Another day in… FFXIV: Levequest tips

Hmm, I was going to title this post “Another Day in [the name of the world FF XIV takes place in] but y’know, I can’t remember what it is. That’s probably a bad sign, right? I just seem to have a block when it comes to the names in this title.

And yet I still enjoy myself. Last night I spent the last of my gil on a tool to start leathercrafting, then grabbed a bunch of Local levequests. I ended up completing 3 and failing 1.

A few (maybe obvious) things I learned:

1) When you accept a levequest and are asked if you want to Activate it, say yes. Saying no just cancels the transaction. Activate is basically a confirmation dialog.

2) You can gather the materials for several levequests at once. The materials don’t show up in your inventory but you can see that you have them by looking at the levequest in your journal. So grab a bunch of stuff and find someplace quiet to do your crafting. Make the stuff for several levequests then run around and deliver them.

3) The item you have to make for a local levequest is a valid recipe, so make a note of it. I’ve started a spreadsheet to track recipes (which is geeky fun to me) but I’m sure soon enough all recipes will be on one of the many database websites out there. So if you get a levequest to make a square maple shield, by examining the materials that pop up in the crafting panel you’ll see what the recipe for a square maple shield is.

4) As a reward for completing a Local levequest you’ll get another recipe followed by “First Item: ####, Second Item, ####” etc, where ### is the name of a component. This is just describing the recipe you got… you’re not getting these items as loot. All the actual loot items you get are listed before the recipe.

5) You get enough materials to make more items than you need to complete the levequest. Make them all; you’ll still get exp and skill points from making the extra items. I’m hoping in my heart that when it comes time to turn in the materials the game takes your best results into account.

6) Speaking of which, take the time to make good quality items. I’ve seen some places say to just spam the Rapid Synthesis because quality doesn’t matter, but it seems to me I got better rewards when I turned in better quality items.

7) Which leads to my final bit of advice which is to stick to easier levequests for a while, at least if your goal is to earn gil. I think that making good quality items on a Skill level 1 levequest will reward you better than making shoddy items on a Skill level 5 levequest.

Um, take that last bit with a grain of salt though. In fact take this whole post with a grain of salt as I’m still figuring things out.

There was a patch yesterday and my Raptr client didn’t track my play session last night. I fear those two facts are connected, which is going to make tracking FF XIV a pain.

I actually drew my sword last night, for the first time in days… I think this weekend I might focus on combat jobs for a bit.

Here’s my character. He’s (at the time of this writing…this sig file is supposed to update automagically) physical level 9 and he is level 6 Botanist (harvesting plant materials, including lumber jacking), level 5 carpenter, level 4 blacksmith, level 4 Miner (harvesting rocks and minerals), level 3 gladiator, level 3leathercrafter. Not shown is level 3 fisherman.. I haven’t worked on that since day 1 so maybe the sig maker only lists the 6 most recent updates?