Square is constantly tweaking it and trying to improve it. PVE gameplay is pretty equivalent to other games I've played, namely WoW and Rift. The game tries to act as a kind-of overarching "Final Fantasy" world, collecting various parts of Final Fantasy lore into one world. It has stories for everything, even things like the carpenter crafting class gets a cool storyline as you progress in levels. Square has streamlined getting through the earlier parts of the game, making some dungeons/bosses easier and making sure you always have necessary armor and weapons and whatnot without extra grinding.Ĭlick to shrink.It's one of the best MMOs in terms of story content, most MMOs don't even have separate cutscenes for storyline bits except maybe a super rare major scene, while this game plays a lot like an actual Final Fantasy game.
They do sell an object (for cash) to bypass earlier story bits, but I wouldn't recommend it for new players, it's best to play through the story to learn the characters and their situations, and a better way to learn how to play your character classes. Note that as Heavensward is an extension to the story, you can't actually access most of its content until you've finished the main game "Realm Reborn" story, which takes you through level 50 (similary, you can't access the newer Stormblood expansion content until you've completed Heavensward, and the next expansion "Shadowbringers" requires finishing Stormblood). The Heavensward expansion is better than the base game, as the story flows better, most side quests aren't as grindy, dungeons are better, etc.
Heavenward extends the story and game quite a bit, basically doubling the size of the game and adding flying mounts.
Now there's this Golden Week deal from Square-Enix themselves, where you can get the first major FFXIV expansion pack, Heavensward, for free - that deal lasts through June 27. Right now, one of the deals is Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn base game for free, with 30 days of subscription. If you have Amazon Prime, you can connect that to your Twitch account for free, which gives you certain deals. Some details: First off, this is all PC/Mac version only, and is for downloading the game directly from Square, not Steam or anything.