So recently I have been finding myself getting gradually addicted to Final Fantasy XIV, and the MMO has been absolutely ruining my plans for September.
Now, you see, the month is stacked with some of the biggest game releases for the year, and I was specifically looking forward to trying a fair number of them, which included Onimusha, Dawnwalker, Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave, and the latest Ace Combat.
But it’s been close to a month since I picked up FFXIV, and I am finding it harder to put the game down with every passing day. And surprisingly enough, at this point in my life, I am more excited about the Evercold expansion than I am about Monster Hunter Wilds’ Ascendance Master Rank DLC.
I am now nearing 150 hours in the MMO, having recently completed A Realm Reborn in its entirety and using the Scholar and the Ninja as my two main jobs.
So I want to take the time to talk about my personal experiences with the game. The things that clicked for me, what didn’t, and whether you should pick it up as a new player in 2026.
A bit of background
But before I get too much into it, I want to touch upon my background with the genre itself. Now I am not new to MMORPGs.
Over the years, I have spent a considerable amount of time in Blade and Soul, Neverwinter, Conan, Black Desert Online, Elder Scrolls Online, New World, and most recently, Throne and Liberty.
However, I never really got deep enough in the game where I was in min-maxing territory and making the most of the economy or even the market board.
They were more about providing me with some hours of entertainment while I waited for the next big thing. Like I remember booting up Neverwinter in 2015 because I was getting too tired of grinding ranked in League of Legends, and The Witcher 3 was still a couple of weeks away from release.
So I never really took this genre too seriously… until NOW.
Moreover, the Final Fantasy franchise is also something I am a bit familiar with. I have played a few of the games over the years. So I have a decent idea of the type of quests and world-building that Square Enix tries to go for in them, which is why, in a sense, FFXIV didn’t feel all too alien to me when I was just starting out.
And I was having a lot of fun from the get-go.
The Issues
However, not every aspect of FFXIV was enjoyable from the start. And this is mainly because of how I approached it, thinking that this experience too was going to be like any other MMO.
In the sense that, in most typical MMOs, the story takes a backseat and the journey is more about leveling your character as fast as possible so that you can tackle the endgame content.
The story has next to no appeal, and there is nothing really tying you down in the early parts of the game to stop you from skipping cutscenes and dialogue and just keep power leveling your character till you are finally able to min-max your class for the high-level raids and dungeons.
My experience with Neverwinter was exactly like this. To this date, I have zero clue what the story is even about and why things turned out the way they did before I rolled the credits.
But Final Fantasy XIV is different, and you are not going to have a great time if you go in with the power-leveling attitude.
The combat is pretty neat, but also very linear at least for the first 50 to 60 hours, and the complexities slowly ramp up even after you unlock the upgraded jobs for the starting classes.
The main hook in the game is the story. And I am just going to say this now, but DO NOT, and I mean DO NOT, skip the narrative and the world-building that Square Enix has so meticulously crafted if you are looking to enjoy FFXIV in its entirety.
And this is where I think a lot of people coming from other MMOs will have a problem.
FFXIV has a lot of text that you will have to read. Novels upon novels of dialogue that you will have to get through in the main story alone.
Let me put it this way, though. To complete the base Realm Reborn, it took me about 100 hours. And it’s not like I did a lot of side content. I didn’t really go for any quests other than the ones for my job and the ones like the Golden Saucer and the Chocobo unlocks, which I deemed necessary.
So let that sink in, a 100 hours just to beat the main narrative. Now imagine the amount of text and cutscenes I had to read through just to roll the second set of credits.
The game legit got me in the habit of reading, which I had lost after completing my Masters Degree.
And this is where I think you will have a problem if you are just looking to play the game for its endgame content. All the dungeons and raids are locked behind the story, and you will need to go through hours and hours of main story content to unlock them.
So if you are just in it for the level grind, then let me make this very clear to you now. Final Fantasy XIV is not for you.
If you are not going to be interested in the lore and world-building, then I suggest you sit this one out.
Now you might be asking, “If I am forced to wait a 100 hours to reach endgame content for the base game, then the story should be worth it, right?”
And to you I say, it ABSOLUTELY is.
If I ignore the occasional pacing issues and the ridiculous series of rage-inducing fetch quests, then I can honestly say it has the best story out of all the MMOs that I have played, and is on par with some of the greatest RPGs that are out there as well.
The world-building that Square Enix has gone for is so very intricate that it often reminds me of Monster Hunter and even One Piece from time to time.
Each major region is unique; they have their own politics, their own beliefs, and the exposition takes place in a way that drip-feeds Eorzean lore, leading to a lot of “I did not see that coming” moments.
So the major problems with FFXIV is with how it handles pacing, and how it does not do a good job of onboarding players from other MMOs.
Its major hook is the story and something that you will have to sit through to unlock late-game content, and combat is very linear at first because of how the Global Cooldown System works.
And another personal gripe that I want to point out is navigating the starting region as a new player. Be it Limsa Lominsa, Gridania, or even Ul’dah, understanding the map was a chore, and it took me hours just to get a feel for the basic layout.
Moreover, unlock every single Aetheryte you come across. Like, make it a point to interact with every single Aetheryte as soon as you reach a new region before going for the quests there.
Trust me, your future self will thank you for it!
Picking a class and the unique job system
Now on a more positive note. When you start FFXIV, you will be immediately thrust into character creation, which I found to be pretty in-depth. There are a lot of customizations and presets that you can use, and it’s pretty easy to spend a considerable amount of time on the creator screen tinkering with all the options that it provides.
And don’t think too much about the different race passives. They don’t really have much effect on combat, and neither will your character’s size. A Lalafel will have the same hitbox as any of the other races.
After creation, you will be asked to select a class. Now, unlike other MMOs, tanks and Healers in this game are not just tanks and healers. The three class types are categorized under Red DPS, Blue DPS, and Green DPS.
So even if you pick a Tank or Healer, you will be expected to do damage to the enemy.
Now, one really neat feature which I absolutely love in FFXIV is the fact that you are not stuck with a single class on your character. After your initial choice, you will be able to freely pick up and swap between the different combat and non-combat jobs after reaching level 10 and completing a portion of the Main Questline.
So don’t stress too much about picking the right class right away. Pick anything that catches your eye, and you can just swap out of it if it doesn’t click.
I started with the Marauder, but I soon realised that tanks were really not my thing. And pulling wall-to-wall aggro was not something that I wanted to do in dungeons.
This is why I eventually picked up Rogue and Arcanist and then upgraded them to Ninja and Scholar as soon as I reached level 30 on them.
The game will not pressure you to just stick to one class. You can swap out whenever you want, and honestly it really doesn’t take long to level up a class even if you are starting it from scratch.
There is this neat little feature where a job will gain bonus experience as long as it’s not your character’s highest level job. So I picked up Arcanist when my Ninja was at level 50. And the Arcanist and later the Scholar enjoyed the XP boost till they reached level 50.
Additionally, if you log out of the game while in a safe zone and then log back in at another time, the game gives you an experience boost for that as well.
So there is a lot of XP to go around, especially if you have unlocked the various dungeons. It took me a little over a couple of hours to reach level 50 with Scholar.
So don’t be afraid to swap out of a class if the current one doesn’t click. FFXIV rewards experimentation, and I feel picking up the different classes will also make you a better player when attempting late-game content.
Starting out
Now, the starting couple of hours were not all that enjoyable for me. There was a lot of reading to do. There was no voice acting for the dialogue; I was spammed with tooltips after tooltips, and Limsa Lominsa was incredibly annoying to navigate.
It took me hours before I got a feel for the place, and I honestly was getting pretty frustrated at times because I was not able to locate the next quest point.
But once I started settling in and the story began to open up, I was getting more and more drawn in by the narrative. The exposition was brilliantly done, and I really liked how Square dealt with some of the major characters in the story.
I especially loved the Lominsan admiral Merlwyb and how she was introduced into the story.
Your character will also have the power of the Echo, which will from time to time show you flashbacks of what happened before. During and after the Great Calamity.
So a lot of these things do a great job of tying everything together. And after a point, even some of the fetch quests start to seem meaningful in the grand scheme of things.
Combat
Combat, I feel, is one of the strong points of Final Fantasy XIV, but not at the very start. The system is very lacking in the beginning, and I felt it to be very linear when it came to other MMOs like Black Desert Online and even Throne and Liberty.
But the jobs slowly start ramping up and become more fleshed out once you do their particular quests and unlock new abilities.
And at least for me, combat got more and more addictive the more time I invested in learning the various combo strings for the Ninja. It was pretty complicated to pull off at first, but I slowly developed a muscle memory for it, and I no longer confuse my Doton strings with Suiton.
Moreover, the physical gameplay in FFXIV is pretty similar to that of World of Warcraft, in the sense that it comes with a Global Cooldown System for your abilities. So if you use a GCD ability, you will have to wait roughly 2 seconds to perform another ability that is under the GCD.
However, the 2-second timer can be reduced by having armor passives like Skill Speed and Spell Speed.
But there are also certain skills that are not affected by the GCD system; these are off-cooldown skills which you can weave in.
For example, let’s take the Ninja’s bread and butter combo of Spinning Edge > Gust Slash > Aeolian Edge. All three abilities are under GCD, so when you start with Spinning Edge, you will have to wait till the timer runs out to use Gust Slash. The same goes for the Aeolian Edge as well.
However, an ability like Mug is not a part of the GCD system. It has its own cooldown, which is why you can weave it in between your combo strings. So you can now use Spinning Edge > Mug > Gust Slash > Aeolian Edge. And this whole string will take the same amount of time to perform, but you are doing more damage to the enemy.
So this system makes you feel like you are always doing something. But you are not going to enjoy this at the start of the game.
Now this is where some people have complaints about combat pacing, but I genuinely feel that FFXIV does a good job at easing you into the more complexities of combat.
This is especially helpful for those who haven’t played too many MMOs and want to have some casual fun at the start. The complexities slowly build up, and by then you have a much firmer grasp of most of the game mechanics and also have a better understanding of the role that your class plays in a party.
You also get much more adept with your rotations, and you are not immediately overwhelmed by all the 70 abilities that your class can eventually unlock.
Moreover, open-world combat is also pretty easy. I don’t think I died even a single time till I reached those hard-level Garuda and Ifrit dungeons at the very end of A Realm Reborn.
This also makes the base game very approachable, but also kinda boring. I can see how the lack of a challenge for the first 50-60 hours of the game can put off many veteran MMO players. But the difficulty does rank up quite a bit when you unlock the Extreme versions of the dungeons, and completing the Raids with 23 other players is absolutely cinema.
And this is what I feel makes Final Fantasy XIV so great. Not only is it beginner-friendly, but it also offers something for every type of player.
Even if you want to go at it solo, the game will allow you to do that. Apart from the raids and dungeons, I completed the entire main questline and all the job quests for my class solo.
So it gave me the option to move at my own pace. If I ever wanted to try out the super difficult raids and dungeons that needed a lot of coordination, then I would take the time to interact with my party and guildmates.
The social feature is an option in this MMO. Interaction is not mandatory, and you can play it in whichever way you want.
Heck, if you want to stop playing combat jobs for a while and dabble in some crafting and gathering, then you can do that as well. You can literally pick up blacksmithing and spend hours to take it to level 100, and no one will stop you.
This system is what helps FFXIV promote a healthy player base, and honestly, you will find all types of players in Eorzea.
Controller support and Customizations
Apart from the combat, another big selling point for me is the incredible controller support that FFXIV has. It’s by far my favorite feature in the game, and unlike other MMOs, it honestly gets a lot of things right with the setup.
And this is thanks to the fact that FFXIV is the only MMO that is available on all platforms. Which means that it needed to be developed with controller players in mind for PlayStation, Xbox, as well as the Switch 2.
They have made improvements to the controller system over the years, and from what I have read in the forums, even back in the days of A Realm Reborn, it was more than functional.
For me, the controller provides a comfortable and easily accessible control scheme that is unmatched by the keyboard. And it greatly outweighs some of the smaller weaknesses that it does have.
So once I got used to it, using the trigger buttons and the D-Pad felt second nature to me. However, to make the most of the controller, I did have to spend some time setting it up, and this is where I come to just how customizable FFXIV really is.
From the controller’s cross hotbar feature to the UI, almost everything you see on the screen is fully customizable. You can change the size of the hotbar, the icons, move the buff and debuff logos, and move the class-specific meters to wherever you want. You can even have a vertical or horizontal hotbar, and it’s basically up to you which setting you are most comfortable with.
The Story and Music
The story of Final Fantasy XIV, at least for the base game, is amazing; it’s just amazing. Rarely does an MMO get the narrative so very right, and the game does a great job of making you feel for all the major characters involved.
Now, A Realm Reborn is split into two sections. The base A Realm Reborn, which introduces you to the overarching story at the very beginning of the game, and post-A Realm Reborn, which comes in after the base narrative and before the Heavensward expansion.
And while I can say that you can play the game in whichever way you want, because at the end of the day it’s your money, and it’s your subscription. I would suggest that you do not skip out on the story.
Going through every piece of dialog and cutscene might seem tedious at first, but let me assure you that by the time the credits roll it’s going to be 100% worth it.
So you will have to be patient and try to understand the world-building that Square has gone for here.
I am not going to lie. The beginning is going to be rough as hell, and you will be forced to talk to NPC after NPC and take part in some of the most mundane quests till the game starts to slowly open up.
And I honestly get the hate that a lot of players have towards the beginning parts of FFXIV.
But this is also something that they fix down the line.
The social and political intrigue that plagues Eorzea is slowly revealed in post-AAR, and it really starts to hook you in.
Like, the Garlean Empire is not the only threat, as there are even more dangerous things looming in your own backyard.
And one thing that the story taught me is to never ever fall for a Lalafell’s cute, cuddly smile.
I am never trusting a Lalafell again.
Another point I want to touch on is the individual stories for each of the classes. Unlocking new skills is tied to these job quests, and from what I have seen for the Ninja and the Scholar so far, these side narratives are also pretty fleshed out.
These quests give you a deeper insight into what’s going on with the common folks of Eorzea when you are not solely concentrating on bringing down the Empire.
Now, what I feel really ties down the entire story and worldbuilding is the amazing music. The scores in FFXIV are peak. Every major and sub region has its own tracks, and they just slap.
And Square dials it up several notches in the raids and dungeons. The Shiva and Ravana dungeons, for me, have some of the best music by far.
And speaking of Raids, the late game content in AAR is absolute cinema. All the endgame content is masterfully tied in with the story, and there is a lot of hype around completing it.
But once again, to understand the significance of the dungeons, you will have to not rush through the story and take it in at your own pace. This late-game content is not only a good source of XP and gear drops, but is also crucial in world-building and getting to finally understand the role the Primals play in Eorzea’s overarching narrative.
PvP
Now I haven’t done much PvP to form an opinion on it, to be honest. But it’s something I do want to get into after I have got up to date with the story.
But if you are into the PvP aspect of an MMO, you can very well try it out.
There are three game modes to pick from, and every class gets a streamlined version of their kit when booting up a match. So it won’t exactly play out like your regular loadout, but it’s not going to be all that different either.
However, from what I have played so far, I won’t say that PvP is one of FFXIV’s stronger attractions. While it’s fun, I have mostly seen players use it as a source to grind XP for a new job that they have picked up.
The Golden Saucer
Finally, another big part of my journey in Final Fantasy XIV is the Golden Saucer.
You can unlock this area in Ul’Dah, and it has tons of mini-games that you can play to earn a special currency called MGP, which you can then use to unlock a lot of in-game cosmetics.
It’s literally an amusement park where you gamble. You’ve got your lottery Catpot, your Chocobo Racing, Parkour, Mahjong mini-game, and so much more.
It’s very easy to lose yourself here, and you should really give it a try from time to time. It’s a lot of fun.
To conclude
Final Fantasy XIV has been a very special journey for me so far. And there is still so much that I have not done in the base game alone.
My goal is to get up to date with the story before Evercold drops, so I am just mainly concentrating on the Main Story Quests for now.
But once I do catch up, I really want to pick up more combat jobs as well as the non-combat ones.
I want to get done with all the Blue and Yellow quests and get my hands on as many cosmetics and really get into gathering and crafting my own Glamour.
There is honestly so much left for me to do, and I don’t think I will be able to start working on my Steam backlog anytime soon.
And if you were hesitant about picking up FFXIV before, then I hope that my video at least convinced you to give it a try. Just go for the free trial version, and see if it actually clicks.
