I had a minor and very frustrating problem with look sensitivity when I started FF because I play very high sensitivity for most games. It was frustrating because all my hard settings were maxed.
Then I realized my mouse has two buttons on top that increases and decreases sensitivity and it worked in the game and the settings are static so I don’t have that problem anymore. I just took it as a ‘my mouse software didn’t play well with FF14’.
That may be my issue exactly, I have a mouse with those same buttons and I never use them.
But I found a handy mouse sensitivity slider in FF’s configuration options and that’s pretty much fixed my problem.
One of the things I can recommend to try to get through the low level slog is to only focus on the Main Scenario Quests and ignore the side quests; the MSQ give double exp so you wont lose out on exp in the early levels and you can keep the sidequests for later jobs so when you level them
SIberos just pointed out something inadvertently that I wasn’t clear on when I started. So I’m gonna make sure you know, Azhaar-
Your character does not have a level. Your jobs do. I didn’t really realize this and was very bummed when I unlocked Dark Knight at 55 and found myself at level 30 when activating the class. Once I got used to it, it’s actually kind of fun. You get to learn the class from the ground up when you unlock it. But it’s something to be aware of!
Yeah, in all honesty you can skip most sidequests until you near level 50, as the MSQ (and occasional required dungeon) and mob kills will keep you right around the level needed to keep trucking. Currently you probably wouldn’t hit a level wall until 46 or so unless you had higher-level friends running you through everything.
eta: Do be sure, however, to do any quest that shows as a blue ! bubble with a small + sign on it. Those will unlock anything from new dungeons to features like the barber or dying equipment.
The first 15 or so levels - your “starting zone” - are pretty much divorced from the rest of the experience. The only thing it really does is introduce the two Scions from your “home city” and like, the city-state leader, sort of. The real story starts when you first go to the Waking Sands.
Whenever I level a new character, the biggest roadblock if you’re just doing MSQs is around 47-50. And even then, if you’re good about doing the one or two daily roulettes (random dungeons) you have access to as you level, then you can probably skip even that.
I never have figured out why there’s a bean sprout next to my name.
Yeah, there’s a lot more supplemental ways to boost your XP gains than there were when I brought my main up. Other things to keep in mind:
Roulettes, as Ursuola mentioned, are a great set of daily runs to knock out for large boosts in XP.
Guildhests are short instances generally based around showing off enemy mechanics to deal with in order to win, and first-time completion of each one (per Job) rewards bonus XP.
The Hunting Log is per-class, and has set numbers of specific monsters to kill for bonus XP (post-ARR classes like Dark Knight, Red Mage, etc do not have these).
The Challenge Log rewards XP and sometimes gil based on doing anything from a certain number of Dungeons to awarding Commendations to players in dungeons (this resets weekly).
You’re a Sprout! This tells people you’re new to the game, and people are very understanding of this.
Go to the social options and click on party search (I think thats the tab someone please correct me) and right click your name and hit edit. Theres a drop down menu that lets you change that (it’s also where the RP icon is)
If someone Mateus invites you to it you can join something called Novice Network which is supposed to be a chat to help newer players learn the game but unfortunately the Mentorship system is kinda…bad atleast for Cactuar and Balmung the 2 servers i played on recently no idea how it is on Mateus
I’ve been in the novice network on Mateus for a few days, just lurking. The people seem friendly enough, but boy howdy does it spam up the text box for no real benefit unless you really want to have access to some potential assistance.
Novice Network is sadly very hit or miss in terms of usefulness. If you have any questions about things ingame that aren’t pressing, I really recommend just Googling them, or searching for New Player Guides on the FFXIV subreddit.
Oh I know how bad the NN gets its a nice idea in concept but because of how easy it is to get a mentor badge and how little it gets moderated its just a global chat channel (I just use it as a way to get hunts tbh)
Yeaaaaah Mentors are a whole other issue. Unfortunately I’ve found that the most toxicity comes from folks with those little crowns.
e: Of course that’s not to say all Mentors are toxic garbage bags. I’ve run into plenty that’re great and very good to Sprout players.
There is a throne then, and I must supplant it.
Ding 15. My current quest-reward pants are a thong.
The sublime joy of the Subligar.
Honestly the best part of FF14 for me is I don’t know anything. A mentor whispered me earlier and was like “hi you’re new, do you need any help?”
“Nope! It’s wonderful being ignorant of everything. Far happier than when I was in WoW where I knew ever minutiae and could answer just about any question about where anything was.”
Dunce cone, subligar, and trashcan armor the three hurdles all new players must overcome.
As others have said, Azhaar, just do the Main Story Quests until you hit level requirements later on. There are tons of quests, but your first job and character is tuned for mostly the MSQ with a few grind points closer to 50. It starts slow, but most jobs will have a ton of buttons later on (I actually have more than my mouse can handle even with custom keybinds through the Razer app), so they do it for a reason. You’re in the “These are literally the basics of the class and they are super important” learning phase.
Once you meet the Scions, things pick up and you start to get an idea of where the story goes. You’ll start dungeons and meeting some of the bigger bosses soon enough. Being restricted to the opening zone can be a bit of a pain, but it is fairly short.
If you need a leveling buddy, I can hop on Mateus babby and help out if you want.
If anything, toxicity is much lower in FF. It does exist, but Square has a policy of not restricting players because of FFLogs or whatever, so people tend to err on the side of caution. I had to report someone the other day in a raid and no joke less than a minute later I was getting whispers from a GM about it. If you have questions, people are usually very good about helping out Sprouts.
e: also, go into your System Config and mess with your HUD. Everything is movable and scaleable. It takes a bit of time, but if you don’t like the layout, that is 100% what you should do first. Mine looks almost exactly like the Base WoW UI now.