I think I'm finished; a new player's final thoughts

[Afania]

Now your doing the same thing, don't speak for the entire FFXI community, I don't care if people don't agree with me, its the state of the game, and people just don't want to admit it, and they think their precious FFXI is different from WoW and other P2P models, and as for "forcing" something onto this game, its already happening, open your eyes, your as bad as Afania, like I said, been playing the game for years, love the game, but how can one player force something on a game, the game is catering towards the casual, get over it, its happened, its not my opinion, its how it is.

Except nobody is being "denial" about FFXI changing in entire thread. I said I'd like certain aspect of FFXI stay the same, that doesn't mean I pretend FFXI isn't changing.

Also not sure why are you stating the obvious if it's "not your opinion".

First you call "elitist with 1200 hr of playtime" look down toward everyone else, even though nobody in this entire discussion was being elitist, then pulled "lineage2 got sub increase after game direction change" conclusion out of nowhere with zero support data, then you said you're just stating fact, not opinion, when obviously everyone are aware of the fact that FFXI changed, then you said don't care if people disagree with your opinion.....so why are you even posting if you have no point to prove? lol

Missing the point in every post, at it's finest.

[L0IRE]

Except nobody is being "denial" about FFXI changing in entire thread. I said I'd like certain aspect of FFXI stay the same, that doesn't mean I pretend FFXI isn't changing.

Also not sure why are you stating the obvious if it's "not your opinion".

First you call "elitist with 1200 hr of playtime" look down toward everyone else, even though nobody in this entire discussion was being elitist, then pulled "lineage2 got sub increase after game direction change" conclusion out of nowhere with zero support data, then you said you're just stating fact, not opinion, when obviously everyone are aware of the fact that FFXI changed, then you said don't care if people disagree with your opinion.....so why are you even posting if you have no point to prove? lol

Missing the point in every post, at it's finest.

I never said people in this forum were being Elitist, I was referring to how he was treated in-game, if you go back to my first post and read it, stop changing my words to suit your means, you just wanted to get in on the drama half way through a conversation, like I said before, I'm not going to hold your hand to make my point "lineage2 got sub increase after game direction change" conclusion out of nowhere with zero support data" go look for yourself, you just keep coming back to that cause your too lazy to go look for yourself, I could care less if you get the point, don't need to sit here all day and argue with children, last post, won't be responding to anymore, and good luck with what ever you were trying to get out of this conversation, the whole thing just basically proved the kids point about the D-bags in this game crying "back in my dad", good for you you grinded back in the day when the game was "good" with no ones else and you never complained...make sure to put that on your resume, PEACE!

[Crevox]

The question becomes: why do people play an MMORPG? For what reason would someone pick up FFXI?

I can guarantee you that the majority of people do not go MMORPG hunting for a good story (and thus, do not enjoy sitting there doing missions all day). The story is a nice thing to have, but people do not find FFXI and go "wow, this game looks like it has a good story, I'm gonna try this MMORPG." People play for a variety of reasons, the biggest probably is to play with friends.

Personally, I play them for the gameplay. The combat. The leveling. The character growth. All of that, put in a multiplayer setting against enemies, and you can have a fun time. That's not to say I don't enjoy the story though; I do. However, I more so enjoy playing with my friends and other people as a player of a massively multiplayer online role playing game. This game actually does a great job of all of this, however, it's starting to make it much harder for you to feel it and get there, mostly due to all the requirements.

For someone like me, I do not enjoy doing nonstop fetch quests; especially when they hold absolutely no difficulty, and they take an extraordinary amount of time, often for no real reason. It is a large time dump. Chains of Promathia was a major offender here. The majority of the quests involve absolutely no combat, and when they do involve combat, it lasts for about 10 seconds and then it's back to running somewhere again. Yes, that's because it's easy now, but either way, it's still boring, especially alone. At some point, I would've loved to go and do it just to see the story, yeah, sure. The problem is that I don't have a choice. I have to do all of this stuff (Zilart, Promathia, Aht Urhgan) for various reasons just to be able to do the content everyone else is doing. And NONE of those 3 things involve me playing with friends or anyone else. Going through Promathia with a friend is not an interesting experience; it's just you both doing it at the same time, no different than you both playing the same single player game across the room from each other.

Why does a "rush to end game" exist? Because I want to play with people. I want to party up, and fight powerful foes, and reap rewards for it. I want to work together with my friends and other people to secure a victory. I want to work towards the same goals as them, and by working together, achieve it. If you look at the things I've done in the past month, that never happened. The closest thing you could say was an EXP party, which I did enjoy. Leveling up was fun. And, you know, with it being the thing you do in MMORPGs, that fits just fine. Being forced to go and do years of old content (which the majority of it is just travel and following some guide telling you where to go) is not fun. It's a chore. Not just a chore, a time-gated chore (you can't keep doing this, gotta wait for Japanese midnight). On an off-topic note, this is pretty much my biggest problem with my Mythic weapon being the best weapon in the game for SMN: the best weapon in the game is achieved solo by grinding for months through time gated content.

So, what did I do in order to reach that scenario? To able to party up with people and play with them? I did what I had to. I researched a lot on what I had to do. I did all the long, arduous requirements. I went around the world and finished all the sidequests I needed to do. I gathered gear from tons of old content, solo, in order to get my character in tip-top shape. I went to obscure locales for items that serve absolutely no relevance to my friends. They certainly have no reason to take that journey with me; they get nothing out of it, and I don't need help with it, it just takes time. And now, finally, after a month, I feel that I am in a state (not an optimal state, but good enough) that I am ready to present myself and fight alongside others. However, I still have not finished Zilart (so I cannot do AA) and I have to work on 20+ days of coalition in order to do Wildskeeper Reives. Beyond that, it's difficult to find a party for anything, let alone a party that will accept me for what I am. Even IF I could find a party, there's still no guarantee I even know what I should even be partying for, especially with all the acronyms used in game.

Then, of course, there's that aura of uncertainty. After this month of playing, what do you think my experience level (not actual character exp, I'm referring to the concept) with partying is? How often did I party up with others and practice playing my class (hint: it's very minimal)? Am I really ready to fight something that's going to be challenging? What do people expect of me? Am I going to screw it up? Am I geared enough? Do I know the mechanics of the encounter, is there something I need to know? Are they going to even accept me if I tell them it's my first time? There is a LOT to understand when it comes to doing these things; and people are not going to assume you don't know, or ask if you don't. They often times just won't tolerate you if you don't.

And that's the other thing: nothing is really explained in this game. I don't think people on this forum understand what it's like to not know anything about the game. In order to learn, someone has to teach you, or you have to read and try to understand the guides online (note: this will take hours due to the amount you have to try to grasp); and even then, they don't teach you everything, especially when it comes to common community ideals and how they do things. Getting into my first Abyssea party was actually difficult. I had no idea what I was doing; what are lights? What is cruor? Where do I go? Should I use this traverser stone thing? What if I screw up and run out of time? Am I going to get more time? I asked multiple party leaders to invite me, telling them it's my first time, and they ignored me. They can't be bothered to explain how it all works, and that was only after I somehow figured out that I should go to the Abyssea in La Theine, and learned that this "Abyssea" thing was actually a good place to EXP after 75. There's no set path of progression in this game, and even now, I am left confused often on what to do. Where should I go next? What should I be doing? These are common questions asked nonstop of new players. What the heck is a Chains of Promathia? Should I bother doing those missions? What will I get out of it? Naturally, often times, they have no one to answer these questions; the game certainly doesn't tell you. The game doesn't even tell you that "this NPC will start the Chains of Promathia story line" so you don't even know what you would be getting yourself into if you listened and did what he wants you to do (see my complaint about the random cutscenes a new player gets for zoning into Jeuno). So what do they do? They go and level up. Leveling up is the clearest, most obvious goal. Apparently, however, this somehow gets classified as "rushing to end game", I guess.

Review all of the above, again, and consider why new players don't stick with the game. Also remember that the community could easily help the situation, however, they're doing the exact opposite, and making things worse.

So now, I began my journey into Adoulin, once again asking these same questions. What is skirmish? Why should I do it? Where are the missions? How many of these coalition assignments should I do? What is bayld for? What's a reive? What should I be doing out here? Why are people fighting the random mobs, is it for exp? Are there quests I should be doing somewhere from some random NPC? What are these weird items I'm getting? Yes, once again: none of it is explained in game. I was able to answer some of those questions by looking at the wikis and stuff, but others, I still have no idea.

Finally, please do stop assuming things of me and everyone else. Not everyone comes into this game expecting "WoW" or to get everything instantly. You need to look at it from a different angle for once.

[Kincard]

I'm going to ignore some of the responses around here because a lot of them are just unnecessarily inflammatory (And being XI's internet defense force isn't going to help the game any).

Pretty cool of you to post this, actually, Crevox. I've played the game since it launched stateside and it's interesting to hear the kinds of frustrations I would expect a newer player might run into. It's true that a lot of the things in the game are convoluted, and I think a lot of it has to do with a revolving door of developers that patchworked the game for over a decade, to the point where there is stuff that is there and serves no real function (the Colosseum in Aht Urhgan was never used, for instance).

The thing is, Seekers of Adoulin was designed almost entirely with people like you in mind. To be blunt, a lot of the things you did weren't necessary at all. I don't think it'd be at all necessary for anyone to do the majority of the old content, because a large amount of it was phased out. Right now, to wear the most up-to-date gear (The reforged artifact armor +1), you need:
-Rem's Chapters 6~10, which can be obtained solo or in an exp group using Records of Eminence
-A crafting material, which can be either obtained through hard mode difficult+ SKCNMs or hard mode Ark Angels
-The original AF
Consider what you need to actually do for that:
-Don't need to do a single mission (You need to be rank 6 + cleared zilart to do Ark Angels, but the hard mode BCs do not require any)
-Don't need to gather any old content outside of your AF (Which is something I think you should do anyway since the storyline for your class is sort of a big deal, it's not asking you to go gather 5 golden goblin ribcages for some obscure old lady)
-Don't really need to grind much old content's gear (take a look at the adoulin and records of eminence gear and you'll understand why, it's all designed specifically to be very easy to get as "starter" gear for new players hoping into the group scene)

In other words, they're trying to design a game in a way so that they can both keep their long-time players and newcomers alike happy. The problem is pointing newcomers in the right direction has not been done very well if your confusion is any indication. If you had done the past events you would certainly have an advantage, but it is not necessary to do endgame, just some of it. I do agree that in the future they should try to add non-mission gated and mission gated content at the same time so people like you don't get left out though.

One unfortunate part is that you chose one of the most newcomer-unfriendly jobs in the entirety of the 22 job system. They should have an official for this somewhere because I would definately list SMN at the bottom of the choices a newcomer should pick. While a few years back they made it easier for you to get the prime avatars at level 20 (They used to require long and difficult level 60 quests that were at the time quite difficult and fame-intensive), they left the difficulty in obtaining ones such as Fenrir, Odin, Alexander and Diabolos because they were supposed to be like quest rewards (think of some of the other FF games where you had to go get "secret" summons or somesuch, it's in the similar vein, except EVERY prime avatar used to be that).

As for Mythic weapon, however, never ever think that that is necessary for your job, I am against alleviating the requirements for it just as much as every other hardcore player, and I know you think that's odd, but the entire point of the legendary weapons was that they're supposed to be rare and powerful long-term project weapons that not everyone has. If you want you can make a joke about epeens or something go ahead, but they made sure to balance the newly-added high level weapons so that they would not be an absolute requirement (in some points in the past they were which caused all sorts of problems, this is not nearly the case anymore).

Anyway there's a lot of stuff I might've missed from your post to respond to since there's quite a bit of it. I agree with you on some points and not so much on others, because I don't believe in removing every last gate there is because lifting those wouldn't be necessary to actually play the game.

[Lithera]

I picked up this game because of the story, to see if this newfangled Final Fantasy would still feel like one even though it was online, because a friend I knew was going to be playing it and because I had played up to that point almost every numbered FF title there was out there at the time.

Again there shouldn't be a rush to get to the end. If you do and then complain about how boring and easy old expansions are that is still on you the player. Only you, not the game, can choose if the four other expansions and add-ons are challenging or not. Trust me when CoP came out and us old timers walked into that part of jeuno most were wtfbbq is going on. Most of us even back then knew random CS normally meant a bad thing. Also with adoulin it has it's own site this is how we learned what all of this was same with abyssea. I'm not sure if the abyssea site is still up or not.

I also have a hard time believing that all new players have the diminished understanding that say a six year old would have and that they don't know how to pop out their inner Sherlock Holmes from time to time. Most expansion CS show or tell you the area to go to. Quests not so much most of the time. If you did do all of this research about smn as you say you did I'm surprised that no where did you run into anything saying they were no longer wanted by the majority of the player base for wildskeeper and delve. Though with the up coming promise of being able to do delve low man maybe it will have a chance to shine. I believe in the if the mob isn't trying to kill the mages then it can't be 100% a bad thing. Anyway you are either going to quit or not so most of this thread will be moot one way or another.

[Demonjustin]

Right now, to wear the most up-to-date gear (The reforged artifact armor +1), you need:
-Rem's Chapters 6~10, which can be obtained solo or in an exp group using Records of Eminence
-A crafting material, which can be either obtained through hard mode difficult+ SKCNMs or hard mode Ark Angels
-The original AF
Consider what you need to actually do for that:
-Don't need to do a single mission (You need to be rank 6 + cleared zilart to do Ark Angels, but the hard mode BCs do not require any)
-Don't need to gather any old content outside of your AF (Which is something I think you should do anyway since the storyline for your class is sort of a big deal, it's not asking you to go gather 5 golden goblin ribcages for some obscure old lady)
-Don't really need to grind much old content's gear (take a look at the adoulin and records of eminence gear and you'll understand why, it's all designed specifically to be very easy to get as "starter" gear for new players hoping into the group scene)

I just want to point out this is incorrect Kincard, you have to complete nearly all of the CoP missions in order to get Sea access and you have to have Sea access for Sagheera to talk to you, and you have to have her talk to you in order for you to talk to Monisette who upgrades your AF into RF. So through the chain you do have to complete almost all of CoP which is far from not needing to do a single mission. This was one of the complaints he made in another thread, and one I very much agree with him about not being something that should be required.

[Demonjustin]

Incase you missed it in all of the other posts Crevox, just wanted to say again, if you come to Phoenix you are welcome to join my social LS & there are a lot of people in it both friendly and helpful, we are a bunch of weirdos but were not the bad kind! So if you need a home in this game, and don't mind coming to Phoenix, we can offer you a place. Also I have a money making shell who could use SMNs and does events Sun~Wed @9/10 to 11/12 PM EST if interested in that as well, it would give you a chance to put your SMN to use in a group event while at the same time helping you fund anything you still need gear wise or need moving forward, joining that shell isn't up to me, but I doubt the leader would mind so long as you can follow directions for what we gotta do during the event. Either way, just wanted to throw it up here again incase you missed it and it sounds like something you might want to do. ^_^;

[Kincard]

I just want to point out this is incorrect Kincard, you have to complete nearly all of the CoP missions in order to get Sea access and you have to have Sea access for Sagheera to talk to you, and you have to have her talk to you in order for you to talk to Monisette who upgrades your AF into RF. So through the chain you do have to complete almost all of CoP which is far from not needing to do a single mission. This was one of the complaints he made in another thread, and one I very much agree with him about not being something that should be required.

Actually didn't know that/forgot about her. That's probably something they should change, then.

[Afania]

The question becomes: why do people play an MMORPG? For what reason would someone pick up FFXI?

I can guarantee you that the majority of people do not go MMORPG hunting for a good story (and thus, do not enjoy sitting there doing missions all day). The story is a nice thing to have, but people do not find FFXI and go "wow, this game looks like it has a good story, I'm gonna try this MMORPG." People play for a variety of reasons, the biggest probably is to play with friends.

Personally, I play them for the gameplay. The combat. The leveling. The character growth. All of that, put in a multiplayer setting against enemies, and you can have a fun time. That's not to say I don't enjoy the story though; I do. However, I more so enjoy playing with my friends and other people as a player of a massively multiplayer online role playing game. This game actually does a great job of all of this, however, it's starting to make it much harder for you to feel it and get there, mostly due to all the requirements.

For someone like me, I do not enjoy doing nonstop fetch quests; especially when they hold absolutely no difficulty, and they take an extraordinary amount of time, often for no real reason. It is a large time dump. Chains of Promathia was a major offender here. The majority of the quests involve absolutely no combat, and when they do involve combat, it lasts for about 10 seconds and then it's back to running somewhere again. Yes, that's because it's easy now, but either way, it's still boring, especially alone. At some point, I would've loved to go and do it just to see the story, yeah, sure. The problem is that I don't have a choice. I have to do all of this stuff (Zilart, Promathia, Aht Urhgan) for various reasons just to be able to do the content everyone else is doing. And NONE of those 3 things involve me playing with friends or anyone else. Going through Promathia with a friend is not an interesting experience; it's just you both doing it at the same time, no different than you both playing the same single player game across the room from each other.

Why does a "rush to end game" exist? Because I want to play with people. I want to party up, and fight powerful foes, and reap rewards for it. I want to work together with my friends and other people to secure a victory. I want to work towards the same goals as them, and by working together, achieve it. If you look at the things I've done in the past month, that never happened. The closest thing you could say was an EXP party, which I did enjoy. Leveling up was fun. And, you know, with it being the thing you do in MMORPGs, that fits just fine. Being forced to go and do years of old content (which the majority of it is just travel and following some guide telling you where to go) is not fun. It's a chore. Not just a chore, a time-gated chore (you can't keep doing this, gotta wait for Japanese midnight). On an off-topic note, this is pretty much my biggest problem with my Mythic weapon being the best weapon in the game for SMN: the best weapon in the game is achieved solo by grinding for months through time gated content.

So, what did I do in order to reach that scenario? To able to party up with people and play with them? I did what I had to. I researched a lot on what I had to do. I did all the long, arduous requirements. I went around the world and finished all the sidequests I needed to do. I gathered gear from tons of old content, solo, in order to get my character in tip-top shape. I went to obscure locales for items that serve absolutely no relevance to my friends. They certainly have no reason to take that journey with me; they get nothing out of it, and I don't need help with it, it just takes time. And now, finally, after a month, I feel that I am in a state (not an optimal state, but good enough) that I am ready to present myself and fight alongside others. However, I still have not finished Zilart (so I cannot do AA) and I have to work on 20+ days of coalition in order to do Wildskeeper Reives. Beyond that, it's difficult to find a party for anything, let alone a party that will accept me for what I am. Even IF I could find a party, there's still no guarantee I even know what I should even be partying for, especially with all the acronyms used in game.

Then, of course, there's that aura of uncertainty. After this month of playing, what do you think my experience level (not actual character exp, I'm referring to the concept) with partying is? How often did I party up with others and practice playing my class (hint: it's very minimal)? Am I really ready to fight something that's going to be challenging? What do people expect of me? Am I going to screw it up? Am I geared enough? Do I know the mechanics of the encounter, is there something I need to know? Are they going to even accept me if I tell them it's my first time? There is a LOT to understand when it comes to doing these things; and people are not going to assume you don't know, or ask if you don't. They often times just won't tolerate you if you don't.

And that's the other thing: nothing is really explained in this game. I don't think people on this forum understand what it's like to not know anything about the game. In order to learn, someone has to teach you, or you have to read and try to understand the guides online (note: this will take hours due to the amount you have to try to grasp); and even then, they don't teach you everything, especially when it comes to common community ideals and how they do things. Getting into my first Abyssea party was actually difficult. I had no idea what I was doing; what are lights? What is cruor? Where do I go? Should I use this traverser stone thing? What if I screw up and run out of time? Am I going to get more time? I asked multiple party leaders to invite me, telling them it's my first time, and they ignored me. They can't be bothered to explain how it all works, and that was only after I somehow figured out that I should go to the Abyssea in La Theine, and learned that this "Abyssea" thing was actually a good place to EXP after 75. There's no set path of progression in this game, and even now, I am left confused often on what to do. Where should I go next? What should I be doing? These are common questions asked nonstop of new players. What the heck is a Chains of Promathia? Should I bother doing those missions? What will I get out of it? Naturally, often times, they have no one to answer these questions; the game certainly doesn't tell you. The game doesn't even tell you that "this NPC will start the Chains of Promathia story line" so you don't even know what you would be getting yourself into if you listened and did what he wants you to do (see my complaint about the random cutscenes a new player gets for zoning into Jeuno). So what do they do? They go and level up. Leveling up is the clearest, most obvious goal. Apparently, however, this somehow gets classified as "rushing to end game", I guess.

Review all of the above, again, and consider why new players don't stick with the game. Also remember that the community could easily help the situation, however, they're doing the exact opposite, and making things worse.

So now, I began my journey into Adoulin, once again asking these same questions. What is skirmish? Why should I do it? Where are the missions? How many of these coalition assignments should I do? What is bayld for? What's a reive? What should I be doing out here? Why are people fighting the random mobs, is it for exp? Are there quests I should be doing somewhere from some random NPC? What are these weird items I'm getting? Yes, once again: none of it is explained in game. I was able to answer some of those questions by looking at the wikis and stuff, but others, I still have no idea.

Finally, please do stop assuming things of me and everyone else. Not everyone comes into this game expecting "WoW" or to get everything instantly. You need to look at it from a different angle for once.

I think the misunderstanding between new player and older player doesn't came from older player being rude/mean toward newer people. If you've post this first and explained your situation and the difficulty you're facing, instead of asking dev to kill the long term goal in this game, AND subtly hinted whoever supports/loves Mythic are no lifers, you would see a lot more positive reply, less negative reply.

Even the most successful old players start as lv1 new player, most of older players knows how the life of new player was, and pretty much faced same thing you've went through, besides minor difference such as longer but better lving experience via 6 man party. But ultimately, FFXI is a community focused MMO, even though it's a lot soloable now, at one point of time you still need to make friend with others, join a LS/static/group for stuff. Especially if you want to play less popular jobs. IMO, everything in FFXI is about interpersonal skills, less about actual skill/gear of a job. I know plenty of very skilled/well geared players that've played for years, still face the same difficulty you're facing now, because they don't value interpersonal skills very much. I sometime face the same difficulty, BUT I've been working on/maintaining my connection in FFXI for years, so it's sometimes easier to solve problems I face in FFXI compare with other players that don't work on connections at all.

Based on last post and your first post, I think one of the issue you have now is, you think you don't get party is because of game design/time gate/slow progress/lack of gear/wrong job/being new, and you're eager to bypass the step for party content. But IMO, the first priority is to build connections and get into existing group/LS. Lack of gear/job/progress is something pretty much everyone will face at one point of time, including older players. I still have friends/ls mate who've played for years can't get into DM due to lack of job/clear. The best way to solve all those issue, is to build better connections. You'll never solve the lack of progress/gear/job issue completely, the most useful skill that stay with a player for the longest time is connection building skills.


Anyways, if you still intend to play, here are some suggestion that'd help you to progress faster:


1. First thing you need to do, get used to send /tell to random strangers. It's a pretty good way to find a LS, get help, get answer. Back then when I just started, I randomly send /tell to other players to help with missions, or ask questions, and found a couple of social LS to join by sending /tell. I sometimes got /tell from other players asking questions too. FFXI players may seem quite, but most of the times, they don't downright refuse other players ask for help/ask questions in /tell. If you /shout in town, sometimes they just ignore it. But if you send /tell, plenty of players would feel "needed", thus are more likely to help.

Be polite though, sometimes they may not help you if they're busy/afk/about to log off. Never be rude/mean/frustrated just because you don't get the positive reply you want, keep trying. Players that are always thankful to others goes a long way, players often floodeded with negative emotion won't go very far.


2. Find a like minded, established social LS. Again, back when I was new, I rely on LS a lot(I got into LSs by sending /tell to random stranger "May I join your LS"). It's easier to get into party content, know what to do with a LS. The game doesn't explain anything, but most of the time a good LS would answer your question.

I'd say have a good LS or bad one would probably determine whether you enjoy this game or not as a new player, at least 90%. Different LS also has different organizational culture. Certain LS are more laidback, more likely to tolerate newer player and their mistakes, and more willing to use less popular jobs like SMN. But they may have higher fail rate or unable to attempt more hardcore content.

Certain LS are more hardcore, only do things in efficent setup, and often critisize gimps/newer players in LS chat. You may have much easier and faster progress in this kind of LS, but you may not feel comfortable in this kind of LS depending on what type of gamer you are.

There are also LS full of solo players, they don't do party content together as a LS, rarely ask "anyone want to do <insert content name>?" in chat, everyone just do their own stuff when they log on. If your goal is to do party content, and you don't want to start your own group, try to avoid this kind of LS too. Or at least get used to start your own group.

It is also better to find LS with members on similar progress as you. You don't want to see entire LS doing something you don't have access to/geared for. That's how you'd be frustrated with timegate stuff because you're eager to catch up. If you find a group/LS that's way ahead of you, try different group. SOMEONE out there has to be not that far ahead. Trust me, they exist, no matter how unlikely it seems with low server pop.

3. Be nice, positive, humble and respectful, all the time, regardless who you're dealing with. There are many different type of player in this game. There are nice elitist, bad elitist, terrible players with shitty attitude, terrible players with good attitude, terrible players think they're elite, no lifers with everything but play terribly, casual players that doesn't take the game seriously, and the list goes on. You may not like everyone, but at one point of time you may need them, and vice versa. No matter they're 1200hr no lifers with 10 mythic and an obsession with mythics, or casual players with shitty gear that doesn't give a fuck about gear swap and fuck up every run, they're all fundamentally, another human being sit in front of the PC. FFXI is a small community, and sometimes it's frustrating to beat party content without connections. You may think I'm not exactly nice to new player, but it's more of a reaction toward no-lifer comment, not because the player is new or belong to different group.

If you find no-lifers running around showing off their accomplishment, don't downright label them as no-lifers wasting their time, keep their accomplishment noted, maybe give them a few compliment IF they're not downright rude toward others. You'd make other players a lot happier while playing this game by giving compliment to others, and in return, they'll be more willing to help you AND make your life happier too. If you run into players always fuck up every run wearing terrible gear play the job like shit, give them time and 2nd chance in the future. You don't necessary have to pt with them again right away, but sometimes give them a little suggestion/help they can do a lot better next time.


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Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime.


Other people already answered many specific question you had, but eventually you may face even more frustration and questions. If you followed the above suggestion, it'll help a lot. I don't consider myself master everything in suggestion No.3 either, it takes time, but in the end you will get rewarded for it. You may think a lot of the difficulty you're facing is new player only, but it really isn't. I still ask questions in this game all the time, even after nearly 5 years of playing. I still find myself needing help, and I still find myself unable to catch up with progress, all the time. This is life, this is FFXI.

Anyways, whether you choose to continue or not in the end, gl.

[Siviard]

To the OP

I don't post very often on here, but after reading your initial post, I can tell you what your first and most critical mistake was. You chose to play on Asura server

Asura is known to be the server with the most hardcore players and is not friendly towards newer or casual players. I truly believe that if you had started on a server that had a more laid back attitude and is friendly towards new/returning/casual players, your FFXI experience would have been much more enjoyable.