New or Returning Players Discussion (Or Anything Old FFXI Then Vs. Now)

[Apelila]

If you only need one of the expansions 9.99$ is cheaper. if you have none of the expansions, get the ultimate collection. Either will work.

[Zetanio]

Should work.

[atheist]

So after I download the ultimate collection how do i get and redeem the reg code?

[Zetanio]

When you buy it, you'll get the code.
then use the code in POL or in SE's account management thing on their site.

[Byrthnoth]

Amazon is selling it for $5 right now, I think.

[Gokulo]

Hmm? I only see it for $20.

[Byrthnoth]

Deal expired last night. It was here.

[Gokulo]

Damn, wish I knew about it sooner, my sister was talking about playing when she gets a new laptop so I would bought it on the spot for that price.

[Milo]

So I have a lot of "Old FFXI vs New FFXI" questions

I understand it is easier to level now, is it still the case that Soloing is difficult? I previously enjoyed playing solo BST (and solo BLM or solo SCH) and wonder what the scene looks like for that play style today

What does the economy look like for completely new characters? I'm thinking about having to get all new gear, spells, staves, maps, fame, etc. I don't think I would go down the crafting path from 0 all over again, are there any other relatively stable sources of income for lowbies?

On that note, I imagine a lot of perviously expensive gear are probably outdated now. Are they replaced by even more expensive gear or are most things quested now? For instance, AF3. Is this a huge, multi-person timesink like AF2 was? Or is it something I could feasibly work toward in a solo/lowman group?

I've heard theres some useful item that they give new characters to help out with leveling, but I couldn't find any info about it.

I've also heard they tried to spread out support role jobs. When I left it was mainly about RDM and BRD, with COR gaining popularity. How well do SMN, SCH, DNC perform as supporters? Common party setups? I heard people exp in alliances now... I'm picturing exp going up faster than skill ups...

Nowadays I don't have the long hours that I used to be able to dedicate to the game. Am I going to feel like I'm not making any progress if I start a new character and can't play for 10 hrs a day?

[Yukari]

AF3 is shoutable/lowmannable easily. Economy for spells is pretty painful if the spell is used in proccing, basically BLM spells are painful. Progress/day? I think it'd be easily done enough actually. Helps if you have a friend that wants to play.

[Eldelphia]

So I have a lot of "Old FFXI vs New FFXI" questions

I understand it is easier to level now, is it still the case that Soloing is difficult? I previously enjoyed playing solo BST (and solo BLM or solo SCH) and wonder what the scene looks like for that play style today

Soloing is easier than it was because of Grounds and Fields of Valor. Although most people lose patience and end up jumping into an Abyssea party eventually. Check out GoV (dungeons) and FoV (open areas) for more info.

What does the economy look like for completely new characters? I'm thinking about having to get all new gear, spells, staves, maps, fame, etc. I don't think I would go down the crafting path from 0 all over again, are there any other relatively stable sources of income for lowbies?

A lot of things are cheaper. The auction houses have been amalgamated so there is less regional variation. There is slightly more lowbie gear available from NPCs but far less gear available from 50-75 than used to be honestly. There is less call for gil but if you're levelling BLM it will be expensive during later levels. Jugpets and pet food are getting more expensive. I'd check out FFXIAH in general for prices.

On that note, I imagine a lot of perviously expensive gear are probably outdated now. Are they replaced by even more expensive gear or are most things quested now? For instance, AF3. Is this a huge, multi-person timesink like AF2 was? Or is it something I could feasibly work toward in a solo/lowman group?

Abyssea will sort you out. Post Abyssea, things get more expensive. Most of the best gear in the game at the moment is empyrean although some pieces are coming out of Voidwatch and some of those are sellable on the AH.

I've heard theres some useful item that they give new characters to help out with leveling, but I couldn't find any info about it.

There's a new adventurer programme in game now. Kinda a mini tutorial where they give you a lowbie reraise earring, a free xp band and some help getting started. http://ffxi.gamerescape.com/wiki/Tutorial_NPC. There's also a beret you can get if you buy the new abyssea ultimate collection which has loads of useful boosts for chars up to 30. You don't lose xp til 30 now as well.

I've also heard they tried to spread out support role jobs. When I left it was mainly about RDM and BRD, with COR gaining popularity. How well do SMN, SCH, DNC perform as supporters? Common party setups? I heard people exp in alliances now... I'm picturing exp going up faster than skill ups...

Xp does go up faster than skillups but there are items and food to help with skilling up. RDM has fallen back hugely but is still used for Voidwatch. BRD is solid and COR interested died a lot for a while until the empyrean ws Wildfire was unlocked. Now it's popular again and necessary for Voidwatch. SMN is pretty solid actually, lots of use for it including Voidwatch and Walk of Echoes. Everyone and their mother has levelled DNC recently because they've become King proc'rs in Dynamis. However outside of dynamis they're used for soloing and pissing people off by taking a week to do so (see RDM DoT solos).

Nowadays I don't have the long hours that I used to be able to dedicate to the game. Am I going to feel like I'm not making any progress if I start a new character and can't play for 10 hrs a day?

No. It's gotten much better on that level. If you're looking at short bursts of time then FoV, GoV and Walk of Echoes are good. Also EAF farming is easy and can be scheduled. At 99 though you'll need less help but people with procs speed it up because you'll need to do less kills to get the seals you want. Voidwatch fights in themselves are short so you might be able to sign up to a couple of runs of something. Dynamis is restricted to 2hr daily slots now. Campaign is still going with higher/notes rewards etc.

[Eldelphia]

Hey all. I just got back into this game after a two year break and boy have things changed. I have a few questions.

Do people still do dynamis? can you still gain currency from dynamis? Which areas of dynamis are now soloable by nin/dnc?

Dynamis is now a daily event, resets at JP Midnight. You buy a one off key item for 50k and then you can go every day for up to 2hrs. Multiple groups can enter, you can earn xp and there is a new system for getting relic currency (procing). This is the best place to start. Yes you can farm solo and gain currency.

Is rdm still the amazing solo master? is there any reason whatsoever to revisit Dynamis/Sea/sky/Limbus now past 75?

No to RDM honestly. Many NMs now are resistant to enfeebles. RDM is still a useful job but SE seem not to want it to solo. Dynamis has been revamped and has relic +2 recently released. Sea, if you still need novios etc. They're going to revamp Limbus. Sky for seals for augmenting sky gear.

I'm told that nidhogg ect is now force popped.. is it still a good way to make gil? back when I played we used to sell Ridill for 30m+, I know time has a way of changing things but the most fun I had in this game was making moneys.

Then you're going to be doing voidwatch and not really doing kings. SE have cut down ways to make gil honestly but it's still possible. You'd make more money selling the HQ pops to pop Nidhogg and KC tbh. But there's not nearly enough to spend it on these days unless you're buying upgrade items for mythic/empyrean weapons.

(This next one is a long shot but what the hell) Is there any way other than buying gil to make tons of gil at low levels? I am fucking broke, selecting ninja as my main class was a bad idea. I've done the Norg fame and ninjitsu scroll quests(180+ yagudo bead collection was FUN) but Utsusemi: ni is 2 fucking million gil. Not really sure I can take on Maat without ni. I can't even afford some of the other :ni spells.

XP a ton. Get Dominion notes and exchange them for augmented weapons and NPC them for up to 7kish a weapon. Or use cruor and buy chocobo blinkers and NPC them.

My second go-to class would be Bard. But I've been told Bard is crap now, after a while sitting in jeuno I noticed no one seemed to lfm for bards. Either it's just bad luck or people just don't need bards any more?

BRDs are needed in Voidwatch and to proc grellow in Abyssea but no one needs them to xp with anymore. Abyssea killed the BRD dependancy somewhat but they're still useful.

In the grand scheme of things what would be best to level?

Do the BCNMs for Ni and maybe level NIN. Otherwise, PLD, WHM, WAR, MNK, BRD, BLU or even BLM will all get you into most things but BLM is freaking expensive right now.

[Midnightjade]

Eldelphia, thanks for these replies. I got back a couple months ago and to be honest am still figuring a few things out - this information was helpful.

[Rehn]

Most vw shouts I've joined usually ask me if I have almace/ochain or a combo of relic/empy on PLD, so just a heads up if you do decide on PLD.

[solid278]

Hello! Apologies if I'm posting in the wrong thread. I've been on-again-off-again playing FFXI since NA launch, but mostly off again I believe I got my WAR to ... 34? Right around there, finally, about two years ago. Well, hearing it's much easier to level now etc I've wanted to come back. Essentially, I'm interested in the plot, IE, completing the main quests and those of the expansions. My dream is to have a high level character and just be able to freely move through nearly any zone, but more than that, I want to feel like I *beat* the game, in as transient a way as any MMO is beatable, at least. I don't care about endgame content if there's no real plot to go along with it (Ie, I'm not one to search after high level gear etc, or beat an NM just to say I did). So, how doable is this nowadays? I really don't have *that* much time, but I'd like to finally be able to close the book on this game, ten years later. I hear most missions are solo-able or duo-able at higher levels. The last thing I remember doing is getting the airship pass, finally... so at least that's out of the way, and I completed the subquest job too. I was up to rank 5 I think? So yeah, how long would it take (very roughly) to complete the story, and how simple an affair would it be to do and level up high enough to be able to do it mostly by myself? I've heard that with Abyssea now one can level up to 99 in a few days, but I'm coming from pre-Abyssea days, and I don't have any friends online (the few people I talked to I'm sure have left by now... But I was Cyfa on Leviathan I believe, if anyone remembers me?), so I'll have to start Abyssea content fresh. Anyways, apologies for the rambling nature of this question!

[Draylo]

You can't beat a MMO.

[TSFFXI]

You'll have to buy the abyssea expansions; they're available as a bundle. Unlock all of the maws and confluxes -- maps are available on multiple wikis.
Make your own EXP groups to get from 30-99: shout in Port Jeuno until you have 18 people. You can find information about keying and party set ups in other posts. Read a little bit about Abyssea beforehand and then just hope you have one or two good players. Alliances are pretty flakey a lot of the time, so you'll probably need to make more than one.
After keying in abyssea, you'll have to cap your skills: Use Zvahl Fortalices for melee skills if you're lazy or just find something in the appropriate skill range and hit it. I'd suggest Generals in Besieged for support magic, and worms under Kuftal Tunnel for offensive magic (silence them first). You can find plenty of information on skilling up in other posts and threads.

You're going to have trouble soloing the storylines as WAR. Mage jobs will have a better a chance, but there's probably going to be at least a few fights where you need to team up. SMN, BST, BLU or RDM probably have the best chance. You can find information about the jobs and the gear and spells you'll need on bgwiki, ffxiclopedia, or ffxiah (forum section).

You've stated that you're not interested in end game gear, but you will need decent gear and a fast trigger finger to solo a lot of the more difficult mission battles.

As far as missions go, anything released up to the last mission of Wings of the Goddess is worthwhile. Abyssea's storyline, while interesting, can be explained in one sentence and the final cutscene is the only visually interesting one. The others are infuriatingly simple. Voidwatch does have a storyline, but it's not very interesting yet.
Certain quests have tie-ins with the main storylines. An example is the Star Onion Brigade quest line, which ties in quite heavily with the Windurst missions.

Leveling from 30-99 will take 2-3 weekdays if you account for alliances disbanding, etc. Skilling up can take a few days and is generally pretty boring. Once you get to the Lv.80 cap for weapons, they'll skill up to the 99 cap naturally while you're fighting stuff. Offensive magic skills cap very quickly compared to defensive magic skills. There's a lot of cheap, decent gear now, but you will need gil to work with. Use myffxigear.kicks-ass.org/ to find cheap alternatives to stuff you can't afford. You can find posts regarding earning gil.

It will take some time to do, but I think you'll find it to be a pretty memorable challenge.

[solid278]

Exactly what I wanted to know, thanks! I suppose through leveling I'll end up meeting people who wouldn't mind helping me through some of the storyline battles, that or perhaps I'll give SMN a shot. I've always been a bit interested in that job.

[Isiolia]

Exactly what I wanted to know, thanks! I suppose through leveling I'll end up meeting people who wouldn't mind helping me through some of the storyline battles, that or perhaps I'll give SMN a shot. I've always been a bit interested in that job.

One thing to keep in mind regarding XP is that you'll need to do all the limit break quests, which will slow you down a fair bit on your first job. You can usually take care of a couple of them at a time, but still, makes it harder to just zip to 99 in quite as little time as stated.

[solid278]

Yeah, I was looking them up and they seem like quite the hassle.. Blergh. Oh well! Just reinstalled etc so I guess I'll see how far I get. Anyone on Leviathan willing to help by any chance, I'm Cyfa