So! You’ve finally decided to give Final Fantasy XIV a try. Maybe it’s because you heard Dawntrail‘s a brand new chapter in the world of Eorzea, or maybe you just got sick of hearing how good Shadowbringers was that you just need to play it for yourself.
Whatever the reason, you’ve got a pretty long journey ahead of you if you want to see everything FFXIV has to offer, and things can feel overwhelming at times. I’ll walk you through everything you need to do in FFXIV, from A Realm Reborn all the way to Dawntrail, along with weekly and daily activities, important side quests, and other miscellaneous things you need to be aware of to become a seasoned player.
Table of contents
Get Through A Realm Reborn
This first step will likely be the hardest, as A Realm Reborn is notorious for having the weakest story in the FFXIV story. However, it’s a necessary step, and you’ll be glad to know that Square Enix has since truncated the story and cut out a bunch of filler quests to allow you to get through it quicker.
Really, all you need to do is just follow the main quest markers, enjoy the story and cutscenes, keep at it, and you’ll have cleared A Realm Reborn in no time at all.
Do Your Job Quests
When you decide on a job that you want to commit to in FFXIV, make sure to do all of your class and job quests. In A Realm Reborn, these unlock at your guildmaster’s location every five levels or so, and they all reward you with job-specific gear or new skills and actions you need to play your job properly.
Most importantly, you’ll also unlock job crystals, which give you access to the full potential of the job you’ve chosen. Never neglect these, even when you get into the expansion content.
Gear Up Accordingly
As you’re progressing through the MSQ, you may start to realize that you’re not quite able to keep up with the gearing requirements. You’ll usually be rewarded with higher level gear just from completing quests, but if you find that you’re lagging behind while pushing content, you can get new gear via the following methods:
- Purchasing them from NPC vendors in the major cities
- Farming them from the latest dungeon you’ve unlocked
- Purchasing them from the marketboard
Your best bet is to just buy gear from NPC vendors, especially in A Realm Reborn. Then, make sure to roll for your job-specific loot when doing dungeon runs. I don’t recommend buying them from the marketboard as they’re usually more costly, and you’ll be getting rid of them soon enough anyway.
If you’re underleveled, don’t forget to do your daily leveling roulettes to gain some fast experience too.
Clear the Crystal Tower Alliance Raid Series
After you’ve finished A Realm Reborn, make sure to start and complete the Crystal Tower Alliance Raid series. This is mandatory for progressing through Shadowbringers anyways, but you should just get it out of the way now.
To start it, talk to the Outlandish Man NPC at Mor Dhona, X:21 Y: 8.1.
Get Through the Expansions
After that, it’s basically rinse and repeat for the next few expansions. You’ll want to get through the MSQs for all of the expansions, while also making sure to gear up accordingly and keeping up with your job quests.
You’re free to check out the regular and Alliance Raid series for each expansion, and I’d recommend doing so at your own pace as they all come with fun stories that are well worth checking out. None of them are mandatory for story content, though, so if you’re just looking to get through the story as quickly as possible, you can ignore them for now.
Do Your Role Quests in Shadowbringers and Endwalker
Starting from Shadowbringers, you’ll have role quests that you need to complete in order to unlock the rest of your job actions. These are split up into a few categories: tank, healer, melee DPS, ranged DPS, and magic DPS.
You only need to do the one related to whichever job you want to level up. This is important, as you won’t be able to progress further in the story without doing these, so stay on top of them once you get to Shadowbringers and Endwalker.
Daily and Weekly Activities
Finally, let’s go over some of the things you should be doing on a daily and weekly basis. Once you’re all caught up with the main story and patch content, here’s what you should do daily, as much as you can:
- Clear all of your roulettes: This includes Expert, Level-specific roulettes, Leveling, Trials, and Normal Raids. The Main Scenario and Alliance Raid roulettes are a lot more time-consuming so you don’t necessarily have to grind them out everyday, but they do reward you with extra Tomestones for getting better gear at the endgame hub.
- Buy Mini Cactpot Tickets at the Gold Saucer: Visit the Gold Saucer everyday to buy three Mini Cactpot Tickets. These will reward you with a small amount of MGP.
As for the weekly activities, here’s what you should focus on:
- Farm the latest Normal Raid: This will become important once you’ve hit endgame content and completed the story. Farming the Normal Raids will reward you with special items that can be exchanged for powerful gear at the endgame hub, and these are more powerful than Tomestone gear you get from Roulettes.
- Get Wondrous Tails from Khloe: Visit Khloe Aliapoh at Idyllshire each week to get a new Wondrous Tails journal. By completing the journal each week, you’ll be rewarded with a variety of things like MGP, Gil, Tomestones, or even treasure maps.
- Do the Fashion Report: Visit the Gold Saucer each week to complete your Fashion Report for a ridiculous sum of MGP. There are usually guides available online for these that help you meet the requirements with as little Gil as possible.
- Buy the Jumbo Cactpot Tickets: There’s also a weekly Jumbo Cactpot draw that you can buy for even more MGP. These give a lot more than the daily Tickets.
And that’s pretty much everything you need to know about FFXIV if you’re coming in as a new player. Sure, there’s a lot more hardcore endgame content to talk about, like Savage Raids. But for now, if you’re just looking to get your feet wet and get acquainted with the game’s routine, this is a good place to start.
