Don’t forget to check out some of the side quests. While you don’t actually need them to level, even if your world is not on the “Road to 60” list, there are some that give interesting gear rewards and they aren’t nerfed like other games. In Tera, after a few changes, only the story quests give good rewards. The Zone Quests and Vanguard Requests in Tera used to give great XP, but now the Zone Quests give about 20% of a story quest and Vanguard Requests give very little XP, but give tokens that are good for gearing up. I’ve never seen what I would call Story Quests in Wow, so the quests in a zone pretty much give all the same level of rewards. Which is fine. No complaint here. 7-20 quests per level depending on your place in the game. Although, like I said, all that may change with “Level Scaling”. sigh.
Near Camp Drybone here in FFXIV, I ran across a side quest that rewards a nice weapon of level 20 for very little work. And side quests give about 1/2 the XP of the Story Quests, so two quick ones now and then can help a lot. I’ll keep my eye out for them when my gear is getting stale. Since I’m leveling pretty fast I’m not really psyched to learn and apply Materia to my gear. I’ll get back to that when I get high enough that the gear will last some time.
Staying Geared Up Beyond 20
Regarding the rest of your gear, I was getting a little behind with my gear by level 20ish. I had that nice gear from the Novice Training, but it was getting a bit smelly after the four dungeons. But I found an armor smith in Vesper Bay, where we keep going back time after time anyway for the story quests to visit the Lady In The Basement.
And be sure to get the Dye and Glamour quests while passing through Vesper Bay. They are both given by the same NPC, and you can buy the Orange Juice from a merchant right across the square from her.
I’ve not checked, but the side quests may actually give you gear too. I’m not getting very many drops from the Dungeons. They give good XP, but lousy gear. Too few drops to be interesting. I’m only doing the dungeons required by the story.
Duty Finder Warning
Since I’m leveling fast I’m not psyched to spam dungeons. But watch out. If you aren’t careful to reset the Duty Finder, you may end up re-doing a dungeon and that’s a pain since there’s a long wait and the dungeon will take 20 or more minutes. So just clear out all the old settings before queuing up for the new one.
Dye Your Armor. It’s Cheap.
The armor from the armor smith in Vesper Bay is great, but I think the colors intentionally don’t match so you’ll be encouraged to dye them. I personally like deep dark blue or black armor. Soot Black is hard to find. I didn’t bother actually. But Ink Blue is a good substitute. The cost is 216 gil per dye at the dye merchants in any major city. With 20K gil in your wallet by this time in leveling, the 800 or so gil it takes to buy the four moderately priced dye won’t even be noticed. You’ll be going through Limsa Lominsa on your way back and forth to Vesper Bay, so you can pick up the dyes there easily. Here’s my new duds with Ink Blue dye on all the 4 parts.
All spikey and shiny and black in all the right places.
So dying gear is cheap and easy, at least for the colors from vendors I’ve seen.
Glamour is Too Complicated
But Glamour is way more complicated. Too complicated I think. I got the wrong crystal from the quest, so I don’t even have the one I need to change something into a skirt. Three types of crystals – Cloth, Leather, and Plate – and you can’t even be sure based on your class which type you need. It’s based on the armor Appearance, not the Armor being Glamorized. When I tried to change my mail pants into the Novice skirt, it said I needed a cloth crystal. Huh? That just seems backwards. I don’t know how long glamour has been a thing in the game, but I predict that we are going to see it change to one crystal type and be able to buy them as well as make them. That’s just what I’m guessing. It’s way easier to change armor look in GW2 and Wow than it is here, and one has to think that folks know that.
And who’s got the time to go level some profession at this point to make crystals? And with no way to share crystals across my toons – since the Trial makes you put them on different Worlds. Sigh. What a pain. Like I said before: Worlds just need to go. When I get a lot more levels on all my Alts, then I’ll worry about leveling up professions and figuring out the glamor thing. It looks like at about level 23 or so the armor starts to look decent and with dyes being cheap I can keep it looking somewhat fashionable.
World Boss
So here’s a world boss I ran across outside of Camp Drybone.
That it one ugly cat-dragon or whatever it is. At level 50, I gave him wide berth. Maybe I’ll come back at 60 and take him on.
What is it with Spikes in the Desert?
So what’s the deal with spikes in the desert? Here they are outside of Camp Drybone. Tera has them and here they are again in FFXIV. Have these designers been playing each other’s games or something. But the ones in Tera don’t glow at night. So there!
These in Tera look like a skeleton of a very large boss.
But these are definitely rock formations. Maybe all these games are just adding eye candy to keep you looking up.
Hey Soldier, Eyes on the Rocks. Quit staring at my Lingerie – er Armor. And here are some more in the level 60 area. Rocks that is.
I’ll be on the look for more eye candy in FFXIV to see how it compares with Tera.
Probably Time to Subscribe
It’s probably time to subscribe. There’s a promotion going on that I want to take advantage of:
After Holiday Sale or some such. Those mounts are perfect for my Arcanist. I’ve seen them in-world, and they glow. And the costumes do too. So I’ll get the complete Stormblood Collector’s Edition download I guess. Some goodies and then I’ll get that Aquamarine Carbuncle account wide mount.
That’s enough for now. Time to get back to finishing up those mounts and then at 30 turning them into fighting companions.
What’s the battlecry here? Not “For the Horde”. I’ll have to keep my eye out for the shout we use in FFXIV. I’ve asked on Reddit and I’ll get back to you here when I find out.
:ww
Windy Weather 