur "look into what ur starting job ends up being" post reminded me that when i was first starting ffxiv i was looking at rly old and outdated stuff that said that thancred shows up if u start in limsa but i wanted to be a black mage and that starts in uldah .. i was so sad bc i didnt know i could switch jobs and id miss out on thancred only to see that everything was Wrong and he was just fucking There . awful wife jumpscare

awful wife jumpscare 😭😭😭 oh my god. yeah god thats another thing the guides in ffxiv are so doo doo. i almost want to make a goddamn handbook pdf for new players because its so overwhelming. all of it. trying to do eureka which is a grind only for guides to be overwhelming and not user friendly.

thats another thing with ffxiv its so user unfriendly due to the mentality of it being ok. just google it if youre confused. mostly with raid mechanics

[otherworldseekers]

The Rising 2023

"Ten years have now passed since the world was reborn from its ashes. Since we set forth upon this journey. Countless things have happened during that time, and I've had the pleasure of meeting many an adventurer along the way.

"If truth be told, it hasn't always been easy. There are moments when I wonder why I must struggle so. Days when I'm tempted to cast it all aside."

"But in spite of all this I always manage to carry on and it is thanks to my wonderful comrades—and to you, our esteemed adventurers. By now, I must have been regaled with tens of thousands of your tales. You usually share them with a smile, but even when it is with a frown, you tell me that you're still enjoying yourself. 'Tis no exaggeration to say that I derive all of my driving force from you all. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you.

"Ours is an unending journey, and nothing would make me happier than if we could keep walking it together. As you make your way, we promise that we will be ever at your side, matching you step for step."

"Much time has passed since the world was reborn from its ashes. Countless souls have made this place their home; every single one has left an indelible mark on it.

"Together we have built this world, and it is our sincerest hope that we will continue to do so for many years to come."

"So please be safe and well. May you ever walk in the light of the Crystal."

By morning light the journey starts, a trill of hope within our hearts. On westerly wind, to river song, Into the world, where we belong. 'Bove fields of white and azure sky, Sunset's storm a crimson fire. Jewels aglitter on pitch-black veil, A new day dawns, so goes the tale. By eternal wind we carry on Boldly towards a golden morn. With mem'ries as a guiding star, Shining our steps both near and far.

(Can you even imagine any other game developers giving such a sincere, heartfelt message to their players? This is why FFXIV is the greatest MMORPG.)

[gatheredfates]

Hi! My name is Sea, and I like to collect things. 🌿

Specifically, as of February this year, I have made it my mission to collect as many resources for the Final Fantasy community as I can; including, but not limited to: Communities, Events, Free Companies, How-To Guides, Lore, Tools and more! I have compiled them into Sea's Community Compendium for FFXIV Creatives, a venture I hope will service as a directory for new and old FFXIV players alike to find places and things they might not otherwise know about, and I'm proud to say that the Compendium has over a hundred individual entries!

...But I want more.

Specifically, as much as this is a call to introduce new people to the Compendium, it is a call for anyone who might know of specific resources/communities that not in the document to take a moment's time out of their day to let me know about them. You can submit specific resources via:

My tumblr dm's.

This handy google form.

Or SEAFLOOR, my support and social community for the Compendium and adjacent projects.

You do not need to be a resource/server owner to submit; there just needs to be a publicly accessible link. ✨

Projects like mine equally cannot survive without the support of the community. If you like what I do, please reblog this post or share it with your friends; post it in your community servers or link it on your social media(s). The more visibility I get, the larger the Compendium becomes and the more likely you are to find a resource or community to suit your needs.

Okay, but really, Is my space suitable for the Compendium? Most of the time, yes! Below the read more is some more information/stipulations. This is all publicly available on the document.

Below are the following things I do not accept on the Compendium:

Personal/Single-Character LFC ads. (Though these get posted to the SEAFLOOR Tumblr Community when I find them!)

Content intended for or can be used for bullying, harassment and OOC gossip. E.g. ‘Secrets’ blogs, receipts, callout posts, etc. This does not include IC tabloid blogs or other ventures used to generate roleplay.

Communities that do not have an RP/writing element (large-scale exempt).

Anything I find personally distasteful or goes against the spirit of this project.

Common-sense rule applies.

I want to put my community on the Compendium but we have an application process. Is this okay?

Yes! Just note somewhere in your application that's a requirement. The only thing that is mandatory for the Compendium is that you must be open to new members or have a public-facing/accessible facet. There's no point advertising a community if no one can join it in some way!

I want to put my Community on the compendium but I only have x number of members —

Also totally okay! People don't start with large communities. Activity is a must but, whether your server has two or two thousand members, if you're looking for new people to join, I'd love to help you find people.

I want to put my community/resource on the Compendium but I worry its too niche?

Okay, and? If your Eorzean Fishing Alliance has four members but you roleplay every second weekend, I still want to know about it. The same goes for resources; if it's relevant to the game, it'll be useful to someone.

How active does a community need to be?

If you find a community has not been active in about two/three months, send me a message and I'll take a look at it. Communities have ebbs and flows, especially event spaces that may take hiatuses depending on member interest/life events. I'm not strict in my implementation provided a space isn't dead. If a link or anything is broken, contact me asap!

I have [insert a question not stated here]?

No drama! Send me an ask or use the #Compendium channel in my Discord!

[sky-blaze]

I hope all my fellow FFXIV players are enjoying the influx of Xbox sprouts. I know it's easy to get frustrated, but they're new to it. Guide them if you can. Not everything in the game is obvious, a few helpful words go a long way.

And Xbox players, plug in a wireless keyboard. You will thank me later.

[grislybeargames]

Now there's been plenty of time for players to journey through FFXIV's new Dawntrail expansion, we can start looking at the treasures available across Tural. In this case, I've put together a guide with @gamersdecide on how to acquire all the new mounts available. This time, featuring my friend's main boy Koh'to, because I haven't gotten any of the new mounts yet. Soon though, I will have the precious.

[igvblog]

FFXIV Newbie Traps: Avoid These!

For FFXIV Beginners: Don’t Make These Mistakes! Final Fantasy XIV is an expansive and rewarding MMORPG. However, new players often stumble upon common pitfalls that can hinder their experience. This guide helps you avoid these mistakes and navigate Eorzea effectively. Ignoring Main Story Quests (MSQ) The Main Story Quests (MSQ) are the backbone of FFXIV. They unlock new areas, dungeons, trials,…

[desertleviathan]

A guide to choosing a North American Data Center for your first FFXIV character

Final Fantasy XIV doesn't really require you to have Alts, since one character can see and do Everything. But I have a ton of alts anyway, and they're spread out enough that I've learned a bit about the quirks and cultural differences of all four North American Data Centers. What follows are my observations about the Pros and Cons of playing on each DC, which may help a new player figure out where they feel most comfortable.

In any case... the variances I'm describing are strong enough to be noticeable, but not so strong as to be overwhelming. Your experience is going to be mostly the same regardless of where you wind up. The FFXIV community at large is friendly, welcoming, and helpful. But some places are more so.

AETHER: I have a frankly ludicrous eight alts on Aether DC, including my main character, so I know this community best of all.

PRO: Seems to be the most populous NA DC, probably because it's first on the list alphabetically. There will be other people to do content with at all hours of day or night.

PRO: A larger portion of the Raiding Community seems to have gravitated here. If you are interested in High-End content (Extreme/Savage/Chaotic/Ultimate/etc.), your odds of finding a group seem to be noticeably improved on Aether.

PRO: Many Streamers and Community Personalities are on Aether. A majority of the ones who are willing to disclose where they are, anyway. This is probably related to the overall presence of the Raiding community.

PRO: General gameplay competence is noticeably higher on Aether. I see far fewer wipes on old content, reach completion much faster, and feel a lot less pressured to queue for the Alliance Raid Roulette as a Red Mage to be a resurrection bot.

CON: It's... the most populous NA DC. Aether's servers will have the Congested status more often than not. Login queues will be longer. And good luck finding a House.

CON: It's full of Raiders, and Raiders can sometimes be unpleasant. I think even the majority of Raiders will agree that there's a larger concentration of toxicity in that part of the game than in the general FFXIV population.

CON: Because the general experience level is higher, the level of tolerance towards inexperienced players can be lower. The norm for all of FFXIV is definitely to be kind to new players, but I see violations of that norm a lot more often on Aether. Aether people in particular seem have a very hard time waiting for first-timers to watch boss cutscenes, or responding in a helpful manner to players who screw up fight mechanics in a way that gets other characters killed.

CRYSTAL: I also have five major alts on Crystal and a couple placeholder characters who may or may not get promoted to regular play.

PRO: The NA Roleplay community is heavily concentrated on Crystal, especially on the Balmung and Mateus servers.

PRO: People are just overall very nice here, above and beyond the baseline for FFXIV. If someone's handing out free stuff or offering to escort new players around for map completion or taking time out of their gameplay to help someone out that they've just met, it's more likely to happen on Crystal than not in my observation.

PRO: After Aether, Crystal is easily the next most populous, and probably takes first place during the long span between patches, because Ather players are more likely to let their subscription lapse when there's no new content to throw themselves at, but Crystal players are more likely to focus on things that are always there like housing decoration, glamour collection, and roleplay.

CON: Again, populous servers equals congested server - it can be hard to even get your foot in the door on Crystal. And Housing is so popular on Crystal that it's hard to even find an Apartment on some servers. Good luck!

CON: Crystal players, especially Roleplayers, sometimes lack a sense of how to share space with people who have differing levels of comfort with suggestive and sexual content. If someone expresses discomfort, it can be a crapshoot whether others will respect that and take things to a private space, or whether they'll just pile on and heckle the person who spoke up.

CON: Crystal players can be noisy. There's a greater tendency to treat /yell and /shout chats as general-subject chatrooms, especially on the Roleplay servers mentioned above. I don't want to be the grouchy old man in the room, but topic and tone of conversation skews very immature. It often feels like being trapped in a junior high lunch room.

CON: There's no nice way to say this, Crystal players are noticeably worse at playing the game. Out of all my negative observations, this is the one I'm most ready to back up with Numbers. I had a spreadsheet going for a while when I was leveling my Aether and Crystal mains at the same time where I'd compare completion time for the same set of roulettes on the same day, and Crystal was reliably 10-25% slower. Wipes are a lot more common. On the plus side though, since everyone's a little sloppier on average a lot fewer of them get rude or abusive towards people who do mess up.

CON: There's no drama like Roleplayer Drama. If you want to see some real messy soap opera crap getting aired out in a public chat channel every single day, this is the place to look for it.

DYNAMIS: The newest NA DC was host to a "book club" style MSQ replay I participated in for quite a while, and I continued to play the character I made for that long after the group disbanded. He's been moved to Crystal now though, so I don't currently have an active Dynamis alt.

PRO: The newest servers. At the time I'm writing this 6/8 Dynamis servers still have the "New" status, which awards bonus EXP to characters made there, and if I recall correctly gives them a large gil reward for reaching a certain level threshold early on.

PRO: Dynamis is under-populated overall. Why is that a good thing? Swift logins and available housing, mainly. Some servers still have wards that haven't been made available for purchase yet, because currently open housing wards are still not full!

CON: On the other hand, Dynamis content queues can be slower outside of prime time, because of the smaller population numbers. PvP queues are never great, no matter what time of day.

CON: The economy is still kind of weird here - a lot of items simply aren't available, or have wildly fluctuating prices.

PRIMAL: The "Chill" DC, sitting back and just living its life while Aether and Crystal compete. Fun fact, my two Primal alts were copies of my Aether main who I originally made to attend friend's weddings, then kept playing.

PRO: Lacking either the temperamental perfectionism of Aether's raiders or the juvenile drama of Crystal's roleplayers, people here are just... there. If you want to just go about your business without being bothered, Primal is the place to be!

PRO: I have no idea why, but Primal's economy is way more buyer-friendly than the other servers. When I'm looking for the cheapest copy of an expensive item, 90% of the time I wind up hopping to Primal to get it.

PRO: This may be personal bias talking, but the Primal House Decorating community seems to be on another level. I see very cool designs everywhere of course, but when I'm hopping DCs to look at something cool I saw on Bluesky or here on Tumblr I'm more likely to wind up on Primal as a result.

CON: The economy being buyer-friendly means it's seller-unfriendly. You won't score as much from selling a rare drop here as you would elsewhere. It's a noticeable enough difference that I've helped Primal players transfer goods to their Aether or Crystal alts to sell, and transfer the money back to Primal.

CON: Folks mostly minding their own business means it's sometimes harder to scrounge together players for content here. Duty Finder Queue times are fine, but Party Finder participation seems poorer, and if you're reduced to shouting for help in a city you may find the response underwhelming.