For those new to a Final Fantasy MMO, getting around can sometimes be a challenge. Terrains can be rough, maps can be confusing, and teleporting to different areas is not an unlimited resource. This guide should help you make your way through the enormous land that is Eorzea.

Navigating the Terrain

There are quite a few pitfalls in the world of Eorzea. Oftentimes you can look at a point on your map, head in it’s direction and be completely blocked by something the map seemingly didn’t even show. It’s become a running joke that Final Fantasy gamers can’t jump and although it can be amusing to those that don’t play the game, it can be a very frustrating experience for those that do.

This section of the guide will help you get used to reading the maps to help minimize any frustration.

Cliffs

In FFXIV, cliffs come in all shapes and sizes. For the sake of the guide here, cliffs are defined as any drop in the map which you are not able to hop down from. A lot of times you will come to a point with only the slightest drop, but you wont be able to drop down from it.

Click the thumbnail picture for an example of a point that characters are unable to jump down. Moving a few inches to the left will let you drop down. You will find this sort of thing fairly often depending on which zone you’re in. La Noscea and Thanalan are pretty notorious for them, but they are everywhere.

At first, it can seem a little irksome, but you do get used to which spots you should be able to jump down from in time.

Ramps and Caves

Part of what’s going to help you on your adventures through Eorzea is learning where the ramps and caves are on your map. For all you FFXI vets out there, think back to your Yuhtunga Jungle navigation skills and this will be much easier.

Ramps and/or tunnels give you access to parts of the map that may be otherwise blocked off. Locating them can mean the difference between being on path and being lost. Or, finding your Levequest targets or running out of time.

A bit further along the guide here, We’ll go over spotting these on your World Map.

Caves such as this are mostly found in the La Noscea region. Usually they’re just a dead end, but have monsters in them that can be leveled up on, based on your level. Spotting caves is also fairly easy by looking at your map.

Winding Ascents and Descents

As if the terrain weren’t confusing enough, The Black Shroud is pegged with these! They’re extremely handy in navigating, but also pretty easy to miss. Most often these function as a means to have bi-directional paths on different heights. Imagine walking down a path going North to South, and you come across a land bridge running East to West overhead. How the heck do you get up there you wonder? Here’s a quick example how. See the tunnel on the right? You’ll want to travel through that.

Traveling through the tunnel, turn immediately around and voila! We have our Winding Ramp to take us up to that land bridge on the right, while the cave we just exited is on the left. If you’re having a hard time seeing it, just click on the thumbnail for a bigger picture.

Decoding the Map

The technical, have-to-know details. If you’ve played XI for any serious amount of time, this will seem a little familiar. For those of you new to a Square MMO, it can be a downright headache. The following images are map areas for the ramps, caves, and winding ascents/descents we’ve just gone over. Here’s what you want to look for.

The ramp in the left image is the space between the two lines going up and down. My map marker arrow is pointing to the spot where you’re going to need to go sometimes get to different areas. Also worth pointing out is the different terrain colors in the left image. See the light brown spots on the map? They actually indicate areas which are on a whole other level beneath where I’m standing in that image. You can’t just pull up your map and hope to cursor-navigate to any area you need.

The center image shows how to spot a cave. Almost always, short curving lines like this one indicate some type of cave.

The image in the right shows what you’ll need to look for on your map when you wish to get up or down a level mostly in The Black Shroud. Using the pictures previously listed for the winding ramps, along with the map picture here, you should now be able to get yourself through these with ease.

Zoning and Regions in FFXIV

Regions are much larger in FFXIV than they were in XI. Square has implemented Seamless Zoning for XIV. This means that even though you’ll pass through parts of the maps which are handled by different physical servers, there are no more “Now Loading” screens to deal with. Well, almost no more.

Current Region Listing

    * La Noscea — Limsa Lominsa is located here
    * Coerthas
    * The Black Shroud — Gridania is located here
    * Mor Dhona
    * Thanalan — Ul’dah is located here

Zoning

As I mentioned before, there is almost no zoning in FFXIV. When you exit Ul’dah into Thanalan, you’re actually zoning into a new server. I like to call this a soft zone, as there is no load screen.

When you zone from Thanalan into The Black Shroud however, you will get a “Now Loading” screen. This is the type of zoning we’re used to in other MMOs. I call it a hard zone. It’s an entirely different region, with different terrain and atmosphere.

From Town to Town

Getting from town to town in Eorzea is actually a bit easier than it was in XI. You can walk between Gridania and Ul’dah, but as Limsa Lominsa is on an island, you’ll need to take a ferry.

Between Gridania and Ul’dah

This is actually fairly straightforward From Gridania, exit into The Black Shroud. Follow the path past Camp Bentbranch southeast towards Camp Tranquil. From there, continue southeast towards the marker on the map for Thanalan.

Once you zone into Thanalan, head Southwest towards camp Drybone. Continue southwest towards Ul’dah, and you’re there.

Between Ul’dah and Limsa Lominsa

The only way to first arrive in Limsa Lominsa if you didn’t create your character there is to take a ferry. Getting to the ferry from Ul’dah means running through some relatively high level areas but don’t worry, almost nothing will aggro you. The Ferry Docks can be located at 26-4 in Western Thanalan.

There are two ships that run back and forth between Limsa Lominsa and Ul’dah. Each takes 10 minutes to arrive, and the ferry ride itself is 10 minutes.

Currently, there are no monsters that pop during the ride. However, you can fish from the upper deck.

Teleporting

In FFXIV, each player is given the ability to teleport to certain points in the world. The only requirement to teleport to a location is that you must visit it and use the aetherial crystal to “arrive”. Teleporting is not without cost, however.

Anima

Teleporting requires you to spend a sort of energy force known as Anima. Each character is given 100 anima to start out with. Teleporting to different areas will cost varying amounts.

    * Teleporting within your current region will cost 4 anima.
    * Teleporting anywhere outside your current region costs 6.
    * Teleporting from an Aetherial Node to a Camp and vice verse costs 1. Even though it doesn’t say so from camp > node.
    * Using the Return function while not dead to return to your last bound Aetheryte costs 2 points.
    * Releasing from KO status to your last bind point is a freebie.

Conserve anima!

The only currently known way to regenerate your points is to let time pass by. For each 4 RL hours, you regenerate one anima point. Use them cautiously. You don’t want to let yourself run completely out, only to find yourself needing to quickly travel from La Noscea to The Black Shroud.

Hitching a Ride

There is a way to teleport without always having to spend your precious anima points. If you are in a party, you can hitch a ride with one of the members who initiates a teleport. To do this, you must be very close to the member using the teleport. Once he or she ports out, you’ll notice a ! (menu) icon on top of your screen. Use your menu and you’ll have the option to “Accept Teleport”. Voila! Free ride.

Campsites

The most common areas for doing Guildleves, campsites also fucntion as bind points in FFXIV. When you come upon a new camp, interact with it’s crystal and you will “arrive” at the location. You’re now bound there. When you die, this is where you’ll release to and the camp will now show in your teleport list.

Aetherial Nodes

Much like the Outposts of FFXI, Aetherial Nodes are pegged throughout the world in FFXIV. They can serve as EXP camps, and you can even do Guildleves from them in certain situations. Once you “arrive” at the node, you can then use it as a teleport point, but only between it’s closest adjacent camp and vice-versa. Nodes will not show up in your Teleport List. I suggest going out of your way to visit as many of these as you can throughout your travels. Not only will you get to explore more of the world, but you’ll be creating very handy shortcuts for yourself.

Thank you for taking the time to read my guide. I hope it helps you on your travels throughout the world. See you all in Eorzea!

Bait and Rods

In the beta, there isn’t much available by way of rods. The Weathered Fishing Rod is good enough for now. Trade “weapons” include a rank in their description and I can only assume that higher ranked rods help you hook your fish while also helping keep the fish on longer while you try to tire it out.

A wide variety of bait is available with each being either consumable (worms, etc) and reusable (lures and jigs). In the beta, I had my best luck with plain old Lugworms. I also had decent luck with a Floating Minnow. I did NOT have good luck with a Chocobo Fly, no matter what depth I chose. To me, a fly is for river fishing, so I don’t know if that was my problem (I spent all my time fishing in the sea off of Camp Bearded Rock).

Bait is relatively cheap, and you only lose your consumable bait if you hook the fish, so feel free to experiment.

The Fishing Game

Fishing in FFXIV is essentially a hot and cold game, as are all of the Disciple of Land classes. There are three parts to the mini game:

               Begin Fishing                                      Initial Hook                                       The Fight

I think where most people have trouble is the actual hooking of the fish. You may or may not get a bite every cast, and the trick is figuring out how to hook the fish you have nibbling at your bait. I have some ideas on how this works and I will explain what my theory is, but I would like to point out that this is pure speculation on my part. I started to keep a log of my hook rate, but I don’t have enough data to conclusively prove anything yet. That being said, I think it is a good theory, and hopefully if other people try it and report their results, we can come up with a conclusive method that works for most.

There are effectively two actions you can perform once you start fishing: Wait or Jig.

• Waiting after you get an initial bite will cause you to wait for another bite. I never do this, as I think I only ever got one hooked when waiting after the first bite. Your results may vary.
• Jig causes your character to move their rod in such a way as to try to either hook the fish (if you don’t have one on the line) or to try to weaken the fish in order to reel it in.

My normal pattern of fishing is:

Set Depth >> Wait for bite >> Jig to Hook >> Jig to Weaken Until Caught.

There are various messages you get while jigging once you have the fish hooked that I will go into detail about later on.

Jigging to Hook: A Theory

My observations while fishing have lead me to believe that there are two sweet spots that you should jig on in order to maximize your chances. In order to explain the sweet spots, I need to first explain how jigging works. When you select Jig, a meter is displayed with a colored dot that moves back and forth.

        

     The Fishing Meter        Meter while moving      Meter with jig selected        Selecting next jig

It is your job to stop the dot in order to determine if you hook the fish (or weaken it if you have one hooked). I believe there are Zones to the meter, probably 5 but possibly 3.

  

           3 Zones                          5 Zones

The goal of jigging changes when you are trying to hook a fish versus when you are trying to weaken it. I will explain both next.

Hooked versus Weakening

Hooking the fish involves stopping the meter in what I think of as the “Sweet Spot”.

   

Red indicates the sweet spots.

Here is where we delve into speculation. I believe that in order to hook a fish, you need to stop the dot near to some predetermined point on the meter. Think of a cone that is where you need to stop the dot (what I refer to as the “Hook Point” below). If you do it correctly, the fish is hooked. Otherwise, you miss the fish. Furthermore, if you try on one of the sweet spots and it doesn’t hook a fish, immediately try the sweet spot on the other side. A great majority of the time you will hook the fish on the second time around.

It is my theory that the cone where you should set your hook point for the fish is actually quite wide, say maybe 1/4 to 1/3 of the meter. So the two sweet spots are really the best way of ensuring you get the fish on either the first or second nibble. Of all of the casts where I missed my first attempt at hooking the fish, if I were to try the sweet spot on the other side it seems that almost always I would then hook the fish. Again, without hard data it’s just a gut feeling, but I still think this is a good theory.

Reeling It In

Now that you have it hooked, what do you do? Well now the game starts the hot and cold part. Your job now is to pick a point on one side or the other of the point where you selected to hook the fish and see if you weaken it or if it runs with your line. The messages you get as you battle your fish are a clue as to how you’re doing. I’ll run down them and try to add my thoughts to each. One thing to note: you don’t have an unlimited amount of time to reel the fish in. There is a gauge that appears under the meter that represents the amount of stamina you have left to reel the fish in. Each jig will cost you some stamina. You need to land the fish before you run out of stamina.

Nothing bites

You get this when there are no bites. This really has nothing to do with what you’ve done, although there is speculation that changing depth can help if you see it several times in a row.

You’ve hooked something but cannot reel it in.

This is the default message, and is what you will most often see once you hook a fish. There really isn’t a lot you can do with this, other than to try one way or the other.

The fish is taking line.

This you will get after the initial hooking, when you are trying to figure out which way to go from your hook point to get the fish. This message means you picked the wrong way.

The fish is taking a great deal of line.

You guessed really, really wrong [1] This might happen if your initial guess is on the edge of the cone that you had to hit to hook the fish (I think anyway). At any rate, you need to move back to the other side of your hook point.

You take in some line.

You’re getting warmer. You picked the right direction, now try to go further. I try to increment by the width of the dot each time unless I pick the wrong way to begin with. It usually isn’t terribly far from the hook point, but that isn’t always the case. You need to judge how much based upon how much stamina you have left on the guage.

You take in a great deal of line.

You’re getting closer. Much better, but still a ways off, and I would recommend decreasing the distance between the next jig if you have the stamina for it.

The fish has tired, but you still cannot reel it in.

You’re there. For some reason, you need one more jig to get the fish in. Hit the exact same spot you did the last time, otherwise you’ll give up line to the fish and will probably lose it if you are out of stamina.

You lost what felt like a Tiger Cod.

You got really close but ran out of stamina at the end. Since you got this close, they let you know what you almost caught. This message makes me think certain fish have a pattern to catch them, or at least there is something in how you catch them that can give away what the fish is.

The fish got away

This is when you don’t get close enough to tell what kind of fish it is, and you lose your catch. You still get experience points for it though.

Battle Actions

• Dowse
• Dowse II
• Gulleye
• Gulleye II

Check out the wiki entries for more details, but, to summarize, these abilities allow you to detect schools of fish within 200 yalms (about 2 squares on the map) from your current position. In the case of Dowse and Dowse II, you are given a boost of speed if the school found is a great distance away.

Battle Action Messages

Grade x school of fish: x yalms to the north / x yalms to the east / x yalms to the south / x yalms to the west.

This is usually the standard message you get. The grade corresponds to the level of Dowse or Gulleye that you use.

You sense a grade x school of fish x yalms to the southwest at a higher elevation.

This message you get if you are lower or higher than the fish detected.

Your instinct tells you there is a school of fish here.

This message you get if you are pretty much on top of the school of fish and all you should have to do here is cast your line.

You prepare to cast into the fishable waters. (Grade x)

You get this message when trying to fish into a school of fish you have detected. Schools of fish are limited in resource. You don’t have to fish at them, but usually you have good results when fishing there.

This location can be gathered from x more times.

This is the message you get when you are fishing in a school of fish. After each fish caught (or lost) it tells you how many times you can fish before the school disperses. You lose a chance even if you miss the fish.

Synthesis & Gathering Actions

• Veteran Trade

Check out the wiki entry for more details, but, to summarize, this is a randomly activated ability that increases your chances of hooking the fish. The ability appears to last about 3-4 minutes.

Synthesis & Gathering Action Messages

Veteran Trade takes effect.

What Can I Get?

You are probably wondering why this is all worth it. Well you can get things! Fish! Shards! TONS of experience points! The shards you pull up can be any element. I had amassed a large number of shards by the time the beta had ended. Fish come in normal varieties as well as +1, +2, and +3 editions. You can pull up both fish and shards at the same time. In fact, you will always catch fish; sometimes you get shards as well.

Guildleves for Fishers

More to come

Unknowns

• The amount of stamina removed from the gauge when jigging a hooked fish may or may not indicate if your jig was close to the fish. I speculate that the messages are one form of indication, but that the “jig result” might also be an indicator, especially at higher levels.