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[Gentleman Jack]

Just got billed, thought it would be interesting to reflect on my first month back:
- Bastok, Zilart, CoP and almost all of ToaU missions clear
- RDM and THF to 99, wearing sparks rags, DNC close and 4 subjobs to choose from
- WotG to Mission 4
- one dynamis city run down
- Died maybe ten times total?
- A small army of alter ego trusts
- bags to 70 (never any peiste leather )
- 750k gil on hand

In 30 days I've gotten further in the story than I did in nearly four years of playing, so that's a phenomenal feeling since I do like the storytelling in this game.

Some of the new jobs are really interesting to play. Dancer is great. I'm interested in BLU, SCH and GEO next. Double exp, RoE rewards and the exp ring is quite an addicting combo!

I'm feeling some of the pain of being on a somewhat low pop realm.
- I was never comfortable shouting for help, so it feels better to farm things on my own, but crafting was never anything but agony in FFXI and the gutted materials market makes it worse. Not having basics for Gobbiebag/Mog Safe expansions and AF3 quests readily available at the AH has blocked me hard a few times.
- The world feels somewhat empty at times. I remember seeing parties everywhere back in the day. You'd be on a chocobo through yuhtunga and watch 3-4 parties frantically trying not to die on linked pulls, or you'd see people fishing everywhere (sometimes they weren't bots!). I miss that populated sense of the world, even more so now that the behemoth event is over and people have drained back to their usual hangout spots (Adoulin zones, presumably). Soon enough I'll be at that point in the storyline (Been doing things in fairly canonical order) and hopefully it'll be less lonely.

I'm still undecided how far down the endgame rabbit hole I want to go. I intend to do Dynamis to its conclusion (I do love the story attached to it), and I've been looking into the other stuff, but I get bad flashbacks to the poorly constructed endgame activities back before I quit and I don't know if I can really fit in with that part of the FFXI community again. It got intensely toxic my first go around. Maybe it's better now. It's those memories though that drive me to see how far I can get solo. I'm grateful for IHOP and the help I've gotten for things like Rank 6, the final limit break and Dynamis. I just get uncomfortable when I feel like I'd be getting carried anywhere genuinely challenging since this game is so damn good at making you feel incomplete with rare/expensive spells, swapped gear and strange itemization gaps at every turn. It'll be interesting to see where my motivation comes from once I've capped the jobs I find interesting at 99. The last time I did this I got locked to BRD by my LS events and felt prisoner to the gear they 'gave' me, a lot of which I had to return when I quit. I'd rather not have that feeling again :/

 

[pancakesandsex]

Someone in LS might have leather or know someone who does. Farming mats first then shouting is also a good idea. If it's some basic progression thing you'll probably get a response from someone willing to do it pretty quickly. You can also stalk AH and find a crafter that way.

If it makes you any less apprehensive about endgame, I don't run anything like the pyramid schemes of yore, and once you're geared up in yorcia alluvion skirmish stuff you should be more than capable of participating (as in actually contributing) in high tier battlefields and delve and such. Gear distribution is typically "comment what you want and anything uncommented goes free lot" unless we're out at an event specifically to get a thing for someone. Most endgame activities can be set up ad-hoc and don't require more than 6 people to really get going (though job selection becomes more important with fewer people).

Most the people who are in the endgame shell I'm a member of (NU) are also part of IHOP and even join us for stuff sporadically. On Tuesday evenings I set up events that anyone can come to as long as they are willing to actively participate. I'll happily carry folks through yorcia alluvion skirmishes, but beyond that you've gotta want to play, not just be a warm body, so if anyone needs help doing that they should ask. I definitely want more people to be interested in this stuff. No one gets "locked" on one job either (though some folks get asked to come the same thing more than others, sorry talym D so having a few options is in your best interest to make sure an event can actually happen. Most of us are flexible in what we can come.

As far as spells go, there shouldn't be anything out of your reach monetarily nowadays. Almost everything is cheap (like sub 50k cheap) and the few spells that are a little more expensive can be gained from current content. Let people know you need things (like really, make a list of spells you're missing), because odds are, someone is getting that drop and it's just npc fodder to them.

 

[Gentleman Jack]

Farming mats first then shouting is also a good idea.

This is in fact the reason I leveled THF. ffxidb is also a godsend. Now for the awkward 'how much do I pay the crafter' calculations :X

 

[Almyn]

In 30 days I've gotten further in the story than I did in nearly four years of playing, so that's a phenomenal feeling since I do like the storytelling in this game.

It's pretty crazy for me to think about this really. In the past 7 days I have taken BST from 1-99, RDM and WHM to 50 and am currently working on BLM to 50 also, Not for any particular reason, Just because I can and it's fun. I am getting to lvl 50 in less time than it took me to get to lvl 10 when I originally started playing. I timed myself with WHM today and I got to 50 in under 2 hrs. Now if only skills were as easy to lvl up.

 

[Parshias7]

I'll add that there's not much "carrying" needed for Yorcia Alluvion Skirmishes, depending on what jobs you have leveled. I went in as a MNK/DNC in sparks gear, (although I had fleshed out my accessory slots) and was able to do just fine. If you're a melee job with decent evasion and can heal yourself, you'll probably do alright. And every party needs someone to handle the book, which is incredibly simple.

 

[pancakesandsex]

I'll add that there's not much "carrying" needed for Yorcia Alluvion Skirmishes, depending on what jobs you have leveled. I went in as a MNK/DNC in sparks gear, (although I had fleshed out my accessory slots) and was able to do just fine. If you're a melee job with decent evasion and can heal yourself, you'll probably do alright. And every party needs someone to handle the book, which is incredibly simple.

Honestly the (likely) minimal effort it took you to get those accessories goes a long way (it's also appreciated). Reading up on the event that drops the thing you want is also very useful. Just having the jist of what is going on will help a lot.

 

[Gentleman Jack]

These gear guides on ffxiah seem...outdated and generally poor. Guess I'll have to drudge up gear sets the old fashioned way.

 

[SilverArrow20XX]

Just beat Seekers of Adoulin. I've now completed all missions in the game. Gonna work on Abyssea story next. Already downed one zone boss. Might do quests to get maxed fame in all the Abyssea areas too for completionist's sake.

Got the Arciela Trust too. Seems to be starting a new story. Perhaps one of the new June update quests?

Spoiler

She's trying to solve the mystery of her father's disappearance and mentioned looking in the library for info. I can't find any info on a quest though.

 

[pancakesandsex]

For the folks that were interested in events, we have been doing delve the past few weeks. Had a number of successful shark runs last week, and I plan to set up more.

 

[Gentleman Jack]

Still playing the catchup game, trying to get several classes up to cap before I start the bayld grind to be borderline acceptable as a carry haha

 

[ZetaEpyon]

Still playing the catchup game, trying to get several classes up to cap before I start the bayld grind to be borderline acceptable as a carry haha

Honestly, if you have a job at 99 with sparks gear, you're probably already good to go for stuff like Alluvion Yorcia skirmish - it's a pretty low bar to clear. And doing that'll get you decently enough geared for other stuff.

Usually shouldn't be bad to get people for Yorcia alluvion either - it's easy, doesn't take long, and is generally quite profitable.

 

[Gentleman Jack]

Honestly, if you have a job at 99 with sparks gear, you're probably already good to go for stuff like Alluvion Yorcia skirmish - it's a pretty low bar to clear. And doing that'll get you decently enough geared for other stuff.

Usually shouldn't be bad to get people for Yorcia alluvion either - it's easy, doesn't take long, and is generally quite profitable.

My priority so far has been getting somewhat acceptable accessories but the AH is barren and finding bazaars in the old world is a huge crapshoot. This week I was going to make a big push to break into the adoulin content so maybe I stand a better chance of walmarting my way to a level I'm comfortable when it comes to joining groups of strangers :V

 

[Sheppard]

, wearing sparks rags, /

What are sparks rags?

 

[pancakesandsex]

What are sparks rags?

http://www.ffxiah.com/search/item?q=espial

http://www.ffxiah.com/search/item?q=outrider

http://www.ffxiah.com/search/item?q=wayfarer

 

[SilverArrow20XX]

Still playing the catchup game, trying to get several classes up to cap before I start the bayld grind to be borderline acceptable as a carry haha

I'd recommend just doing Courier Coalition delivery quests. After around 10 days worth of imprimaturs being used on those you'll unlock Support: Morimar Basalt Fields. Just warp to Bivouac 5 and warp back. Gives 8400 bayld per 3 imprimatur run. So every 5 days, just spend all 15 imprimaturs, and net 42k bayld for absolutely no effort or time. No need to grind bayld later.

 

[BasicMath]

Leveling feels so slow now at 70+. Im in the bastok mines leveling and getting something like 1k per mob which is translating to 40-50k per hour once everything is factored in.

I know next to nothing about current leveling camps so is this good? Bad? Mediocre?

 

[Sheppard]

http://www.ffxiah.com/search/item?q=espial

http://www.ffxiah.com/search/item?q=outrider

http://www.ffxiah.com/search/item?q=wayfarer

Oh you can get those from the RoE correct?

Also Jack I am also playing catch up and can most likely help you with anything you are doing as well. Just let me know. Branagh is my in game name.

 

[Gentleman Jack]

Oh you can get those from the RoE correct?

Also Jack I am also playing catch up and can most likely help you with anything you are doing as well. Just let me know. Branagh is my in game name.

Spending this week unlocking Adoulin stuff, most of it is questing but once I can progress through missions I'll likely need help now that I can't simply plow through everything with sparks gear and trusts.

Keeping a sharp eye out for accessory gear in bazaars but damn, even adoulin is a ghost town.

 

[pancakesandsex]

Spending this week unlocking Adoulin stuff, most of it is questing but once I can progress through missions I'll likely need help now that I can't simply plow through everything with sparks gear and trusts.

Keeping a sharp eye out for accessory gear in bazaars but damn, even adoulin is a ghost town.

I recommend looking on AH for stuff you would like to have, finding out what drops it, and trying to get it by doing content. AH gear has been largely non-existent for the past year or 2 outside of expensive stat rings (ifrit's ring etc) and the few pieces of SU gear that no one cares about due to the materials required to craft it coming typically from content that drops better gear.

 

[Mika]

Spending this week unlocking Adoulin stuff, most of it is questing but once I can progress through missions I'll likely need help now that I can't simply plow through everything with sparks gear and trusts.

Keeping a sharp eye out for accessory gear in bazaars but damn, even adoulin is a ghost town.

FFXIAH also keeps track of items that pop into people's bazaars. It's not super-accurate and up-to-date, but you can keep an eye on it in case there's a specific piece you're looking for.

 

[B.K.]

I recommend looking on AH for stuff you would like to have, finding out what drops it, and trying to get it by doing content. AH gear has been largely non-existent for the past year or 2 outside of expensive stat rings (ifrit's ring etc) and the few pieces of SU gear that no one cares about due to the materials required to craft it coming typically from content that drops better gear.

Speaking of those rings, do you know anyone who could craft a Shiva Ring +1 and Fenrir Ring +1, if I get the materials? I really don't want to pay 16 million gil on the two of them. I already spent over two million last week on gear.

 

[pancakesandsex]

Speaking of those rings, do you know anyone who could craft a Shiva Ring +1 and Fenrir Ring +1, if I get the materials? I really don't want to pay 16 million gil on the two of them. I already spent over two million last week on gear.

Sadly I don't. The one goldsmith I knew quit. I still need a fenrir ring +1 myself.

 

[Brandon F]

Just got billed, thought it would be interesting to reflect on my first month back:
- Bastok, Zilart, CoP and almost all of ToaU missions clear
- RDM and THF to 99, wearing sparks rags, DNC close and 4 subjobs to choose from
- WotG to Mission 4
- one dynamis city run down
- Died maybe ten times total?
- A small army of alter ego trusts
- bags to 70 (never any peiste leather )
- 750k gil on hand

In 30 days I've gotten further in the story than I did in nearly four years of playing, so that's a phenomenal feeling since I do like the storytelling in this game.

/

Interesting. The last time I played this game was at PC launch in '02 or '03? I forget, but the only memory I really have was staking out territory on a beach grinding crabs for seemingly days on end for a subjob item requirement(or maybe a chocobo pre-req drop). I don't think i lasted two months into the sub and never looked back.

The game seems to have really come a long way since then.

 

[Gentleman Jack]

The game seems to have really come a long way since then.

Alter Ego NPCs keeping downtime to near zero and trivializing missions/quests to soloable difficulty are the big factor here. Stacking exp bonuses are what gets people from 1 to 99 in a weekend. It's realy crazy how quickly you can just experience the story, FF11's strongest point by far.

 

[pancakesandsex]

OH MY GOD CUTE.

I had better fucking be able to feed the turtle rolanberries.

 

[SilverArrow20XX]

Just emailed FFXI-CHORUS my part of the chorus. Anybody else doing it? Starting to think I'll have a solo. Ended up recording over a hundred takes of it. Hope I'm actually in the song after all that.

 

[pancakesandsex]

Just emailed FFXI-CHORUS my part of the chorus. Anybody else doing it? Starting to think I'll have a solo. Ended up recording over a hundred takes of it. Hope I'm actually in the song after all that.

I don't have anything to record on worth a damn, just a shitty boom mic so I'm gonna pass, I like that they are doing that though.

 

[Parshias7]

How much of abyssea is soloable? I've been skilling up my weapons on SAM this week, so I'm just about at the point where I have most of the red proc WS on a single character. (I know WAR or NIN can get all or nearly all of them at once, but I don't really want to level one of those jobs to 99 just for abyssea)

I have the atma gifts from the giveaway a little while ago, but otherwise I haven't done much in abyssea beyond the stuff you can buy from cruor prospectors. I want to get the materials to upgrade the SAM Epyrean body, but I see that the crafting material needed to get it to il109 comes from a high tier NM spawn, and I don't know if I can handle it on my own.

I'm working on getting the seals at the moment, but it is such a grind. The body seals only drop off NMs that require a chain of events just to spawn them, and I'm finding that its not even guaranteed that the intermediary steps will let me continue on in the process.

 

[pancakesandsex]

How much of abyssea is soloable? I've been skilling up my weapons on SAM this week, so I'm just about at the point where I have most of the red proc WS on a single character. (I know WAR or NIN can get all or nearly all of them at once, but I don't really want to level one of those jobs to 99 just for abyssea)

I have the atma gifts from the giveaway a little while ago, but otherwise I haven't done much in abyssea beyond the stuff you can buy from cruor prospectors. I want to get the materials to upgrade the SAM Epyrean body, but I see that the crafting material needed to get it to il109 comes from a high tier NM spawn, and I don't know if I can handle it on my own.

I'm working on getting the seals at the moment, but it is such a grind. The body seals only drop off NMs that require a chain of events just to spawn them, and I'm finding that its not even guaranteed that the intermediary steps will let me continue on in the process.

Honestly it's exponentially less annoying with a group of people that can TH and proc. If you have a job that can cover a number of the procs and fill in the blanks with blm etc you'll have a much better go of it.

 

[Parshias7]

Honestly it's exponentially less annoying with a group of people that can TH and proc. If you have a job that can cover a number of the procs and fill in the blanks with blm etc you'll have a much better go of it.

I guess I should see if anyone else in the LS needs abyssea stuff. Don't think I've ever seen a shout for it.

 

[pancakesandsex]

Update preview:

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/47433

June 25th.

 

[Almyn]

From the update preview

Key items necessary to progress in some missions will be added to the Curio Vender Moogles' merchandise lists.

Hmm I wonder if that would include things like the bronze key where I spent an hour or so killing low level enemies to progress an early Promathia mission. If so, It sounds good.

 

[Gentleman Jack]

Adjusting difficulty of "The Gustaberg Tour"
Adjusting difficulty of "The Kuftal Tour"

'can now do solo' is probably the adjustment here. I think there are players who've been on FFXI since launch that haven't finished Gustaberg Tour.

Kind of surprised they're bothering with Eco-Warrior. I did that once exactly, many moons ago, just to get it out of my quest log.

 

[Loona]

'can now do solo' is probably the adjustment here. I think there are players who've been on FFXI since launch that haven't finished Gustaberg Tour.

I managed to get those done, but with Gsutaberg Tour in particular the problem is it's a level 5 quest - you can't sync to that level, or delevel back to it.

Kind of surprised they're bothering with Eco-Warrior. I did that once exactly, many moons ago, just to get it out of my quest log.

I'll be glad to get those done - having them be mutually exclusive was additionally annoying...


Now I wonder if they'll ever tweak All By Myself...

 

[B.K.]

What's a good place to solo CP besides Dho Gates? It seems like there's always someone there. I've heard about butterflies in Outer Ra'kaznar, but I don't know where they are.

 

[Stimpack]

Ah, man. I got back into it, but my character is on Asura and I'm not going to pay that much for a transfer =(

 

[pancakesandsex]

Ah, man. I got back into it, but my character is on Asura and I'm not going to pay that much for a transfer =(

Watch the active campaigns, maybe they will do another server transfer campaign next month around the next rhapsodies update.

 

[Gentleman Jack]

Hopefully they do more server merges too. Since the XIV expansion is launching I barely even see AH mules logged in

 

[pancakesandsex]

Hopefully they do more server merges too. Since the XIV expansion is launching I barely even see AH mules logged in

They said not till after rhapsodies is all out. I would look for some around the time ps2 and 360 get shut down.

 

[Stimpack]

Watch the active campaigns, maybe they will do another server transfer campaign next month around the next rhapsodies update.

Will do. is the server very active?

 

[pancakesandsex]

Will do. is the server very active?

As a whole, it's not the most active, but the linkshell is plenty active.

 

[twentytwo22]

Just reactivated, I'm coming back! (Shikkousha)

What should I be working on as far as what's new in the last ~8 months? AF3+2 is probably a good place to start.

 

[ZetaEpyon]

Well, that happened.

 

[Gentleman Jack]

I, what?

How?

Really?

 

[ZetaEpyon]

It was amusing - we autoattacked Jailer of Love to death (plus a couple sneak attacks to proc TH), and then just stood there and took down Absolute Virtue with the usual Rudra's Storm spam.

2x THF/DNC plus trusts, probably took 5 minutes total to do both fights.

 

[Parshias7]

Here's a link to a cool skill up .lua I found searching around online:

https://github.com/smd111/Gearswap-Skillup

I used it to cap healing and enhancing magic pretty easily, although I had to modify it a bit to cast the spell on a trust rather than myself.

I was hoping to use this as an example to write my own looping RA script to skill that up, but this thing is super complicated! Is there a lua programming basics guide out there?

 

[Madchad]

Came back the other day playing in a British linkshell on Ragnarok atm.

Amount of stuff thats been added is a bit overwhelming but im getting use to it.

Trust system is OP. Gutted i missed that OP exp ring

 

[Moobabe]

Since this was £2.50 on Steam (with a free month) I thought I would go back after years away from the game.

Wow - it's almost unrecognisable to me. I've had a few cut scenes already introducing me to some of the expansions (I think?) I'm moving faster, levelling at insane rates and the world is so quiet now.

I'm glad I picked it up to be a party of my Steam collection but playing it is, I think, making my longing for the "vanilla" game that much stronger.

 

[pancakesandsex]

Since this was £2.50 on Steam (with a free month) I thought I would go back after years away from the game.

Wow - it's almost unrecognisable to me. I've had a few cut scenes already introducing me to some of the expansions (I think?) I'm moving faster, levelling at insane rates and the world is so quiet now.

I'm glad I picked it up to be a party of my Steam collection but playing it is, I think, making my longing for the "vanilla" game that much stronger.

Are you on sylph? I'll get you a pearl.

 

[Parshias7]

Since this was £2.50 on Steam (with a free month) I thought I would go back after years away from the game.

Wow - it's almost unrecognisable to me. I've had a few cut scenes already introducing me to some of the expansions (I think?) I'm moving faster, levelling at insane rates and the world is so quiet now.

I'm glad I picked it up to be a party of my Steam collection but playing it is, I think, making my longing for the "vanilla" game that much stronger.

There have been times recently when I wonder how I even put up with some of the shit this game pulled when I used to play.

I think it was the final SAM AF quest, it had me starting in Norg, moving to Jeuno, then to Mhaura, then to Bastok, then to the BC in the mines, then back to Norg to finish. If I had been doing this quest back when I was originally playing, it probably would've taken me all day to go around these areas, not to mention grabbing some LS folks to do the fight. These days? Took like 30 minutes. I am really glad at how much they've cut down on the walking and walking and sitting around for 30 minutes for a ship ride.

Although the solo-friendly ways of leveling and doing some of the missions came as a hard shift once I did make it to 99. Sitting around in town to hear yells for skirmishes or other events can be kind of a pain when you're used to being able to go out and get stuff done at your own pace. But then if the whole game was soloable it just wouldn't be FFXI.

It was definitely trippy my first day back to just go around through older areas with absolutely no one else around, though.