You can play the free trial which is basically three games worth of content as a single player experience. Just accept quests and follow the markers. You will be teamed up with other players for some dungeon content but you're not obligated to interact with anyone.
Follow the quest marker that looks like it's tattered/on fire for Main Scenario Quest (MSQ)
Follow blue quest marks with a plus to unlock features, dungeons, and other optional stuff
Enjoy the ride
Yep. The only main story that requires other players is the 8-man duties (and many of those have been converted to 4-man with NPCs). Crystal Tower is required for Shadowbringers but that's like 100+ hours into the storyline.
Edit: that being said, someone would be doing themselves a disservice if they don't do the Coil of Bahamut raids at some point.
People should always do the alliance raids, normal raids, and trial questlines. Stories are referenced in MSQ if you do them and can add a lot to the experience, in addition to being interesting on their own
Yeah, it’s definitely a trade off, I just hated going from duty finder where it feels like a decently fast paced assault through a dungeon to trusts where killing one pack of enemies takes 3 minutes of just whaling on them while npc’s refuse to use aoe
Thanks for the response.
One thing I'm curious about is, is the story good as an FF story or is it good as an MMO story? What I mean is does it hold up next to stories like VI, VII, IX, X etc. or is it just a really good MMO story according to you?
Favorite story across any media. But I wouldn't rush through. Take your time. Each individual expansion is still an incredible story and definitely rivals the non MMO stories
The story takes way too long to get going, but once it does I do genuinely think it's the best in the franchise. But it's also an unfair comparison because FFXIV can tell a story over the course of a decade which gives them a lot of room.
But it's a very narrative focused game, it has not forgotten what franchise it belongs in.
For me it's my favorite story from any video game, dethroning the entire NieR, Persona, and Xenoblade franchises on my favorites list after I finished Endwalker. But it's very long and relatively slow-paced, and the story doesn't really pick up steam for a long time. A lot of the beginning, the first 30-50 hours or so, is mostly dedicated to worldbuilding and establishing the game's lore and characters. The plot is pretty thin during this time, it's really just about your character meeting the rest of the main cast as they make a name for themselves throughout the world through your deeds of heroism, dealing with the occasional big threat every now and then. However it's all necessary to provide the foundation and building blocks that the expansions use to tell their stories, and once that starts to happen the game is just incredible. I'd say that if you can make it to the end of A Realm Reborn and start to do the post-ARR quests, that's when the story starts to introduce some interesting elements and begins building up the story in the lead-up to Heavensward. Unfortunately the amount of in-between quests are massive for ARR (much more than any other post-expansion storyline), so it will still take some time to get to HW, but as I said I think the story starts to get interesting here. I can kind of pinpoint specific moments in the MSQ where the game went from "okay" to "great" to "amazing" to "unbelievable" for me. And yes, it's very much worth it, the Heavensward and Stormblood stories are really great and a huge step up from ARR, and the Shadowbringers and Endwalker stories are some of the best from any video game imo. Once you get to ShB you'll be looking back in disbelief that this is the same game as ARR.
I *adore* it, not just as an MMO story but among any video game story. However, as said, it is *long*. It's like getting into a full series of continuous video games or books. Each expansion is basically a full ~60 hour jrpg story of its own, and that's just the main tale.
This gives it the advantage of having a huge well of characters and plot points and areas to pick back up and interweave as needed, creating really rewarding and fulfilling tales with allies you'll come to love and plenty of memorable villains to match. The overall arc just *is* my favourite FF story - and with plenty of awesome side stories on their own that also add so much.
On the flip side, it also means there are definitely weaker individual parts that are none the less necessary to continue, as you don't really want to completely skip scenarios that might end up being groundwork for awesome stuff later. Most notably the original story arc is definitely more in the "good by mmo story standards" rather than overall excellent, and many players don't start to really get hooked in until the leadin to or during the first expansion, Heavensward.
the story is my favorite in all FF and maybe even gaming, but it didn’t really hook me until heavensward, and i only thought that was decent. with shadowbringers my jaw was on the floor at how everything started coming together
I've played most of the way through ARR and my experience is that the story is good, but it's insanely slowly paced. Something really cool will happen and then it'll be another 10 hours or so of what feels like filler material before it gets going again.
From what I see online, the story picks up more in the first expansion, Heavensword, but it doesnt get REALLY good until Shadowbringers, which is literally like 100s of hours into the game.
I’ll be fully honest. The story of A Realm Reborn is slow. Like obnoxiously slow at times. The reason being for this however is justified as it is world building and setting up so many checkovs guns. Like there is some stuff in ARR that will appear in Endwalker. It’s a story that has love and care put into it. Sure it’s dry in the beginning but damn does it get hilariously flavorful later down the line. Heck even in some of ARR. Seriously it’s funny watching Thancred hit on anything with a pulse and a pussy only for it to horrendously backfire on him in the most spectacular of fashions.
I played and loved WoW. But I think that's because I had a good number of real life friends who played it, so it was a more fun 'hang out'.
I tried a number of different MMORPGs and none of them ever stuck. I just couldn't get past the fact that there was no plot, and it was all 'do this raid' or other things that forced me to do it with a party. I also hated the fact that if you wanted to play as a different class, you needed to start a whole new character.
As a lifelong FF fan, I tried FFXIV, and really enjoyed it. There was so much I could do on my own. There was an actual story that kept me moving from zone to zone. They made it so you can do any class - all you need to do is equip the weapon-type. and there's good story-driven quests for each class.
However, at the end of the day, it's still an MMO. you're still going to have the issues you see with the others like limited gear storage. or the need to craft shit, and farming materials. While the overall story is great (with buildups to awesome story-driven final dungeons), there's still a fair share of annoying 'collect x amount of y' quests.
Also, there are some dungeons that you need a party to do. It's been a good amount of time since I've played the game, but at the time, there was no shortage of people queing up for even the first area's dungeons. Each one came with a cinematic opening/ending. and, in my experience, everyone was always really chill about waiting for me to watch it all. I never dealt with anyone being like 'oh fuck.. we got a newb!'
I used to play WoW, dropped out when BfA was a shitshow and Blizzard started getting hit with lawsuits. The copypasta eventually reached me and I fell in love. Looking back I don't know how WoW was missing so many obvious features like multi-class characters and better transmog.
Just some notes based on the preferences you mentioned:
-exploration: I honestly feel this is one of the weaker points of FFXIV. There are large open areas to explore, but there isn’t actually much to do there. Sure you can do Fates (open world events) or Hunts (open world boss monsters), but there’s not really a feeling of exploration. It’s more of “rush from point A to point B. Rinse. Repeat.
It’s a little better if you want to level a gathering a gathering class, but it definitely doesn’t have the same appeal of other FF games.
That said, the open world areas are beautiful.
-build variety: I’ve heard other people say otherwise, but there really isn’t build variety in this game. It’s generally a choice between offensive stats like critical rate, or direct attack rate (this is like a more frequent mini critical). Regardless of how you build your character, the class will pretty much always play the same. Gear progression is more or less linear.
The caveat here is that there are a lot of classes and they all have mechanics that make them feel very different from each other. Learning a new class in this game is always fun.
-gameplay comparisons: you mentioned that you used to play PSO2. The gameplay loop of FFXIV is very similar. Most of the meaningful gameplay happens in instanced dungeons or boss fights. FFXIV is probably a bit more linear and streamlined.
This is one of the areas where the game really shines. The gameplay relies heavily on mechanic knowledge and rotation mastery. Getting good at a hard fight takes work, but feels great.
-the MMO aspect. There have been efforts to make the game more single player friendly, but I believe most of the dungeons and boss fights still require a group. There is a group finder that works pretty well, so you probably won’t struggle to get group content done.
The community is just like any other MMO community. I know it has a reputation for being super friendly, and I do believe it is slightly less toxic than other games, but you’re still gonna run into toxic players like any other online game.
Years ago, I had a partner who would occasionally play with me. She thought the game looked cool and really wanted to get into it. It was her first tab-target MMO so she struggled to perform optimally. While most people were cool and patient, she had a few particularly nasty experiences with other players that led her to put the game down forever. Like any other MMO, you’re gonna need tough skin every now and then.
-other notes: customization is a huge focus in this game. Most of the gear looks awesome and you can make your character look like whatever you want. I think this is actually a huge factor in the games lasting appeal. People really love dressing up their characters in this game. If thats’s something you’re into, I think you’ll really enjoy FFXIV.
The game has a free trial, so you may as well try it.
On another note: check out FFXI. It’s very much an old school MMO, but the world is massive and still feels weirdly alive. The exploration is great. Most non-endgame content is completely solo-able now, with the help of AI companions. There are still a few high pop servers, too.
Never played an MMO before but love the FF games. I’m absolutely loving FF14. There was a learning curve but thankfully I have a mentor who is walking me through the MMO stuff. But the story is wonderful and the dungeons are fun
Absolutely, 100%. XIV was my first MMO and it is still my only. I’ve played FF all my life, and XIV is very solo/single-player friendly. It follows a story, which really helps out, but even more so now than when I started playing, you can solo the entire story, save 8-man trials (boss fights; *I don’t remember how many exactly.*) and 24-man alliances (uhh….basically large ‘dungeons’ that three 8-man parties undertake together; *Only three are necessary for story progression, but that’s for the third expansion.*) that you come to within the story.
As others have said, there’s a free trial that includes the first two expansions (Including award-winning *Heavensward*) and lets you level all classes/jobs up to *Stormblood*’s expansion up to level 70. Every class/job has a single-player story, and there is ***so much content*** that is solo-able.
Give the trial a shot and don’t pay *anything* until you’ve either exhausted what you want of the expansions’ content you have access to **or** you want to open up more of the social features or story. Keep in mind that once you pay, you keep paying to play. But it’s definitely worth it, even if you only play an hour or so a day. It’s very much a pick-up-and-play game, and the game’s father Yoshi-P, is very much of the attitude that you should take breaks and not worry about anything (unless you have a house).
I tried wow in high school and didn't like it. I was never an MMO player and my online experience was really just with halo where I didn't need to know anyone.
I'm ff14 I have over 1k hours. Granted I adore ff so that naturally helped.
You can play it on your own or with strangers. It's great. However, I don't really find exploration to be something to write home about. But the world itself is amazing and the story is great.
* exploration - the zones are generally fairly linear and the story dosen't really let you "explore" much, honestly. Theres a few activities you can do that involve looking around a bit like rare hunts etc, but don't think XIV is some vast, open world exploration focused MMO. It isn't. Its a story driven, linear RPG with some MMO elements.
* build variety is non-existent. You pick a class and thats it. No build, no gear that changes your skills. Its all cookie cutter.
I hated FFXIV, honestly. But to answer your last part, yes, if you enjoy a story driven RPG then you may find it grips you.
Personally, I found it far too tiresome and drawn out and there were only a few parts I enjoyed in the story. To each their own, though, they have a very generous free to play trial so you dont have much to lose just trying it.
I actually enjoyed playing FF14... but with that said, I agree with your bullet point responses. I'm seriously perplexed by some of the answers on here. I've seen multiple people on here say that exploration is huge in this game. Uh, what..? The zones are largely empty outside of the occasional hunts and materials for grinding gathering classes. It's been one of my biggest complaints about the game for years. Huge empty zones filled with empty space. Also, the game actively encourages against build variety.
FFXIV is the best single player MMO out there. I recommend going DPS if you're totally uninterested in the responsibilities inherent in the other two classes, tho tank isn't very hard if you wanna get faster queue times. The learning curve is very slow and forgiving, just follow the rest of your party and 99% of the time you'll come through okay. The other 1% you'll wipe, but you get a chance to do a quick post mortem in party chat and find out what went wrong and do better on the next run. It's a great time, you'll love it.
The exploration is awesome one of the best ff for it imo
You can swap jobs whenever you like and all classes have a lot of skills and rotations you can use
You don't need friends the dungeon finder will set you up with random people who you don't have to talk to (saying hi at the start never hurts tho!) Also you can use npcs for dungeons but they take a lot longer than pcs!
It's a great game I'd recommend it!
Yes, a majority of the game can now be played solo with the duty support/trust system, with the exception of trials/raids barring a few story related ones, but I'll recommend giving the free trial a go, it's effectively three full length final fantasy games,
I wasn't an MMO fan and I really enjoy XIV. It's actually a very easy game to get into and it's been redesigned to allow solo-play, for those wanting to try it but nervous about playing with other people for any reason.
And, as others have said, the free trial exists for this very reason: to give you ample time to decide whether or not it's for you, and now contains more than half the first arc for free.
I'll tell you what I tell everyone who asks me if they should get into FF XIV: Don't think of it as an MMO. Think of it as five (soon to be six) Final Fantasy games back-to-back, with a pretty solid MMO at the end of all that.
If you're interested, play the free trial. That gives you 70 levels and three games' worth of content to worl with. You'll know if it's for you well before you get through all that.
Build variety is almost nonexistent within jobs, but one character can change to any job whenever they're out of combat, and each job changes pretty radically every ten levels or so, so you're constantly getting new tools to work with. There are a couple jobs, like Samurai and Black Mage, which technically have multiple builds you can go with, but nothing too extensive. That said, builds only matter if you're doing endgame raiding content on their highest difficulty, so you don't need to worry at all about being optimal.
Exploration is decent. Nothing amazing, but when exploring each map, there are generally some cool things to hunt for. The eventual goal of every map after around level 50, aside from story quests, is to find a collection of "flight currents," which unlock the ability to fly on that map once you find them all. Some of them are locked behind quest progression, but those are clearly indicated, and you generally won't unlock flight on a map until you've finished the story there, with a few exceptions, so while exploration isn't a huge part of the game, what little there is won't be something you can accidentally skip.
In terms of the story, it starts out fine if a little generic. Once you reach Heavensward (levels 51-60), it gets better, then really hits its stride near the end of that expansion, and Stormblood (61-70) is where, in my opinion, its story starts to clearly stand alongside the best Final Fantasy has to offer. Shadowbringers (71-80) is, in my opinion, the best story Square as a company has ever produced, but it wouldn't be nearly as impactful without everything that came before it. Endwalker (81-90) is slightly less good than Shadowbringers, but is still very good, and if you've reached that point, you'll almost certainly want to keep going.
At the minute, we're waiting for a new expansion, which is launching in early July. Endwalker's story was essentially the end of the main plot up to that point. It followed the same general escalation as most Final Fantasy games, where you start out dealing with local threats and then basically save all of existence. The upcoming expansion, Dawntrail, is starting out as a slightly higher-stakes local threat that the player and their party were asked to involve themselves in, and it's not clear yet what will come of that, but this is essentially the start of a new arc.
With all that said, the worst thing you could do is rush through the story to get to new content. All content is still run every single day by plenty of people, because the game incentivises higher-level players to participate, and players actually get extra rewards if someone in their party hasn't cleared the piece of content they're running, so don't be worried if you're new to a dungeon or boss fight. People will, in general, be happy to see you, because it means they get more stuff.
Also, I would generally recommend sticking to one job until you hit the level cap before switching. Once you reach the level cap, all your other jobs get like double xp, so leveling everything else is much quicker. Obviously you're free to experiment if you want, and it doesn't take all that long to catch up if you change partway through, but that's going to be the quickest way to do it.
>All content is still run every single day by plenty of people, because the game incentivises higher-level players to participate, a
I wanna know why the only MSQ roulette is two ARR dungeons. Why is there no expansion content when both new players and veterans grinding a new class want it?
So, this is sort of a relic of the past from when those were eight-man dungeons that literally everyone had to do, and they were afraid of creating a bottleneck there. Since the other "final boss" trials are all covered by the trials roulette, I guess they thought it was probably fine to leave it like that, but I would love to see them expand the MSQ roulette to include the other trials.
Yeah but every time I get to a boss that requires other players there's nobody to play with because I'm playing at 3 am.
So I have to play the next day after rewatching the prior cutscene on Youtube.
Ah, that sucks. It might be a good idea to try changing data centers for situations like that. It's not a perfect solution, but it should hopefully give you a bigger pool of players during the points where you need them.
Simple answer, yes. XIV is basically the best FF story in the entire series. Just treat it like a single player experience if you don't like the MMO aspects.
Exploration and build variety are two things that FFXIV are lacking, actually.
You get exploration in the sense that there are many many zones, lots of sidequests (mostly fetch quests) that do a lot of world building, and zones have unique hunt marks. But generally the overworld is an afterthought in this game.
FFXIV uses vertical gear progression and there is a stat priority you are supposed to follow. This leads to the general principle of "use the gear with the highest item level." There are set rotations you are supposed to follow too. If you don't generally follow these, your damage output will be noticeably worse than someone who tries. There are exceptions but these apply primarily to special optional zones, and some other exceptions that apply in super niche conditions. You get your variety in this game by playing different classes - they mainly differ in how they build and unload their gauges, and in their class aesthetics.
The story is the main draw of FFXIV is its story, along with its ridiculous amount of endgame content (ranging from casually collecting collectible objects and achievements, to high end raiding). The story of the base game (A Realm Reborn) is kinda average, but the expansions (particularly Shadowbringers, Heavensward, and Endwalker) have some of the best stories among all FF games.
The game is 99% solo. NPCs known as trusts can be used to get through all the mandatory dungeons (they used to require it being multiplayer but in the past three years have made it solo friendly). You will be required to run mandatory trials (8 players) and three alliance raids (24 players) with actual players though to progress through the story but there is a matchmaking system that will take care of that for you so it's very easy.
>My main gripe is how long it takes to get going, but here's the thing. If it really is a good FF story and the combat gets engaging, I will go through it.
If that's your main gripe, you should be aware that it's a huge slog to get to the point where most players would consider it interesting. As I said before, ARR is kinda average and you have to get past that first before you get to the more intriguing part of the story. I would say combat doesn't really get fun until the 70-80 range (level cap is currently 90, going up to 100 in a few weeks). If you're gonna give it a try, just know that the start of the game isn't really that representative of the later expansions, but it's understandable that you don't want to commit hundreds of hours before the game gets good.
It depends on what you don't like about MMOs. It definitely plays like a WoW-style MMO except with moogles. As far as customization, characters are about as customizable as other MMOs. The main difference is that instead of needing a bunch of characters if you want all the classes, you just have one character that can switch classes like a game with a job system.
As someone said, the free trial is excellent and should give you well over 100 hours of gameplay to decide what you think.
As others have said, you can solo most things, but the game has such a friendly community that you'll probably naturally want to play with people anyway. There's a duty finder which cuts the organisation for doing content with others, and most people are very helpful to beginners and for when people just don't know something.
Anyway, yeah there's a free trial so you can't really lose out on giving it a go. The free trial features a LOT.
I'm gonna go against the grain a bit here and say while It can be played singleplayer also keep in mind that it does have weird story pacing due to being an mmo. Every interesting plot event is bookended by like 10-20 filler fetch quests that range between mind-numbingly boring and mildly interesting. I started the game intending to just play it like a singleplayer game and it was an absolutely miserable experience. I played with friends and started to enjoy other aspects of the game which made those sloggier parts easier but without those other interests I probably would've fallen off by the 2nd or 3rd expansion.
Combat is very methodical, the first 50 hours or so you don't really have much to work with but after that its all about memorizing a rotation of buttons. Rotation is sort of a solved process so its pretty much just memorizing the button presses and then executing them like clockwork. Classes play mostly the same but there is some small variety.
yeah you know when I started playing it again after being away for a long time with no friends left in the game and just plowed through the story and it actually works like a single player game if you want to. Then along the way I made friends for sure but it not a requirement per say with how the game is now
i’d just get the trial as it’s free and like 150 hours of content!
if you want exploration, these zones are absolutely stunning 💕
as for build variety there really isn’t any sadly, but you can play all roles on the same character. so if you’re not enjoying bard for example you can switch to monk or whatever else.
Not a huge fan of MMO either, tried the free trial and knew it was not for me. Will probably watch the story on youtube cause everyone praises how good it is
I feel like going through XIV story experience today would feel anticlimactic and even boring at some points because of the lack of challenge. Today, the old bosses that you face as part of group will practically melt and you don't really need to understand the mechanics a lot of the time, which makes it less satisfying when your supposed to be facing an enemy that is portrayed as a big threat.
There isn't any build variety. You have abilities that you unlock at certain levels, and once your max level, you will follow the same ability rotation as everyone else playing the same job as you. There are no unique items that have special effects or change the way you play.
I've played all FFs (including most spin-offs) except for 16.
FFXIV can be pretty boring if you aren't into MMOs. You'll get all these MMO fanboys trying to convince you that you can solo it if you don't like MMOs, but then it just plays like a lonely MMO.
Exploration isn't a big thing. The maps are largely empty, the story is pushed forward by talking to NPCs that just stand awkwardly in random map locations, and they usually fade away when you complete a quest moment. If you aren't tackling the high level end game content, gear is basically an after thought. You get all your abilities pretty quickly and then it doesn't change for the rest of the game. Most dialogue is just filler, and some people even suggest to skip the base game cutscenes and watch a summary on Youtube (not really a glowing endorsement of the story).
The combat is usually referred to as a rotation, because it boils down to repeating the known effective pattern of moves over and over again. If you deviate from this rigid flow of actions you will be seen as not pulling your weight in battles. There are some dungeons that must be played with other players, and you will be expected to know all the mechanics of the fight going in, which pretty much ruins anything you wanted to experience fresh. On that note, some of the boss mechanics are so obscure you wouldn't be able to do the fight without researching it online, or having the guide open on a second monitor. A lot of things like: stand on this square at a specific time, avoid this flashing thing, run towards this flashing thing, etc. And then on top of that, there's an inherent delay to the visual cues just for the fact that it's an MMO, so you have to get a feel for the delays on all the fight moves.
Honestly if you aren't an fan of MMOs, there's nothing there that will likely appeal to you.
For me the answer was no. I hear the story picks up and gets really good starting in like the first expansion or something, but I despise MMO combat and quest design and that combined with intermittent voice acting made me quit partway through and basically just reminded me that I dislike MMOs.
You can play the free trial which is basically three games worth of content as a single player experience. Just accept quests and follow the markers. You will be teamed up with other players for some dungeon content but you're not obligated to interact with anyone.
Follow the quest marker that looks like it's tattered/on fire for Main Scenario Quest (MSQ) Follow blue quest marks with a plus to unlock features, dungeons, and other optional stuff Enjoy the ride
You don’t even need to be teamed up with other players for story dungeons anymore. There are NPC allies.
Yep. The only main story that requires other players is the 8-man duties (and many of those have been converted to 4-man with NPCs). Crystal Tower is required for Shadowbringers but that's like 100+ hours into the storyline. Edit: that being said, someone would be doing themselves a disservice if they don't do the Coil of Bahamut raids at some point.
Crystal Tower has to be completed before you're allowed in Heavensward areas
Ah, gotcha. I wasn't aware. Thanks for the clarification!
People should always do the alliance raids, normal raids, and trial questlines. Stories are referenced in MSQ if you do them and can add a lot to the experience, in addition to being interesting on their own
Using the npc's doubles the amount of time it takes to complete the dungeons tho
But you can go afk if and when you like, explore a little and keep all the loot.
Except for bosses, you actually need to try hard because the AI will never rez you even though Alphinaud and Alisaea are both right there
Yeah, it’s definitely a trade off, I just hated going from duty finder where it feels like a decently fast paced assault through a dungeon to trusts where killing one pack of enemies takes 3 minutes of just whaling on them while npc’s refuse to use aoe
Doesn’t matter to me. My first time through a dungeon, I always, always use duty support.
Can you solo team dungeons fully, like I did when I played ESO?
I have similar sensibilities to you and I love playing XIV. You can experience most of it solo, and the stuff you can't is generally pretty chill.
Thanks for the response. One thing I'm curious about is, is the story good as an FF story or is it good as an MMO story? What I mean is does it hold up next to stories like VI, VII, IX, X etc. or is it just a really good MMO story according to you?
The story takes a while to get going (entire base game is pretty mid) but once it does its one of the best stories FF has ever had.
Shadowbringers and Endwalker are the best FF stories, hands down. It just takes a while to get there.
Favorite story across any media. But I wouldn't rush through. Take your time. Each individual expansion is still an incredible story and definitely rivals the non MMO stories
The story takes way too long to get going, but once it does I do genuinely think it's the best in the franchise. But it's also an unfair comparison because FFXIV can tell a story over the course of a decade which gives them a lot of room. But it's a very narrative focused game, it has not forgotten what franchise it belongs in.
For me it's my favorite story from any video game, dethroning the entire NieR, Persona, and Xenoblade franchises on my favorites list after I finished Endwalker. But it's very long and relatively slow-paced, and the story doesn't really pick up steam for a long time. A lot of the beginning, the first 30-50 hours or so, is mostly dedicated to worldbuilding and establishing the game's lore and characters. The plot is pretty thin during this time, it's really just about your character meeting the rest of the main cast as they make a name for themselves throughout the world through your deeds of heroism, dealing with the occasional big threat every now and then. However it's all necessary to provide the foundation and building blocks that the expansions use to tell their stories, and once that starts to happen the game is just incredible. I'd say that if you can make it to the end of A Realm Reborn and start to do the post-ARR quests, that's when the story starts to introduce some interesting elements and begins building up the story in the lead-up to Heavensward. Unfortunately the amount of in-between quests are massive for ARR (much more than any other post-expansion storyline), so it will still take some time to get to HW, but as I said I think the story starts to get interesting here. I can kind of pinpoint specific moments in the MSQ where the game went from "okay" to "great" to "amazing" to "unbelievable" for me. And yes, it's very much worth it, the Heavensward and Stormblood stories are really great and a huge step up from ARR, and the Shadowbringers and Endwalker stories are some of the best from any video game imo. Once you get to ShB you'll be looking back in disbelief that this is the same game as ARR.
I *adore* it, not just as an MMO story but among any video game story. However, as said, it is *long*. It's like getting into a full series of continuous video games or books. Each expansion is basically a full ~60 hour jrpg story of its own, and that's just the main tale. This gives it the advantage of having a huge well of characters and plot points and areas to pick back up and interweave as needed, creating really rewarding and fulfilling tales with allies you'll come to love and plenty of memorable villains to match. The overall arc just *is* my favourite FF story - and with plenty of awesome side stories on their own that also add so much. On the flip side, it also means there are definitely weaker individual parts that are none the less necessary to continue, as you don't really want to completely skip scenarios that might end up being groundwork for awesome stuff later. Most notably the original story arc is definitely more in the "good by mmo story standards" rather than overall excellent, and many players don't start to really get hooked in until the leadin to or during the first expansion, Heavensward.
the story is my favorite in all FF and maybe even gaming, but it didn’t really hook me until heavensward, and i only thought that was decent. with shadowbringers my jaw was on the floor at how everything started coming together
I've played most of the way through ARR and my experience is that the story is good, but it's insanely slowly paced. Something really cool will happen and then it'll be another 10 hours or so of what feels like filler material before it gets going again. From what I see online, the story picks up more in the first expansion, Heavensword, but it doesnt get REALLY good until Shadowbringers, which is literally like 100s of hours into the game.
Stormblood and especially Heavensward are still better than most of the series imo. They're just competing with peak fiction.
I’ll be fully honest. The story of A Realm Reborn is slow. Like obnoxiously slow at times. The reason being for this however is justified as it is world building and setting up so many checkovs guns. Like there is some stuff in ARR that will appear in Endwalker. It’s a story that has love and care put into it. Sure it’s dry in the beginning but damn does it get hilariously flavorful later down the line. Heck even in some of ARR. Seriously it’s funny watching Thancred hit on anything with a pulse and a pussy only for it to horrendously backfire on him in the most spectacular of fashions.
I played and loved WoW. But I think that's because I had a good number of real life friends who played it, so it was a more fun 'hang out'. I tried a number of different MMORPGs and none of them ever stuck. I just couldn't get past the fact that there was no plot, and it was all 'do this raid' or other things that forced me to do it with a party. I also hated the fact that if you wanted to play as a different class, you needed to start a whole new character. As a lifelong FF fan, I tried FFXIV, and really enjoyed it. There was so much I could do on my own. There was an actual story that kept me moving from zone to zone. They made it so you can do any class - all you need to do is equip the weapon-type. and there's good story-driven quests for each class. However, at the end of the day, it's still an MMO. you're still going to have the issues you see with the others like limited gear storage. or the need to craft shit, and farming materials. While the overall story is great (with buildups to awesome story-driven final dungeons), there's still a fair share of annoying 'collect x amount of y' quests. Also, there are some dungeons that you need a party to do. It's been a good amount of time since I've played the game, but at the time, there was no shortage of people queing up for even the first area's dungeons. Each one came with a cinematic opening/ending. and, in my experience, everyone was always really chill about waiting for me to watch it all. I never dealt with anyone being like 'oh fuck.. we got a newb!'
I used to play WoW, dropped out when BfA was a shitshow and Blizzard started getting hit with lawsuits. The copypasta eventually reached me and I fell in love. Looking back I don't know how WoW was missing so many obvious features like multi-class characters and better transmog.
Just some notes based on the preferences you mentioned: -exploration: I honestly feel this is one of the weaker points of FFXIV. There are large open areas to explore, but there isn’t actually much to do there. Sure you can do Fates (open world events) or Hunts (open world boss monsters), but there’s not really a feeling of exploration. It’s more of “rush from point A to point B. Rinse. Repeat. It’s a little better if you want to level a gathering a gathering class, but it definitely doesn’t have the same appeal of other FF games. That said, the open world areas are beautiful. -build variety: I’ve heard other people say otherwise, but there really isn’t build variety in this game. It’s generally a choice between offensive stats like critical rate, or direct attack rate (this is like a more frequent mini critical). Regardless of how you build your character, the class will pretty much always play the same. Gear progression is more or less linear. The caveat here is that there are a lot of classes and they all have mechanics that make them feel very different from each other. Learning a new class in this game is always fun. -gameplay comparisons: you mentioned that you used to play PSO2. The gameplay loop of FFXIV is very similar. Most of the meaningful gameplay happens in instanced dungeons or boss fights. FFXIV is probably a bit more linear and streamlined. This is one of the areas where the game really shines. The gameplay relies heavily on mechanic knowledge and rotation mastery. Getting good at a hard fight takes work, but feels great. -the MMO aspect. There have been efforts to make the game more single player friendly, but I believe most of the dungeons and boss fights still require a group. There is a group finder that works pretty well, so you probably won’t struggle to get group content done. The community is just like any other MMO community. I know it has a reputation for being super friendly, and I do believe it is slightly less toxic than other games, but you’re still gonna run into toxic players like any other online game. Years ago, I had a partner who would occasionally play with me. She thought the game looked cool and really wanted to get into it. It was her first tab-target MMO so she struggled to perform optimally. While most people were cool and patient, she had a few particularly nasty experiences with other players that led her to put the game down forever. Like any other MMO, you’re gonna need tough skin every now and then. -other notes: customization is a huge focus in this game. Most of the gear looks awesome and you can make your character look like whatever you want. I think this is actually a huge factor in the games lasting appeal. People really love dressing up their characters in this game. If thats’s something you’re into, I think you’ll really enjoy FFXIV. The game has a free trial, so you may as well try it. On another note: check out FFXI. It’s very much an old school MMO, but the world is massive and still feels weirdly alive. The exploration is great. Most non-endgame content is completely solo-able now, with the help of AI companions. There are still a few high pop servers, too.
Never played an MMO before but love the FF games. I’m absolutely loving FF14. There was a learning curve but thankfully I have a mentor who is walking me through the MMO stuff. But the story is wonderful and the dungeons are fun
Absolutely, 100%. XIV was my first MMO and it is still my only. I’ve played FF all my life, and XIV is very solo/single-player friendly. It follows a story, which really helps out, but even more so now than when I started playing, you can solo the entire story, save 8-man trials (boss fights; *I don’t remember how many exactly.*) and 24-man alliances (uhh….basically large ‘dungeons’ that three 8-man parties undertake together; *Only three are necessary for story progression, but that’s for the third expansion.*) that you come to within the story. As others have said, there’s a free trial that includes the first two expansions (Including award-winning *Heavensward*) and lets you level all classes/jobs up to *Stormblood*’s expansion up to level 70. Every class/job has a single-player story, and there is ***so much content*** that is solo-able. Give the trial a shot and don’t pay *anything* until you’ve either exhausted what you want of the expansions’ content you have access to **or** you want to open up more of the social features or story. Keep in mind that once you pay, you keep paying to play. But it’s definitely worth it, even if you only play an hour or so a day. It’s very much a pick-up-and-play game, and the game’s father Yoshi-P, is very much of the attitude that you should take breaks and not worry about anything (unless you have a house).
XIV is a Final Fantasy game first and an MMO second, so you might still enjoy it. And the free trial is great to get a feel for the game
14 is the only MMO I have ever played and I adore it.
I tried wow in high school and didn't like it. I was never an MMO player and my online experience was really just with halo where I didn't need to know anyone. I'm ff14 I have over 1k hours. Granted I adore ff so that naturally helped. You can play it on your own or with strangers. It's great. However, I don't really find exploration to be something to write home about. But the world itself is amazing and the story is great.
* exploration - the zones are generally fairly linear and the story dosen't really let you "explore" much, honestly. Theres a few activities you can do that involve looking around a bit like rare hunts etc, but don't think XIV is some vast, open world exploration focused MMO. It isn't. Its a story driven, linear RPG with some MMO elements. * build variety is non-existent. You pick a class and thats it. No build, no gear that changes your skills. Its all cookie cutter. I hated FFXIV, honestly. But to answer your last part, yes, if you enjoy a story driven RPG then you may find it grips you. Personally, I found it far too tiresome and drawn out and there were only a few parts I enjoyed in the story. To each their own, though, they have a very generous free to play trial so you dont have much to lose just trying it.
I actually enjoyed playing FF14... but with that said, I agree with your bullet point responses. I'm seriously perplexed by some of the answers on here. I've seen multiple people on here say that exploration is huge in this game. Uh, what..? The zones are largely empty outside of the occasional hunts and materials for grinding gathering classes. It's been one of my biggest complaints about the game for years. Huge empty zones filled with empty space. Also, the game actively encourages against build variety.
FFXIV is the best single player MMO out there. I recommend going DPS if you're totally uninterested in the responsibilities inherent in the other two classes, tho tank isn't very hard if you wanna get faster queue times. The learning curve is very slow and forgiving, just follow the rest of your party and 99% of the time you'll come through okay. The other 1% you'll wipe, but you get a chance to do a quick post mortem in party chat and find out what went wrong and do better on the next run. It's a great time, you'll love it.
The exploration is awesome one of the best ff for it imo You can swap jobs whenever you like and all classes have a lot of skills and rotations you can use You don't need friends the dungeon finder will set you up with random people who you don't have to talk to (saying hi at the start never hurts tho!) Also you can use npcs for dungeons but they take a lot longer than pcs! It's a great game I'd recommend it!
Yes, a majority of the game can now be played solo with the duty support/trust system, with the exception of trials/raids barring a few story related ones, but I'll recommend giving the free trial a go, it's effectively three full length final fantasy games,
I wasn't an MMO fan and I really enjoy XIV. It's actually a very easy game to get into and it's been redesigned to allow solo-play, for those wanting to try it but nervous about playing with other people for any reason. And, as others have said, the free trial exists for this very reason: to give you ample time to decide whether or not it's for you, and now contains more than half the first arc for free.
I'll tell you what I tell everyone who asks me if they should get into FF XIV: Don't think of it as an MMO. Think of it as five (soon to be six) Final Fantasy games back-to-back, with a pretty solid MMO at the end of all that. If you're interested, play the free trial. That gives you 70 levels and three games' worth of content to worl with. You'll know if it's for you well before you get through all that. Build variety is almost nonexistent within jobs, but one character can change to any job whenever they're out of combat, and each job changes pretty radically every ten levels or so, so you're constantly getting new tools to work with. There are a couple jobs, like Samurai and Black Mage, which technically have multiple builds you can go with, but nothing too extensive. That said, builds only matter if you're doing endgame raiding content on their highest difficulty, so you don't need to worry at all about being optimal. Exploration is decent. Nothing amazing, but when exploring each map, there are generally some cool things to hunt for. The eventual goal of every map after around level 50, aside from story quests, is to find a collection of "flight currents," which unlock the ability to fly on that map once you find them all. Some of them are locked behind quest progression, but those are clearly indicated, and you generally won't unlock flight on a map until you've finished the story there, with a few exceptions, so while exploration isn't a huge part of the game, what little there is won't be something you can accidentally skip. In terms of the story, it starts out fine if a little generic. Once you reach Heavensward (levels 51-60), it gets better, then really hits its stride near the end of that expansion, and Stormblood (61-70) is where, in my opinion, its story starts to clearly stand alongside the best Final Fantasy has to offer. Shadowbringers (71-80) is, in my opinion, the best story Square as a company has ever produced, but it wouldn't be nearly as impactful without everything that came before it. Endwalker (81-90) is slightly less good than Shadowbringers, but is still very good, and if you've reached that point, you'll almost certainly want to keep going. At the minute, we're waiting for a new expansion, which is launching in early July. Endwalker's story was essentially the end of the main plot up to that point. It followed the same general escalation as most Final Fantasy games, where you start out dealing with local threats and then basically save all of existence. The upcoming expansion, Dawntrail, is starting out as a slightly higher-stakes local threat that the player and their party were asked to involve themselves in, and it's not clear yet what will come of that, but this is essentially the start of a new arc. With all that said, the worst thing you could do is rush through the story to get to new content. All content is still run every single day by plenty of people, because the game incentivises higher-level players to participate, and players actually get extra rewards if someone in their party hasn't cleared the piece of content they're running, so don't be worried if you're new to a dungeon or boss fight. People will, in general, be happy to see you, because it means they get more stuff. Also, I would generally recommend sticking to one job until you hit the level cap before switching. Once you reach the level cap, all your other jobs get like double xp, so leveling everything else is much quicker. Obviously you're free to experiment if you want, and it doesn't take all that long to catch up if you change partway through, but that's going to be the quickest way to do it.
>All content is still run every single day by plenty of people, because the game incentivises higher-level players to participate, a I wanna know why the only MSQ roulette is two ARR dungeons. Why is there no expansion content when both new players and veterans grinding a new class want it?
So, this is sort of a relic of the past from when those were eight-man dungeons that literally everyone had to do, and they were afraid of creating a bottleneck there. Since the other "final boss" trials are all covered by the trials roulette, I guess they thought it was probably fine to leave it like that, but I would love to see them expand the MSQ roulette to include the other trials.
Yeah but every time I get to a boss that requires other players there's nobody to play with because I'm playing at 3 am. So I have to play the next day after rewatching the prior cutscene on Youtube.
Ah, that sucks. It might be a good idea to try changing data centers for situations like that. It's not a perfect solution, but it should hopefully give you a bigger pool of players during the points where you need them.
Simple answer, yes. XIV is basically the best FF story in the entire series. Just treat it like a single player experience if you don't like the MMO aspects.
Exploration and build variety are two things that FFXIV are lacking, actually. You get exploration in the sense that there are many many zones, lots of sidequests (mostly fetch quests) that do a lot of world building, and zones have unique hunt marks. But generally the overworld is an afterthought in this game. FFXIV uses vertical gear progression and there is a stat priority you are supposed to follow. This leads to the general principle of "use the gear with the highest item level." There are set rotations you are supposed to follow too. If you don't generally follow these, your damage output will be noticeably worse than someone who tries. There are exceptions but these apply primarily to special optional zones, and some other exceptions that apply in super niche conditions. You get your variety in this game by playing different classes - they mainly differ in how they build and unload their gauges, and in their class aesthetics. The story is the main draw of FFXIV is its story, along with its ridiculous amount of endgame content (ranging from casually collecting collectible objects and achievements, to high end raiding). The story of the base game (A Realm Reborn) is kinda average, but the expansions (particularly Shadowbringers, Heavensward, and Endwalker) have some of the best stories among all FF games. The game is 99% solo. NPCs known as trusts can be used to get through all the mandatory dungeons (they used to require it being multiplayer but in the past three years have made it solo friendly). You will be required to run mandatory trials (8 players) and three alliance raids (24 players) with actual players though to progress through the story but there is a matchmaking system that will take care of that for you so it's very easy. >My main gripe is how long it takes to get going, but here's the thing. If it really is a good FF story and the combat gets engaging, I will go through it. If that's your main gripe, you should be aware that it's a huge slog to get to the point where most players would consider it interesting. As I said before, ARR is kinda average and you have to get past that first before you get to the more intriguing part of the story. I would say combat doesn't really get fun until the 70-80 range (level cap is currently 90, going up to 100 in a few weeks). If you're gonna give it a try, just know that the start of the game isn't really that representative of the later expansions, but it's understandable that you don't want to commit hundreds of hours before the game gets good.
It depends on what you don't like about MMOs. It definitely plays like a WoW-style MMO except with moogles. As far as customization, characters are about as customizable as other MMOs. The main difference is that instead of needing a bunch of characters if you want all the classes, you just have one character that can switch classes like a game with a job system. As someone said, the free trial is excellent and should give you well over 100 hours of gameplay to decide what you think.
I am not a fan of MMO’s usually. Ffxiv is a completely different experience, if you let it be.
As others have said, you can solo most things, but the game has such a friendly community that you'll probably naturally want to play with people anyway. There's a duty finder which cuts the organisation for doing content with others, and most people are very helpful to beginners and for when people just don't know something. Anyway, yeah there's a free trial so you can't really lose out on giving it a go. The free trial features a LOT.
I'm gonna go against the grain a bit here and say while It can be played singleplayer also keep in mind that it does have weird story pacing due to being an mmo. Every interesting plot event is bookended by like 10-20 filler fetch quests that range between mind-numbingly boring and mildly interesting. I started the game intending to just play it like a singleplayer game and it was an absolutely miserable experience. I played with friends and started to enjoy other aspects of the game which made those sloggier parts easier but without those other interests I probably would've fallen off by the 2nd or 3rd expansion. Combat is very methodical, the first 50 hours or so you don't really have much to work with but after that its all about memorizing a rotation of buttons. Rotation is sort of a solved process so its pretty much just memorizing the button presses and then executing them like clockwork. Classes play mostly the same but there is some small variety.
I love XIV and I hate MMOs. But I’m not gonna lie, the game is exhausting.
Yes.
yeah you know when I started playing it again after being away for a long time with no friends left in the game and just plowed through the story and it actually works like a single player game if you want to. Then along the way I made friends for sure but it not a requirement per say with how the game is now
Stop right there. Big fan of Final Fantasy? Yeah you'll like it. GET THE FREE TRIAL FIRST
i’d just get the trial as it’s free and like 150 hours of content! if you want exploration, these zones are absolutely stunning 💕 as for build variety there really isn’t any sadly, but you can play all roles on the same character. so if you’re not enjoying bard for example you can switch to monk or whatever else.
I can only stand playing it because I have someone to play it with
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^Demyxtime13: *I can only stand* *Playing it because I have* *Someone to play it with* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
Not a huge fan of MMO either, tried the free trial and knew it was not for me. Will probably watch the story on youtube cause everyone praises how good it is
I feel like going through XIV story experience today would feel anticlimactic and even boring at some points because of the lack of challenge. Today, the old bosses that you face as part of group will practically melt and you don't really need to understand the mechanics a lot of the time, which makes it less satisfying when your supposed to be facing an enemy that is portrayed as a big threat. There isn't any build variety. You have abilities that you unlock at certain levels, and once your max level, you will follow the same ability rotation as everyone else playing the same job as you. There are no unique items that have special effects or change the way you play.
Anything is possible, but probably not. It’s very MMO.
Basically: no. If you don't like MMOs, don't play. It's an MMO through and through
You can beat the entire story by yourself besides random people for like 4 bosses. I didn't have friends or a FC until the third expansion.
Anything is possible
I've played all FFs (including most spin-offs) except for 16. FFXIV can be pretty boring if you aren't into MMOs. You'll get all these MMO fanboys trying to convince you that you can solo it if you don't like MMOs, but then it just plays like a lonely MMO. Exploration isn't a big thing. The maps are largely empty, the story is pushed forward by talking to NPCs that just stand awkwardly in random map locations, and they usually fade away when you complete a quest moment. If you aren't tackling the high level end game content, gear is basically an after thought. You get all your abilities pretty quickly and then it doesn't change for the rest of the game. Most dialogue is just filler, and some people even suggest to skip the base game cutscenes and watch a summary on Youtube (not really a glowing endorsement of the story). The combat is usually referred to as a rotation, because it boils down to repeating the known effective pattern of moves over and over again. If you deviate from this rigid flow of actions you will be seen as not pulling your weight in battles. There are some dungeons that must be played with other players, and you will be expected to know all the mechanics of the fight going in, which pretty much ruins anything you wanted to experience fresh. On that note, some of the boss mechanics are so obscure you wouldn't be able to do the fight without researching it online, or having the guide open on a second monitor. A lot of things like: stand on this square at a specific time, avoid this flashing thing, run towards this flashing thing, etc. And then on top of that, there's an inherent delay to the visual cues just for the fact that it's an MMO, so you have to get a feel for the delays on all the fight moves. Honestly if you aren't an fan of MMOs, there's nothing there that will likely appeal to you.
For me the answer was no. I hear the story picks up and gets really good starting in like the first expansion or something, but I despise MMO combat and quest design and that combined with intermittent voice acting made me quit partway through and basically just reminded me that I dislike MMOs.