Parleying in Final Fantasy XIV

Once players finish their rank 15 main quest, they will acquire a new ability called Parley. While it is always exciting to get a new ability, this is one that can't be found in any spell books. Because of this, lots of confused players will miss out on an opportunity to play a fun little mini-game. Over the next few minutes, I will teach you what it means to parley, and will get you fully prepped and ready to defeat the parley NPC's or Eorzea.


What is 'Parley'?

I know a lot of people will recognize the word 'parley' from Pirates of the Caribbean, but don't bust out your sword just yet. Parleying in FFXIV has nothing to do with pirates at all (except perhaps Limsa Lominsa). Instead, this variation of parleying more or less resembles a civilized debate between two people: player and NPC.

If the player is successful in his verbal efforts, he will be compensated with some cool rewards or items associated with the type of parley. Anyways, enough of the rules already, let's get you over to a parleying NPC in the city nearest you.

• Gridania: Aubrenard (Coordinates 4, 7)
• Limsa Lominsa: Ansgor (6, 5)
• Ul'dah: Baterich (Coordinates 7, 4)

How to Play

While it may look confusing at first, this is actually really easy to pick up, and super fun to boot! First, you must select the type of parley. Each topic requires you have the associated item in hand prior to starting.



Once the choice has been made, a 12 slot grid will pop up, and various icons with assigned point values will come to fill them. Each icon represents topics directly relating to the parley, and the player and NPC take turns making your choice. Each choice made will earn you a point value depending on the parley, while the NPC's choice will take it away. Whenever there are identical topics next to each other, selecting it will allow you to raise the topic multiple times in the same turn. For example, selecting 'Ul'dahic history' is an excellent move to make in this situation:



During each turn, the status bar on the left hand side will represent your status on the parley. The higher your bar, the better off you will become. After five turns, being above the line means you will win a new award; in this case, tin ore. On the other hand, being below the line means you are the loser, and must fork over the associated item to the NPC.

While you may think making the choice is the biggest key to winning the parley, it is only half the battle. After each decision is made, the available topics will begin to shift left and upwards, and new topics will come to populate the lower portion of the grid. Make sure to analyze the grid prior to every decision, as you may set up the NPC with a game breaking move.

Parleying is actually fun, and the best way to figure it out is going out and doing it for yourself. The worst thing that can happen is a loss, and you won't even have to walk the plank at that! Just make sure you start off easy and get the hang of things before risking something expensive.