Quick primer for XIV's release.
This primer is in no way advance, or filled with cRaZy CoOl secrets. It is strictly intended to help give new players and players who did not get to try the beta a general understanding of how XIV works so that they aren't completely lost day one of retail release. Please post up any questions or corrections you may have for this.
[Getting Started]
[Basic Combat]
[Post Introductory Cutscene]
[Battlecraft Leves]
[Fieldcraft Leves]
[Crafting Leves]
[Miscellaneous Stuff] < Contains important EXP and stat progression stuff.
First thing is first. Once you finish installing/patching your game and getting all of your configuration settings (Resolution, graphics settings, controller settings) taken care of, you've got to make your character :D Since we may end up playing on the same server, I ask that you make your character awesome instead of not awesome, to help make our server cooler. Feel free to follow my character design for this tutorial to accomplish my request. ^ _^
[Getting Started]
Take your time in character creation. There's a lot of quirks in regards to face type that allow you to use certain "characteristics" that other face types don't allow. Remember, this could be the very character you're playing years from now, so take the time to get them how you want.
The general process is choose gender > race > sub race > height, hair, face, characteristics, voice, etc..
Once you're through with the cosmetics, you choose your starting class and guardian. Your starting class isn't as important as you might think, but to make it easier on yourself, do choose the one you want to start with for money and time sake.
Guardian is a little more important, and I don't fully understand the importance yet myself, nor the details which surround it. I have been told that it helps improve the amount of skill points your class receives if your guardian corresponds with your class. Read each guardian description to figure out which relates to your class. An example of Marauder's is below.
My real question with guardians is, are we able to change them throughout the game or at a later point in time? Because come expansion, we may very well be changing jobs and would want a completely different guardian. Anyway, on we go!
I have chosen to start in Limsa Lominsa for the least possible spoilerish route, as it was the benchmark and starting town for all of the closed betas. Once you have chosen your server and starting nation, you will then enter a series of cool cutscenes, which are the very start of the story related missions of the game.
I suggest taking pictures during these because your character will express emotions not normally scene or be in scenes you'd want to remember. Like this picture ^^
If you are as gorgeous as Subarashii Hige is, I'm sure you will revisit such screens to admire yourself time and time again. Moving on.
Regardless of the nation you choose, the flow of the first cutscene is essentially the same. Witness cool stuff, listen to voice acting, then you gotta fight. For your right... Oddly enough, they don't take the time to explain combat here really, but it's a no brainer, and while I haven't tried to die, I'm not sure it's possible to. But we'll use this time to explain the very basics of combat in this game.
[Basic Combat]
Using the picture above, we will cover the core of combat in XIV. Regardless of whether you are a mage or a melee, you both work off the same mechanics, which is the set of actions you have in the numbered row above, and the stamina gauge which is the orange and yellow meter next to the Axe icon below the mob. Each action you select (In this case Light Swing), uses a certain amount of stamina represented by the oval shape on the left side of this meter. It turns orange when you are already able to use that ability, and is blue (I think) when you do not yet have enough stamina.
Stamina naturally raises over time while your weapon is in ready mode. The speed at which it raises can be effected by haste/slow etc. Otherwise I believe it will forever be a default speed. Using an action will take away that much meter and it will continue to climb again. Some actions take hardly any stamina, some take a huge chunk.
Outside of stamina, there is a TP requirement for certain actions, mostly the equivalent to what would be weapon skills in FFXI. I apologize but I don't have a shot here to show a TP using action, but along the numbered action bar, the icon will have a number below it stating how much TP is required to use it. These require both stamina and TP. Your TP gauge can be found to the right of your MP, which is to the right of your HP, at the bottom of the screen.
Immediately you will notice how much more active this game feels compared to FFXI, and will almost feel 'spammy' as some have mentioned. But once you get the mechanics fully understood it has quite a nice flow to it. We'll see how well it pans out come retail when legit parties begin to get used more. On we go~
[Post Introductory Cutscene]
Congrats, you faired the intense battle and are ready to conquer the world of Eorzea. Almost.
Once you regain control of your character, you'll have access to a limited portion of your starting nation. You will be unable to to advance until you speak to the correct NPC. They're usually fairly obvious and surrounded by a bunch of other players, but for guide's sake, here's a picture of the NPC you first need to speak to for Limsa Lominsa.
A common trend you will quickly notice is that most imporant NPCs, either involved with your current leve, mission or quest, will have two conversation options. One being small talk, which is their usual programmed spiel. The other pertains to advancing your current goal. So in this case we would choose "Shapeless Melody" to advance.
Once you've done that, you'll be taken to the tavern of your nation. Each nation's tavern acts as a hub or hotspot for a lot of imporant stuff. Once inside, you're still kind of locked into a small portion of the town because you need to trigger one more cutscene and NPC sequence before the rest of the game opens up. Find the perspective NPC and choose their second chat option again. Once you have done this, you will receive a various set of maps for each nation and many surrounding nations (At least you do in the current beta). Here is the map from your starting point in Limsa Lominsa. The icon that looks like a chalice, which the character's point is facing, is the icon for the the taverns, and I suggest recognizing it to make things easier when you visit other nations.
And congrats, now you really are free to explore whatever your level can allow you to.
[Battlecraft Leves]
You now have access to just about whatever, and can do whatever, but we'll continue this guide as though you're gonna rush right to the leveling.
Once in the Tavern (you already will be if you haven't taken off and gone exploring), head to the counter that will look like this, regardless of which nation you start in.
As far as I know, the NPC on the left will always be the one to give Battlecraft and Fieldcraft leves, while the one on the right will give the Crafting leves.
[Leves, in a nutshell, are simple quests you sign up for, complete, and get rewards in return. They tend to have a higher output of EXP than just fighting mobs normally, and are a great source of income. Each craft type will give considerable cash, but crafting leve types tend to reward further materials for crafting, while battlecraft leves have the chance of rewarding equipment. All can reward guild points and faction points, which we will discuss later. Battlecraft leves can be done in parties, and you can choose the difficulty based on a star rating to up the ante. Also note, that you are only able to do 8 battlecraft/fieldcraft leves and 8 crafting leves every two days. Which sounds limiting at first, but trust me, once you get going with all three, it's more than enough.]
Let's start with some battlecraft leves to up our Marauder rank and physical level a bit, as well as get some dollar dollar bills y'all, for our crafting equips we'll need. Do this by choosing battlecraft leves > the level you want to do > then make your selection of the available leves.
Here is what the leve cards look like. They have a story description above this stuff (Not shown in the picture), and then all of the basic info including rewards, location of where you accepted it, and where you need to go to initiate it. Leves are the bread and butter of the game, which are the biggest reason you can solo in this game if you so choose to, so get comfortable with them early on to make things easy on yourself.
So these leves are all stationed at the first camp outside of Limsa Lominsa, let's go!
Here we are just outside of Limsa Lominsa looking at the surrounding area. Here you can see Camp Bearded Rock where we need to go, but also some other crystals in the area. I suggest early on (I plan to do it day one) to go around to each nation and visit each sounding crystal to help make travel and leves easier and more beneficial, but that's entirely up to you. The game allows each character of any type to teleport using a limited number of points called "Amina" . Using these points you can instantly warp to any crystal in the world that you have previously visited. But I digress, back to Bearded Rock and our leve.
Here we are at Bearded Rock, and most camps all look the same and have the same stuff available at them. One is the Aetheryte (crystal). The other are various NPCs for crafting and stuff which we'll get to later.
There is an important mechanic shown in this screen that is used all throughout the game. You notice the little white bubble with the "!" in it? This indicates a function available to you in your menu. To access it, simply open your menu and notice it's now at the top of your menu with a new category called "Interactions". Click this to interact with the Aetheryte. Doing this for the first time at a crystal let's you access it in the future (much like crags in FFXI). Touching a crystal also fully replenishes your HP and MP (which is now on a ten minute timer in open beta). So here we are at Camp Bearded Rock, with the Aetheryte accessed, let's choose to initiate a battle craft leve.
Choose which one you want to do, then the difficulty, then you will get a prompt asking if you want to invoke the guardian's blessing. Having this active apparently ups your rank points you earn while it is active, so I suggest using it when you think it will be useful, but do note that there are a limited amount of points. The points are earned over time of not being logged in I think.
Once you have selected all the needed steps for the leve to begin, the leve will... begin, and you will notice both your map and mini map will now be populated with the location you need to go. Shown here below.
In the top left of the player's screen, you will notice basic information on the leve, including how much progress you have made and the time remaining left on the leve. In your mini-map to the right, you'll notice yellow highlights for the area the target or goal is, and red blinking dots indicate the target. As long as you can follow this stuff, you can complete these leves with ease.
I didn't take pics of me whooping tail, because it's much too stylish for the common player to witness, but here we are after completing the leve.
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Once you complete a battlecraft leve or a fieldcraft leve, a crystal appears at the spot of completion. Click that to view your rewards and you can also teleport back to the starting crystal for free (no Anima cost) .
And that, is the natural progression of leves. But we will discuss the crafting ones a little but so you're clear for launch day.
[Fieldcraft Leves]
Just like job classes, you change to crafting classes through your equipment. For each craft, be it fieldcraft or otherwise, you have a mainhand 'weapon' and a secondary 'weapon'. If you did not start as a crafting job but want to try one out, simply go to the markets of any nation and buy the corresponding items necessary to begin. Below are two pictures of buying the hammer and stone needed for goldsmithing as well as the pic axe and hammer for mining. I chose goldsmithing for this tutorial because Subarashii Hige is true baller status, and needs proper glitz and glam jewelry to represent this status.
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Once you have these items, you're ready to craft. Go back to the leve counter in the tavern, and click the NPC which gave you the battlecraft leves to choose some fieldcraft leves. These work the same way as battlecraft leves do so I won't go into it too much. But for example, the first one I did had me go back to camp Bearded Rock. I accessed the Aetheryte, chose to initiate the leve, then went to the rock pointed out on the map and got to work. Once you complete the leve, you can return to camp Bearded Rock through the crystal which appears just like for the battlecraft leve.
Fieldcrafting has two parts. A main component which uses your mainhand, and a sub component. An example for botanist would be, you use your hatchet (mainhand) to chop trees, while you use your scythe (offhand) to harvest floral stuff.) I won't go into the details of how those work, unless you ask :)
[Crafting]
Though crafting leaves are similar to battlecraft leves and fieldcraft leves, there are some noticeable differences worth noting. So return once again to the tavern and visit the NPC at the right side of the leve counter. Choose the leves you want for the corresponding craft you want. To avoid confusion, we will use a leve that takes us back to Bearded Rock, though you should be aware that some crafting leves have you perform the leves in town, rather than out on the field.
When you get back to Bearded Rock, you'll notice the Aetheryte is not what you use to initiate a crafting leve. Instead, it always be a NPC that initiates it. Locate the NPC mentioned in the leve description and speak to them for the materials and instructions to begin the leve. (That's one awesome thing about doing crafting leves, all supplies are given to you, free of cost. No hunting them, no spending cash to effectively level up your craft.)
Important. Always try to use crafting facilities when crafting to up your success rate. Especially during leves. Facilities are available for a small fee, at all large camps, and the guild location of that craft. Here is a picture of the NPC at Bearded Rock which grants the use of facilities.
Once you have the facilities working you're ready to rock out. Open your menu while you have your crafting equipment, equipped and choose Synthasize to begin. It will then bring up this menu (pictured below). If you are doing a leve, select the Requested Items tab to select from a list of leves. Select the leve you want to work on and it will automatically fill your material slots with the mats you need.
Once the materials are filled in, choose the appropriate hand to craft with. Dart said something great to help you decide which hand you should use until faqs and lists give concrete answers on which to use. He said something along the lines of 'think of it like this. If you are polishing a stone or cutting a stone, which tool would you use?' Now sometimes it isn't so clear cut but it's fairly easy to determine which crafting tool to use. So once you've decided which hand to use, select that hand, and it will bring up a list of possible items you can create with those materials and tool. Select the item your leve requires, and get to making that item.
You are given a few options while crafting, pictured below.
The goal of crafting is to get the progress bar to 100% before the durability hits 0. Each attempt to synthesize, reduces the durability meter but potentially ups progress and quality. Rapid synthesis is the most efficient for progress in that it potentially nets the most progress while using the least durability. Bold synthesis ups the quality more but does not up the progress as much (Quality determines whether it becomes a HQ craft or not). And standard is an average in between the two. Wait is used when the materials are getting a little rambunctious, let em cool off a bit before continuing. This seems really intimidating I understand, but once you try it you'll realize it's not bad at all. In-fact, I really enjoy crafting in this game, a lot.
Once you have filled the required order, return the NPC you spoke with to initiate the leve, to complete it and retrieve your reward.
[Miscellaneous Stuff]
IMPORTANT: You may have leveled up, but you did not naturally gain stats from doing so.
Unlike FFXI, which had set stats given to you as you leveled up a certain job class, XIV allows the player to place earned points into the stat build they want. So each time your physical level increases, be sure to open your menu and go to point allotment, which is pictured below.
You earn points for both stats and elemental affinity. I won't go into it much because it's A) Self explanitory and B) No real numbers have been crunched to advise stats to players. But I will say if you go melee, you will want to pump a lot of DEX into your build early on. (I plan to focus on DEX and VIT early on come retail myself as Archer).
Skills and traits. Just like allotting your points that you earned when you level up your physical level, you earn stuff as you level up you job rank, which often times rewards you with a new ability/skill/trait. Open up your action and traits menu to organize these.
Once this menu is open, you'll notice the top row of boxes correspond with the numbered action bar at the bottom of your UI. You get three rows you can cycle through, which is represented by the three rows in this menu above. Click the box you wish to drop an ability or skill in, then click the drop-down box to the top right of the menu to select the category the skill is in. Here I have chosen Marauder's which is represented by an Axe. Notice my drop-down is fairly empty, because this is a new character, but as you level this thing will get really populated, especially if you are a mage.
So I want trunksplitter to be usable. First thing is first, I have to make sure I have enough points available to equip it. Notice the 0/7 above the row of bars I'm wanting to equip it to. This shows how many I have remaining, which is 7. Then note the Action Cost below Trunksplitter's name and icon, which says 3. This means by equipping this, I will use up 3 of the 7 available points. This system prevents the player from having every damned ability in the game equipped at once lol, but does allow for a ton of customization down the road. (You earn more action points as your job ranks up).
Unlike FFXI, where you have a main job, and a sub job, which is essentially half of what your mainjob is, XIV uses a different system. You have your main class, which is whatever class you currently have equipped. But you are then able to put abilities from other classes you've earned into your action bar. Example, I leveled my Archer up a bit, and got access to Raging Strike (ups attack on your next action). I could equip that onto my marauder's action bar to have access to it even though I'm not an Archer at the moment. As you can see, this is going to open up a lot of interesting options later on.
The catch to this is, when you use an ability from another class on your main class, the ability is a weakened version in one way or another than what it would be if used by its main class. Raging Strike was used above, so we'll use that again as an example. If Marauder is using Archer's Raging Strike, the recast timer on the Raging Strike becomes much longer than what an Archer would experience. That is one weakness aspect, sometimes it's potency, sometimes it's duration, and so on. This is clearly their way of keeping things within reason and within balance.
Another aspect which is foreign to the world of FFXI is the durability system all equipment has in FFXIV. Be it your armor, your weapons or even your crafting gear, all your equipment will take wear over time. It is said it reduces the effectiveness of the equipment but the actual amount is currently unknown. There are two ways of repairing equipment. You can either take it to the repair NPC which is shown above (One in each town, which are found in the markets area), or you can have it repaired by yourself or other players. If you do it through the NPC, all you need is cash, but the catch for this convenience is the NPCs are only able to repair them to 75% durability, while PCs can repair them to 100%. Early on I predict this will be uncomfortable to players because it is new and there won't be a standard for repairs. But eventually the economy will pan out and I'm sure PC repairs will be as common as buying food was in XI.
Worried about having to make active transactions with everyone to repair and trade stuff? Fret not. The new bazaar system is rather slick, in-fact, I love it.
Not only can you do the old sell an item from your inventory thing which FFXI had, you can sell an item individually out of a stack or clump of items, or select that clump of items, regardless of how many are in it, for one price. But that's not the cool thing, though it is nice. The real cool thing is setting up your seeking options, or damaged goods.
The seeking function tells others who check your bazaar that you're after a certain item, and at whatever price you wish to put. If the person checking your bazaar has that said item, and agrees with your price, they can sell it to you without you even being at your keyboard.
The damaged function works the same way. If you place an item in your bazaar that's damaged with a price you're willing to pay for service, others with the appropriate crafting skill can repair that item in your bazaar without you even having to talk to them, much less trade any items.
Please forgive my spelling as this took some time and my LJ's spellchecker kept intermittently cutting in and out haha. Also forgive the organization and such, I realize it's not the easiest read. I'll work on touching it up before the game's release but right now I'm not even motivated to proofread this haha.
That said, do please add to this with corrections or questions if you have any. There's some other important stuff I've left out such as Retainers and things that I plan to get to but for now, this is it. Hope it helped someone :D
[Getting Started]
[Basic Combat]
[Post Introductory Cutscene]
[Battlecraft Leves]
[Fieldcraft Leves]
[Crafting Leves]
[Miscellaneous Stuff] < Contains important EXP and stat progression stuff.
First thing is first. Once you finish installing/patching your game and getting all of your configuration settings (Resolution, graphics settings, controller settings) taken care of, you've got to make your character :D Since we may end up playing on the same server, I ask that you make your character awesome instead of not awesome, to help make our server cooler. Feel free to follow my character design for this tutorial to accomplish my request. ^ _^
[Getting Started]
Take your time in character creation. There's a lot of quirks in regards to face type that allow you to use certain "characteristics" that other face types don't allow. Remember, this could be the very character you're playing years from now, so take the time to get them how you want.
The general process is choose gender > race > sub race > height, hair, face, characteristics, voice, etc..
Once you're through with the cosmetics, you choose your starting class and guardian. Your starting class isn't as important as you might think, but to make it easier on yourself, do choose the one you want to start with for money and time sake.
Guardian is a little more important, and I don't fully understand the importance yet myself, nor the details which surround it. I have been told that it helps improve the amount of skill points your class receives if your guardian corresponds with your class. Read each guardian description to figure out which relates to your class. An example of Marauder's is below.
My real question with guardians is, are we able to change them throughout the game or at a later point in time? Because come expansion, we may very well be changing jobs and would want a completely different guardian. Anyway, on we go!
I have chosen to start in Limsa Lominsa for the least possible spoilerish route, as it was the benchmark and starting town for all of the closed betas. Once you have chosen your server and starting nation, you will then enter a series of cool cutscenes, which are the very start of the story related missions of the game.
I suggest taking pictures during these because your character will express emotions not normally scene or be in scenes you'd want to remember. Like this picture ^^
If you are as gorgeous as Subarashii Hige is, I'm sure you will revisit such screens to admire yourself time and time again. Moving on.
Regardless of the nation you choose, the flow of the first cutscene is essentially the same. Witness cool stuff, listen to voice acting, then you gotta fight. For your right... Oddly enough, they don't take the time to explain combat here really, but it's a no brainer, and while I haven't tried to die, I'm not sure it's possible to. But we'll use this time to explain the very basics of combat in this game.
[Basic Combat]
Using the picture above, we will cover the core of combat in XIV. Regardless of whether you are a mage or a melee, you both work off the same mechanics, which is the set of actions you have in the numbered row above, and the stamina gauge which is the orange and yellow meter next to the Axe icon below the mob. Each action you select (In this case Light Swing), uses a certain amount of stamina represented by the oval shape on the left side of this meter. It turns orange when you are already able to use that ability, and is blue (I think) when you do not yet have enough stamina.
Stamina naturally raises over time while your weapon is in ready mode. The speed at which it raises can be effected by haste/slow etc. Otherwise I believe it will forever be a default speed. Using an action will take away that much meter and it will continue to climb again. Some actions take hardly any stamina, some take a huge chunk.
Outside of stamina, there is a TP requirement for certain actions, mostly the equivalent to what would be weapon skills in FFXI. I apologize but I don't have a shot here to show a TP using action, but along the numbered action bar, the icon will have a number below it stating how much TP is required to use it. These require both stamina and TP. Your TP gauge can be found to the right of your MP, which is to the right of your HP, at the bottom of the screen.
Immediately you will notice how much more active this game feels compared to FFXI, and will almost feel 'spammy' as some have mentioned. But once you get the mechanics fully understood it has quite a nice flow to it. We'll see how well it pans out come retail when legit parties begin to get used more. On we go~
[Post Introductory Cutscene]
Congrats, you faired the intense battle and are ready to conquer the world of Eorzea. Almost.
Once you regain control of your character, you'll have access to a limited portion of your starting nation. You will be unable to to advance until you speak to the correct NPC. They're usually fairly obvious and surrounded by a bunch of other players, but for guide's sake, here's a picture of the NPC you first need to speak to for Limsa Lominsa.
A common trend you will quickly notice is that most imporant NPCs, either involved with your current leve, mission or quest, will have two conversation options. One being small talk, which is their usual programmed spiel. The other pertains to advancing your current goal. So in this case we would choose "Shapeless Melody" to advance.
Once you've done that, you'll be taken to the tavern of your nation. Each nation's tavern acts as a hub or hotspot for a lot of imporant stuff. Once inside, you're still kind of locked into a small portion of the town because you need to trigger one more cutscene and NPC sequence before the rest of the game opens up. Find the perspective NPC and choose their second chat option again. Once you have done this, you will receive a various set of maps for each nation and many surrounding nations (At least you do in the current beta). Here is the map from your starting point in Limsa Lominsa. The icon that looks like a chalice, which the character's point is facing, is the icon for the the taverns, and I suggest recognizing it to make things easier when you visit other nations.
And congrats, now you really are free to explore whatever your level can allow you to.
[Battlecraft Leves]
You now have access to just about whatever, and can do whatever, but we'll continue this guide as though you're gonna rush right to the leveling.
Once in the Tavern (you already will be if you haven't taken off and gone exploring), head to the counter that will look like this, regardless of which nation you start in.
As far as I know, the NPC on the left will always be the one to give Battlecraft and Fieldcraft leves, while the one on the right will give the Crafting leves.
[Leves, in a nutshell, are simple quests you sign up for, complete, and get rewards in return. They tend to have a higher output of EXP than just fighting mobs normally, and are a great source of income. Each craft type will give considerable cash, but crafting leve types tend to reward further materials for crafting, while battlecraft leves have the chance of rewarding equipment. All can reward guild points and faction points, which we will discuss later. Battlecraft leves can be done in parties, and you can choose the difficulty based on a star rating to up the ante. Also note, that you are only able to do 8 battlecraft/fieldcraft leves and 8 crafting leves every two days. Which sounds limiting at first, but trust me, once you get going with all three, it's more than enough.]
Let's start with some battlecraft leves to up our Marauder rank and physical level a bit, as well as get some dollar dollar bills y'all, for our crafting equips we'll need. Do this by choosing battlecraft leves > the level you want to do > then make your selection of the available leves.
Here is what the leve cards look like. They have a story description above this stuff (Not shown in the picture), and then all of the basic info including rewards, location of where you accepted it, and where you need to go to initiate it. Leves are the bread and butter of the game, which are the biggest reason you can solo in this game if you so choose to, so get comfortable with them early on to make things easy on yourself.
So these leves are all stationed at the first camp outside of Limsa Lominsa, let's go!
Here we are just outside of Limsa Lominsa looking at the surrounding area. Here you can see Camp Bearded Rock where we need to go, but also some other crystals in the area. I suggest early on (I plan to do it day one) to go around to each nation and visit each sounding crystal to help make travel and leves easier and more beneficial, but that's entirely up to you. The game allows each character of any type to teleport using a limited number of points called "Amina" . Using these points you can instantly warp to any crystal in the world that you have previously visited. But I digress, back to Bearded Rock and our leve.
Here we are at Bearded Rock, and most camps all look the same and have the same stuff available at them. One is the Aetheryte (crystal). The other are various NPCs for crafting and stuff which we'll get to later.
There is an important mechanic shown in this screen that is used all throughout the game. You notice the little white bubble with the "!" in it? This indicates a function available to you in your menu. To access it, simply open your menu and notice it's now at the top of your menu with a new category called "Interactions". Click this to interact with the Aetheryte. Doing this for the first time at a crystal let's you access it in the future (much like crags in FFXI). Touching a crystal also fully replenishes your HP and MP (which is now on a ten minute timer in open beta). So here we are at Camp Bearded Rock, with the Aetheryte accessed, let's choose to initiate a battle craft leve.
Choose which one you want to do, then the difficulty, then you will get a prompt asking if you want to invoke the guardian's blessing. Having this active apparently ups your rank points you earn while it is active, so I suggest using it when you think it will be useful, but do note that there are a limited amount of points. The points are earned over time of not being logged in I think.
Once you have selected all the needed steps for the leve to begin, the leve will... begin, and you will notice both your map and mini map will now be populated with the location you need to go. Shown here below.
In the top left of the player's screen, you will notice basic information on the leve, including how much progress you have made and the time remaining left on the leve. In your mini-map to the right, you'll notice yellow highlights for the area the target or goal is, and red blinking dots indicate the target. As long as you can follow this stuff, you can complete these leves with ease.
I didn't take pics of me whooping tail, because it's much too stylish for the common player to witness, but here we are after completing the leve.
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Once you complete a battlecraft leve or a fieldcraft leve, a crystal appears at the spot of completion. Click that to view your rewards and you can also teleport back to the starting crystal for free (no Anima cost) .
And that, is the natural progression of leves. But we will discuss the crafting ones a little but so you're clear for launch day.
[Fieldcraft Leves]
Just like job classes, you change to crafting classes through your equipment. For each craft, be it fieldcraft or otherwise, you have a mainhand 'weapon' and a secondary 'weapon'. If you did not start as a crafting job but want to try one out, simply go to the markets of any nation and buy the corresponding items necessary to begin. Below are two pictures of buying the hammer and stone needed for goldsmithing as well as the pic axe and hammer for mining. I chose goldsmithing for this tutorial because Subarashii Hige is true baller status, and needs proper glitz and glam jewelry to represent this status.
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Once you have these items, you're ready to craft. Go back to the leve counter in the tavern, and click the NPC which gave you the battlecraft leves to choose some fieldcraft leves. These work the same way as battlecraft leves do so I won't go into it too much. But for example, the first one I did had me go back to camp Bearded Rock. I accessed the Aetheryte, chose to initiate the leve, then went to the rock pointed out on the map and got to work. Once you complete the leve, you can return to camp Bearded Rock through the crystal which appears just like for the battlecraft leve.
Fieldcrafting has two parts. A main component which uses your mainhand, and a sub component. An example for botanist would be, you use your hatchet (mainhand) to chop trees, while you use your scythe (offhand) to harvest floral stuff.) I won't go into the details of how those work, unless you ask :)
[Crafting]
Though crafting leaves are similar to battlecraft leves and fieldcraft leves, there are some noticeable differences worth noting. So return once again to the tavern and visit the NPC at the right side of the leve counter. Choose the leves you want for the corresponding craft you want. To avoid confusion, we will use a leve that takes us back to Bearded Rock, though you should be aware that some crafting leves have you perform the leves in town, rather than out on the field.
When you get back to Bearded Rock, you'll notice the Aetheryte is not what you use to initiate a crafting leve. Instead, it always be a NPC that initiates it. Locate the NPC mentioned in the leve description and speak to them for the materials and instructions to begin the leve. (That's one awesome thing about doing crafting leves, all supplies are given to you, free of cost. No hunting them, no spending cash to effectively level up your craft.)
Important. Always try to use crafting facilities when crafting to up your success rate. Especially during leves. Facilities are available for a small fee, at all large camps, and the guild location of that craft. Here is a picture of the NPC at Bearded Rock which grants the use of facilities.
Once you have the facilities working you're ready to rock out. Open your menu while you have your crafting equipment, equipped and choose Synthasize to begin. It will then bring up this menu (pictured below). If you are doing a leve, select the Requested Items tab to select from a list of leves. Select the leve you want to work on and it will automatically fill your material slots with the mats you need.
Once the materials are filled in, choose the appropriate hand to craft with. Dart said something great to help you decide which hand you should use until faqs and lists give concrete answers on which to use. He said something along the lines of 'think of it like this. If you are polishing a stone or cutting a stone, which tool would you use?' Now sometimes it isn't so clear cut but it's fairly easy to determine which crafting tool to use. So once you've decided which hand to use, select that hand, and it will bring up a list of possible items you can create with those materials and tool. Select the item your leve requires, and get to making that item.
You are given a few options while crafting, pictured below.
The goal of crafting is to get the progress bar to 100% before the durability hits 0. Each attempt to synthesize, reduces the durability meter but potentially ups progress and quality. Rapid synthesis is the most efficient for progress in that it potentially nets the most progress while using the least durability. Bold synthesis ups the quality more but does not up the progress as much (Quality determines whether it becomes a HQ craft or not). And standard is an average in between the two. Wait is used when the materials are getting a little rambunctious, let em cool off a bit before continuing. This seems really intimidating I understand, but once you try it you'll realize it's not bad at all. In-fact, I really enjoy crafting in this game, a lot.
Once you have filled the required order, return the NPC you spoke with to initiate the leve, to complete it and retrieve your reward.
[Miscellaneous Stuff]
IMPORTANT: You may have leveled up, but you did not naturally gain stats from doing so.
Unlike FFXI, which had set stats given to you as you leveled up a certain job class, XIV allows the player to place earned points into the stat build they want. So each time your physical level increases, be sure to open your menu and go to point allotment, which is pictured below.
You earn points for both stats and elemental affinity. I won't go into it much because it's A) Self explanitory and B) No real numbers have been crunched to advise stats to players. But I will say if you go melee, you will want to pump a lot of DEX into your build early on. (I plan to focus on DEX and VIT early on come retail myself as Archer).
Skills and traits. Just like allotting your points that you earned when you level up your physical level, you earn stuff as you level up you job rank, which often times rewards you with a new ability/skill/trait. Open up your action and traits menu to organize these.
Once this menu is open, you'll notice the top row of boxes correspond with the numbered action bar at the bottom of your UI. You get three rows you can cycle through, which is represented by the three rows in this menu above. Click the box you wish to drop an ability or skill in, then click the drop-down box to the top right of the menu to select the category the skill is in. Here I have chosen Marauder's which is represented by an Axe. Notice my drop-down is fairly empty, because this is a new character, but as you level this thing will get really populated, especially if you are a mage.
So I want trunksplitter to be usable. First thing is first, I have to make sure I have enough points available to equip it. Notice the 0/7 above the row of bars I'm wanting to equip it to. This shows how many I have remaining, which is 7. Then note the Action Cost below Trunksplitter's name and icon, which says 3. This means by equipping this, I will use up 3 of the 7 available points. This system prevents the player from having every damned ability in the game equipped at once lol, but does allow for a ton of customization down the road. (You earn more action points as your job ranks up).
Unlike FFXI, where you have a main job, and a sub job, which is essentially half of what your mainjob is, XIV uses a different system. You have your main class, which is whatever class you currently have equipped. But you are then able to put abilities from other classes you've earned into your action bar. Example, I leveled my Archer up a bit, and got access to Raging Strike (ups attack on your next action). I could equip that onto my marauder's action bar to have access to it even though I'm not an Archer at the moment. As you can see, this is going to open up a lot of interesting options later on.
The catch to this is, when you use an ability from another class on your main class, the ability is a weakened version in one way or another than what it would be if used by its main class. Raging Strike was used above, so we'll use that again as an example. If Marauder is using Archer's Raging Strike, the recast timer on the Raging Strike becomes much longer than what an Archer would experience. That is one weakness aspect, sometimes it's potency, sometimes it's duration, and so on. This is clearly their way of keeping things within reason and within balance.
Another aspect which is foreign to the world of FFXI is the durability system all equipment has in FFXIV. Be it your armor, your weapons or even your crafting gear, all your equipment will take wear over time. It is said it reduces the effectiveness of the equipment but the actual amount is currently unknown. There are two ways of repairing equipment. You can either take it to the repair NPC which is shown above (One in each town, which are found in the markets area), or you can have it repaired by yourself or other players. If you do it through the NPC, all you need is cash, but the catch for this convenience is the NPCs are only able to repair them to 75% durability, while PCs can repair them to 100%. Early on I predict this will be uncomfortable to players because it is new and there won't be a standard for repairs. But eventually the economy will pan out and I'm sure PC repairs will be as common as buying food was in XI.
Worried about having to make active transactions with everyone to repair and trade stuff? Fret not. The new bazaar system is rather slick, in-fact, I love it.
Not only can you do the old sell an item from your inventory thing which FFXI had, you can sell an item individually out of a stack or clump of items, or select that clump of items, regardless of how many are in it, for one price. But that's not the cool thing, though it is nice. The real cool thing is setting up your seeking options, or damaged goods.
The seeking function tells others who check your bazaar that you're after a certain item, and at whatever price you wish to put. If the person checking your bazaar has that said item, and agrees with your price, they can sell it to you without you even being at your keyboard.
The damaged function works the same way. If you place an item in your bazaar that's damaged with a price you're willing to pay for service, others with the appropriate crafting skill can repair that item in your bazaar without you even having to talk to them, much less trade any items.
Please forgive my spelling as this took some time and my LJ's spellchecker kept intermittently cutting in and out haha. Also forgive the organization and such, I realize it's not the easiest read. I'll work on touching it up before the game's release but right now I'm not even motivated to proofread this haha.
That said, do please add to this with corrections or questions if you have any. There's some other important stuff I've left out such as Retainers and things that I plan to get to but for now, this is it. Hope it helped someone :D