Transitioning from World of Warcraft to Final Fantasy XIV can be a pleasant experience if you know a few things in advance. Check out these Tips For Players Moving From WoW to FF14 to ensure a good start to your Eorzean adventure.
The first steps into a new MMORPG can make or break the experience so don’t judge FFXIV through WoW-tinted lenses. Be patient and don’t be afraid to learn new things!
Pick Any Server
Assuming that you’re still testing the waters with a trial subscription, you should know that the server choice is not that important. If you already have friends playing the game, then, by all means, join them.
To maintain server balance, a double XP bonus is active for players starting on a suggested server. Other than friends and the XP bonus, there are no reasons to join a particular server. Servers don’t have RP, PvP, or PvE tags. The group finder tool does cross-server matching, so server population is not such an issue.
Get the Entry Subscription
The entry subscription costs €11 and allows one character per server with a maximum of eight. The standard subscription costs €13 and allows eight characters per server with a maximum of 40.
Coming from the altoholic Azerothian culture, you are probably breathing in a bag right now thinking that there are Final Fantasy XIV players with ONLY ONE character! Calm down, we promise everything will be fine. FF14 allows you to have ALL the classes on ONE character, so there is little point in making more than one character.
Decide How You Want to Play
Well…doh! No wait, there’s more to it. Final Fantasy XIV has four disciplines: land (gathering), hand (crafting), magic (caster), and war (physical melee). The game implements the tank, healer, damage dealer system, but it also has non-combat gameplay.
Gathering and crafting disciplines are not professions like in WoW. They are classes just like Warrior or Druid. Imagine that cooking in WoW is a class just like the Mage. You have specific cooking quests, gear, attributes, and skills. Making food involves using different abilities. Nothing is stopping you from playing a fisherman or carpenter that stays away from PvE and PvP content.
You will be amazed to see how much you can do as a disciple of land and hand. These are the gil-making jobs. Gil is the equivalent of WoW gold.
Play Your Favorite Class With Little to No Consequences
Class balance is a sensitive subject to any WoW player. Performance shifts due to class updates are one of the reasons WoW players are altoholics. It’s perfectly normal to want to be the best, but when the best changes there is no other choice than to make a new class. You’ll be happy to know that there are no jobs with significantly worse/better performance than others.
Sure, differences exist, but FFXIV doesn’t have the gap between classes and specializations that has become a constant issue in WoW. Just pick the job that appeals to you the most and don’t worry about being left out of raids or dungeons.
Learn the Character System
It takes a bit of time to get used to this system, but you’ll love it eventually. It’s a favorite FFXIV feature for ex-WoW players. What we call a class in World of Warcraft, we call a job in Final Fantasy XIV. To make things even more complicated, we also have classes. A job may be derived from a class.
For example, players unlock the Paladin job when they reach level 30 with the base class Gladiator. So, if you want to play as a Paladin you need to start as a Gladiator. However, that’s not the case with all jobs.
On top of that, the game also has limited jobs, such as the Blue Mage.
Be Patient Until Level 50
Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn – that’s FFXIV Vanilla – came out in 2013. The game was slower-paced than World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria, the current WoW expansion at that time, and much more slow-paced than the starting experience in WoW: Shadowlands.
The development team was well aware of this and improved the Vanilla gameplay, but the first 50 levels will feel like a snail race to a WoW player. The good news is that starting with the first expansion, the pace picks up noticeably.
LFG is Your Friend!
We mentioned that you won’t be left out no matter what job you play. That’s because the Duty Finder – that’s how we say LFG in FFXIV – doesn’t have unfair preferences. The game has had this grouping tool since day one.
It’s not such a controversial feature as it is in WoW and you can do advanced end-game content without having a stable group. You can queue for any multiplayer PvP and PvE activity solo or with a group. Players can use the tool to make groups as well.
Don’t Do All the Side Quests
Disciples of magic and war get XP from killing monsters and completing quests. This system is the same as in WoW. The difference is that you cannot complete a quest multiple times with a different job.
The quest progression is tied to your character, not to your job. The XP that you get as a quest reward goes to your active job. It’s quite possible that at some point you will have completed all the quests. That will make leveling another job more difficult because there won’t be any more quests to give you XP. If you are on your first job, it’s better to focus on the main story quests and just ignore the side quests.
Learn Your Quests
Main scenario quests have a flame-like icon. Make sure to be up to date with the story because certain game features tie in with the story.
Quests that unlock new things have a + sign on their icon. These are the quests that teach new job abilities, grant access to a new area, unlock dungeons, introduce new game features, and so on. Don’t leave these quests for later, complete them as soon as you can.
Repeatable quests have a circle-like symbol. You will do these quests to obtain reputation or currency.
Levequests have a rectangular marker. These quests are a good way to level when you don’t have any other quests left. You can complete these quests as many times as you wish if you have enough leve allowances.
Side quests have a normal marker. If you don’t really need the reward, it’s better to just leave them for another job.
Stop Asking For Addons
Final Fantasy XIV doesn’t allow addons. However, there is no need to go into panic mode because the game does a great job at providing the features for which you would need an addon in WoW.
There is no need for a DBM addon because the game has markers and cues that tell you everything you need to know during an encounter.
You can rearrange the interface using the in-game tools. FFXIV might not allow addons but this doesn’t mean that they don’t exist. Keep in mind that the use of addons is against the game’s T&C.
Get Used to Being Homeless
The Pandaren farms and Draenor garrisons pale in comparison to Eorzean homes. Final Fantasy XIV has superb player housing. However, don’t think that being a homeowner is easy. For starters, housing plots are not instanced and the demand is high. Secondly, houses are not cheap. You might want to postpone your dreams of tending the yard and greeting your neighbors in your underwear until you stash some gil.
Join a Free Company
Free companies are players’ guilds. Besides the social benefits of being part of a tribe, FFXIV free companies offer much more than WoW guilds. Perks include bonus XP, slower gear wear, cheaper teleport fees, and longer food buff duration.
The free company crafting feature allows members to build airships and undertake exploratory missions. Players can rent rooms in their free company hall.
If You’re Here for PvP Prepare to Be Disappointed
The truth is that Final Fantasy XIV PvP can barely hold a candle to WoW’s PvP. Final Fantasy XIV is mainly a PvE game with a few PvP activities. You will find battlegrounds with specific objectives, but there is no open-world PvP.
Developers are putting efforts into bettering the PvP system, however, the focus is on PvE. PvP here is more like a side activity rather than an alternative way of playing the game.
Be Nice
WoW is not exactly known for its nice player base, but that doesn’t mean that all players are jerks. The opposite is true about Final Fantasy 14. Most players have a positive and helpful attitude, but you will come across the occasional rotten apple now and then. With that in mind, do your best to be a valuable member of the community.