Different versions and subscriptions

[marius_maximus]

Hi everyone! Recently I have started considering this game as one of my biggest targets. I’ve started my research about the game itself and the trophy guide, but it’s a bit overwhelming how much info there is about it.

 

The first main question is: what’s actually the difference among the different version (trophy wise)? There’s like one thousand versions of the same game even on physical copies! You have the starter pack, the complete edition, the normal shadowbringers, the shadowbringers complete edition...

 

And then... you also have monthly subscriptions!! The funnier thing is after all this mess you go to the trophy guide and it’s 900 hours or 6 months anyway if you plan it really well.

 

So here’s my big main question: What versión of the game so you need for the plat? Also, if the minimum time required is 6 months, do you need to pay the game plus 6 months subscription or is there any other way to skip the subscription?

 

Any help would be much appreciated, so thanks in advance!

[Kristycism]

You only need the base game for the Plat, the rest are expansions. But they’re 100% worth it if you’re playing this game for the joy of it and not just for the Plat (and honestly, this game isn’t worth it to go just for Plat). So whatever version you get, you’ll be able to get the Plat, but the more expansions you get, the more content you’ll have to enjoy.

 

The 6 months is because of Levequests, which are time-gated in real time.

 

There’s a free trial, which I think lets you play as much as you want but your level is capped? So you could theoretically play the 6 months and do Levequests on the free trial and then just get a one month sub (which comes free with a purchase of the game). But that’d be a really boring way to play imo, as you’re locking yourself out of majority of the game’s content by doing so and just turning it into a grind of Levequests. 

 

Hope that somewhat answered your questions? I’m about to sleep so apologies if the above doesn’t make much sense.

[marius_maximus]

26 minutes ago, Kristycism said:

You only need the base game for the Plat, the rest are expansions. But they’re 100% worth it if you’re playing this game for the joy of it and not just for the Plat (and honestly, this game isn’t worth it to go just for Plat). So whatever version you get, you’ll be able to get the Plat, but the more expansions you get, the more content you’ll have to enjoy.

 

The 6 months is because of Levequests, which are time-gated in real time.

 

There’s a free trial, which I think lets you play as much as you want but your level is capped? So you could theoretically play the 6 months and do Levequests on the free trial and then just get a one month sub (which comes free with a purchase of the game). But that’d be a really boring way to play imo, as you’re locking yourself out of majority of the game’s content by doing so and just turning it into a grind of Levequests. 

 

Hope that somewhat answered your questions? I’m about to sleep so apologies if the above doesn’t make much sense.

Thanks for the info. So let’s say I buy the Shadowbringers complete edition (which I think includes the base game plus most expansions), can I play 6 months and then buy another month subscription? Or do I have to keep buying the subscription if I want to keep playing?

[tomhannay]

I'll second getting the expansions from the beginning, it allows you choose from all the races when you make your character and doing the grindy trophies bit by bit alongside excellent story content is definitely a more pleasant experience. Also the expansions let you level your character up to 80 (as opposed to the base games' cap of 50) which makes the only difficulty based trophy in the game, Seeker of Truth, laughably easy. 

 

I will say it doesn't take anywhere near 900 hours to platinum this game. I'm 400 hours in, with most of my time having been spent on story content in the expansions, and I've got 76% of the trophies, and I'm pretty close to getting most of the other trophies. The levequests are on a timer and take nearly six months to earn, but you can bang out 100 of them every 16 days in under an hour if you're doing tradecraft levequests. 

 

Lastly for subscriptions, you can get one for like £8 a month that limits you to one character per world, but any one character can level literally all jobs so you don't need more than that. 

 

Oh and when choosing your server at the start, make sure you look online to see if any servers in your Data Centre have the fast track to level 70 bonus, really helps with blazing through the game. 

[marius_maximus]

3 minutes ago, tomhannay said:

I'll second getting the expansions from the beginning, it allows you choose from all the races when you make your character and doing the grindy trophies bit by bit alongside excellent story content is definitely a more pleasant experience. Also the expansions let you level your character up to 80 (as opposed to the base games' cap of 50) which makes the only difficulty based trophy in the game, Seeker of Truth, laughably easy. 

 

I will say it doesn't take anywhere near 900 hours to platinum this game. I'm 400 hours in, with most of my time having been spent on story content in the expansions, and I've got 76% of the trophies, and I'm pretty close to getting most of the other trophies. The levequests are on a timer and take nearly six months to earn, but you can bang out 100 of them every 16 days in under an hour if you're doing tradecraft levequests. 

 

Lastly for subscriptions, you can get one for like £8 a month that limits you to one character per world, but any one character can level literally all jobs so you don't need more than that. 

 

Oh and when choosing your server at the start, make sure you look online to see if any servers in your Data Centre have the fast track to level 70 bonus, really helps with blazing through the game. 

 

Thanks! Quite useful too! How can I check the servers in my Data Centre? Is that something I need to do in game or through the internet?

[tomhannay]

7 minutes ago, marius_maximus said:

 

Thanks! Quite useful too! How can I check the servers in my Data Centre? Is that something I need to do in game or through the internet?

You're in the EU so this should work: https://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/worldstatus/.

 

Currently one of the six Worlds in both the Chaos and Light Data Centres has Preferred status, which should give you the double xp boost if you create a character in that World. 

[marius_maximus]

Ok so I ended up getting the Shadowbringers complete edition which seems to be the final version. Now I’ve been researching again and some people say you need 6 months subscription (because of the levequest trophy) and some others say you can do it with your one month subscription included on the physical game by playing free trial up until you’re one month away from the plat.

 

Can anyone clarify this please? I’m also a bit confused about FATE trophy. Do you need to be at a certain point in the game to start doing this? Do you need to be levelled up? What’s exactly the plan for this trophy?

 

Many thanks in advance 

[rikwebb]

On 11/11/2019 at 4:05 PM, marius_maximus said:

Ok so I ended up getting the Shadowbringers complete edition which seems to be the final version. Now I’ve been researching again and some people say you need 6 months subscription (because of the levequest trophy) and some others say you can do it with your one month subscription included on the physical game by playing free trial up until you’re one month away from the plat.

 

Can anyone clarify this please? I’m also a bit confused about FATE trophy. Do you need to be at a certain point in the game to start doing this? Do you need to be levelled up? What’s exactly the plan for this trophy?

 

Many thanks in advance 

 

Sorry if this is a late reply.

 

For the free trial way, i couldn't tell you, never did that.

 

Subscriptions are monthly so you'll need to do 6 months of subscribing to do the levequests if you do the 1000 in the timeframe. Fates you can do early on, if you walk into a fate that is lower than your level you have to choose the level sync option thats normally on the side of the screen where duties are.