Duties are the heart and soul of Final Fantasy XIV's content, ranging from Dungeons needed to progress through the Main Scenario to high-end Trials that offer difficulty and loot. Once a specific Duty is unlocked, it's accessible nearly anywhere thanks to the Duty Finder.
The Duty Finder houses every Duty you unlock throughout your time in FFXIV and categorizes them by type. Unlocked Duties are categorized further by either their expansion or activity in some cases, then sorted by level.
Finding Duties is simple, but the Duty Finder displays other information you might have overlooked while hiding special modifiers and options for Duties. By breaking down each section of the Duty Finder, you'll eliminate any mystery of what certain information means.
Duty Finder in FFXIV
The Duty Finder consists of two panes, with your lists of Duties to select and options on the left and information about the currently selected Duty on the right.
The left pane displays your current language preference for matchmaking at the top, followed by your current job, role, and item level in one convenient location. To the left of your language preference is a gear icon that opens Duty Finder's settings when selected, which are described later in the guide.
Directly beneath your job information is where your Duty's categorization is displayed. The first filter is either "Regular Duty," which houses the vast majority of your unlocked Duties, or "High-end Duty," which is limited to the current expansion's highest-difficulty Raids and Trials. For everyday purposes, you'll be sticking to Regular Duties.
Duty Category
At the time of writing, there are seven overarching categories for your Duty categories, separated into 10 buttons:
 Duty Roulette | Your Duty Roulettes matchmake you into a random unlocked Duty, rewarding you with extra gil and experience once per day for completing it. To the right of each Duty Roulette is a symbol depicting the Tank, Healer, or DPS role for an Adventurer in Need. Queueing for that roulette as the required Adventurer in Need role provides an additional bonus. |
|---|---|
 Dungeons | Dungeons are separated into two categories: the first is for Dungeons that appeared in A Realm Reborn, Heavensward, Stormblood, and Shadowbringers, with the second reserved for Dungeons from Endwalker and beyond. |
 Guildhests | Guildhests are low-level "mini-dungeons" designed to introduce mechanics through simple Duties. |
 Trials | Trials are boss fights designed for parties of eight players. Like Dungeons, they are separated into two categories for pre-Endwalker and Endwalker Duties. |
 Raids | The "Raids" category contains normal-difficulty raids, earlier Savage raids, and Alliance Raids. There is one category for all raids up to Shadowbringers, and a second for Endwalker. |
 PvP | The "PvP" section is home for all three PvP modes in FFXIV. For modes like Frontline and Rival Wings that have a map that rotates daily, you can see which map is currently active here. You can also queue for private Crystalline Conflict matches here, but you'll have to meet the minimum player requirement to do so. |
 Gold Saucer | This category contains two of the Gold Saucer's mini-games, Chocobo Races and Lord of Verminion. You can queue for random matchmaking or private instances. You can find the Triple Triad Battlehall here, which contains a few NPCs holding cards you'll need to complete your collection. |
You can sort each of these categories by their level requirement in either ascending or descending order by selecting the arrow symbol to the right of the Duty category icons. This allows you to view your Duty List by most relevant to the current max level or the order they were released.
When queueing for specific Duties under the Dungeons, Trials, and Raids category, you can select up to five instances to queue for, while categories like Duty Roulette and PvP only allow one at a time.
Duty Finder Settings
In the Duty Finder Settings located at the top left of the Duty Finder window are several settings that can drastically change your time in a Duty. Settings can be changed to potentially help shave some time in queuing for a Duty or crank up the difficulty of some older content. Not all modifiers are applicable to each Duty, however, and even less can be used in conjunction with your daily Duty Roulettes.
 Join Party in Progress | Only available to players solo and out of a party, this option allows you to join an instance where another player has disconnected, quit, or kicked, essentially taking their place. This setting can be applied to Duty Roulettes. |
|---|---|
 Unrestricted Party | Joining as an "Unrestricted Party," or "unsynced," bypasses the Duty's minimum party member requirements, along with any level sync, and role requirements. You'll gain no experience and your equipment won't progress its spiritbond, but chests rewarded after defeating a boss still appear. |
 Level Sync | The "Level Sync" option can only be active while Unrestricted Party is active. This option forces the Duty's level sync to return, making the Unrestricted Party only affect party size and composition. Turning "Level Sync" on while having an untraditional party grants experience and spiritbond, and makes an interesting way to create a challenge. |
 Minimum IL | "Minimum IL" forces your party's item level to be synced to the Duty's minimum item level requirement, removing any benefit or edge your equipped gear might have given you. |
 Silence Echo | "Echo" is a flat percentage buff to maximum HP, damage dealt, and healing potency that's automatically applied to all members in a party after wiping multiple times during a Duty. "Epic Echo" is given to Unrestricted Parties, giving boosts to upwards of 300% depending on the difference between Duty level and player level. "Silence Echo" prevents that buff, removing the game's helping hand for running a Duty in an untraditional way. |
 Explorer Mode | "Explorer Mode" is exclusive to Dungeons and removes every enemy and boss encounter within them. Players are allowed to ride mounts inside the dungeon, as well as change jobs and teleport to key locations inside the instance. Explorer Mode is a great way to get unique scenery for gposing, appreciating level design, or get a better grasp of the map. |
 Limited Leveling Roulette | With "Limited Leveling Roulette" selected while in a pre-made party of four, your Duty Roulette: Leveling will be within eight levels of the lowest level member of the party. |
Beneath the special modifiers are the Loot Rules, where you can choose between three options for how loot is obtained during a Duty:
- Normal – Rolling for loot behaves like normal, where players can roll Need for re-obtainable items like minions or gear that pertains to their job.
- Greed Only – Limits options for rolling for loot to "Greed" and "Pass." This is a good option for ensuring each party member gets a fair shot when rolling.
- Lootmaster – The Party Leader chooses how loot is distributed to each player, making this an excellent choice for raiding groups.
The final setting in the list are your language preferences, depicted by four buttons with the letters J, E, D and F. These letters stand for Japanese, English, Deustch (German), and French. Choosing any of these options allows matchmaking to put you with other players who also have one of the language options selected. If you're experiencing long queue times, adding another language to your Duty Finder settings could help you find a group. Even if you're not multilingual, the in-game translation tool helps with basic communication for language barriers.
