General Tips for FFXI

[Conrad]

This is kind of specialized and less helpful for brand-new players, but it's something that I think bears mentioning because I can't convince my fellow bards to do it.

When you use Soul Voice as a BRD75, save Troubadour and Nightingale for the last minute of your 2hr. Activate SV, sing songs, wait until the timer is at 1:58:00, and then activate Troubadour and Nightingale. Your Soul Voiced songs will last an extra two minutes or so longer than they normally would. Coupled with the first set of songs at the beginning, and assuming you cast them right before SV wore off, your party should have a total of roughly 7 minutes with double-potency songs.

[Bagel]

Learn what mobs aggro. Sometimes different types of the same monster aggro while some don't, but they almost always aggro the same things (sight, sound, casting, low hp, etc) as a species. Along with this, always have a stack of Silent Oils and Prism Powders, just in case. This will save you time and exp in the long run.

[Stiker]

Above all else, the most important advice is to get as much information as possible about anything. Never fought a NM before? Read up on it. Never done a certain event before? Read up on it. Think you know everything about your job? Read up on it anyways.

If there is one common thread between a shitty player and a good player it is always information. Knowledge is power in this game and there are now TONS of resources. Make sure however, you don't use only one source. Use a combination of sources and cross check them. You have FFXI Wiki, BG Wiki, BG Forums, KI Forums, and hell even the Alla forums can provide useful information as well. One final note on sources, ASK OTHER PEOPLE QUESTIONS. More often than not, you will get helpful people that will answer if you are nice about it.

There is no excuse for in-game ignorance.

Other /sea tips:

If you are looking for people seeking, use the inv flag, ex:
/sea all RDM inv | /sea all SAM 75 inv

If you don't know the search abbreviation for a zone, you can use quotes around the full name, ex:
/sea "Windurst Waters" | Auto-Translate works too! /sea "{Windurst Waters}"

Other Random Tips:

Calling for help is one of the easiest mistakes to make in the game. NEVER select disengage from the menu, use these two commands to safely disengage:
CTRL + A, /attack off (/attackoff works too)

If you are in any event like Dynamis that invovles tons of slept mobs you need to learn two things, assisting the main tank, and turning auto target off.
Assiting: /assist "NameofTank", Auto Target Off: /autotarget off

All you need to know about in-game commands: http://evansims.com/gaming/final-fan...macro-commands

If you are hunting lower level NMs, also try to farm what you can around the pop area for gil. For instance, in hunting for the Moster Signa I went 0/21, however, by farming Yag Necklaces/Feathers, Beehive Chips, and Honey in the area, I made enough gil to outright buy the staff and have a small profit.

All I can think of for now. ^^

[Catalysm]

If you dont have someone targeted and you /c <name> them then you wont lose the check if they change gear.

[Callisto]

Don't leave town without Echo Drops if you cast anything, and some form of Sneak and Invisible. Even if you can cast the spells Sneak and Invisible, you may want to carry Silent Oils and Prism Powders just in case your spells wear in a bad spot.

[Tan]

Don't join a shout sky LS. Shit never ends well.

Also if you are trying to level a job to 75 never sit there looking for group, always make your own PT's, its always faster.

[Grey Jorildyn]

Be open to advice from players that you know are knowledgeable about the game. Too often low level players want to "play my way". While we all pay the same per month, FFXI is a party-based game. You are going to do 95% of everything in some form of a group, whether it be an alliance, a party, or 2-5 people. Play for the party, not for yourself. Pissing people off will only limit the pool of players to pull from later when you need help with something! There is nothing worse than someone who cannot work in a group. It will help you and help them too and that's what this game is all about.

[Aable]

To disenguage
/attack off <t>
100% imposible to accidentally call for help if you do this

[Redshift]

Don't forget you have a real life. This one is tricky.

[Mabubeezareel]

AH:
As soon as you enter a bid on at item at the AH, you can see the results of your bid immediately by canceling out of the AH menu. It will normally take 2-3 seconds for the results to be listed in the chat log, but escaping/canceling from the AH will automatically display whether your won the item or not. I find this to be useful when I'm bidding on anything that I'm certain to win (e.g., stacks of crystals) and am in a hurry. It could also backfire though if you don't win the bid, since you have to go back into the AH to rebid.

DRG:
You can "cancel" your wyvern's healing or elemental breaths by disengaging from the mob (including killing the mob) after you WS or cast a spell, but before the wyvern's breath occurs. This can be useful in some situations (those puddings in Salvage, or storing a Wvyern's TP for DL), or detrimental in others (Healing Breath not going off because the mob died before its breath finished).

[SamanosukeShiva]

Don't give your account details out, trust no one unless he/she's within murder range (in Real Life).

this

[nitsuj]

If you are trying to do /sea "AREA NAME" as listed above, keep in mind if you haven't been to "AREA NAME" before, it won't work.

A level 1 player doing /sea "Dragon's Aery" will always return 0 results since he's never been inside that zone.

[Liseth]

If you're asked to Stun something specific, I.E. Gates of Hades, Fulmination, Firaga 3 w/e
go to Config > Misc. put your damage to be displayed on the screen instead of the log. It'll clean up all log considerably. Also Stun from the menu only, because macros tend to be faulty for time sensitive actions.

[Valisk]

Don't give your account details out, trust no one unless he/she's within murder range (in Real Life).

Don't even give it out to people near you if you want to be 100% safe. No amount of shooting, stabbing, fighting, or threatening will get your stuff back once it's gone.

[Spekkio]

This is kind of specialized and less helpful for brand-new players, but it's something that I think bears mentioning because I can't convince my fellow bards to do it.

When you use Soul Voice as a BRD75, save Troubadour and Nightingale for the last minute of your 2hr. Activate SV, sing songs, wait until the timer is at 1:58:00, and then activate Troubadour and Nightingale. Your Soul Voiced songs will last an extra two minutes or so longer than they normally would. Coupled with the first set of songs at the beginning, and assuming you cast them right before SV wore off, your party should have a total of roughly 7 minutes with double-potency songs.

also, always use night before troub. night cuts cast/recast time and is most critical for casting your SV songs so troub doesn't kill your ability to get all of them off in window. as such, if it wears mid cast, it may take an extra 20 seconds for you to be able to cast ballad again. big woop. meanwhile, if troub wears mid song, you took the casting time penalty, but you're pissing away 2 perfectly good minutes of SV songs. night>troub always. and don't forget to get an elegy in while night is up if you can. saves you some headaches later if the mob gets resistant to elegy after a few casts. also if it's a salvage boss or something you don't sleep, sticking a requiem 6 can do an awful sum of damage for the 2 seconds it takes to cast. iirc, it's 11 pts of damage a tick w/ requiem flute doubled up to 22/tick for a bit over 4 minutes means almost 1800 damage. NI/TRO are very valuable tools, but easy to misuse. be sure to use them effectively.

[Ksandra]

learn to <scall> people don't use that anymore makes me sad ;;

The difference fyi is <call> causes ps2 controllers to vibrate, <scall> does not.

[MrBubbles]

Ya srsly, don't give out your account info to people you don't know in RL, even if they are a good friend of yours in game.

I've always found useful on RDM is to go in Configuration and Colors and change the beneficial status effect color to like super bright white. Makes it really easy to spot something you need to Dispel if you have alot of things going on in log, also works for other jobs ie Ultima/Hydra doing a Shield move.

[Alistaire]

learn to <scall> people don't use that anymore makes me sad ;;

The difference fyi is <call> causes ps2 controllers to vibrate, <scall> does not.

and <vcall> only makes controllers vibrate.

To new players: You gain a reputation in this game. Pissing people off for short-term gain, or playing poorly (going afk without saying, or various other things) will cause you to lose out/not get invited to party/linkshell/whatever in the long run.

[Amele]

Tip 256: Buy a controller, Create a Macro for everything and using the menu is almost always faster than typing.

tip 257: if you're a fast typist; type everything - when you have 130+ spells, I guarantee that the 11 keystrokes it takes to cast will be faster than the (potentially) 19+ button presses and you don't have to count on your ability to memorize the location of a spell in addition to its name.

edit: and then you don't have to put down the controller every time you want to talk.

[Alistaire]

Along with that, make as short a name as you can get away with. When you're in dynamis taking 50/tick from poison and the only one who can poisona is in another party, you'll be glad they're not trying to type out /ma poisona Omgifoundthelongestnameevarexclamationpointoneone