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Looking to Start! ^_^
Shinami
Member UncommonPosts: 825
Hello everyone ^_^
I've been looking for a p2p mmorpg because i like supporting the games I play. I find myself that it costs more to support an F2P game in my experience than other types and wanted to look at this game as I am a long time Final Fantasy Fan.
What server is a good staring server?
My Playing style in many games is that I love strategy and tactics, as well as group dynamics. I tend to play support characters because they give me the means to see the battlefield and have skills which allow me to run the strategies that I love. I do not know how viable support is in this game, but im willing to try.
I do like all types of roleplaying, but I like meeting friendly people who are willing to try and can handle someone like me who is headstrong but a newb willing to learn the ropes.
I am asking here the question on servers because I've read Reddit and other websites already, but following the golden rule of research, the first thing I looked at was the date of these threads and found that they were between four months and a year old. I figured perhaps people here would respond better to their experience as something more immediate than relying on old data on the eve of an expansion.
My information as a person is that I live in the United States. I can speak English, Spanish, and Japanese. I am about to become a certified teacher, and I am heavily into music and technology. (Sometimes culture and location do play into the type of server one can be compatible with)
Comments
Heya,
As someone who's been playing from Alpha of 1.0 I can give you a little insight.
First of all, this site isn't very active as far as FFXIV discussion goes, except when people usually want to hate on it. Reddit is my preferred avenue of discussion. I used to frequent the official forums, but there's a lot of elitists and snobs there, so since ARR has come out I've enjoyed the more casual banter there.
You say you like roleplay. Balmung is the premier server for this, however it's also one of the most popular servers so it's hard to get in. There's usually character creation restrictions on it, but if you try to create a character during off peak hours (early North American morning times) you can sometimes get in.
This game is very group-oriented when it comes to the end game content. Most of the game while leveling up is solo based, but there are breaks in the story where you have to group up in parties of 4 (8 for level 49-50 content) for story-required dungeons.
There currently isn't a true support role in the game. Bard is probably the closest thing to it since it has songs that can regenerate party members; resources at the cost of lowering their damage, or lowering a foe's magic resistance at no detriment to the Bard. They're still expected to be a full contributor to DPS, it's just their songs that give them the support tag. There's some speculation about whether the new job Astrologian due to launch with the expansion will be a healer/support job. They're actually hosting a stream tomorrow morning (9 pacific) showing off the new jobs.
I play on Behemoth, my FC(guild) is a great group of people and we do raid weekly if at some point you become interested. We are pretty friendly and help each other out. Behemoth is a busy server, if you are interested and want to make some friends playing send me a PM.
Balmung is the best choice for RP, or at least the best known (There was another RP server but I mixed it up with another one so I don't know which one it is anymore.)
I moved there almost a year ago and have found it very nice and have made lots of friends since then. I had troubles finding a good FC in the past, either ended up with people that made drama over nothing or just found myslef in an FC with 150+ members and yet nobody talked at all and much less helped. I find the economy better than in the other servers I played on, so I can make good money selling certain stuff while not spending much on things I like (The horrors I saw when I checked prices on other servers). I don't Roleplay, but I usually visit the places where there are RPers while I wait in the dungeon queue.
Balmung is a high population server, so it's locked most of the day (Locked as in you can't create a character), but the lock is lifted at 7 am CST and remains open for a while (Not sure how long), but for the same reason, the place doesn't feel dead, cities always have a lot of people in them, and also, less RMT spam because of the creation restrictions. You still get a tell from time to time, but not as much as those servers with medium to low pop.
My Free Company has been recruiting many new players lately and while many of our members are on break until the expansion, we're trying to make sure they get the help they need, with dungeons and trials that they might want to avoid trying with a group on strangers because of potential drama.
You're picking a great time to get started. With the expansion right around the corner, a lot of guilds are looking to pick people up, and there's loads of groups trying to finish content before late June. You'll want to be sure you finish your main story quest before the expansion hits, because supposedly you'll need to finish it up in order to start the new zones.
I play on Gilgamesh and there is a queue every single night, even during the week. If you're looking for a very active server, that might be one to check out. The queue doesn't take too long to get through (probably 10 minutes at most). It is very easy to find groups for content at all levels, especially if you play a tank or healer.
When you say "Support", that can mean a few different things. There is a Bard class that has a few buffs through songs, however it is primarily a DPS class. Then of course there is a few healing classes in the White Mage and Scholar, both being viable at end game. Scholar's have a fairy pet, though you don't really have to manage it at all, its just free healing. White Mage has stronger aoe healing, and Scholar is the single target healer, though they both can do either role well enough.