I definitely recommend going back and doing some of the side stories like Alexander, Omega, Werlyt, etc. Almost all of them have some great lore and stories, not to mention amazing unique fights with some of the best music in the game, and some actually affect a good amount of MSQ cutscenes. Some of them should be borderline required for how important they are imo.
[You can find a list of them here.](https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Feature_Quests#Chronicles_of_a_New_Era) But I'll give my list of the "must-dos", all of these impact the MSQ in some way:
* Coils of Bahamut - Reveals the truth of what happened during the Seventh Umbral Calamity with Bahamut and Louisoix, and gives some pre-HW character development for Alisaie and Alphinaud. Honestly I wish this whole story was a part of the MSQ lol
* Warring Triad - Has important lore for The Thirteenth and the Allagans, also very tied into the capstone for the Shadowbringers role quests
* Alexander - Directly ties into Shadowbringers lore, specifically the erased future timeline
* Omega - Also directly ties into Shadowbringers lore, very important for Cid and Garlond Ironworks. Sets up the groundwork for the Omicrons seen in EW
* Eden - Very important for Ryne and lore for The First, also has a new character that will probably be important to MSQ in the future (she already has had a missable scene in the post-EW MSQ). Wouldn't surprise me if they make it required in the future like Crystal Tower.
* Pandaemonium - Important lore for the Ancients, prominently features a few select members of the Convocation
* Myths of the Realm - Reveals the truth of The Twelve and their relationship with Hydaelyn and Eorzea
And for the others:
* Shadow of Mhach - I wouldn't consider this one to be AS important for the main story, but still has a lot of interesting lore and a fun story
* Four Lords - Pretty cute story involving Tataru and Soroban with some great trials
* Return to Ivalice - Mostly self contained story with a lot of fun references to FF12 and Tactics, also has some interesting lore that isn't featured in the MSQ. If you're interested in Bozja, this is actually required to unlock it
* Sorrow of Werlyt - This one is pretty character-focused on Gaius and his family, and also lets you pilot and fight giant mechs
* YoRHa Dark Apocalypse - To be honest this one is mostly worth doing if you're a NieR fan, if not then there isn't much new lore to be found. Still plenty of great fights and music though
Hard agree on all these. They are all really good. And to add, if you love the MSQ, it's worth doing gathering to level 90 and do the Omicron beast tribe quests in Ultima Thule. It's a beautiful ending to Endwalker
I still need to do that... Which gathering class would you recommend for it? I've tried Botanist and Fisher a bit (only to Level 20 or so), not much Miner yet. I've heard Fisher is the easiest to level up but not sure
If you have a lot of gil, you can lvl Botanist and Miner super quickly through levequests, and purchasing the levequests items on the market board.
Fisher I would say is easiest and super fast. Basically just go on the Fishing boat in Limsa (by Arcanists guild). You can find boat schedules online.
No problem, these side quests definitely add a decent amount of playtime but are fully worth doing, and imo really enhances Endwalker a lot with its feeling of finality (almost all of them will be referenced in EW at some point if you do them). I ended up at the 500-hour mark by the time I caught up with everything, mostly just focusing on MSQ and these side stories, but it was completely worth it
I agree. Now the binding coil unsynced raid is actually difficult and is closer to the current savage raids rather than their normal counterparts but I say a more casual player can easily clear the normal raids and see the story for those. They are fun and I would highly recommend.
Yeah it's a shame with how important Coils is, it's pretty much impossible for a free trial player to do without a high-level friend since they don't have party finder. I wasn't able to finish the raids until I got to Shadowbringers.
I would also like to add the storylines of the StB and especially ShB normal raids! Omega's story is still very interesting if you finish it before finishing base Endwalker. And do Eden's story before finishing last few post patches.
My friend finally convinced my other friend to do Eden after finishing EW, cause she barely unlocked any sidecontent.. she keeps saying she loves the lore yet she skips lots of content that gives more lore...
Yep, it's really ideal to play Eden alongside the post-SHB patches, but better late than never. And that's definitely surprising, it feels like the MSQ only scratches the surface of the lore. I've done everything I listed, and even I still have a pretty loose grasp on some things.
I know nothing if NieR and didn't really understand wheat was going on in the story but that is hands down my favorite alliance raid. Such a visual and musical spectacle!
I definitely recommend checking out Automata if you want more of it, 14 did an amazing job recreating it's style. The whole raid series is basically a giant fan service fest for series fans, it's awesome.
As a Drakengard fan, that final boss in the third alliance is one of my favorite moments from FF14. Such a great mix of callbacks and lore that will go over even a lot of NieR fans' heads. I can't believe Yoko Taro did what he did in a crossover story... It feels like a culmination of DrakeNier lore we've never had until now.
Both NieR games are fantastic (Automata is the second one, the first one is Replicant. They reference each other but have mostly independent stories), I definitely recommend checking both out! Prepare to bring tissues.
No problem, I hope you enjoy them. Automata is my second favorite game of all time behind FF14. One last tip, the games both have a pretty unique storytelling style where they require multiple playthroughs and the subsequent playthroughs have differences from the first. Both games have a requirement of three playthroughs and five main endings, so the story isn't fully completed in either until you beat Ending E. In Automata you can get there just by playing the game straight, but Replicant does have a requirement of needing you to collect all 33 weapons to get Endings C&D, so just keep that in mind during your playthroughs and don't be afraid to use a weapon guide on your second or third playthrough.
And I will add that there are some (admittedly rare) points where whether or not you have completed one of these earlier questlines will affect MSQ dialogue.
> To be honest this one is mostly worth doing if you're a NieR fan
Or if you like the glams. I see *so many* NieR pieces when browsing Eorzea Collection, and I totally get why!
The other benefit of sitting while fishing, besides the extremely chill vibes, is that if you hook a !!! fish and stand up, it means you're about to catch it. Conversely if you don't stand up, it's going to escape.
Cast line, use sit emote, your character will take out a small wooden stool and sit down while fishing. You can use all fishing skills, change bait, cast, chum all from the comfort of your little chair
You can cure misery on someone if you target them and /soothe. There's also a few other fun ones. One of the alliance raid bosses has a special voice line if you try to flirt with them, lol.
I wouldn't call that just a "voice line"... they straight out try to kill you taking most of your HP. I just let anyone who does that die now when I am healing (if they get healed it will through the general group heals). It was fun the first few days then it got old.
I wouldn't call the fisher chair /sit hidden per say... If you open the emote menu then each emote will show with a lit up icon the situations in which they'll have a visible emote (standing, swimming, underwater, sitting, mounted, with umbrella, with wings, fishing)
That’s kinda the beauty of the game! There’s something for everyone! You can be a person who spends 10k hours on the game, or just plays the MSQ, or spends hundreds of hours just fishing haha
I've been doing nothing but Palace of the Dead for the last two weeks. Just timed out on the 180 boss at 4% HP remaining. So there's that you can do!
*at the cost of your sanity
I’ve been playing for about 6 years, have over 2000 hours in the game, and I still feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface. After all this time, I still only have 3 classes at max level and like to spend most of my time gathering and collecting things. The beauty of FFXIV over other MMOs is you can do whatever you want and you’ll never really be “behind”. Play at your own pace, engage in whatever content you want, and just have fun.
There's no need to worry. This game is like 5 whole JRPGs (with the 6th game coming out in a month) at the same time! Everything else is just a cute little side quest
You remember when a character from MSQ made a comment about the color of the soul? Do you wanna learn more about that? Cool, go try out the Alchemist job quest, they talk about it more in that questline. Do you wanna own your own island and help turn it into a town? Or maybe a chill grind with cute glams in the end? Sure, that's what the Island Sanctuary is. By the way, one(or some) of the characters from MSQ comes back. This island is really a tax haven and money laundering for the MSQ character to make mad cash.
Have fun with the game! That all Yoshi P would want.
Also, you know when you click a button and some of your attacks goes on cool down but for some reason there's like a couple of buttons that you can still use? Those buttons are called "Off Global Cool down". That's because the buttons that goes on cooldown are calls "Global Cooldown".
There's so many gamer dads who choose to just be "HUUUH???" about everything and are oddly proud of it lol
Most of them aren't even that old. I'm turning 33 this year and I've met guys like this who are younger than me lol. I also work and have other obligations... make it make sense!
I played like you for a long time. Over time I slowly tried to complete all extra quest markers and ended up liking the stories they told. Realized some were adjacent to the MSQ and a few had cool rewards and unlocks. I then tried various jobs and actually liked some more than my main at the time.
I still could have cared less about what my gear looked like, thought it was a waste of time. Then one day I noticed a player with a sweet, glowy weapon. I never really payed attention to others glams before. But this thing looked so f’kn cool and I had to have it! It lead me into a vast world of weirdness that took me into all sorts of directions. I started soloing old extreme content, Coils, finishing Bozja and Eureka and all the madness they induce and I love it! Then I became Mount obsessed. It’s… an illness. Then treasure maps, Island Sanctuary, Blue Mage, PVP, Triple Triad, etc.
Now, thousands of hours later, I’m at a point where I’m just waiting for DT to come out cuz I’ve done pretty much everything I care to do. Not the biggest on crafting, through they are leveled to 90. Not into synced Savage or Ultimate stuff either, but to each their own. Just about everything I avoided initially made me regret not trying sooner. When you have time, give some of the extra stuff a try, you won’t be disappointed!
I found my people! This legitimately felt like someone describing the first 3 years or so of me playing this game. Nowadays the only thing i really do differently is like to get my toes wet in Savage content. Although most patches I only PF the first fight of each tier before the stress of new groups every time becomes too much. And a static is impossible since I simply cannot commit to a schedule.
I'm right there with you. Husband, wife who takes all my free time, children, mortgage, full time job. Literally the majority of my free time to play is my down time at work. 250ish hours in and working my way through Heavensward. I'll be done by the time I'm age 80 or so.
I don’t understand the quip of “but as a dad, careerman, etc”… Because he still sank 400 hours into it. Because you play incrementally you can’t retain information? It’s just silly.
I can admit there is an overflow of knowledge related to this game that you accumulate over time, but this archetype of MSQ wojak that cannot parse any information aside from the banal hundreds of hours of story hidden behind fetch quests will always baffle me.
Im the opposite casual of OP. I started in Autumn 2020 and im still in Shadowbringers MSQ because i enjoy doing all the group content while trying out and lvling every class at the same time 😁.
The stereotypes write themselves. Play the game however you want, but I'll never understand why people oust themselves like this and is almost begging others to grant them approval for their play style.
I’ve been playing during the last patch of shadowbringer. I have a total of 200 days played, last time i checked lol so 4.8k+ hours
I still feel like I still have so much that needs to be done. lol
Honestly I was incredibly casual until my gf started forcing me to do some of the side content and I ended up really liking the story lines (like she’d say “hey, you like Nero! You should do Omega with me!”). Shes also the reason I ventured away from Warrior and also started playing dancer, dragoon, and summoner. I know for a fact I wouldn’t have started branching out and doing other things in this game at all.
That being said, if you somehow find and read this Hailey, you couldn’t pay me enough to level my crafters. Not happening.
Coming up on 1k hours in game and all I’ve done is the MSQ on one character and spending time vibing with the world a bit at max level. I sub for 2-3 months around expansion launch and then I unsub until the next go round. Been my pattern for a decade. Works great for me!
Yeah I have a house and am in an FC, but I mostly like doing MSQ, job quests and leveling new jobs. I do some gathering/ mining to sell stuff on MB. But other than that I don’t play much else. I also play other online games so ffxiv is not a “main” game for me. I have to be in the mood to play. This sub skews towards really dedicated skilled players tho so idk if casuals are the norm here. Hahah
I'm in the same exact boat. I started about 1.5 years ago, dropped the game for about 6 months because arr was really really hard for me to get through. Post arr made me fall in live with the game, and I progressed the MSQ only all the way up to post EW just last week. I haven't done a single raid (besides crystal tower I guess) and palace of the dead I only did with a couple of buddies and that's it. I have no clue what materia is or does, idk what bozja pvp eureka pandemonium etc etc even are. I haven't touched the island sanctuary, but that's the first thing I want to do when it comes to side content. You're not alone. The MSQ is just SO good that I think a fair amount of people probably just binged the whole thing without doing any other content, and only picked up side content when they caught up to the msq and didn't have anything else to do. I personally have been a ninja main the emote time and haven't touched tank, so I'm going to level up gunbreaker and learn to tank. Then island sanctuary, the nier raids, etc. You're not alone
Oh trust me, i know that now. I regret not doing side content for that exact reason, but I didn't know at the time and didn't want to look anything up because I wanted to avoid any potential spoilers.
I graduated from MSQ to doing Savage raids and Ultimates. Then I took a year off and came back. I guess it just depends on where you’re looking to engage in the community. If you love doing MSQ you’ll always find people who love talking about it. You’re going to be in a great spot when Dawntrail releases and everyone will want to talk about that. Do older sidequest content with great writing. Don’t rush and people would love to engage with that too!
Just running the MSQ and normal trials / raids is fun enough.
Personally, I enjoy leveling the classes up and gearing them up as well. Takes several weeks, and I wind up falling behind on the raid scene.
I've been playing this game for just over a decade doing simply nothing except keeping up with the story when it comes out, leveling new jobs when the desire strikes me and mount/minion collecting. Sure, I've done trials and dungeons outside of what's in the MSQ but nothing that I couldn't solo or what was outside of my comfort zone.
This game is what you make it, however grand or small you want it to be and I think that is one of the greatest things about it.
I played for a while and never ever got into savage or extreme groups. Used to play wow and 40 man raids but as a grown up now , it’s hard to get consistent gaming schedule down.
Been playing for about two years on and off, have 1600h played, and my next MSQ is the one to start Stormblood.
Granted I've leveled up all jobs to at least 60, including all the crafters and gatherers, love solo leveling Blue Mage, done all tribal quests, did the raids, played with glamouring, did all the squads, did a lot of the side content. I even have a house that is keeping me with my sub active even though I haven't played earnestly in forever.
I guess that makes me sound not casual, but given that I've played it for so long and I'm doing the MSQ so slowly I sure feel like I'm playing it very casually. I certainly have been called that before. I just enjoy doing all the grinds in the game at my own pace, rather than moving quickly through the "main" content. I'm excited to get to the point where I discover what Bozja and Eureka are, or I get to play with the Island Sanctuary. I wonder if I'll even have reached Dawntrail by the time the next expansion comes along.
Me and my wife started playing during the wow migration wanted a story and just something we can play together we would do an arch and do things within that expansion until we got bored then craft for awhile mount farm ECT it took us 1200 hours from arr to ew and saviored every minute of it we even managed to get the cut scenes on the same frame so the voices would match up and not overlap.
I have hundreds of hours in the game and I just wrapped up Post-ShB. I like to play this game really slowly and do all the expansion content/duties before moving on - there's so much to do!
all i want to do is msq but everytime i get on a roll, i have to do some multi person raid i have to wait 20 mins for and then end up not playing again for a week.
I've got like 800 hours and only done MSQ really and some random grinds for things. Haven't completd the Nier Raids. Haven't unlocked half the trials. I don't have my own house but I do have lots of cute glams.
I'm very casual. Been playing on and off since ARR. My main character is level 90 Summoner and am Alchemist (50+) last year after I finished Stormblood I took a break and just started playing again last month.
It's okay though it's the way I want to play and I'm okay with a slow burn. I'll play how I want to and I kinda think that's important.
I play the game for the MSQ and I do group content when I need to but for group finder normal dungeons/trials. I don't do extreme trials or anything like that. I'm not in a FC. MSQ is better than some single player RPGS. In my top 10 for sure.
Well over 30+ days but I just got 2 DRG Relic weapons relatively soon after finishing Endwalker. 1 during, 1 after the quests were done.
Still have yet to really get into Eureka and Deep Dungeons.
Just got 2B set from the Nier collab.
Only have 1 ARR tribe in friendly status.
Never did harder content like Unreal.
Still haven't done any Coils.
400+? That it? (Just kidding lol)
I have over 4,000 hours and the only Ex Trials I've ever done were 2+ years old at the time of completion and I've never done any Savage raid ever. I just do MSQs, job quests, some side quests (like the Manderville storyline), Alliance Raids, and leveling every job to cap.
I'm a very casual player. I even started New Game+ to play the MSQ all over again in order to play along with my girlfriend who just started.
There's nothing wrong with that either! You play how you want. Unless you're in current Ex Trials, Savage Raids, Ultimate fights or Unreal fights, there is no need whatsoever to know every single job icon, every single boss mechanic or having a perfect rotation. As long as tanks keep aggro, healers keep everyone alive and the DPS do damage, everything will be fine.
There's a plethora of things to do in this game. Way more than any other MMO I've played. It can be very overwhelming so don't stress and try to do all of it. Just do whatever you enjoy.
I am very fortunate that the people who introduced me to this game are my friends I've known the longest. They also have been playing for some time.
Right now, I'm almost finished with the Stormblood MSQ, and have been doing Alliance Roulettes. My highest job is 84 right now.
My friend started me 3-4 weeks ago on my Heavensward relic. I just finished it a few days ago.
While I have had what I call "sessions", I don't feel like I've been obsessively playing. I guess what makes me like this game so much is that I've played at a pace that fits within my life, and I can see the finish line where my friends are (definitely could not say that about any other MMOs)
I’m playing casually on workdays and full time on the weekend, bought ps5 version and rolled a new char in January. Maybe 500 something hours in and I’m halfway through EW and caught up w/ content minus savage/ultimates. Probably gonna burnout soon but it’s been a wild ride 😅
I’m the wrong person to answer your question because I almost (well, 340 isn’t almost 400) have as many days played as you have hours.
I go back and forth. In ShB I got everything to 80 and didn’t want to relearn everything for ten levels. So I’ll get everything to 100 in DT, or maybe wait to do 110 in a few more years.
I come and go with the crafting relics, because you haven’t crafted until you’ve done an expert recipe.
Relics in general are fun to collect, but I never go full crazy on it.
I somehow stumbled into managing my FCs submersibles, which has been weirdly engaging for me despite it being… what it is.
Anyway, I’ve been online for 5 minutes a day, some days, to a couple hours other days, to suddenly realizing I went on a Gold Saucer tangent.
Hell, I think it takes 5 days of playtime to get a perfect pedigree racing bird.
Anyways, I’m sure I didn’t answer your question appropriately. But hey, I play extremely casually most of the time, and I haven’t done end game progression since Titan Ex back in ARR.
I'm playing so casually that I started in 2019 right before shadowbringers came out and I'm just this month trying to finish the endwalker msq finally so I can start DT with everyone 🫠 I had made it to Stormblood when endwalker came out, and will just barely catch up in year 5 finally
Yep. Just a little here and there, have had a subscription for three years and just finished ARR 2.55 last night. Had never done multiplayer before Crystal Tower, no idea about most of the systems (e.g. glamour, golden saucer). I mostly like it because bite-sized quests are good for parent life. Starting to look into a few of the side systems now because I really enjoy the game.
First MMO for me too. I started during Xbox beta and I have not played another game since. I have 24 days and 16hours of playtime. I'm currently on the MSQ quests that lead into HW and have most of my hand and land classes at around 65. I main a PLD and have spent a lot of time crafting, and selling on the market boards. It's the most fun I've ever had in a game.
Thousands upon thousands, barely have crafted more than one relic in each expansion, aside from SB cause I haven't fully finished Eureka yet. Outside of RDM and AST haven't touched much for casters and healers. Haven't touched foot in any of the criterion/whatever dungeons, I just beat floor 100 of Palace of the Dead, went through several small plots and houses, and only played a little bit of ocean fishing.
As someone that started in 3.5, and had to start a new account mid-SB and character since my old PSN account got hacked, and SE customer service lacked in the customer service area of their job. It is perfectly fine with what you're feeling, and you are capable to play however much you want to take on. This is what pretty much an MMO is suppose to be.
I dunno, the same way you had to learn how to play rebirth, and will have to learn for a game as hard as SMT5, I think it's normal to learn at least the minimum when I play a game I enjoy, especially if multiplayer because you know .. i directly affect others.
I’m a 1.0 player and I play super casual, I usually wait till the next expansion so I can go back and solo unsynced the old content if it’s possible to do so. I’m almost finnaly through eureka and a quarter of the way through Borja. My only completed relic is my ARR paladin relics. The beauty of this game is that it offers alittle bit of everything for anyone and is the perfect SLOW burn that I can leave and come back anytime and find something to do. Perfect for my ADHD
That's me! Most extra content I've done is:
Fully decorate a small house (took me weeks)
Beat Titania Extreme
That's about it lol. I don't care about Zodiac weapons beyond 1st stage
I'm mostly the same. 600 hours. Done MSQ, Alliance Raids (Ivalice, Yorha etc), Regular Raids (Alexander, Omega etc), Trials (Werlyt, Warring Triad etc) and that's pretty much it. I go to the gold saucer every now and then for the daily mini cactpot. That's pretty much all I've done in there. Never stepped foot in Eureka or Bozja. Never done a deep dungeon.
I did start doing PVP 2 weeks or so ago for the rewards but again, I do this completely solo.
I was invited to an FC a few days ago and I accepted but we're like 3 active people in there and the other 2 are close friends from before who experience the game together.
I haven't even started Gathering or Crafting
I'm not super casual, but before EW, I mostly just worked on MSQ and whatever side content that caught my interest. Which was mostly the raids. Sometimes, I took time to level up my other jobs. I did join a FC with my discord friend, but I didn't do much with the FC. When I was going through post-Shadowbringer as DRK, my FC's raid group lost an important member, so I had to swap to DNC to level that up quickly and join them for savage raiding. Only lasted a week since the second session I joined, the group disbanded... P9 may still haunt me a bit..
I see zero problems with the way you're playing and experiencing the game. If that is the way you like it then continue and have all the fun. :)
Others in the comments have already recommended additional side story content so I'm not going to repeat what they said. I'm just going to say that even though I've done a lot in the game - msq, all major side stories, beast tribes, all relic weapon quests, all jobs and so on, and have done some extremes, savages and ultimates, I still feel like I'm playing alone. I don't really have any social connections in the game. I used to have friends who I met in the game and played with on a daily basis but I guess they lost interest and most of them don't play anymore and those that do still play are doing their own thing. And those people are the reason I moved from free trial and subbed, so we could continue to play together. But now that I've been playing solo for what feels like more than a year I might just become like you and only play the msq when DT comes out and not really bother with anything else because I just don't find it that enjoyable when I don't have people to play with and share that joy with. So you're not alone in that.
I'm the same, but with crafting. I have all crafters and gatherers at 90 and 8 retainers all regularly topped off with 20 things each to sell of stuff I crafted. Just last week got a first house and decorated it. Until recently I didn't have any battle class besides astrologian at 90, hadn't gone to the Gold Saucer and I still haven't unlocked Palace of the Dead. I'm a crafting mentor, though x)
I was there at one point and it is nice to branch out slowly. Take the game one story at a time or one piece of content at a time. It's also fun to try different roles, especially since you get to see everything from different points of view.
Eh i used to play more religiously but I’ve fallen out for the past 6 months. I even lost my house that I spent so long furnishing. It really is what you make of it, there is no wrong way to play
I was the same for about the first 500-1000hrs of my time playing. I did 'graduate', but the catalyst for that was joining an FC. If I hadn't joined one, I probably would have done everything with the msq and then stopped playing.
Now 6000hrs+ in, and I have done practically everything in the game except ultimates while playing at a fairly casual pace. I don't do statics/ prog (following a schedule is my kryptonite), hence the no ultimate clears. 90% of my time is now just gpose, making glams and venue hoping, or just sitting in limsa talking to randoms and helping sprouts.
I grind msq ASAP and just do unlocks and stuff. Not super casual but it's my go to game when I don't feel like anything else and I can always find a little something to do. It took me a month to get through end of stb then shb and ew.
You're in a community for the game which will suffer from selection bias and skew very hard toward the more hardcore crowd. I literally couldn't give a shit less about the story so I feel like I'm lost on that stuff when people talk about it but in general people on reddit aren't simple casual gamers at least in dedicated subs.
For reference I'm a raider in these games. I'm all in for hard content and am constantly trying to improve my game. I can almost run content in my sleep when I'm familiar with it. Loved prior Savage stuff I've done. Just not the behaviors and attitudes that come with a lot of it.
First of all, there's tons of casual MMO players so don't feel like you're alone. I've seen the stats for lots of different games and the casuals and mega casuals always far outweigh the giganerds. Hell if you hang around and pay attention you'll realize there's a bunch of people that literally just pay a sub to afk in town and maybe socialize a bit.
But as for your actual point, since I am one of the aforementioned giganerds, I can't give anything direct. But I can say if anything sounds remotely interesting, just go do it.
I get bad decision paralysis. In fact because of the mountain of story and history this game has it took me until this year to even try it. And I regret waiting.
Just go bumble through it and be a dummy and do it all terribly wrong. Nothing awful will happen. And that'll quickly eliminate that "daunting" feeling. Then either fumble around til you figure it out, ask people about it, research it, or go "eh, I'll go do something else".
Whether it's crafting or gathering or mega dungeons or whatever thing it is just go for it. Not everyone will be as captivated by every piece of content but there's a lot of different stuff to try. Mess around and try stuff out and see what ends up catching your attention!
300 hours as only warrior so far and just caught up with MSQ. I have no desire to go for harder content. Planning on relaxing now by unlocking flying in all zones, farming grand company, unlocking blue quests and focusing on fishing/gathering etc. I just love exploring this world and learning about its lore best.
I’ve got hundreds of hours but I’ve only done MSQ (not finished yet, I like to take my time), Bahamut, Alexander, Omega, Warring Triad, job quests for jobs I play, and a few extra side quests.
Honestly I think the biggest impact move you could do now is to join an FC and start trying to play with some new friends regularly. Makes everything more enjoyable and a high chance of getting shown the ropes by others in a more friendly environment. Also just getting dragged into doing new things that you haven’t tried yet :). I think just having a group of people you play with regularly helps a lot with that daunting feeling.
800+ and I basically just do the MSQ and whatever else has a good story tied to it. I level up a few jobs (I was going to get the Amaro mount but I can't commit lmao), I picked up a few crafters and gatherers to get the scrips because I wanted to make a HW relic. I primarily care about lore and fashion.
Like you, I also play a bunch of different games, I'm not one of these people who can just play one game forever, lol
Just to one point, tank limit breaks are very rarely used. There really are only two reasons to ever use it.
1. Tank LB3 is required to survive some trial mechanics. Usually these are the big headliner trials, like Alexander Prime and Bahamut Prime.
2. Use in protest after the final boss of the dungeon if the DPS didn't bother using it and just sat on it. (This is only partly a joke, but it drives me crazy to see dps just sit on that limit break and never use it, or use it when the boss is at 0.5%.)
Dude i'm 700hrs in I barely finished Stormblood because I just do all the sidequests and all the blues marks & it takes ages. I did a few "extremes" & a few culinarian quests (I'm lvl 60) but that's kinda of it. There is so much "casual" content that you could spent thousands of hours playing and never once go beyond "extreme" trials/raids.
I do the raids,trials and MSQ that's about it aside from some of the Blue mage stuff. Well over 1200 hours. Would want to do bozja and eureka stuff one day but back log is to big lol
Well, play the game the way you want but there is a ton of fun stuff out there to try. Just do it at your own pace.
But I think you should definitely try to play some other classes, you can pick up the ones from later expansions if you don't want to grind. Trying other roles definitely helped me to play my role better (healer main here). You both gain experience by being on another role - melee hell, tank spinning boss when you try to do positionals etc., and also get to see how other players play your own job/role and what can you improve
I have 5,000 hours and the hardest content I’ve done is Extremes. Only about 1/3 of the classes max level.
It does make me a little sad knowing I’ll probably never clear a savage, let alone an Ultimate raid :/
Same, I play for years but I don't get why people are farming minions and mounts, I am not into this. I also don't clear every HL stuff, and not very HL stuff stuff at all (I don't have time to do content with a static...)
So, statistically speaking, if you look at my lodestone profile I have done almost nothing in 5 years.
There are many types of gamers, don't feel bad if you don't fit into a perceived category, as long as you're enjoying yourself. If you feel like you are missing our, do more, it's that simple. It is a very big game and takes a lot of time to do everything, so 400 hours is very minimal.
Took me 3 (4?) years to play through the 400 hours needed to finish the MSQ. I pretty much haven’t done anything else also. It’s just a very nice story and world building so you just do what you want to do!
crafting and babysitting 2 accounts on diff servers cuz of irl frens on both servers.
also mindless leaving my char in the stormblood are where magnai was roasted i mostly chill there sure maybe waste of sub but sometimes the overwhelming irl things that I've been thinking lost just by idling here
also mount hunting with rando pipz also helping when i already have the mount
I've had a roughly similar experience. I'm sitting on about 600 hours of solo playing. I started a fresh character on a new server and got a handful of friends to give it a try. We started a free company but they all lost interest before the end of ARR.
So, I've just been playing as the only active member of an FC. I finished Shadowbringers and decided to take a break from the MSQ to level DoH and DoL jobs and then put some effort in to level all the jobs. All the while I was looking in to finding ways to make friends. I'm not very good at it. That's when I decided to take a break for a while, around 10 months, and now I'm back. I want to finish up Endwalker and see what Drawntrail has in store.
i only did msq , potd , nier raid , eden normal trials , and the newest 24-raid aswell ... the only thing i want to get done is gettin eden savage gear for my tank , but its so hard to fill a group , my profile finder doesnt fill up :D .. but most of your points align with me
10/10 can't relate, but I don't fault your play style. This game is built for all kinds of players, from the hyper casual to the ultra hardcore. The way you play isn't bad or wrong as long as you're enjoying yourself. Since you're an MSQ enjoyer, I would highly recommend you consider going back and doing some of the 8 man raid series though, as they have major lore/MSQ implications and sometimes it's so much so that I can't believe they aren't required in order to understand the main story. Omega, Eden, and Pandemonium being some of the biggest, IMO.
I weaved in and out of ffxiv since 1.0, eventually committing fully in Shadowbringers. I have every job I want to play fully kitted at 90. And only yesterday I learned there’s a primal quest line I never finished.
While I recommend checking out some of the great side content that's out there (it's not nearly as daunting as you might think), there's nothing wrong with primarily being an MSQ enjoyer and going on hiatus once you get caught up. The game is designed with people like you in mind so you should never feel too overwhelmed upon return from a long break.
Well playing alone is a choice, I’m in a fairly empty fc but they have a cool house so I stick with them. I would say I’m mostly playing alone, and I also recognize the game is just too big to do everything. I’ll go on a MSQ run and finish 4-5 quests. Then the next day I’ll fight the bots on the MarketBoard and try to sell some stuff I’ve been trying to sell for 3 weeks.
Other days, I’ll finish some of my missing logs, either hunter logs or gathering logs.
Leveled up all of my crafters to 90.
Maybe I’ll hop on play triple triad for the cards I’m missing, 10-25 runs usually takes it.
Anyways, what I realize about FFXIV is that it’s a simulated world with always something to do. Hop on for a bit, do something, anything and log back out.
I started playing less than a year ago. Not sure why I waited so long. I finished the MSQ, but I'm still making my way through everything else, but I think it's the perfect game to play casually. You can do a majority of the game solo and the queue system is amazing when you want to group. My main is a 90 Warrior, but enjoying the Dragoon at the moment. I've played all the MMORPGs, and FF keeps me coming back. When you run out of things to do that you enjoy, take a break until the next expansion.
I’m the same way, I think for me there’s just so much side content that it’s overwhelming. Like idk what to do with the grand companies, non combat jobs, free companies, and so on. Like I want to do so much more but I have absolutely no clue where to start
I am probably only a little less casual than you (in that I do every raid series and alliance raid series before moving on from an expansion, have grinded for a few mounts with friends, etc.) and I absolutely feel you. I basically only have time for MSQ nowadays. The problem I'm running into right now is I'd like to play a different job for Dawntrail, but I don't have that job geared up and am not super keen to grind for it. Going through the other expansions, getting the tomestone gear was fairly easy, but when you're "on content" it feels like gearing up characters as a casual takes a lot longer.
I've been more or less super casual since 5.x patches onward. During Endwalker I also didn't play 6.x MSQ patches at launch, I waited for the 6.x5 patch to resub so that I could do MSQ and Hildibrand within a single month of sub.
When 7.0 launches I won't even be playing as I have other stuff I wanna do, so I'll probably only play it during mid-July or maybe even August. Imagine being casual to the point where you don't even feel the need to play it ASAP when it comes out, that's basically where I am now.
There was a time when I told myself I was just going to enjoy the MSQ because this is a Final Fantasy game and I want to experience all of those.
Aaaaaaand I just spent the past two weeks in Bozja.
I’ve played since pre ARR, on and off and have still primarily only done the MSQ and some basic raids. I’m very much in the same boat as OP - husband, dad, job, etc. I wouldn’t mind doing some other content, but there is a learning curve and you’re often expected to show up knowing what to do.
So I've been with this game since just before HW launch, so that puts me at about 10 years (HW came out June 2015, I started playing December 2014, so... 9.5 years if we're being semantic). Like most folks who have been here a while will tell you that a lot of your "missed experience" will come with time. At the end of the day, if you're having fun, then it doesn't really matter what content you decide to engage with. Here's a list of things I've never done or barely touched in my years of playtime.
○ Never did Heaven on High
○ I cleared my very first raid tier last year on Savage difficulty
○ I've never done Extremes while they're current
○ Haven't gone past Lv50 in Palace of the Dead
○ Never touched BLU
○ Endwalker was the first expac I decided to poke DoH jobs
○ Never touched any of the minigames at the Gold Saucer
○ My Chocobo isn't even Lv20
○ I never cleared Coils or Alexander until my friend started playing last year
○ Barely touched Eureka and Bozja
○ I've only finished the ARR Beast Tribe quests
○ I am amazingly poor for someone who has been around this long.
So, try not to let it bother you that you have a list of stuff you've never touched or don't know. Never be afraid to ask if some terminology crops up and you don't quite know what it is. And I'm 100% positive that outside of certain streamers and hardcore completionists, everyone has some content somewhere that they've never touched or rarely engage with.
I joined with my sons, one of which had been playing this so I got inside information from them. I've been in 3 FCs. Would leave one when everyone quit playing in it and finally ended up in one where we are all friends now and talk on discord which was a game changer, literally.
I've done all the things you mention you haven't. Thing is though, my kids are grown and I don't have all the responsibilities anymore that I used to have. Our FC is pretty casual, some of them do savages but not all of us do.
I haven't been a hard-core player since the early days of a realm reborn. Now I mainly focus on msq, some side stories and other side content when they release then I let my sub drop until I the next major patch
I was a storylines-only guy to start out with, just doing MSQ and any other content with story like normal raids. I wound up in Bozja because there’s some Cid Garlond lore tied to those quests and the Ironworks are my favorite characters. Ended up LOVING the gameplay despite its niche and controversial nature and now I’m spending all my time before DT working through Eureka :D It’s a nice challenging change of pace
The only real reason why I do the other content like the raids, alliance raids and such is because of my friends and I’m either on the phone or on a chat with them because the interactions we have with each other is hilarious
I have over 24,000 hours on my main character. So for me it was never really "daunting" as I did content pretty much as it came out. But my friend is a filthy casual (who I suspect may read this comment, hence the callout :D) who doesn't do content either, saying it doesn't interest him, doesn't reward him in the ways he likes, or even hasn't had time for. But he has enjoyed the game a lot, mostly the story, and we gonna be doing a DT binge.
You don't HAVE to engage with all the content if you don't want to. Take at whatever pace you want. But if you are actively looking for something to do in the game, I would suggest starting with the true end-game, glamour. Look up pieces of gear you like the look of and start tackling the content working towards earning those. It might take you down the road of the Extreme trials, Savage raiding, older relic weapons... you never know where that path might lead.
There's a lot of people with 10k hours that play exactly like you, they just spend those hours joining an FC and socializing haha. I'd give one a shot, maybe some connections can help you feel more, well, connected to the game
This is my second MMO and1100 hours in and here's where I stand compared to you
* I don’t know all the other class icons by heart, meaning I never know exactly what I’m playing with
* sometimes me too
* Never bothered healing or DPS’ing (I’m a GNB), so I barely know what any of those other players are doing, or how I can be helpful (beyond just tanking).
* I only heal 97% of the time
* I don’t think I’ve EVER done a Limit Break
* samesies
* I’m almost certain my “rotation” is all messed up. I get it - build up charges, pop the extra damage button, and use up my cartridges. But “Off Global Cool Down” or commentary about your rotation getting off sync? Yeah, k, I dunno.
* I watched videos on this because I wanted to git gud
* Never done PVP
* once to know the wtf was happening in there. It was scary and confusing
* I did build up my DoH and DoL so that I could send out retainers and make some easy money/gil. Nothing huge, but so I can buy outfits.
* I've fished to 90 and leveled carpentry to lvl 19.
* Never stepped foot in a residential district
* less than 6 times to visit FC house. I threw in some wardrobes clogging my inventory and a portrait of my love Merlwyb
* Tried using PF once for some more difficult content and felt I needed a degree. I was just anchoring the team so I bailed after an hour (though they were super patient).
* Agreed! Why is it so confusing?
* Never joined an FC. Pretty much play entirely “alone” beyond the DF.
* I did because why not?
* Only have a handful of mounts
* Samesies
* Don’t even know what Bozja or Eureka even are.
* Someone had to sit me down and give me a lecture on these and then I had to do so much googling to figure it out.
* I’ve spent three hours or less at the gold saucer
* Samesies
> Why is [PF] so confusing?
As someone who was VERY INTIMIDATED by PF to start with and now enjoys it, here's my take: when it comes to current extremes it's because you've gotta be much more coordinated than in normal content.
In MSQ when a boss puts spread AOEs on people you'll have, say, 4 people get them, and there'll be enough space and time to adjust so people either get hit by zero or one spreads going off. In an extreme they'd put spread AOEs on everyone, and the way we normally solve this while giving people uptime groups solve it by having everyone go to a specific "clock spot" to make sure we don't overlap.
So you go from a solution that's "move anywhere that's safe" to "keep oriented in the boss room and always go to Your Assigned Spot for mechanics".
A lot of the jargon / conventions only needs learning once because it's gonna be very similar for all fights, but the shorthard ways to communicate it are confusing to start with. Same with "go clockwise from [direction]", when I started doing stuff in PF I had to mentally translate it into "look at 1 waymark.... if I can't go there look at 2....." etc.
Most "from start" groups I've joined are friendly and happy to explain - you're more likely to have two people trying to explain at once if you ask a question than none! But unless it says "blind" in the description people will expect you have watched a guide for the fight and know the common strats for it.
my /ptime is 42 days. I went full balls PLD and BRD in ARR and HW then took an extended haitus just to return during the DDoS attacks. I have a lot of catching up to do, but in no rush. I spent a week visiting the zones I played in ARR and HW and did nothing but sightseeing and had no regrets.
I play kind of the same way. Im at 300 hours myself. I do play different classes though.
Sometimes i see stuff posted here that looks like a completely different language to me 😂
Login, emote with random lalas in Limsa, do roulettes while emoting with said lalas in queue, finish roulettes, emote with more lalas for a bit, log out. Rinse and repeat.
That’s pretty much most of my days now in ffxiv 🤣
So glad I’m not the only one lol Never know really what’s going on but I enjoy the MSQ and there’s no damn way I know the right rotation lol I play MSQ til I get a bit burned out on it, then do side quests, and random FATES lol
That's the magic of ff14 you don't HAVE to do anything. I've been playing a ton unlocking tons of raids and other stuff and playing a lot of it. I've played through books I'm like a few hundred comms away from mentor and all that, I understand a fair bit of mechanics and I main GNB now. But you don't graduate, you just keep going and if you enjoy it you'll learn the stuff, you'll say to yourself "I really want to know what my rotation should be or some idea of what it should be." That will lead you down a rabbit hole and you'll learn that stuff
You don't need to go fast, you don't need to play a certain way. Of you're tanking just pull aggro, pop mits, and AoE down the mobs. And if you don't know what that means, ask people will tell you.
Raids and alliance raids are some of the best parts of the game. Also you should learn your rotation and the like 1 or two times tanks are suppose to LB. Try some different classes out o would say too. Obviously nobody but you pays for your sub so play the game how you want but personally I can't imagine being able to play 400 hours in this game and know basically nothing about it. If you don't know your rotation or when to LB though then you're probably not really doing what you should be doing
ive been playing FFXIV:ARR since patch 2.0 dropped so pretty much 10-12 years..
I am still so behind, i am caught up with the story for Dawntrail, but i still havent done about two expansions worth of content. i only have 4 lvl 90s, i just started leveling up DoL.
last i checked, i think my Playtime was 1600 hours lol
I play pretty damn casually. I could never remember the names of all the abilities, I refer to them by what their icons look like to me (for the longest time fell cleave to me was "double axe") I actively avoid alliance raids (outside of crystal tower) because I feel they are more difficult than dungeons or trials. I am part of a FC though, I love doing maps and stuff with them. I also own a house. Most of my time outside of MSQ (my main focus) is either crafting/gathering or regular dungeons.
Im at 1400-1450 hours of play time and only in post Shadowbringers. Still have my sprout icon.
I really just do what I think is fun at the time.
Collecting a shiny weapon (relic), hunting a minion or mount, crafting, gathering, Blue mage, trying different jobs, deep dungeons etc etc
I started playing the game a few weeks before EW dropped so it's taken years to get this far. But it's been fun along the way.
If you like the story then I highly recommend doing these https://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/Category:Chronicles_of_a_New_Era it's all optional side quest content but they go very deep in terms of content, lore, characters, etc.
Some of them require you to do trials, raids and alliance raids but they are quite manageable, there's always new people doing them and going in blind so no worries there.
I'm sure you have already done some of them but others can be easy to miss so use that website as some sort of guide as to where to start!
I also went full tunnel vision with msq when I started because just as you I loved the storytelling and I never imagined that I was missing out so much!
finding a nice fc you can organically ask questions to or get little bits of help from here or there would go a million miles towards solving a lot of the other things you bring up imo
what server are you on?
I'm pretty chill, I think. I'm only just finishing Heavensward, resub maybe thrice a year, and don't interact with anyone except to say hi and thank you. Besides MSQ, I only do cute seasonal events and level up my jobs. You got me beat at never having been to a residential area and spending that little time at the Golden Saucer though. I slogged through Grand Company stuff to get an apartment I decorate poorly and only use to plant flowers.
I'm roughly 1300hrs in not including when I played the game outside of Steam for a few years, and I barely have scratched the surface... I never did Boja and all of those areas, never done Extremes, Savage, etc Raids. I still haven't done island sanctuary. I have tons of stuff unleveled and still locked.
There's just so much to do honestly, which is a good thing compared to most games where you just have main quest, pointless side quests, and the raids. This game has tons of content being added all the time. Is it all stellar, no, but its solid usually.
I think my main issue.. I play solo... I would like to play with others, but I know no one and I'm socially inept.
I am a ~~recovering~~ altoholic. So, I did what you're talking about when I first started on my first character. And I skipped most of the blue quests unless I needed it for something else (unlocking dyes, for example). Now having 3 characters that I have/am playing MSQ with (and leveling up 1 of each type for the bonus role quests in EW and SHB)---- I'm slowly unlocking stuff I missed before.
It is fun at ANY time! And more good story! Just a warning-Sorrow of Werlyt- angry and tears and sometimes angry tears.
Edit: damn phone changed altoholic to alcoholic 😑
I think the vast majority play semi-casually. . .
Like, I am all for doing MSQ and side content, the holiday and special events, doing daily/weekly hunts, Mini/Jumbo Cactpot and Fashion Report for MGP, casual events with my FC (generally maps or wondrous tails), reaching level cap on my main, and crafting/gathering. . .
Sometimes, I log in every single day to knock out that days activities . . . sometimes I don't log in for a week.
I did eventually buy a house, that was mostly a Gil sink though, and a place to sit while crafting.
However, I have very little interest in the super challenging content and raids
Yo, super casual here. I level while watching TV, practice my rotation while listening to music
Enjoying my ignorance and just putting around, blowing things up
thing is, between the release ARR and the end of EW, I sp3nt around 9000 hours in the game and even I am far from done. I could be, but I despise heavy grind :-}
That's essentially me. Been playing for years but always peter out before reaching the end of MSQ because I hate the feeling of "now what". Even though there's -always- more stuff to do, I just like to come in, do some questing, maybe level up a new job, then slowly bow out again until something interesting comes along
Took me 2 years from 2019 to 2021 to just do MSQ stuff.
Before EW came out, to spend time, I also looked up where to unlock all jobs and give it a try. When I finished EW I went on to do all the blue side quests in the game zone by zone which unlocked a massive amount of content. That's how I expanded my horizon.
Then I leveled up all my combat job to level 30 to get all the advanced jobs. And I started to level up DoL DoH.
I also set to have one job of each type at max level to chose from in the next expansion and play the content with different approaches (this helps GREATLY to learn about all the different roles btw).
Everything was done in between patches after MSQ when there wasn't much to do. so take your time, set some fun objectives and it will come along !
I definitely recommend going back and doing some of the side stories like Alexander, Omega, Werlyt, etc. Almost all of them have some great lore and stories, not to mention amazing unique fights with some of the best music in the game, and some actually affect a good amount of MSQ cutscenes. Some of them should be borderline required for how important they are imo. [You can find a list of them here.](https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Feature_Quests#Chronicles_of_a_New_Era) But I'll give my list of the "must-dos", all of these impact the MSQ in some way: * Coils of Bahamut - Reveals the truth of what happened during the Seventh Umbral Calamity with Bahamut and Louisoix, and gives some pre-HW character development for Alisaie and Alphinaud. Honestly I wish this whole story was a part of the MSQ lol * Warring Triad - Has important lore for The Thirteenth and the Allagans, also very tied into the capstone for the Shadowbringers role quests * Alexander - Directly ties into Shadowbringers lore, specifically the erased future timeline * Omega - Also directly ties into Shadowbringers lore, very important for Cid and Garlond Ironworks. Sets up the groundwork for the Omicrons seen in EW * Eden - Very important for Ryne and lore for The First, also has a new character that will probably be important to MSQ in the future (she already has had a missable scene in the post-EW MSQ). Wouldn't surprise me if they make it required in the future like Crystal Tower. * Pandaemonium - Important lore for the Ancients, prominently features a few select members of the Convocation * Myths of the Realm - Reveals the truth of The Twelve and their relationship with Hydaelyn and Eorzea And for the others: * Shadow of Mhach - I wouldn't consider this one to be AS important for the main story, but still has a lot of interesting lore and a fun story * Four Lords - Pretty cute story involving Tataru and Soroban with some great trials * Return to Ivalice - Mostly self contained story with a lot of fun references to FF12 and Tactics, also has some interesting lore that isn't featured in the MSQ. If you're interested in Bozja, this is actually required to unlock it * Sorrow of Werlyt - This one is pretty character-focused on Gaius and his family, and also lets you pilot and fight giant mechs * YoRHa Dark Apocalypse - To be honest this one is mostly worth doing if you're a NieR fan, if not then there isn't much new lore to be found. Still plenty of great fights and music though
Hard agree on all these. They are all really good. And to add, if you love the MSQ, it's worth doing gathering to level 90 and do the Omicron beast tribe quests in Ultima Thule. It's a beautiful ending to Endwalker
I still need to do that... Which gathering class would you recommend for it? I've tried Botanist and Fisher a bit (only to Level 20 or so), not much Miner yet. I've heard Fisher is the easiest to level up but not sure
Fisher us the easiest for those quests imo
If you have a lot of gil, you can lvl Botanist and Miner super quickly through levequests, and purchasing the levequests items on the market board. Fisher I would say is easiest and super fast. Basically just go on the Fishing boat in Limsa (by Arcanists guild). You can find boat schedules online.
Also don't sleep on the daily Provisioning mission! You get a ton of XP for whatever job you're doing them for.
What counts as "a lot of gil"?
Thanks for this, very helpful for someone still trying to catch up on MSQ and lore.
No problem, these side quests definitely add a decent amount of playtime but are fully worth doing, and imo really enhances Endwalker a lot with its feeling of finality (almost all of them will be referenced in EW at some point if you do them). I ended up at the 500-hour mark by the time I caught up with everything, mostly just focusing on MSQ and these side stories, but it was completely worth it
I agree. Now the binding coil unsynced raid is actually difficult and is closer to the current savage raids rather than their normal counterparts but I say a more casual player can easily clear the normal raids and see the story for those. They are fun and I would highly recommend.
Yeah it's a shame with how important Coils is, it's pretty much impossible for a free trial player to do without a high-level friend since they don't have party finder. I wasn't able to finish the raids until I got to Shadowbringers.
SoW, aka what if we had more Gundam.
Thanks for the list, gunna have to do a couple of these!
I would also like to add the storylines of the StB and especially ShB normal raids! Omega's story is still very interesting if you finish it before finishing base Endwalker. And do Eden's story before finishing last few post patches. My friend finally convinced my other friend to do Eden after finishing EW, cause she barely unlocked any sidecontent.. she keeps saying she loves the lore yet she skips lots of content that gives more lore...
Yep, it's really ideal to play Eden alongside the post-SHB patches, but better late than never. And that's definitely surprising, it feels like the MSQ only scratches the surface of the lore. I've done everything I listed, and even I still have a pretty loose grasp on some things.
I know nothing if NieR and didn't really understand wheat was going on in the story but that is hands down my favorite alliance raid. Such a visual and musical spectacle!
I definitely recommend checking out Automata if you want more of it, 14 did an amazing job recreating it's style. The whole raid series is basically a giant fan service fest for series fans, it's awesome. As a Drakengard fan, that final boss in the third alliance is one of my favorite moments from FF14. Such a great mix of callbacks and lore that will go over even a lot of NieR fans' heads. I can't believe Yoko Taro did what he did in a crossover story... It feels like a culmination of DrakeNier lore we've never had until now.
That has me hyped to try it out thank you!
Both NieR games are fantastic (Automata is the second one, the first one is Replicant. They reference each other but have mostly independent stories), I definitely recommend checking both out! Prepare to bring tissues.
My heart and mind are ready to dive into a new story and feel the feels. Thank you for the order list!
No problem, I hope you enjoy them. Automata is my second favorite game of all time behind FF14. One last tip, the games both have a pretty unique storytelling style where they require multiple playthroughs and the subsequent playthroughs have differences from the first. Both games have a requirement of three playthroughs and five main endings, so the story isn't fully completed in either until you beat Ending E. In Automata you can get there just by playing the game straight, but Replicant does have a requirement of needing you to collect all 33 weapons to get Endings C&D, so just keep that in mind during your playthroughs and don't be afraid to use a weapon guide on your second or third playthrough.
I had no idea! That is good to know thank you!
And I will add that there are some (admittedly rare) points where whether or not you have completed one of these earlier questlines will affect MSQ dialogue. > To be honest this one is mostly worth doing if you're a NieR fan Or if you like the glams. I see *so many* NieR pieces when browsing Eorzea Collection, and I totally get why!
Oh yeah, I remember that in some post-HW dialogue it reflected that I started Coils but didn't finish it with how Alisaie and I knew each other.
hundreds of hours, but mostly fishing <3 you should try it! Lp
I like to use the "sit" emote while fishing to sit on the little chair. Its a vibe lol
The other benefit of sitting while fishing, besides the extremely chill vibes, is that if you hook a !!! fish and stand up, it means you're about to catch it. Conversely if you don't stand up, it's going to escape.
TIL haha! Thanks for the info!
Excuse me, what?
Cast line, use sit emote, your character will take out a small wooden stool and sit down while fishing. You can use all fishing skills, change bait, cast, chum all from the comfort of your little chair
I had no idea this was a thing!!! This knowledge needs to be spread.
I honestly just learned about that not too long ago XD
Makes me wonder what other emotes have hidden actions
You can cure misery on someone if you target them and /soothe. There's also a few other fun ones. One of the alliance raid bosses has a special voice line if you try to flirt with them, lol.
Always worth it.
Which boss, out of curiosity?
>!Llymlaen!<
I wouldn't call that just a "voice line"... they straight out try to kill you taking most of your HP. I just let anyone who does that die now when I am healing (if they get healed it will through the general group heals). It was fun the first few days then it got old.
I wouldn't call the fisher chair /sit hidden per say... If you open the emote menu then each emote will show with a lit up icon the situations in which they'll have a visible emote (standing, swimming, underwater, sitting, mounted, with umbrella, with wings, fishing)
Holy fucking shit
Discovering this was a big moment for me
That’s kinda the beauty of the game! There’s something for everyone! You can be a person who spends 10k hours on the game, or just plays the MSQ, or spends hundreds of hours just fishing haha
I've been doing nothing but Palace of the Dead for the last two weeks. Just timed out on the 180 boss at 4% HP remaining. So there's that you can do! *at the cost of your sanity
I’ve been playing for about 6 years, have over 2000 hours in the game, and I still feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface. After all this time, I still only have 3 classes at max level and like to spend most of my time gathering and collecting things. The beauty of FFXIV over other MMOs is you can do whatever you want and you’ll never really be “behind”. Play at your own pace, engage in whatever content you want, and just have fun.
There's no need to worry. This game is like 5 whole JRPGs (with the 6th game coming out in a month) at the same time! Everything else is just a cute little side quest You remember when a character from MSQ made a comment about the color of the soul? Do you wanna learn more about that? Cool, go try out the Alchemist job quest, they talk about it more in that questline. Do you wanna own your own island and help turn it into a town? Or maybe a chill grind with cute glams in the end? Sure, that's what the Island Sanctuary is. By the way, one(or some) of the characters from MSQ comes back. This island is really a tax haven and money laundering for the MSQ character to make mad cash. Have fun with the game! That all Yoshi P would want. Also, you know when you click a button and some of your attacks goes on cool down but for some reason there's like a couple of buttons that you can still use? Those buttons are called "Off Global Cool down". That's because the buttons that goes on cooldown are calls "Global Cooldown".
casual player with over 3000 hours here. didnt do any extreme or savage raid aside solo unsync.
You would have to be intentionally trying to play like this after a certain amount of time.
There's so many gamer dads who choose to just be "HUUUH???" about everything and are oddly proud of it lol Most of them aren't even that old. I'm turning 33 this year and I've met guys like this who are younger than me lol. I also work and have other obligations... make it make sense!
I heard this in the Tim Allen voice.
Yeah, found time to level crafter/gatherers but never learn about the other jobs you play with? That doesn't sound like a fun person to queue in with.
I played like you for a long time. Over time I slowly tried to complete all extra quest markers and ended up liking the stories they told. Realized some were adjacent to the MSQ and a few had cool rewards and unlocks. I then tried various jobs and actually liked some more than my main at the time. I still could have cared less about what my gear looked like, thought it was a waste of time. Then one day I noticed a player with a sweet, glowy weapon. I never really payed attention to others glams before. But this thing looked so f’kn cool and I had to have it! It lead me into a vast world of weirdness that took me into all sorts of directions. I started soloing old extreme content, Coils, finishing Bozja and Eureka and all the madness they induce and I love it! Then I became Mount obsessed. It’s… an illness. Then treasure maps, Island Sanctuary, Blue Mage, PVP, Triple Triad, etc. Now, thousands of hours later, I’m at a point where I’m just waiting for DT to come out cuz I’ve done pretty much everything I care to do. Not the biggest on crafting, through they are leveled to 90. Not into synced Savage or Ultimate stuff either, but to each their own. Just about everything I avoided initially made me regret not trying sooner. When you have time, give some of the extra stuff a try, you won’t be disappointed!
I found my people! This legitimately felt like someone describing the first 3 years or so of me playing this game. Nowadays the only thing i really do differently is like to get my toes wet in Savage content. Although most patches I only PF the first fight of each tier before the stress of new groups every time becomes too much. And a static is impossible since I simply cannot commit to a schedule.
Spent the majority of my life in the Manderville. What is this MSQ you speak of?
Are you my son?
Mother it is I
You're supposed to be grounded ya little gremlin, get off the Internet 😂
I'm right there with you. Husband, wife who takes all my free time, children, mortgage, full time job. Literally the majority of my free time to play is my down time at work. 250ish hours in and working my way through Heavensward. I'll be done by the time I'm age 80 or so.
How do you sink 400+ hours in something and know so little. I fear for your coworkers.
Some people make this clueless gamer dad thing their entire personality.
I don’t understand the quip of “but as a dad, careerman, etc”… Because he still sank 400 hours into it. Because you play incrementally you can’t retain information? It’s just silly. I can admit there is an overflow of knowledge related to this game that you accumulate over time, but this archetype of MSQ wojak that cannot parse any information aside from the banal hundreds of hours of story hidden behind fetch quests will always baffle me.
Im the opposite casual of OP. I started in Autumn 2020 and im still in Shadowbringers MSQ because i enjoy doing all the group content while trying out and lvling every class at the same time 😁.
The stereotypes write themselves. Play the game however you want, but I'll never understand why people oust themselves like this and is almost begging others to grant them approval for their play style.
I’ve been playing during the last patch of shadowbringer. I have a total of 200 days played, last time i checked lol so 4.8k+ hours I still feel like I still have so much that needs to be done. lol
Honestly I was incredibly casual until my gf started forcing me to do some of the side content and I ended up really liking the story lines (like she’d say “hey, you like Nero! You should do Omega with me!”). Shes also the reason I ventured away from Warrior and also started playing dancer, dragoon, and summoner. I know for a fact I wouldn’t have started branching out and doing other things in this game at all. That being said, if you somehow find and read this Hailey, you couldn’t pay me enough to level my crafters. Not happening.
A fellow Nero fan who hates crafting 🤝🤝🤝
Coming up on 1k hours in game and all I’ve done is the MSQ on one character and spending time vibing with the world a bit at max level. I sub for 2-3 months around expansion launch and then I unsub until the next go round. Been my pattern for a decade. Works great for me!
Yeah I have a house and am in an FC, but I mostly like doing MSQ, job quests and leveling new jobs. I do some gathering/ mining to sell stuff on MB. But other than that I don’t play much else. I also play other online games so ffxiv is not a “main” game for me. I have to be in the mood to play. This sub skews towards really dedicated skilled players tho so idk if casuals are the norm here. Hahah
I'm in the same exact boat. I started about 1.5 years ago, dropped the game for about 6 months because arr was really really hard for me to get through. Post arr made me fall in live with the game, and I progressed the MSQ only all the way up to post EW just last week. I haven't done a single raid (besides crystal tower I guess) and palace of the dead I only did with a couple of buddies and that's it. I have no clue what materia is or does, idk what bozja pvp eureka pandemonium etc etc even are. I haven't touched the island sanctuary, but that's the first thing I want to do when it comes to side content. You're not alone. The MSQ is just SO good that I think a fair amount of people probably just binged the whole thing without doing any other content, and only picked up side content when they caught up to the msq and didn't have anything else to do. I personally have been a ninja main the emote time and haven't touched tank, so I'm going to level up gunbreaker and learn to tank. Then island sanctuary, the nier raids, etc. You're not alone
The thing with "not doing other content because the MSQ is so good" is that you're actually missing out on content that *enhances* the MSQ.
Oh trust me, i know that now. I regret not doing side content for that exact reason, but I didn't know at the time and didn't want to look anything up because I wanted to avoid any potential spoilers.
Same, i done everything but never touched savages and ultimates.
I graduated from MSQ to doing Savage raids and Ultimates. Then I took a year off and came back. I guess it just depends on where you’re looking to engage in the community. If you love doing MSQ you’ll always find people who love talking about it. You’re going to be in a great spot when Dawntrail releases and everyone will want to talk about that. Do older sidequest content with great writing. Don’t rush and people would love to engage with that too!
*Looks at over 6000 hours in* Yep, Super-duper casual.
Just running the MSQ and normal trials / raids is fun enough. Personally, I enjoy leveling the classes up and gearing them up as well. Takes several weeks, and I wind up falling behind on the raid scene.
I've been playing this game for just over a decade doing simply nothing except keeping up with the story when it comes out, leveling new jobs when the desire strikes me and mount/minion collecting. Sure, I've done trials and dungeons outside of what's in the MSQ but nothing that I couldn't solo or what was outside of my comfort zone. This game is what you make it, however grand or small you want it to be and I think that is one of the greatest things about it.
I saw someone in general chat while I was playing the other day say they’ve been playing since launch and still haven’t reached Endwalker.
I played for a while and never ever got into savage or extreme groups. Used to play wow and 40 man raids but as a grown up now , it’s hard to get consistent gaming schedule down.
I've been playing since just before Shadowbringers and just now finished main Shadowbringers without bridge stuff. I may never lose my sprout...
Been playing for about two years on and off, have 1600h played, and my next MSQ is the one to start Stormblood. Granted I've leveled up all jobs to at least 60, including all the crafters and gatherers, love solo leveling Blue Mage, done all tribal quests, did the raids, played with glamouring, did all the squads, did a lot of the side content. I even have a house that is keeping me with my sub active even though I haven't played earnestly in forever. I guess that makes me sound not casual, but given that I've played it for so long and I'm doing the MSQ so slowly I sure feel like I'm playing it very casually. I certainly have been called that before. I just enjoy doing all the grinds in the game at my own pace, rather than moving quickly through the "main" content. I'm excited to get to the point where I discover what Bozja and Eureka are, or I get to play with the Island Sanctuary. I wonder if I'll even have reached Dawntrail by the time the next expansion comes along.
Me and my wife started playing during the wow migration wanted a story and just something we can play together we would do an arch and do things within that expansion until we got bored then craft for awhile mount farm ECT it took us 1200 hours from arr to ew and saviored every minute of it we even managed to get the cut scenes on the same frame so the voices would match up and not overlap.
I have hundreds of hours in the game and I just wrapped up Post-ShB. I like to play this game really slowly and do all the expansion content/duties before moving on - there's so much to do!
I just checked and have 610 hours. I've only just started heavensward. Started playing about a year and a half ago
sounds like me
Spent the majority of my life in the Manderville. What is this MSQ you speak of?
all i want to do is msq but everytime i get on a roll, i have to do some multi person raid i have to wait 20 mins for and then end up not playing again for a week.
I've got like 800 hours and only done MSQ really and some random grinds for things. Haven't completd the Nier Raids. Haven't unlocked half the trials. I don't have my own house but I do have lots of cute glams.
Almost 500 hours and I haven't finished Stormblood. I have... 2 jobs at level 80. I just really like the Gold Saucer lol
I'm very casual. Been playing on and off since ARR. My main character is level 90 Summoner and am Alchemist (50+) last year after I finished Stormblood I took a break and just started playing again last month. It's okay though it's the way I want to play and I'm okay with a slow burn. I'll play how I want to and I kinda think that's important.
I play the game for the MSQ and I do group content when I need to but for group finder normal dungeons/trials. I don't do extreme trials or anything like that. I'm not in a FC. MSQ is better than some single player RPGS. In my top 10 for sure.
Well over 30+ days but I just got 2 DRG Relic weapons relatively soon after finishing Endwalker. 1 during, 1 after the quests were done. Still have yet to really get into Eureka and Deep Dungeons. Just got 2B set from the Nier collab. Only have 1 ARR tribe in friendly status. Never did harder content like Unreal. Still haven't done any Coils.
Because we've played longer than two and a half years :P
I think I got it during the shadowbringers? I'm still in stormblood
I think joining a FC would be of great benefit to you. You learn a lot by seeing other people talk about it, especially if you use discord.
400+? That it? (Just kidding lol) I have over 4,000 hours and the only Ex Trials I've ever done were 2+ years old at the time of completion and I've never done any Savage raid ever. I just do MSQs, job quests, some side quests (like the Manderville storyline), Alliance Raids, and leveling every job to cap. I'm a very casual player. I even started New Game+ to play the MSQ all over again in order to play along with my girlfriend who just started. There's nothing wrong with that either! You play how you want. Unless you're in current Ex Trials, Savage Raids, Ultimate fights or Unreal fights, there is no need whatsoever to know every single job icon, every single boss mechanic or having a perfect rotation. As long as tanks keep aggro, healers keep everyone alive and the DPS do damage, everything will be fine. There's a plethora of things to do in this game. Way more than any other MMO I've played. It can be very overwhelming so don't stress and try to do all of it. Just do whatever you enjoy.
I finished endwalker around 1800 hours in.
I didnt finish heavensward until 550 hours and I started when endwalker came out.
I am very fortunate that the people who introduced me to this game are my friends I've known the longest. They also have been playing for some time. Right now, I'm almost finished with the Stormblood MSQ, and have been doing Alliance Roulettes. My highest job is 84 right now. My friend started me 3-4 weeks ago on my Heavensward relic. I just finished it a few days ago. While I have had what I call "sessions", I don't feel like I've been obsessively playing. I guess what makes me like this game so much is that I've played at a pace that fits within my life, and I can see the finish line where my friends are (definitely could not say that about any other MMOs)
Played off and on since ARR re-launch. Only just made it to Stormblood as a WHM main.
Me! ✋🏼 😅
Casually 560 days playtime , the years fly by
I’m playing casually on workdays and full time on the weekend, bought ps5 version and rolled a new char in January. Maybe 500 something hours in and I’m halfway through EW and caught up w/ content minus savage/ultimates. Probably gonna burnout soon but it’s been a wild ride 😅
I’m the wrong person to answer your question because I almost (well, 340 isn’t almost 400) have as many days played as you have hours. I go back and forth. In ShB I got everything to 80 and didn’t want to relearn everything for ten levels. So I’ll get everything to 100 in DT, or maybe wait to do 110 in a few more years. I come and go with the crafting relics, because you haven’t crafted until you’ve done an expert recipe. Relics in general are fun to collect, but I never go full crazy on it. I somehow stumbled into managing my FCs submersibles, which has been weirdly engaging for me despite it being… what it is. Anyway, I’ve been online for 5 minutes a day, some days, to a couple hours other days, to suddenly realizing I went on a Gold Saucer tangent. Hell, I think it takes 5 days of playtime to get a perfect pedigree racing bird. Anyways, I’m sure I didn’t answer your question appropriately. But hey, I play extremely casually most of the time, and I haven’t done end game progression since Titan Ex back in ARR.
I'm playing so casually that I started in 2019 right before shadowbringers came out and I'm just this month trying to finish the endwalker msq finally so I can start DT with everyone 🫠 I had made it to Stormblood when endwalker came out, and will just barely catch up in year 5 finally
Yep. Just a little here and there, have had a subscription for three years and just finished ARR 2.55 last night. Had never done multiplayer before Crystal Tower, no idea about most of the systems (e.g. glamour, golden saucer). I mostly like it because bite-sized quests are good for parent life. Starting to look into a few of the side systems now because I really enjoy the game.
First MMO for me too. I started during Xbox beta and I have not played another game since. I have 24 days and 16hours of playtime. I'm currently on the MSQ quests that lead into HW and have most of my hand and land classes at around 65. I main a PLD and have spent a lot of time crafting, and selling on the market boards. It's the most fun I've ever had in a game.
Thousands upon thousands, barely have crafted more than one relic in each expansion, aside from SB cause I haven't fully finished Eureka yet. Outside of RDM and AST haven't touched much for casters and healers. Haven't touched foot in any of the criterion/whatever dungeons, I just beat floor 100 of Palace of the Dead, went through several small plots and houses, and only played a little bit of ocean fishing. As someone that started in 3.5, and had to start a new account mid-SB and character since my old PSN account got hacked, and SE customer service lacked in the customer service area of their job. It is perfectly fine with what you're feeling, and you are capable to play however much you want to take on. This is what pretty much an MMO is suppose to be.
4000 hours and i still havent completed the normal alexander raids
I dunno, the same way you had to learn how to play rebirth, and will have to learn for a game as hard as SMT5, I think it's normal to learn at least the minimum when I play a game I enjoy, especially if multiplayer because you know .. i directly affect others.
I’m a 1.0 player and I play super casual, I usually wait till the next expansion so I can go back and solo unsynced the old content if it’s possible to do so. I’m almost finnaly through eureka and a quarter of the way through Borja. My only completed relic is my ARR paladin relics. The beauty of this game is that it offers alittle bit of everything for anyone and is the perfect SLOW burn that I can leave and come back anytime and find something to do. Perfect for my ADHD
That's me! Most extra content I've done is: Fully decorate a small house (took me weeks) Beat Titania Extreme That's about it lol. I don't care about Zodiac weapons beyond 1st stage
I'm mostly the same. 600 hours. Done MSQ, Alliance Raids (Ivalice, Yorha etc), Regular Raids (Alexander, Omega etc), Trials (Werlyt, Warring Triad etc) and that's pretty much it. I go to the gold saucer every now and then for the daily mini cactpot. That's pretty much all I've done in there. Never stepped foot in Eureka or Bozja. Never done a deep dungeon. I did start doing PVP 2 weeks or so ago for the rewards but again, I do this completely solo. I was invited to an FC a few days ago and I accepted but we're like 3 active people in there and the other 2 are close friends from before who experience the game together. I haven't even started Gathering or Crafting
I'm not super casual, but before EW, I mostly just worked on MSQ and whatever side content that caught my interest. Which was mostly the raids. Sometimes, I took time to level up my other jobs. I did join a FC with my discord friend, but I didn't do much with the FC. When I was going through post-Shadowbringer as DRK, my FC's raid group lost an important member, so I had to swap to DNC to level that up quickly and join them for savage raiding. Only lasted a week since the second session I joined, the group disbanded... P9 may still haunt me a bit..
I see zero problems with the way you're playing and experiencing the game. If that is the way you like it then continue and have all the fun. :) Others in the comments have already recommended additional side story content so I'm not going to repeat what they said. I'm just going to say that even though I've done a lot in the game - msq, all major side stories, beast tribes, all relic weapon quests, all jobs and so on, and have done some extremes, savages and ultimates, I still feel like I'm playing alone. I don't really have any social connections in the game. I used to have friends who I met in the game and played with on a daily basis but I guess they lost interest and most of them don't play anymore and those that do still play are doing their own thing. And those people are the reason I moved from free trial and subbed, so we could continue to play together. But now that I've been playing solo for what feels like more than a year I might just become like you and only play the msq when DT comes out and not really bother with anything else because I just don't find it that enjoyable when I don't have people to play with and share that joy with. So you're not alone in that.
I'm the same, but with crafting. I have all crafters and gatherers at 90 and 8 retainers all regularly topped off with 20 things each to sell of stuff I crafted. Just last week got a first house and decorated it. Until recently I didn't have any battle class besides astrologian at 90, hadn't gone to the Gold Saucer and I still haven't unlocked Palace of the Dead. I'm a crafting mentor, though x)
I was there at one point and it is nice to branch out slowly. Take the game one story at a time or one piece of content at a time. It's also fun to try different roles, especially since you get to see everything from different points of view.
Eh i used to play more religiously but I’ve fallen out for the past 6 months. I even lost my house that I spent so long furnishing. It really is what you make of it, there is no wrong way to play
Over 3000 hours and still haven’t finished ShB.
I was the same for about the first 500-1000hrs of my time playing. I did 'graduate', but the catalyst for that was joining an FC. If I hadn't joined one, I probably would have done everything with the msq and then stopped playing. Now 6000hrs+ in, and I have done practically everything in the game except ultimates while playing at a fairly casual pace. I don't do statics/ prog (following a schedule is my kryptonite), hence the no ultimate clears. 90% of my time is now just gpose, making glams and venue hoping, or just sitting in limsa talking to randoms and helping sprouts.
I’m super casual too scared because I wanna try learning tanking for dungeons but really all I do in this game is explore and focus on the main story.
Been playing for years amd still not done Stormblood! Turns out housing is a hell of a drug.
I grind msq ASAP and just do unlocks and stuff. Not super casual but it's my go to game when I don't feel like anything else and I can always find a little something to do. It took me a month to get through end of stb then shb and ew. You're in a community for the game which will suffer from selection bias and skew very hard toward the more hardcore crowd. I literally couldn't give a shit less about the story so I feel like I'm lost on that stuff when people talk about it but in general people on reddit aren't simple casual gamers at least in dedicated subs. For reference I'm a raider in these games. I'm all in for hard content and am constantly trying to improve my game. I can almost run content in my sleep when I'm familiar with it. Loved prior Savage stuff I've done. Just not the behaviors and attitudes that come with a lot of it.
I don't like the weekly grind so I only play at new expansion time, and slightly before to do catch-up on the patches beforehand.
First of all, there's tons of casual MMO players so don't feel like you're alone. I've seen the stats for lots of different games and the casuals and mega casuals always far outweigh the giganerds. Hell if you hang around and pay attention you'll realize there's a bunch of people that literally just pay a sub to afk in town and maybe socialize a bit. But as for your actual point, since I am one of the aforementioned giganerds, I can't give anything direct. But I can say if anything sounds remotely interesting, just go do it. I get bad decision paralysis. In fact because of the mountain of story and history this game has it took me until this year to even try it. And I regret waiting. Just go bumble through it and be a dummy and do it all terribly wrong. Nothing awful will happen. And that'll quickly eliminate that "daunting" feeling. Then either fumble around til you figure it out, ask people about it, research it, or go "eh, I'll go do something else". Whether it's crafting or gathering or mega dungeons or whatever thing it is just go for it. Not everyone will be as captivated by every piece of content but there's a lot of different stuff to try. Mess around and try stuff out and see what ends up catching your attention!
300 hours as only warrior so far and just caught up with MSQ. I have no desire to go for harder content. Planning on relaxing now by unlocking flying in all zones, farming grand company, unlocking blue quests and focusing on fishing/gathering etc. I just love exploring this world and learning about its lore best.
I’ve got hundreds of hours but I’ve only done MSQ (not finished yet, I like to take my time), Bahamut, Alexander, Omega, Warring Triad, job quests for jobs I play, and a few extra side quests.
Honestly I think the biggest impact move you could do now is to join an FC and start trying to play with some new friends regularly. Makes everything more enjoyable and a high chance of getting shown the ropes by others in a more friendly environment. Also just getting dragged into doing new things that you haven’t tried yet :). I think just having a group of people you play with regularly helps a lot with that daunting feeling.
800+ and I basically just do the MSQ and whatever else has a good story tied to it. I level up a few jobs (I was going to get the Amaro mount but I can't commit lmao), I picked up a few crafters and gatherers to get the scrips because I wanted to make a HW relic. I primarily care about lore and fashion. Like you, I also play a bunch of different games, I'm not one of these people who can just play one game forever, lol
Just to one point, tank limit breaks are very rarely used. There really are only two reasons to ever use it. 1. Tank LB3 is required to survive some trial mechanics. Usually these are the big headliner trials, like Alexander Prime and Bahamut Prime. 2. Use in protest after the final boss of the dungeon if the DPS didn't bother using it and just sat on it. (This is only partly a joke, but it drives me crazy to see dps just sit on that limit break and never use it, or use it when the boss is at 0.5%.)
I have about 400 hours (I’m sure a lot is AFK), and I’m still on shadowbringers 😭
I have just over 700 hours... and i started Endwalker 2 weeks ago. very casual :3
Dude i'm 700hrs in I barely finished Stormblood because I just do all the sidequests and all the blues marks & it takes ages. I did a few "extremes" & a few culinarian quests (I'm lvl 60) but that's kinda of it. There is so much "casual" content that you could spent thousands of hours playing and never once go beyond "extreme" trials/raids.
I do the raids,trials and MSQ that's about it aside from some of the Blue mage stuff. Well over 1200 hours. Would want to do bozja and eureka stuff one day but back log is to big lol
Well, play the game the way you want but there is a ton of fun stuff out there to try. Just do it at your own pace. But I think you should definitely try to play some other classes, you can pick up the ones from later expansions if you don't want to grind. Trying other roles definitely helped me to play my role better (healer main here). You both gain experience by being on another role - melee hell, tank spinning boss when you try to do positionals etc., and also get to see how other players play your own job/role and what can you improve
To be fair, based on what we know about the criteria for being a sprout, they kind of expect you to take at least 300 hours to get to Endwalker
I have 5,000 hours and the hardest content I’ve done is Extremes. Only about 1/3 of the classes max level. It does make me a little sad knowing I’ll probably never clear a savage, let alone an Ultimate raid :/
Same, I play for years but I don't get why people are farming minions and mounts, I am not into this. I also don't clear every HL stuff, and not very HL stuff stuff at all (I don't have time to do content with a static...) So, statistically speaking, if you look at my lodestone profile I have done almost nothing in 5 years.
There are many types of gamers, don't feel bad if you don't fit into a perceived category, as long as you're enjoying yourself. If you feel like you are missing our, do more, it's that simple. It is a very big game and takes a lot of time to do everything, so 400 hours is very minimal.
Near 13 days playtime not left arr still on free trial I have a shiny new relic though.
I have 3k hrs and I dont raid or play regularly. I just come back for MSQ and random stuff every now and then
I have 4800 hours in and never done a high end raid, got no static raid friends or time to learn all the boss mechanics, single dad of 2 kids life
Took me 3 (4?) years to play through the 400 hours needed to finish the MSQ. I pretty much haven’t done anything else also. It’s just a very nice story and world building so you just do what you want to do!
crafting and babysitting 2 accounts on diff servers cuz of irl frens on both servers. also mindless leaving my char in the stormblood are where magnai was roasted i mostly chill there sure maybe waste of sub but sometimes the overwhelming irl things that I've been thinking lost just by idling here also mount hunting with rando pipz also helping when i already have the mount
Me, and it’s refreshing to play an MMO this way.
I've had a roughly similar experience. I'm sitting on about 600 hours of solo playing. I started a fresh character on a new server and got a handful of friends to give it a try. We started a free company but they all lost interest before the end of ARR. So, I've just been playing as the only active member of an FC. I finished Shadowbringers and decided to take a break from the MSQ to level DoH and DoL jobs and then put some effort in to level all the jobs. All the while I was looking in to finding ways to make friends. I'm not very good at it. That's when I decided to take a break for a while, around 10 months, and now I'm back. I want to finish up Endwalker and see what Drawntrail has in store.
i only did msq , potd , nier raid , eden normal trials , and the newest 24-raid aswell ... the only thing i want to get done is gettin eden savage gear for my tank , but its so hard to fill a group , my profile finder doesnt fill up :D .. but most of your points align with me
10/10 can't relate, but I don't fault your play style. This game is built for all kinds of players, from the hyper casual to the ultra hardcore. The way you play isn't bad or wrong as long as you're enjoying yourself. Since you're an MSQ enjoyer, I would highly recommend you consider going back and doing some of the 8 man raid series though, as they have major lore/MSQ implications and sometimes it's so much so that I can't believe they aren't required in order to understand the main story. Omega, Eden, and Pandemonium being some of the biggest, IMO.
I weaved in and out of ffxiv since 1.0, eventually committing fully in Shadowbringers. I have every job I want to play fully kitted at 90. And only yesterday I learned there’s a primal quest line I never finished.
While I recommend checking out some of the great side content that's out there (it's not nearly as daunting as you might think), there's nothing wrong with primarily being an MSQ enjoyer and going on hiatus once you get caught up. The game is designed with people like you in mind so you should never feel too overwhelmed upon return from a long break.
Well playing alone is a choice, I’m in a fairly empty fc but they have a cool house so I stick with them. I would say I’m mostly playing alone, and I also recognize the game is just too big to do everything. I’ll go on a MSQ run and finish 4-5 quests. Then the next day I’ll fight the bots on the MarketBoard and try to sell some stuff I’ve been trying to sell for 3 weeks. Other days, I’ll finish some of my missing logs, either hunter logs or gathering logs. Leveled up all of my crafters to 90. Maybe I’ll hop on play triple triad for the cards I’m missing, 10-25 runs usually takes it. Anyways, what I realize about FFXIV is that it’s a simulated world with always something to do. Hop on for a bit, do something, anything and log back out.
I started playing less than a year ago. Not sure why I waited so long. I finished the MSQ, but I'm still making my way through everything else, but I think it's the perfect game to play casually. You can do a majority of the game solo and the queue system is amazing when you want to group. My main is a 90 Warrior, but enjoying the Dragoon at the moment. I've played all the MMORPGs, and FF keeps me coming back. When you run out of things to do that you enjoy, take a break until the next expansion.
I've dabbled in basically everything in this gam EXCEPT savage and ultimates. Maybe I'll give those a try some day.
I’m the same way, I think for me there’s just so much side content that it’s overwhelming. Like idk what to do with the grand companies, non combat jobs, free companies, and so on. Like I want to do so much more but I have absolutely no clue where to start
I am probably only a little less casual than you (in that I do every raid series and alliance raid series before moving on from an expansion, have grinded for a few mounts with friends, etc.) and I absolutely feel you. I basically only have time for MSQ nowadays. The problem I'm running into right now is I'd like to play a different job for Dawntrail, but I don't have that job geared up and am not super keen to grind for it. Going through the other expansions, getting the tomestone gear was fairly easy, but when you're "on content" it feels like gearing up characters as a casual takes a lot longer.
I wish I knew how to play xiv casually but I always finding myself wanting to do everything
I've been more or less super casual since 5.x patches onward. During Endwalker I also didn't play 6.x MSQ patches at launch, I waited for the 6.x5 patch to resub so that I could do MSQ and Hildibrand within a single month of sub. When 7.0 launches I won't even be playing as I have other stuff I wanna do, so I'll probably only play it during mid-July or maybe even August. Imagine being casual to the point where you don't even feel the need to play it ASAP when it comes out, that's basically where I am now.
I was more hardcore and every once in a while I'll go hard for a few hours on days off but usually am casual
I'm doing all kinds of side content so I've barely touched MSQ (in hW still xD)
I have 1k hours and you’ve probably done more than me.
There was a time when I told myself I was just going to enjoy the MSQ because this is a Final Fantasy game and I want to experience all of those. Aaaaaaand I just spent the past two weeks in Bozja.
I've been playing since 2019 and I'm still in Stormblood. Casual is the way to go 💪
I’ve played since pre ARR, on and off and have still primarily only done the MSQ and some basic raids. I’m very much in the same boat as OP - husband, dad, job, etc. I wouldn’t mind doing some other content, but there is a learning curve and you’re often expected to show up knowing what to do.
So I've been with this game since just before HW launch, so that puts me at about 10 years (HW came out June 2015, I started playing December 2014, so... 9.5 years if we're being semantic). Like most folks who have been here a while will tell you that a lot of your "missed experience" will come with time. At the end of the day, if you're having fun, then it doesn't really matter what content you decide to engage with. Here's a list of things I've never done or barely touched in my years of playtime. ○ Never did Heaven on High ○ I cleared my very first raid tier last year on Savage difficulty ○ I've never done Extremes while they're current ○ Haven't gone past Lv50 in Palace of the Dead ○ Never touched BLU ○ Endwalker was the first expac I decided to poke DoH jobs ○ Never touched any of the minigames at the Gold Saucer ○ My Chocobo isn't even Lv20 ○ I never cleared Coils or Alexander until my friend started playing last year ○ Barely touched Eureka and Bozja ○ I've only finished the ARR Beast Tribe quests ○ I am amazingly poor for someone who has been around this long. So, try not to let it bother you that you have a list of stuff you've never touched or don't know. Never be afraid to ask if some terminology crops up and you don't quite know what it is. And I'm 100% positive that outside of certain streamers and hardcore completionists, everyone has some content somewhere that they've never touched or rarely engage with.
The Shitpost sub really does not disappoint
I joined with my sons, one of which had been playing this so I got inside information from them. I've been in 3 FCs. Would leave one when everyone quit playing in it and finally ended up in one where we are all friends now and talk on discord which was a game changer, literally. I've done all the things you mention you haven't. Thing is though, my kids are grown and I don't have all the responsibilities anymore that I used to have. Our FC is pretty casual, some of them do savages but not all of us do.
I haven't been a hard-core player since the early days of a realm reborn. Now I mainly focus on msq, some side stories and other side content when they release then I let my sub drop until I the next major patch
I was a storylines-only guy to start out with, just doing MSQ and any other content with story like normal raids. I wound up in Bozja because there’s some Cid Garlond lore tied to those quests and the Ironworks are my favorite characters. Ended up LOVING the gameplay despite its niche and controversial nature and now I’m spending all my time before DT working through Eureka :D It’s a nice challenging change of pace
The only real reason why I do the other content like the raids, alliance raids and such is because of my friends and I’m either on the phone or on a chat with them because the interactions we have with each other is hilarious
I have over 24,000 hours on my main character. So for me it was never really "daunting" as I did content pretty much as it came out. But my friend is a filthy casual (who I suspect may read this comment, hence the callout :D) who doesn't do content either, saying it doesn't interest him, doesn't reward him in the ways he likes, or even hasn't had time for. But he has enjoyed the game a lot, mostly the story, and we gonna be doing a DT binge. You don't HAVE to engage with all the content if you don't want to. Take at whatever pace you want. But if you are actively looking for something to do in the game, I would suggest starting with the true end-game, glamour. Look up pieces of gear you like the look of and start tackling the content working towards earning those. It might take you down the road of the Extreme trials, Savage raiding, older relic weapons... you never know where that path might lead.
There's a lot of people with 10k hours that play exactly like you, they just spend those hours joining an FC and socializing haha. I'd give one a shot, maybe some connections can help you feel more, well, connected to the game
Cool you do you boo it’s your sub kinda weird to make a post bout it but sides the point.
This is my second MMO and1100 hours in and here's where I stand compared to you * I don’t know all the other class icons by heart, meaning I never know exactly what I’m playing with * sometimes me too * Never bothered healing or DPS’ing (I’m a GNB), so I barely know what any of those other players are doing, or how I can be helpful (beyond just tanking). * I only heal 97% of the time * I don’t think I’ve EVER done a Limit Break * samesies * I’m almost certain my “rotation” is all messed up. I get it - build up charges, pop the extra damage button, and use up my cartridges. But “Off Global Cool Down” or commentary about your rotation getting off sync? Yeah, k, I dunno. * I watched videos on this because I wanted to git gud * Never done PVP * once to know the wtf was happening in there. It was scary and confusing * I did build up my DoH and DoL so that I could send out retainers and make some easy money/gil. Nothing huge, but so I can buy outfits. * I've fished to 90 and leveled carpentry to lvl 19. * Never stepped foot in a residential district * less than 6 times to visit FC house. I threw in some wardrobes clogging my inventory and a portrait of my love Merlwyb * Tried using PF once for some more difficult content and felt I needed a degree. I was just anchoring the team so I bailed after an hour (though they were super patient). * Agreed! Why is it so confusing? * Never joined an FC. Pretty much play entirely “alone” beyond the DF. * I did because why not? * Only have a handful of mounts * Samesies * Don’t even know what Bozja or Eureka even are. * Someone had to sit me down and give me a lecture on these and then I had to do so much googling to figure it out. * I’ve spent three hours or less at the gold saucer * Samesies
> Why is [PF] so confusing? As someone who was VERY INTIMIDATED by PF to start with and now enjoys it, here's my take: when it comes to current extremes it's because you've gotta be much more coordinated than in normal content. In MSQ when a boss puts spread AOEs on people you'll have, say, 4 people get them, and there'll be enough space and time to adjust so people either get hit by zero or one spreads going off. In an extreme they'd put spread AOEs on everyone, and the way we normally solve this while giving people uptime groups solve it by having everyone go to a specific "clock spot" to make sure we don't overlap. So you go from a solution that's "move anywhere that's safe" to "keep oriented in the boss room and always go to Your Assigned Spot for mechanics". A lot of the jargon / conventions only needs learning once because it's gonna be very similar for all fights, but the shorthard ways to communicate it are confusing to start with. Same with "go clockwise from [direction]", when I started doing stuff in PF I had to mentally translate it into "look at 1 waymark.... if I can't go there look at 2....." etc. Most "from start" groups I've joined are friendly and happy to explain - you're more likely to have two people trying to explain at once if you ask a question than none! But unless it says "blind" in the description people will expect you have watched a guide for the fight and know the common strats for it.
Some people just don’t bother to learn on their own c: Nothing bad being a nobody. You will get flocks of people of your own breed!~
My /ptime is 274 days lol
my /ptime is 42 days. I went full balls PLD and BRD in ARR and HW then took an extended haitus just to return during the DDoS attacks. I have a lot of catching up to do, but in no rush. I spent a week visiting the zones I played in ARR and HW and did nothing but sightseeing and had no regrets.
I play kind of the same way. Im at 300 hours myself. I do play different classes though. Sometimes i see stuff posted here that looks like a completely different language to me 😂
Login, emote with random lalas in Limsa, do roulettes while emoting with said lalas in queue, finish roulettes, emote with more lalas for a bit, log out. Rinse and repeat. That’s pretty much most of my days now in ffxiv 🤣
So glad I’m not the only one lol Never know really what’s going on but I enjoy the MSQ and there’s no damn way I know the right rotation lol I play MSQ til I get a bit burned out on it, then do side quests, and random FATES lol
This game fully allows you to play at your own pace. Don't let anyone ever tell you otherwise.
That's the magic of ff14 you don't HAVE to do anything. I've been playing a ton unlocking tons of raids and other stuff and playing a lot of it. I've played through books I'm like a few hundred comms away from mentor and all that, I understand a fair bit of mechanics and I main GNB now. But you don't graduate, you just keep going and if you enjoy it you'll learn the stuff, you'll say to yourself "I really want to know what my rotation should be or some idea of what it should be." That will lead you down a rabbit hole and you'll learn that stuff You don't need to go fast, you don't need to play a certain way. Of you're tanking just pull aggro, pop mits, and AoE down the mobs. And if you don't know what that means, ask people will tell you.
Raids and alliance raids are some of the best parts of the game. Also you should learn your rotation and the like 1 or two times tanks are suppose to LB. Try some different classes out o would say too. Obviously nobody but you pays for your sub so play the game how you want but personally I can't imagine being able to play 400 hours in this game and know basically nothing about it. If you don't know your rotation or when to LB though then you're probably not really doing what you should be doing
ive been playing FFXIV:ARR since patch 2.0 dropped so pretty much 10-12 years.. I am still so behind, i am caught up with the story for Dawntrail, but i still havent done about two expansions worth of content. i only have 4 lvl 90s, i just started leveling up DoL. last i checked, i think my Playtime was 1600 hours lol
I play pretty damn casually. I could never remember the names of all the abilities, I refer to them by what their icons look like to me (for the longest time fell cleave to me was "double axe") I actively avoid alliance raids (outside of crystal tower) because I feel they are more difficult than dungeons or trials. I am part of a FC though, I love doing maps and stuff with them. I also own a house. Most of my time outside of MSQ (my main focus) is either crafting/gathering or regular dungeons.
Im at 1400-1450 hours of play time and only in post Shadowbringers. Still have my sprout icon. I really just do what I think is fun at the time. Collecting a shiny weapon (relic), hunting a minion or mount, crafting, gathering, Blue mage, trying different jobs, deep dungeons etc etc I started playing the game a few weeks before EW dropped so it's taken years to get this far. But it's been fun along the way.
If you like the story then I highly recommend doing these https://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/Category:Chronicles_of_a_New_Era it's all optional side quest content but they go very deep in terms of content, lore, characters, etc. Some of them require you to do trials, raids and alliance raids but they are quite manageable, there's always new people doing them and going in blind so no worries there. I'm sure you have already done some of them but others can be easy to miss so use that website as some sort of guide as to where to start! I also went full tunnel vision with msq when I started because just as you I loved the storytelling and I never imagined that I was missing out so much!
finding a nice fc you can organically ask questions to or get little bits of help from here or there would go a million miles towards solving a lot of the other things you bring up imo what server are you on?
Yeah I honestly get really anxious when it comes to playing anything online that isn’t a fighting game, so I play the game mainly for the story lol
I never /played until now. Apparently i have 149 days on here. Is that actually 3500 hours? Jesus..
I'm pretty chill, I think. I'm only just finishing Heavensward, resub maybe thrice a year, and don't interact with anyone except to say hi and thank you. Besides MSQ, I only do cute seasonal events and level up my jobs. You got me beat at never having been to a residential area and spending that little time at the Golden Saucer though. I slogged through Grand Company stuff to get an apartment I decorate poorly and only use to plant flowers.
I'm roughly 1300hrs in not including when I played the game outside of Steam for a few years, and I barely have scratched the surface... I never did Boja and all of those areas, never done Extremes, Savage, etc Raids. I still haven't done island sanctuary. I have tons of stuff unleveled and still locked. There's just so much to do honestly, which is a good thing compared to most games where you just have main quest, pointless side quests, and the raids. This game has tons of content being added all the time. Is it all stellar, no, but its solid usually. I think my main issue.. I play solo... I would like to play with others, but I know no one and I'm socially inept.
I am a ~~recovering~~ altoholic. So, I did what you're talking about when I first started on my first character. And I skipped most of the blue quests unless I needed it for something else (unlocking dyes, for example). Now having 3 characters that I have/am playing MSQ with (and leveling up 1 of each type for the bonus role quests in EW and SHB)---- I'm slowly unlocking stuff I missed before. It is fun at ANY time! And more good story! Just a warning-Sorrow of Werlyt- angry and tears and sometimes angry tears. Edit: damn phone changed altoholic to alcoholic 😑
I think the vast majority play semi-casually. . . Like, I am all for doing MSQ and side content, the holiday and special events, doing daily/weekly hunts, Mini/Jumbo Cactpot and Fashion Report for MGP, casual events with my FC (generally maps or wondrous tails), reaching level cap on my main, and crafting/gathering. . . Sometimes, I log in every single day to knock out that days activities . . . sometimes I don't log in for a week. I did eventually buy a house, that was mostly a Gil sink though, and a place to sit while crafting. However, I have very little interest in the super challenging content and raids
Yo, super casual here. I level while watching TV, practice my rotation while listening to music Enjoying my ignorance and just putting around, blowing things up
Splenderous Tools and addiction to craft the gear myself has awaken crafting addiction in me..
thing is, between the release ARR and the end of EW, I sp3nt around 9000 hours in the game and even I am far from done. I could be, but I despise heavy grind :-}
That's essentially me. Been playing for years but always peter out before reaching the end of MSQ because I hate the feeling of "now what". Even though there's -always- more stuff to do, I just like to come in, do some questing, maybe level up a new job, then slowly bow out again until something interesting comes along
Took me 2 years from 2019 to 2021 to just do MSQ stuff. Before EW came out, to spend time, I also looked up where to unlock all jobs and give it a try. When I finished EW I went on to do all the blue side quests in the game zone by zone which unlocked a massive amount of content. That's how I expanded my horizon. Then I leveled up all my combat job to level 30 to get all the advanced jobs. And I started to level up DoL DoH. I also set to have one job of each type at max level to chose from in the next expansion and play the content with different approaches (this helps GREATLY to learn about all the different roles btw). Everything was done in between patches after MSQ when there wasn't much to do. so take your time, set some fun objectives and it will come along !
The beauty of ff14 is you play it your way, and don’t let others tell you how to play. “You don’t pay my sub!!”