What is final Fantasy 14 like?

[Togath]

So now that I finally have a good computer, I've been thinking about getting in to FF 14... but... the last time I played was for about a day three years ago, as well as for about a week close to it's original launch. (due to my computer back then being a very weak laptop)
Is it still going decently strongly? It's sounded kind of similar to WoW(in a good way, as in, so I'm not totally lost on how stuff might work) but with enough differences to make it not feel clone-y. Plus houses. The houses sound awesome. Also catfolk. Those too.
Is there any form of "play to [level?] for free" thing? Or would I need to restart my subscription to try it out?
I also remember back when it first came out, characters could change classes. Is that still a thing?

[Maryring]

You can play a free trial up to level 35, with some small features being locked. Including sending tells for some strange reason. I can't compare it to WoW, but I can tell you that the music of the game is fantastic, the storyline starts strong and gets better, and the classes I've played have been for the most part fun. The one exception being Arcanists, who I found to be rather boring until they reach level 30 and unlock the ability to become Summoner or Scholar. Those classes are fun. And yes, it's still going very strong. They recently released a new expansion, meaning that some servers are *still* overfilled.

[Vitruviansquid]

FFXIV is still going plenty strong, especially with the new expansion.

You are not likely to get your own house. You are, however, likely to be able to join a guild that can buy a guild estate. (Guilds in this game are called "Free Companies")

There is a demo that lets you play to level 35 of ANY AND EVERY job in the game. Personally, though, I find the game to be extremely monotonous up to level 35, and many classes only really get interesting past 45-ish (Dragoons remain awful to play until very late). On the bright side, the endgame is *extremely* fun on most jobs.

Yes, a single character can still be every class (which are called "jobs" because, once again, screw normal terminology).



An extremely large amount of this game revolves around complex rotations that are probably difficult compared to most other MMOs. If you don't like that idea, you'll probably not enjoy the game.

[Hunter Noventa]

What everyone else said is true, of course.

I highly suggest avoiding buying the game on steam, because if you do you're locked into buying any future expansions on Steam.

Housing is scarce on the more populated servers. (And Mateus, where a couple of jerks managed to buy up nearly every house). But there are also apartments, which are single rooms you can decorate, and if the FC you join has a house, you can put a private room there you can decorate as well.

Some classes of course have more complex rotations than others, so its a matter of figuring out what's easy for you to play more than anything else. I love Monk, but someone else might hate it.

A slight warning that the first...30 or so levels are very much 'intro to MMOs', so if you've played WoW it might feel a bit slow in that regard. Also the story until you reach the first expansion has issues, but when you know about what they had to do to salvage the game after the disastrous 1.0 launch, it's not so bad. There is a 'Story Skip' potion available for real money, as well as a 'Job Skip' potion that'll level you up, but honestly the story is pretty good once you get through the slog of the main story between 2.0 and 2.55, with a noticable uptick in quality as you approach 2.55.

If you want to do the free trial you'll have to make a new account if you had one previously, you can't activate the trial on an existing service account.

[Togath]

Hmm... I could always use my backup email for the trial account to see if I like it. So far it sounds like I might, though it is a shame about people buying up the housing(also... kind of very surprised that's possible. I'd assumed it was EQ-style "different houses, but only one entrance that you then teleport to your own from". Maybe they'll alter it in the future?
Complex rotations isn't a bad thing, especially given the class in WoW I'm most used to uses about 15 abilities that I need to track at all times in combat and several more situational things(Survival Hunter, for those curious).
And given I originally bought the game through the FF14 website, I'm unlikely to go for the steam option anyway. I didn't even know there was a team option.

[KillingAScarab]

If I can piggy-back on this, Red Mage got me interested in this game. I understand there used to be a system of "start as Class X for 30 levels, also level Class Y for 15 levels, then graduate to Job Z," as a remnant from 1.0, but that was being changed. The newer jobs weren't tied to specific classes, though, so how is it for a new player coming in? I know there are level restrictions before you can start on Samurai and Red Mage, since they're tied to higher-level/new content, but what is it like to start at level 1 if you want to get into jobs like White Mage and Bard, now?

[Maryring]

Unfortunately all new classes are tied to game progress. You have to beat the initial Main Story to get to Samurai and Red Mage, which means you already then must be level 50 in one of the other primary classes. Unfortunately, it takes a while for most classes to get into their own. But then, as mentioned there's a job potion for making you get level 50 in a job.

[Hunter Noventa]

Hmm... I could always use my backup email for the trial account to see if I like it. So far it sounds like I might, though it is a shame about people buying up the housing(also... kind of very surprised that's possible. I'd assumed it was EQ-style "different houses, but only one entrance that you then teleport to your own from". Maybe they'll alter it in the future?
Complex rotations isn't a bad thing, especially given the class in WoW I'm most used to uses about 15 abilities that I need to track at all times in combat and several more situational things(Survival Hunter, for those curious).
And given I originally bought the game through the FF14 website, I'm unlikely to go for the steam option anyway. I didn't even know there was a team option.

They actually removed and condensed a number of abilities with the launch of Stormblood. Most classes have 6 to 9 main abilities that are part of the normal rotation, not including stuff you use off the GCD.

And no, you build a house on an actual lot, but the Apartments and Free Company Rooms are like what you describe. There are a limited number of apartments, but I don't know of anywhere that they sold out. I'm not sure how many rooms a Free Company house can have, but it's plenty.

They removed the cross-class requirements to advance to the old Jobs, and changed how the cross-class actions work, now they're just called 'Role Actions. (All tanks have X, melee dps has Y, etc.). Some classes are still kind of locked off as follows:

Rogue/Ninja requires level 15 of any other class (It was added partway through A Realm Reborn)
Dark Knight, Machinist and Astrologian require you to beat A Realm Reborn and proceed to Heavensward (which is included with Stormblood now)
Red Mage and Samurai require you to be level 50 and to have purchased Stormblood.

[Fri]

It's the first mmo that got me hooked up for real to actually do end games and all expansions.

the best way to describe is, it's it's an actual final fantasy game.

It got all the stories you expect from final fantasy, crystals, magitech, ancient empires, war of the magi, whatever, anything you expect from an actual final fantasy game. So if you like final fantasy stories and settings, you'd enjoy it, but if you don't, you won't. Half of the contents are basically reference to the general final fantasy universe anyway (though you don't need to know that they're reference). For example, you'd recognize most bosses as something you've fought as bosses or summons in other final fantasy games. The story starts slow, but it will kick off to high gear around some time when the trial cut you out, so you can try the trial .

I need to reiterate again, it's very heavy in story, really. I'm not exaggerating here. It got as story-heavy as what you expect from a single player FF game. Some people actually ignore them, and I feel it's weird, because it's the main "thing" of FFXIV compared to other MMO.

Gameplay's as solid as it get for an MMO so if you don't like general MMO gameplay/trying to get bigger level and better gear, you'd either grit your teeth to enjoy the story and setting, or you won't like it because you just don't enjoy MMO in general. The fights basically revolves around "rotation" which is something like combination of attacks you do to use all of your skills efficiently. Some are actual combo attacks, some are self buffs or special skill you need to do in between the combo, things like that, and dodging enemy's signaled attack. You will have to enter dungeons with random people every once in a while, no around that, but you don't need to actually talk to them even if you have social anxiety, and auto group finder is nice and easy to use.

Another thing I need to point is that the music is really good, and it got a nice variety of style. Examples of some of my favourite ost:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HydzCxbzXGU Ramuh theme

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2oxO129TJI Good King Mog theme

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FV_IP4mNJCI Ravana Theme

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLCWCPyxByg Brute Justice Theme


A warning: it's more of a general warning to all games you play online in general, but I still think it need mentioning. The community in general is nice, but there will be always either some hardcore raider who laugh at you for not executing your rotation in milisecond perfect time, or people who will get mad at you for mentioning that they shouldn't run a dungeon while watching netflix in the same time. Just... know your job's rotation and pay attention when in dungeons, ask around if you're unsure, and it's enough for everyone.

[Sajiri]

I have a weird love/hate relationship with FFXIV. It's the sort of MMO I really dislike being a themepark with vertical progression, but I've been subbed to it since ARR launch (and on and off since 1.0 launch) but I guess that's mainly for the friends I have there and the fc I run that I can't bring myself to unsub.

I got really bored with the game in Heavensward because I didn't like how a lot of the jobs played, they were overly complicated and every fight was a dps check forcing the tanks and healers to dps as well. Stormblood seems to have changed all that though. The jobs have been simplified a bit in the way that they had ability bloat cut down, but I find them far more enjoyable right now. A couple jobs I think are in a bad way, such as summoner (its been nerfed or something) and scholar (I don't know if it's bad but as the shielding healer, it's completely outclassed by astrologian in nocturnal sect which can do what sch does, but better). The current endgame content also seems to have shifted from forcing tanks and healers to dpsing, to have enemies in general just do a lot more damage, both to tanks and group wide damage. This means now the tanks have to tank and the healers have to heal, which I am personally happy about but there are a lot of whiny elitists that are still trying to behave like it's heavensward and getting their groups killed because tanks are wearing all dps gear. The new jobs are very fun, some have been reworked (such as bard feels like an actual bard now).

The story for Stormblood was great, ARR's story was great, I found Heavensward to drag on a bit but it wasnt bad. Story has always been a big selling point for FFXIV.

As for housing, as others have said there are apartments (which even playing on a popular legacy server I've never seen them sold out) and instanced personal rooms, but one thing to note is that there is a completely new housing area opening up soon. We don't know the exact date yet (it could be in another week, it could be in another 2 months), and a moving feature will be introduced to the game then. This means that, even if you don't advance to stormblood to have access to this new area, a lot of people will likely be trying to move to the new area, freeing up some plots in the old zones. Depending on what server you play on, you might have a decent chance of getting a place in one of the original three housing zones.

Anyway, as a new player there is a lot of content to do to keep you occupied for a long time. If you get to whatever the current endgame is of whichever patch you're on, well, the game does kind of become the typical daily grind where you just run the same few dungeons over and over to upgrade your gear that will be replaced in 3 months time by running the next tier of dungeons you will do so much that you hate them by the end of the patch. Now, towards the end of heavensward, some new types of content started getting added like Palace of the Dead (it's like a dungeon crawl that doesnt require the typical 1 tank 1 healer 2 dps, you start from lvl 1 and go to lvl 60 seperately to your lvls outside. It's considered a very fast way to level alt jobs) and Diadem (sort of an instance you can go in with 2-8 people, but multiple groups can be in a single instance. Various events and goals need to be performed and there are occasionally rare events that require everyone in the zone to get together to take down). Supposedly there will only be a single new dungeon added in every odd numbered patch in favour of working on other new content, so Im hopeful that we will get more varied events like Palace and Diadem in it's place to shake things up.

Edit: Also in about 24 hours (well, 23:30) there's going to be a letter from the producer live (livestream) which happens occasionally where they usually answer some player submitted questions and reveal some upcoming plans for future patches. Sometimes fun to watch to get an idea of what will be coming up soon in the game, but a lot of the time the answers always seem to be joked to be from balmung (rp server) where they ask about grilled cheese sandwiches and swimsuits and the questions people REALLY wanted to know dont get answered. (PS. I have nothing against Balmung folks, but it is kind of the meme these days)