Hey everyone! Just wanted to write about my experience as a new player both to MMORPGs and FFXIV. I just finished ARR Sunday night and am beginning the post quests. To start, I will say I tried this game back in 2022..ish? At the time I found the game to be very confusing, and a bit clunky, so it didn’t hold my attention more than a weekend. Maybe it’s because I chose conjurer as my first go? I like mages, they’re my favorite class to play. Another thing to note is that my bf is a legacy player, he’s been playing since 1.0, so I get to see him play quite a bit. He’s actually the person who got me interested in 14. With all of that being said, I picked the game back up at the start of July and decided to give it another go. This time around I chose to go white mage. If I struggled with conjurer, why would I choose to go white mage? A class where the whole party is relying on me to keep the tank up and make sure everyone is topped off. Sure. Let’s choose a very stressful job. What could go wrong?
Honestly playing as a white mage isn’t that confusing. The dungeon that gave me the most hell was The Stone Vigil. The tank decided they wanted to run out of my range of casting and I couldn’t get caught up before they went down and the rest of the party was a domino effect. I’m not blaming the tank completely. I was and am still very new, and at the time I didn’t understand the spells that help buff my character. I didn’t know how to properly use presence of mind and lucid dreaming to my benefit, nor did I fully grasp that regen could be placed on another party member. It’s kind of a wonder I had made it this far into the game without much struggles…really just figuring out how to use a controller was a struggle in its own. Kudos to my bf for helping me make my hot bar layout feel more natural and comfortable. He’s provided me so many invaluable tidbits of advice. I won’t say even after beating the main story that I am a great healer, but I feel like I’m really getting a grasp on how to help myself have a better time. Now I enter a dungeon and the first thing I do is throw lucid dreaming and presence of mind up, immediately target onto the tank and away we go. There are still spells I don’t touch…looking at you repose…
All in all, my time thus far with this game has been overwhelmingly positive. I’m not much of a social butterfly at all, but I find that this is a very kind and forgiving community. I’m right at around 100 hrs logged so far between ps5 and pc. Funnily enough when I started it was on pc with a mouse and keyboard. I picked it up on ps5 not knowing how I’d like controller but wanted to play from the comfort of my couch, and the console I thought would be the clunkiest and hardest to figure out has actually been my favorite! I feel like I’ve heard a bit of chatter about ARR being kind of a slog to get through and that people have a hard time getting through it, but I genuinely loved the story! There were times I had to look to my bf to help make sense of things being the way they were in terms of what had taken place in 1.0, but he’s assured me it’ll all make more sense the further I progress. Funnily enough, there was a day where I’d realized that the cinematic I’m using to watching as the game sits idle, is not the first cinematic. So I went back and watched the 1.0 cinematic and fell down a spoiler free rabbit hole on YouTube watching Jesse Cox explain beginner friendly lore that helped piece together some bits that I wasn’t understanding.
Now that I’ve come to the end of ARR I can say that I have enjoyed meeting such a diverse group of characters and getting to know what little about them that I do know. I love Eorzea and all of the rich lore and vibrant locations it has to share with me. Seriously, how is this game so freaking gorgeous??? Knowing what I know now about the struggles that this game has been through and just acknowledging that it damn near failed and managed to blossom into this piece of art that we have now blows my mind. I feel like most devs would have just cut their losses and been done. I’m so glad that wasn’t the case here. Eorzea and the time I’ve spent in it so far, genuinely feels like I am coming home when I play. This game has given me something I’ve yearned for years. I’ve wanted a game where I can sit down and feel connected to the world and my character and this game has delivered that feeling to me.
Last thing I’ll say is I love how goofy this community is. I play as a lalafell, and seeing people sprint towards my avatar to give her pets is so endearing! I’ve had so many people just pat me on the head and it somehow makes me feel a bit better. Especially when I’m struggling as a healer to keep everyone alive and we all start back from 0…I promise I’m trying my best
If you’ve managed to read everything I wrote out, thank you! There’s so much more that I could say about this game and the things that I love about it.
submitted by /u/Mayor_Sita
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Honestly playing as a white mage isn’t that confusing. The dungeon that gave me the most hell was The Stone Vigil. The tank decided they wanted to run out of my range of casting and I couldn’t get caught up before they went down and the rest of the party was a domino effect. I’m not blaming the tank completely. I was and am still very new, and at the time I didn’t understand the spells that help buff my character. I didn’t know how to properly use presence of mind and lucid dreaming to my benefit, nor did I fully grasp that regen could be placed on another party member. It’s kind of a wonder I had made it this far into the game without much struggles…really just figuring out how to use a controller was a struggle in its own. Kudos to my bf for helping me make my hot bar layout feel more natural and comfortable. He’s provided me so many invaluable tidbits of advice. I won’t say even after beating the main story that I am a great healer, but I feel like I’m really getting a grasp on how to help myself have a better time. Now I enter a dungeon and the first thing I do is throw lucid dreaming and presence of mind up, immediately target onto the tank and away we go. There are still spells I don’t touch…looking at you repose…
All in all, my time thus far with this game has been overwhelmingly positive. I’m not much of a social butterfly at all, but I find that this is a very kind and forgiving community. I’m right at around 100 hrs logged so far between ps5 and pc. Funnily enough when I started it was on pc with a mouse and keyboard. I picked it up on ps5 not knowing how I’d like controller but wanted to play from the comfort of my couch, and the console I thought would be the clunkiest and hardest to figure out has actually been my favorite! I feel like I’ve heard a bit of chatter about ARR being kind of a slog to get through and that people have a hard time getting through it, but I genuinely loved the story! There were times I had to look to my bf to help make sense of things being the way they were in terms of what had taken place in 1.0, but he’s assured me it’ll all make more sense the further I progress. Funnily enough, there was a day where I’d realized that the cinematic I’m using to watching as the game sits idle, is not the first cinematic. So I went back and watched the 1.0 cinematic and fell down a spoiler free rabbit hole on YouTube watching Jesse Cox explain beginner friendly lore that helped piece together some bits that I wasn’t understanding.
Now that I’ve come to the end of ARR I can say that I have enjoyed meeting such a diverse group of characters and getting to know what little about them that I do know. I love Eorzea and all of the rich lore and vibrant locations it has to share with me. Seriously, how is this game so freaking gorgeous??? Knowing what I know now about the struggles that this game has been through and just acknowledging that it damn near failed and managed to blossom into this piece of art that we have now blows my mind. I feel like most devs would have just cut their losses and been done. I’m so glad that wasn’t the case here. Eorzea and the time I’ve spent in it so far, genuinely feels like I am coming home when I play. This game has given me something I’ve yearned for years. I’ve wanted a game where I can sit down and feel connected to the world and my character and this game has delivered that feeling to me.
Last thing I’ll say is I love how goofy this community is. I play as a lalafell, and seeing people sprint towards my avatar to give her pets is so endearing! I’ve had so many people just pat me on the head and it somehow makes me feel a bit better. Especially when I’m struggling as a healer to keep everyone alive and we all start back from 0…I promise I’m trying my best
If you’ve managed to read everything I wrote out, thank you! There’s so much more that I could say about this game and the things that I love about it.
submitted by /u/Mayor_Sita
[link] [comments]
Continue reading...