This is essentially the first MMO I've played and I've enjoyed what I've played so far, but I'm currently level 17 and the 2 week demo cap is level 20. I've only played for a few days, but what will happen once I reach level 20? Will the game suddenly lock me out? Will I be able to play with level, gear, and ability restrictions since I hit level 20?

What if I want to buy the game? Do I have to pay full price for the game and then buy a subscription on top of the PSN I already pay for?

You won't be locked out when you hit level 20, you just won't be able to level past 20 with any class during the trial period.

If you want to continue past the trial, you'll need to buy the game and pay a subscription (I believe the first 30 days are still free). The game subscription is separate to PlayStation Plus.

@golguin: You just won't be able to progress any more in the trial. And Yes, you'll have to both buy a licence for the game and pay a monthly sub but you should be able to actually use the same client you already have downloaded i do believe. Its either 12.99 per month for an "entry" subscription which allows 1 character per server over 8 different servers you can also go with the Standard for 14.99 which lets you have 8 characters per server and 40 characters total over all servers.

If you think you might keep playing consider joining on Ultros if you want to join up with other Giantbomb duders. And to be clear PS+ is NOT needed to play this game as it doesn't operate on Playstation servers.

If I reach level 20 with my archer before my 14 day trial is over, I can change my class and play as something else right? It looks like each class levels up separately (tied to weapon it seems) so I can have each one reach level 20 until I'm done with the 14 day trial.

Once that is done I can buy the game digitally on PS4 since I've already downloaded the thing. I've read that the game automatically comes with 30 days free and it isn't part of the 14 day trial thing so I wont need to worry about a subscription until after those 30 free days right?

I made my character on the Ultros server and from what I've read I get to keep my current trial character even if/when I buy the full game. Is that correct?

Yes, you can still change your class. You should have unlocked the ability to learn new classes in the story by now, so talk to guild masters for the classes you want to try out if you haven't done so already. They'll give you a starter weapon/tool so don't worry about having to hunt one down first.

The free 30 days that come with the initial purchase aren't part of the 14 day trial you have now. Once you've registered the full game, those free 30 subscription days will start and trial restrictions will be lifted.

When you upgrade your account to a full account, everything you already have will be carried over. Characters, levels, items, the lot.

@golguin Yeap all correct. The trial lets you level to 20, so yes, you can level multiple classes to 20. I do have to warn you content to level you to 20 dries up after like 2 classes so you have to do some grinding to get them all there which makes the process a bit more onerous. Also yes, you can buy it digitally and it does come with the first month at no additional cost with the purchase of the game. Lastly.... yes again, your trial character is a permanent real character. All the trial limits is your max level, it is a real character in the full game.

@golguin: Yeah, you should get a free 30 days and yes in Final Fantasy XIV a single character can do and be every job and class. All you really need to do is go talk to the person in the guild you wish to join up with. If I were you though I'd settle on a class and come back to level alt classes later once you get to level 50 you get what is called an "Armory Bonus" which basically means you'll be able to level up alt classes faster after you get your initial first class to 50.

Level 50 isn't required for the 50% bonus, you just need a class that is a higher level than your current class. And just for the sake of clarification, this bonus only ever applies to combat classes.

But yes, stick with one class through the story, although you will want to switch to a certain class and level it to 15 to unlock whatever job quest you go for once your other class gets to level 30.

Thanks for the info everyone. I wonder if I can join The Giant Bomb company with a trial membership.

I also totally saw a GB member earlier today. I figured it would be "gbomb", but I saw a "VinCo" tag and thought to myself, "The VinCo thing came after the release of the game so it's probably not officially GB related." Seems I was wrong and the tag changed at some point.

Unfortunately trial accounts can't join a Free Company. Joining a Linkshell is possible though, if one of those exists for the GB company then it might be a good idea to seek out an invite to that in the meantime while you're still in the free trial.

@golguin: Yes it did. And no until you're out of the trial you can't join free companies but Its easy to apply once you are able to join. Just find a member and click on them and view company then submit application.

I see. I'm currently at the GB house, but it looks like I couldn't directly message any of the members standing outside as it's not available in the trial. I don't know if they could see my "say" category of messages, so I just did a little dance and made my way into the house. Currently exploring the rooms.

@golguin: I was standing idle out there scrolled through the chat log and yep def did see your message there. It might have just been that everyone was idle or AFK. A lot of people will log in and idle near or at the house and check in occasionally while doing other things. So if people don't respond to you right away its mostly because a lot of people tend to idle a lot while playing.

I've learned that in the trial the only way I can talk is with "Say" as every other chap option is disabled. I've read up some more in the game since I'm fairly certain I'm going to buy it by Friday (14 days will be up) and I already have $10 in the PSN store just sitting there.

I've learned about macros and I've implemented my first macro in the game. It's a buff macro that combines the Archer and Pugilist buffs (3 of them) into a single action for my Archer. It works great because the first action is always the 60 second one, 2nd is 90 seconds, and the last one is the archer buff raging strikes. I press it once to activate the first buff or spam 3 times to activate all 3.

I've leveled my Archer and Pugilist to 20 now and I've been farming the instance/small raid thing (big level with light party and boss at the end) to get some of the unique gear. I'm leaving some of the LV10-LV20 quests for my upcoming lancer. It sucks having no quests for leveling purposes. Mostly cleared our Gridania and the desert place. My 3rd class will work in the pirate place to start.

As a past player of this game, I still believe macros are limited to 1s increments, theres no half second or quarter second.
Learn to not rely on macros, they're handy but later on they'll start to gimp your DPS. I've met bards who specifically put their rotations into a series of macros and based on parsing they had some of the worst DPS i've seen in an MMO (approaching 200 DPS at ilvl 110).

I'm new so I don't know what it means to have 1 second increments, but I know that pressing the button that has the 3 buffs applied to it only makes the first buff activate because it has no waiting implemented into it to fire off the 2nd and 3rd buff. I believe that putting in the wait would allow all 3 buffs to activate with a single button press because it waits for the animation to finish for each one. By manually spamming the button it fires off the buffs in order as soon as the others are able to activate.

That was my understanding when I read on how to make macros for the PS4 version.

I don't know if I'll make macros for attacking because I don't like the idea of not having control over what skill activates if I only want X skill to activate, but the macro first has to go through V and W. I saw it as a possible issue with...

/ac Bloodletter <t>
/ac Misery's End <t>
/ac Heavy Shot <t>

I have my own order for going through Venomous Bite, Heavy Shot, Straight Shot, Blood Letter, Repelling Shot, Quick Knock, and Misery's End with the order being whatever I need and what's on cooldown. I'm only a level 20 Archer so that works for now, but I imagine being a Bard is going to become hectic as I watch the timers tick down.

Let's say I wanted to, at some point, try and get into FFXIV. Is there an "everything you need to know" thread / website / database online that gets updated frequently (since there are going to be expansions and what not)?

The only thing I've looked up with mechanics was how to set up macros for the PS4 version of the game and I've essentially never played an MMO before. The game seems really good about throwing out help screen whenever you run into any new systemy type thing in the game. I've sometimes referred to the help option in the game to bring up an old topic.

As an example I don't know shit about crafting/materia/cooking/sewing/etc, but I assume that when I attempt to join one of the guilds to level up that skill it will tell me what I need to know. If I had to read a guide to play the game I wouldn't be playing.

@aegon: Just about every Quest/FATE/Item can be found online. For quest you just google the Quest name(often ending up with ffxiv.gamerescape.com/) and FATEs (open world quests) and Items can be explored on www.xivdb.com. Also, getting on a server and finding a nice Linkshell/Free Company nets you a ton of players and shared information.

That bard macro is very useful, but it's good to have a Heavy Shot in between Bloodletter and Misery's End. BL and ME are both off global cooldown, so it's a DPS loss to not have a global cooldown skill between those.

@golguin: Actually for leveling FATES and Levequests are usually your best option along with peppering in a dungeon or two along the way. I'll usually qeue for a dungeon and then run around doing FATES while I wait for the duty finder to pop.

Yeah I'd say don't use macros for combat.

Bard is a pretty easy job to play even at 50. Just keep your dots up as at lv 48 they have a 50% chance to skip the cooldown of Bloodletter if they crit, keep your straight shot buff up to increase that crit rate, and just thread a skill off of your global cooldown between any two skills that are on GC. If your dots and Straight Shot are up, and you have used everything off the global cooldown just spam Heavy Shot.

As ranged dps you won't be doing much damage compared to other classes, Your main job is making sure your group isn't struggling with MP or TP.

Gonna second the comment that you shouldn't use macros for combat. Personally, I have very, very few combat macros, playing endgame on multiple classes. Later on you'll want the freedom of choosing specific things for segments of fights. That said, these are things that shouldn't concern you too much at level 20. The first 50 levels of the game are mostly tutorial for the controls, combat roles, how to travel around the world, and of course for the story. The time to hone skills and optimize hotbars will certainly come.

Glad you're enjoying the game! I got into it at a time when I could barely find five hours per week to play video games and now I've played it more than any game in probably a decade. It's the best FF game, best MMO game, best PS4 game, and my personal favorite game of all time, hands-down.

Thanks for the advice on not worrying about combat macros. I'll just keep fighting and leveling up some classes to 20 until I purchase the full game on Friday. Then I can finally continue the story, join a company, and see what these holiday events/quests are about.

Yeah sorry if I wasn't clear I had a few drinks.

Stuff like your buff macro is fine, but if you ever think to do like VB>Wait>HS or something like that is where your DPS starts to suffer because of the wait times which always round to the nearest whole second. I.E. 0.5 goes to 1.0, 1.5 goes to 2.0, 2.5 goes to 3.0 etc etc.

Because the GCD is something like 2.5s (If I remember right, I know as a Monk mine was approaching 2.06 or something with 3 stacks of GL) thats means you'll always be wasting at least half a second of time inbetween each skill use which really adds up over time.