New player - Group levelling?

[ShortWarning]

Hey guys,

I'm looking to start playing this with my Mrs (coming from WOW). How is it to level through the game in a group? I understand there will be times where it is not possible but in general is it possible all the way to end game?

Also, I know very little about how this MMO works but have seen with the expansion release soon they are completely reworking certain systems. Is it better to start when the expansion is released or should we start now?

Also, there is masses of resources on this game so much that it's quite overwhelming. I'm really just looking for a beginners overview guide for picking clases and levelling etc. Is there any you would suggest?

Thanks a lot,

[Deleted]

There are a few encounters which are instanced story events that you do alone (I have to admit I never tried doing them with a group, but it's like a WoW scenario. I'm not sure if you can enter with a group or not).
There are also class-specific quests every 10 levels or so that you can do together, but of course only one of you will get credit for them.

Otherwise you can always play together, there is a dynamic level scaling mechanism that lets you do all the dungeons in the game with her even if she or you gets a few levels ahead, and they will get scaled down like in timewalking in WoW.

You should definitely start now. This game is not like WoW where you skip all the content from previous expansions. The game wants you to experience all the story and lore, which means you will have to do a LOT of quests and complete almost every dungeon in the game at least once in a very linear main story questline before you can even get to expansion content. You can expect this to take like two weeks easily.

Some people hate this, but I really loved it. All the low level dungeons are active and you will find people to do them with, and thanks to this you won't feel completely lost or left out about who each character in the story is, since you didn't get to skip that all.

[ShortWarning]

Great! The other thing I've noticed watching a few things on youtube is that different classes start in different major cities. Does that mean that we'd have to pick classes based on location so we can start levelling together? Do the levelling areas converge early on or are you stuck on different continents till late in the game (like early WOW)?

[dope_danny]

You start in one of three cities, one in the forests, one in the deserts and one off the coast on an island. summoner, warrior and ninja come from the isle of La noscea and need to get through the main story quest to the point you unlock airship and boat travel to head to Gridania and Uldah. Otherwise you can basically try and not get ganked sprinting between the two. Gridania is dragoon, white mage and bard. Uldah is black mage, monk and paladin.

The most common recommendation for beginners is Limsa Lominsa since you get a tank, healer and dps in the same starting location so after hitting lvl10ish you can pick up all 3 and as a pair mix and match to do what you want easily. Though a lot prefer the Uldah beginning story as which city you pick slightly alters the first 20ish levels of your FF14 story as a warrior of light and who you meet in the main stories 'party' of final fantasy characters.

[Myah]

It depends on the class you choose, it'll be your main city. So if you choose classes that are in different, you won't be able to be on the same area until you get an airship pass (around level 15 with the main quest scenario). At level 10 (i think), you can group to do the first instances.

[Katchii]

Great! The other thing I've noticed watching a few things on youtube is that different classes start in different major cities. Does that mean that we'd have to pick classes based on location so we can start levelling together? Do the levelling areas converge early on or are you stuck on different continents till late in the game (like early WOW)?

At about the level ~16 MSQ (the one where you get sent to your first dungeon, maybe slightly before) the story converges for all city states so it's not that far into it. Even if you do a bunch of side quests, it should only take a few hours to get to that point.

[Faroth]

Adding my input:

Hey guys,

I'm looking to start playing this with my Mrs (coming from WOW). How is it to level through the game in a group? I understand there will be times where it is not possible but in general is it possible all the way to end game?

Friend of mine created two alts for this very purpose and has played through the whole MSQ with friends that started from the beginning twice. While there's some break group for solo trial points, it's totally an option to play alongside one another through the story.

Also, I know very little about how this MMO works but have seen with the expansion release soon they are completely reworking certain systems. Is it better to start when the expansion is released or should we start now?

You're 100% good to start now. Up until 30, nothing much is going to change. Once the expansion hits in 3 weeks, you'll have some things will be eaiser. Originally you had to get one class to 30 and a second class to 15 to unlock jobs (Gladiator, a sword/board tank, to 30 & Conjurer, a healer, to 15 unlocked paladin). In Stormblood, it seems that's no longer the case. Gladiator simply accesses paladin when you get to 30.

You probably won't be too deep into the skills by the time Stormblood hits that it throws you for a loop.

Also, there is masses of resources on this game so much that it's quite overwhelming. I'm really just looking for a beginners overview guide for picking clases and levelling etc. Is there any you would suggest?

The game honestly guides you quite well to learning about in-game features and the MSQ is always your primary compass of where to go next. It will lead you to quest hubs, etc (which are largely unnecessary now. The MSQ xp has been boosted enough that it's mostly what you'll need to level with a few bumps in the 48 to 50 range, but doing dungeons, etc will likely alleviate that).

If you're wanting class/job info, just ask here. We're happy to give input!

[RohanV]

Great! The other thing I've noticed watching a few things on youtube is that different classes start in different major cities. Does that mean that we'd have to pick classes based on location so we can start levelling together? Do the levelling areas converge early on or are you stuck on different continents till late in the game (like early WOW)?

They'll converge at about level 16 or so. One important point is that you can be all classes on a single character, so your starting class isn't that important. You can always switch to a different class later.

So I would pick 2 classes which start in the same city so that you can play together. Once you've unlocked access to all 3 cities, switch to the class you want to main.

[ShortWarning]

Thanks a lot for the info guys!

Any recommendations on an EU server?

[dope_danny]

Thanks a lot for the info guys!

Any recommendations on an EU server?

Well nowadays there is a cross server party finder so your best bet would check which data center is right for you. When you start you select a data center then the servers from that datacenter. For example my server is Shiva and thats on the Chaos data center which is the only one located in europe in france. But then in that datacenter there is a varying difference in servers. Shiva is mostly english and german players leaning a little more heavily german while others like pheonix are more french, though fr players tend to congregate there because a large number or bad ables made "fr" the XIV version of 'br' on most other eu servers which is its own story for another day. It depends on what your primary language is but for the most part FFXIV's european userbase is largely english, german and to a lesser extent french compared to something like WoW where a large portion of its userbase is in places like sweden and russia before the server changes there.
Your best bet is check the offical forums for which chaos data center server might suit you best. Some servers are also more into raiding and others into things like chocobo racing and the Hunt and stuff.

[ShortWarning]

English is my primary (and only) language. We're more into the raiding side of things I'd say.