FFXI dying or in a dry spell? [Archive]

Elphy

10-05-2012, 04:46 AM

I dunno, I'm not seeing a lot of these problems myself, except a lack of VW city shouts. I think the problem with those is more that there are no incentives for people to keep doing most city fights anymore.

I usually just grab two-three people for seals, and 3-4 for +2 items, and I usually don't have a lot of trouble finding people for that among the people in my LSes. I think the best way to go about most things is to look for people near your own level of progression, and see if you can get to know them and try to do stuff together regularly. Make a plan for which jobs would be smart to level, and have the person who enjoys those jobs the most level them. I'm not saying you should level a job you don't like it, but for in example seal farming, you just need one person who enjoys playing blm, and another person who enjoys playing any kind of tank, and you're good to go.

The only issue with this is that most ppl do not want to lvl themselves after 30, they simply pay rmt to do it for them and not only do I not like supporting rmt, I do not have 500k+ gil to spend on lvling 1 job a few lvls. So finding ppl for progression is rather difficult in the lvling catagory and if you do not have either an e/r/m for dd/tanks or magian staffs for mages + top notch gear your SoL when it comes to getting into any endgame anyway. And like I said, finding ppl to lvl with is hard enough but also rallying a group around your same progression point to get stuff done is even harder if not impossible. Ppl get what they need and leave or come with on a run or two, get bored and never come back. So you sit in pj and /sh for an hr or so and then just log out.

And when it comes to getting atma/cats/zone wins for bosses that do not drop empy items forget about it.

It was so easy for returners or newbies for awhile and now the game has become immensly new/returning player unfriendly.

Elphy

10-05-2012, 04:49 AM

Demon6324236

10-05-2012, 04:54 AM

If you need a ls I can give ya a pearl to my ls. Not the best LS ever, mainly social but we try gettin some higher end content done & can help ya gear jobs ya need in time. Tbh though, as far as Emp/Relic goes its not often really a requirement, more often than not a decent Haste & WS build along with a lv90+ wep is good enough.

Mirage

10-05-2012, 05:10 AM

I'm not in agreement with that (edit: not your post, demon, but the one before that). While there are constantly some sort of probably-RMT-but-not-always PL party running, I often see people leveling up without this.

Even if there isn't a GoV party/alliance going on somewhere every time you're logged in, you can actually levelup reasonably fast with two people, targeting the right mobs while doing pages, for so to join bigger GoV parties when they show up. Of course, you might not reach level 75+ in a day, but I would say if it takes more than a week, you're doing something wrong. Even if a week might sound like a long time for a single job to 75, I seriously don't think it is a severe issue to have a job abyssea-ready just a week after you decided you wanted it.

As for the endgame, inside abyssea (which really isn't endgame anymore), it doesn't really matter that you don't have top notch gear, because almost anything is killable with far less. After abyssea, you can get by doing procs in VW without insanely good gear as well, and here you have a chance (well, the same low chance as everyone else) to get pretty good gear. Magian staves might be required for serious mages, but they are not difficult to do by any definition of the word (and you do not need every element). Time consuming, yes, impossible to solo/duo, absolutely not. As a white mage, the only trial you'll probably want help with is the two elementals/pixie stages, but with just a single DD helping you, this can be done in 4 lightsdays. Personally, I did the bottled pixies on whm as well, clubbing yagudos to death for so to teleport to drop them off.

As a whm, you also are in luck because you can kill (almost) anything in abyssea with just a monk or ninja on your side, and a pretty decent chunk with a thf or dnc too. Also, the gear requirements are not too extreme for a whm wanting to do outside-abyssea stuff either. Arka IV, +1 empy (+2 pants/hat as soon as possible), the best cure potency body you can afford (or if you get lucky with augmented battle trophy gear, you can get up to 15% potency on a facio bliaut), /sch sub and you're already gotten a long way.

As for DD jobs, yes, there is some people who will not accept anything but an empy, but at the same time, some jobs have options that are very close in terms of performance, weapon wise. OA2 greatswords with resolution, TP bonus great katana for samurai with shoha, for example. These weapons are much less time consuming to make than empys.

But I might have a skewed impression because I am good friends with 2-3 others that would help me out even without there being something in it for them. However, if you offer your healing to the right people for things they need, I am sure you could get them to help you with what you need. Switch it around. Your stuff for 1-2 hours, their stuff for the next 2 hours, etc.

Demon6324236

10-05-2012, 05:19 AM

Perfect honesty here, I have been VWing on my friend's character as a SCH in Teal with little more than a couple random Aby pieces he had (Jeweled Collar with MND/INT augments, Searing Cape, cheap AH earrings/ring, Fast Cast Ammo) and the NQ all-element staff. With this I have been doing T3~4 Jeuno NMs, mainly Kaggen, Akvan, and Bitchani, so I wouldn't say mage gear is really all that important, just need the spells to proc, perhaps SCH or /SCH to make up gimped skills if need be, and your good to go with BLM/SCH procing.

Dunno about healing, cant see it as being to bad if you have the temps to support your MP as well as knowing how to heal a party/alliance well, and a few rag tag potency pieces such as +1/2 head, 1 of the many cure staffs off AH, and a Nobles or augmented Dom Ops body.

Mirage

10-05-2012, 05:31 AM

MP regeneration is really the main issue for whm, but /sch does a lot for your cures with the new cure formula, as well as reducing the effective cost of a 850hp cure 4 to as little as 30-something mp with orison legs +2. On top of that, there's sublimation, of course, though you might want to drop that if you're lucky enough to have a rdm in the party with refresh 2, I dunno. To be honest, I haven't done an extreme amount of VW on WHM, but I have done a few. There is a chance you won't be the only whm in there too, so you could cooperate to devotion each others for a significant mp restoral.

I'll be honest and admit that to begin with, it will require some assistance most of the time to get anywhere, but the amount of assistance required is not huge. When you get a linkshell, the best thing you could do to improve your situation is to offer a lot of services to them, and after a while you will hopefully find someone in the LS that you go along well with, and that you feel is returning an adequate amount of favors back for what you help them with. That is probably the best way of doing it.

As for farming gold chests for KIs, that's probably the most efficient way of doing it even if you're not doing it alone. I'd say you should join him and help him out. With you along for the ride, he can get an additional pop set per session, and you can get the other drops that aren't glavoid shells. In the process, you will probably get KIs for a lot of other pops there too, which you could team up with the same person to kill for their drops. Additionally, doing potentially 25 glavoids, there is a good chance you'll end up with enough cards of balance to upgrade your orison pants from +1 to +2, which is a very significant upgrade for whm.

Additionally, when he is done with glavoid shells, he'll probably want to do this cute guy (http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Itzpapalotl), which also drops the items you need to create orison cap +2.

Nawesemo

10-05-2012, 07:44 AM

Seekers of higher edumakation grasshopper. That am some really new toys coming out... It's happened before and will again.

Zagen

10-05-2012, 08:25 AM

Maybe your server is truly dead but I highly doubt it.

Lvling is done mostly solo as book burns are few, even the FC pts have come to virtually a stop.
RMTs either get banned or have finally realized gil buying just isn't worth it anymore to most players. "Lead your own". Start shouting for a worms party, even if you don't have keys get 2 keyers and fill the rest with DD/mages. It's not hard to get EXP unless you're lazy.

VW /sh have become few and far between (took me 2 months to get the 3 cities and Im still stuck on Jeuno 1 for progression, the other paths I have no hope for).
Again "lead your own" to get clears, can't find a full 18 people? Don't worry up to Jeuno is doable by a party, might have to kill time to use /fume to reset staggers if they don't happen to be what you need but having a WAR and BLM in your group covers a lot of procs reducing the odds of falling short on 100% white !! for KIs you'd need/want. Once you get to Jeuno if you can't entice enough people to join still then don't worry there's displacers to help out.

Again only a problem if you're lazy or happen to have a terrible play time where everyone who speaks your language is asleep and/or at work.

Havent heard 1 /sh for meeble burrows yet or any other form of endgame.
You don't have at least 2 friends? If your answer is "no I don't" then why play a MMO? If you still insist on playing a MMO without friends and are unwilling to make some then I point you back to "lead your own"

Nearly impossible to get ppl for CoP, ToAU, WotG missions and so on. Even empy item and seal pts are nearly impossible to fill.
Again where are you friends? Still don't have 'em? Hop on Beastmaster and make friends with Faithful Falcorr. Feed it and medicate it as needed and your new best friend will help you accomplish all of these.

I have tried setting up pts for all the above and after at least an hr I give up.
This is your problem, There was one person shouting for days to get the final limit break done. I wondered what happened to them as the shouts disappeared one day and you know what, they were on a 99 job...

A friend of mine actually has been working on an empy for awhile since he needs glavoid, he said the easiest/fastest way he found to get it done is to gold box farm the KI and then just brew them til you get 50 drops.

Absurd.
WAR + RDM (WHM if you're worried about curing potential for some reason) all you need to gold box farm, also all you need to kill Glavoid. No brew, and yes it is absurd how ridiculously easy it is to get any emp weapon done especially now that we're at 99 cap.

Mostfowl

10-05-2012, 12:04 PM

All the above in Zagen's post is totally true...

if you have the ability to lvl, which agreed is hard these days even with all the easy exp

all those displacers he talks about is great...if you have the gil to buy them but since you dont have gil to burn for exp its doubtful you do for displacers.

Friends are hard to find due to the lack of interest in helping returners and new players by the current population and even the difficulty of finding a ls that will take you so yeah I can see not being able to get missions done

Hopping on bst is an answer, but if you dislike the job you shouldnt be forced to play it to accomplish the basics of the game.

War+Rdm is an answer, again you need to actually have those jobs at 99, which you are having problems getting and you stated you had a lack of atma problem.

List goes on.

Needless to say, all that crap is easy for him to say im sure as he has probally been around for ages and did everything when it was shiney and new and easy to accomplish and has built a steady group of linkmates, something thats not the easiest thing to do if your new or recently returned. Plus he probally has enough gil to fund what he wants and needs or has the crour oor means to make alot fast.

So basically he is a troll and its best to ignore him.

This game HAS been slowing down, moreso than usual it seems. Heck my xiv server is busier than my xi server, and thats sayin something. It's not at all new player or returner friendly and thats being reflected in the ppl who start out and quit. We had tons of ppl who joined our ls that were new, we were helping out and still just up and quit out of frustration. The new producer needs to address these issues first and foremost because the numbers do seem to be dwindling. Ive noticed a loss of nearly 1k players online during peak times lately, and thats huge.

Its easy for ppl like Zagen to talk but I can understand your dilemma

Rambus

10-05-2012, 04:13 PM

I recently came back. SoA was too much temptation and things went really good for awhile. Now it seems you can hear the crickets chirp most days.

Lvling is done mostly solo as book burns are few, even the FC pts have come to virtually a stop. VW /sh have become few and far between (took me 2 months to get the 3 cities and Im still stuck on Jeuno 1 for progression, the other paths I have no hope for). Havent heard 1 /sh for meeble burrows yet or any other form of endgame. Nearly impossible to get ppl for CoP, ToAU, WotG missions and so on. Even empy item and seal pts are nearly impossible to fill. I have tried setting up pts for all the above and after at least an hr I give up.

Where the heck is everyone?

I think FFXI is dieing, here is my experience when i came back.

*put flag up for an exp pt and nothing happens*
I shout why this is
The reply was people are too lazy to search or make part's anymore, they just wait for shouts.
*Goes afk and out for a few hours*
No tell, no shouts no nothing. One day i even searched every abyssea zone and it was like 10 or less people in each.

Then I see a strange shout something about 300k/3 hour, 800k/10 hour, looking for keyer pst

whatever i forget the line but i was like ooh exp maybe i can get 99 now!
(I have all jobs 90+ so keying is not appealing)
So I sent a tell to them saying "I can key but I can do good damage so I can be replaced by someone who really wants to key.
The reply was > "Keying does not cost money"
I thought a while if i really wanted to join this because I hate the "Pretend to understand you"

so after a while they asked me will you join? I said ok

So i ran to this party and saw a ton of nakked people, anon people , etc.. I was like no way.. So i asked the person that went to pull "RMT?" The reply was "RMT not rude." I said > "I did not say anything about RMT being rude" they said> "I know"

Then after they pulled the person was no doing nothing but getting beaten on by like 30 mobs. They had to use hp items, a rdm chainspell cures them and finally they start wsing the mobs. The war died and went after the rdm so i tried to kill a few and a few more linked but most depopped. I was not prepared for any of this so i end up dieing with the war and rdm.

Then I found out it was common for RMT to make parties -.-

sad day when RMT are more active then players, regretting banning people for stupid things yet? like the unfair savage bans or banning people for making too meany trades between two accounts?

Since then I had a LS member make a pt by shouting so now i have 3-99s now.

Maybe it is because of old me but i hate starting parties off shouting. I mean a year go it was not an issue to see 10-80 people looking for party and asking people to party.

Once I saw 900 people on worldwide....

Hard to find people farming seals or +2s unless it has to do with an emp path.

Sure getting DNC,PLD,BLM, and w/e the 4th job was, was nice getting them with no effort but getting that last blue body seal is sure a pain. (I/E NMs that drop KIs for emp weapon drop nms are easier then random nms that does not drop them)
(YAY for having 19 balance jewels on mule but no jewels of voage -.-)

It feels like no one exps because everyone has all the exp they need, in the old days everyone exped because you had to make up for the lost exp doing events -.-

Now said endgame events gives you exp too, so annoying no one wants to do anything, or does less.

Even if there isn't a GoV party/alliance going on somewhere every time you're logged in, you can actually levelup reasonably fast with two people, targeting the right mobs while doing pages, for so to join bigger GoV parties when they show up. Of course, you might not reach level 75+ in a day, but I would say if it takes more than a week, you're doing something wrong. Even if a week might sound like a long time for a single job to 75, I seriously don't think it is a severe issue to have a job abyssea-ready just a week after you decided you wanted it.

My pre ATU (art urtgan (I can't spell this)) self wanted to die reading this. back in my day you where happy if you got 75 in 6 months.

I have no idea what these pages are since all my jobs where 75 when abyssea came out XD

hiko

10-05-2012, 05:04 PM

i think SE should set a "recommanded server" for new/returning player and offer transfert to this server only for account that got reactivated (add a minimum inactivate time to prevent people transfer char only for cross server purchase)
this way it is easier for people to find player to team up

there is "a lot" of returning/new player but they are spread on different server

Mirage

10-05-2012, 05:39 PM

I think FFXI is dieing, here is my experience when i came back.

*put flag up for an exp pt and nothing happens*
I shout why this is
The reply was people are too lazy to search or make part's anymore, they just wait for shouts.
*Goes afk and out for a few hours*
No tell, no shouts no nothing. One day i even searched every abyssea zone and it was like 10 or less people in each.

You're doing it wrong if you're waiting for a shout. You need to be proactive. Enter abyssea, put your flag up, go to the usual camps (either worms, dolls, or something like that), and do a "/sh Party Can I have it? <job> Do you need it? Please invite me." right where they are fighting, then you'll either get a spot right away if they have a party slot free, or within 10-15 minutes if you need to wait for someone to leave. This works roughly 90% of the time for me.

A lack of exp party shouts isn't a sign of the game dying, it is a sign of most people having the jobs they like at 99 already, and only spend time getting gear/making money instead of exp/merits. This is however also why SE needs to severely increase the amounts of merits we can get, so that those who are currently capped on everything would start meriting again, letting low-levels get help with leveling up. Adding enough merits to require something like ten times as many merit points as what it takes to cap out today would be all right.

Group 3 job merits that have huge merit point costs, come on, do it, SE.

My pre ATU (art urtgan (I can't spell this)) self wanted to die reading this. back in my day you where happy if you got 75 in 6 months.

I have no idea what these pages are since all my jobs where 75 when abyssea came out XD
So then what is the problem? Even without a burn alliance, you can still do it 20 times faster than in the old days. That sounds to me like there is absolutely no problem in getting levels.

Vold

10-06-2012, 12:21 AM

Where the heck is everyone?

Their content since Abyssea has been a big step backwards. So what players they held on to during Abyssea are now being lost post Abyssea. It's just not very fun end game content. Or maybe it's not so much fun factor as it is being compelled to play. As I said before, I miss the days of old end game. I felt compelled to go to sky or sea or whatever because it was damn interesting. Just like Abyssea(copy paste zones aside) VW ain't interesting. Legion ain't interesting. Etc.

lllen

10-06-2012, 12:23 AM

My server is also very very quiet, one day there were only about 900 people on, use to be close to 2k. No shouts lately, except the occasional VW. Have seen one leigon shout since it started. I've played a few years, done my duty and leveled up several jobs the old fashion way. Love being able to lvl quickly on jobs that I'm already skilled up on, Dnc...have dagger from thief who got her skill from my Rdm. But Jeuno is dead was beginning to wonder if while I was a way for 3 weeks new place became the favorite hang out. But just like my Job boomed because of school starting if that isn't the reason that things have quieted down on the server.

Mirage

10-06-2012, 12:26 AM

Legion generally isn't shouted for, because the event is pretty demanding and people generally go with people they know are good, not random pick-ups.

Zagen

10-06-2012, 12:39 AM

Needless to say, all that crap is easy for him to say im sure as he has probally been around for ages and did everything when it was shiney and new and easy to accomplish and has built a steady group of linkmates, something thats not the easiest thing to do if your new or recently returned. Plus he probally has enough gil to fund what he wants and needs or has the crour oor means to make alot fast.

So basically he is a troll and its best to ignore him.

This game HAS been slowing down, moreso than usual it seems. Heck my xiv server is busier than my xi server, and thats sayin something. It's not at all new player or returner friendly and thats being reflected in the ppl who start out and quit. We had tons of ppl who joined our ls that were new, we were helping out and still just up and quit out of frustration. The new producer needs to address these issues first and foremost because the numbers do seem to be dwindling. Ive noticed a loss of nearly 1k players online during peak times lately, and thats huge.

Its easy for ppl like Zagen to talk but I can understand your dilemma

It's easy for me to say because I have done it on extra characters... Guess what I do have gil but at the time all of that gil was for me not my mule so that doesn't apply.

Here's the secret since you can't figure it out.

1. Start the game, pick your race, and pick your job (the first one you pick doesn't matter as the items they give you are trival at best)

2. Switch to MNK, why? Because it's easy to pound on monsters and you don't actually ever need a weapon for 1-30, don't get me wrong weapons and armor help but not much at this point.

3. Level up to 10-14. Make sure to use Fields of Valor (http://ffxi.gamerescape.com/wiki/Field_Manual) or Grounds of Valor (http://ffxi.gamerescape.com/wiki/Grounds_Tome) pages as you'll get bonus EXP from completing them and once a game day you'll get gil and tabs. I recommend Grounds of Valor personally as it scales up the EXP/Gil/Tabs.

4. Make your way to Gusgen Mines (Page 1 from the book btw). If there aren't people actually there leveling (odd but happens) then head back outside to highlands and grind away until 16-18 range then go back inside as you can solo the skeletons now, and beat up skeletons until 26. You could move further down to hit 30 but it becomes sketchy on safety at that point. Once you're 26 you can shift over to several different locations, check the FoV/GoV links to see what works out.

5. Now that you're level 30 you'll notice a few things: You're gimp but that's ok at this point pimp doesn't matter. You have no sub job (find the quests (hint: search "sub job quest") on the site I linked for FoV/GoV and you'll be on your way. Here's the cool thing now that you're level 30 MNK you can go do all of the advanced job quests that you want, with the exception of SCH (sort of) read up on the jobs from that site (gamerescape) and you're good to go.

6. Let's say your goal is making gil fast then your 2 jobs to unlock and focus on are Dancer and Beastmaster. Repeat steps 1-4 on both of those jobs.

7. Now that you have Dancer and Beastmaster at 30 you can leech them in Abyssea. It'll take you a few hours to hit 50 level cap. If you got Dancer to 50 and don't plan to level it to 99 at some point you can forget about that job as it is ready for a sub job and can focus on Beastmaster.

8. Again refer to gamerescape or any good resource you prefer for your information. With info in hand so to speak complete the limit break quests and return to leeching in Abyssea. Note: thanks to a lot of changes SE has made excluding the final limit break quest you can now solo all of them.

9. Congratulations you now have a level BST95/DNC47 which is more than enough to start farming Dynamis. Here's the catch you need to do missions to gain access to Dynamis as all you've done up to this point is level up jobs. Again refer to whatever source for info you want. Also you'll have to skill up axe which is fairly easy to do especially on BST since you can make your pets do all the tanking allowing you not to worry about keeping your HP up.

10. Congratulations you've gotten access to Dynamis and can begin making 1mil+ gil 2hours out of every day.

So ya it's easy for me to talk not because I have an established character or friends but because the game is seriously that easy to play if you aren't lazy and spend time researching instead of crying.

Nawesemo

10-06-2012, 12:54 AM

It's easy for me to say because I have done it on extra characters... Guess what I do have gil but at the time all of that gil was for me not my mule so that doesn't apply.

Here's the secret since you can't figure it out.

1. Start the game, pick your race, and pick your job (the first one you pick doesn't matter as the items they give you are trival at best)

2. Switch to MNK, why? Because it's easy to pound on monsters and you don't actually ever need a weapon for 1-30, don't get me wrong weapons and armor help but not much at this point.

3. Level up to 10-14. Make sure to use Fields of Valor (http://ffxi.gamerescape.com/wiki/Field_Manual) or Grounds of Valor (http://ffxi.gamerescape.com/wiki/Grounds_Tome) pages as you'll get bonus EXP from completing them and once a game day you'll get gil and tabs. I recommend Grounds of Valor personally as it scales up the EXP/Gil/Tabs.

4. Make your way to Gusgen Mines (Page 1 from the book btw). If there aren't people actually there leveling (odd but happens) then head back outside to highlands and grind away until 16-18 range then go back inside as you can solo the skeletons now, and beat up skeletons until 26. You could move further down to hit 30 but it becomes sketchy on safety at that point. Once you're 26 you can shift over to several different locations, check the FoV/GoV links to see what works out.

5. Now that you're level 30 you'll notice a few things: You're gimp but that's ok at this point pimp doesn't matter. You have no sub job (find the quests (hint: search "sub job quest") on the site I linked for FoV/GoV and you'll be on your way. Here's the cool thing now that you're level 30 MNK you can go do all of the advanced job quests that you want, with the exception of SCH (sort of) read up on the jobs from that site (gamerescape) and you're good to go.

6. Let's say your goal is making gil fast then your 2 jobs to unlock and focus on are Dancer and Beastmaster. Repeat steps 1-4 on both of those jobs.

7. Now that you have Dancer and Beastmaster at 30 you can leech them in Abyssea. It'll take you a few hours to hit 50 level cap. If you got Dancer to 50 and don't plan to level it to 99 at some point you can forget about that job as it is ready for a sub job and can focus on Beastmaster.

8. Again refer to gamerescape or any good resource you prefer for your information. With info in hand so to speak complete the limit break quests and return to leeching in Abyssea. Note: thanks to a lot of changes SE has made excluding the final limit break quest you can now solo all of them.

9. Congratulations you now have a level BST95/DNC47 which is more than enough to start farming Dynamis. Here's the catch you need to do missions to gain access to Dynamis as all you've done up to this point is level up jobs. Again refer to whatever source for info you want. Also you'll have to skill up axe which is fairly easy to do especially on BST since you can make your pets do all the tanking allowing you not to worry about keeping your HP up.

10. Congratulations you've gotten access to Dynamis and can begin making 1mil+ gil 2hours out of every day.

So ya it's easy for me to talk not because I have an established character or friends but because the game is seriously that easy to play if you aren't lazy and spend time researching instead of crying.

/clap (also, don't expect people to be interested in your stuff, if your not interested in theirs..... AND. When we were unsure we were afraid and timid it took a lil inititive, bravery even to take that first step and start shouting, gathering , orginizing..... Its not something everyone does well, but just like sex the more you do it the better at it you get...... Be bold, and not being a pecker head allways helps.)

svengalis

10-06-2012, 01:53 AM

A friend of mine actually has been working on an empy for awhile since he needs glavoid, he said the easiest/fastest way he found to get it done is to gold box farm the KI and then just brew them til you get 50 drops.

Absurd.

If he can gold box farm he can just buy the pop items and farm the other 2 NM. That's what I did anyway. I duo box farm glavoid pops and then brewed them all down myself. Much faster then FC. I have seen ninjas solo all 4 ki.

Collavoce

10-06-2012, 02:12 AM

Note: thanks to a lot of changes SE has made excluding the final limit break quest you can now solo all of them.

Without wanting to derail the thread. I have started levelling an alt since I had switched to FFXIV and was bored of my hume when I came back. I'm making my way through low levels on all jobs (to have some money put aside and boost skills) but I have been worried about finding people for the Genkai quests, since they weren't soloable last time I did them and I've been completely unable to find a social shell on Siren.

Does anyone have information on the changes that were made to G1-3?

Demon6324236

10-06-2012, 02:29 AM

1 is now getting the items from 3 ???s in the area rather than killing mobs. 2 doesn't require the NMs to be killed for you to run behind them and get the KI from the ???s so you can solo it, you just might have to die to do it. 3 has always been soloable if you have sneak/invis & are careful around the TSight/Sound.

Mirage

10-06-2012, 02:29 AM

-edit-
Seems like I don't know shit!

Zagen

10-06-2012, 02:32 AM

Without wanting to derail the thread. I have started levelling an alt since I had switched to FFXIV and was bored of my hume when I came back. I'm making my way through low levels on all jobs (to have some money put aside and boost skills) but I have been worried about finding people for the Genkai quests, since they weren't soloable last time I did them and I've been completely unable to find a social shell on Siren.

Does anyone have information on the changes that were made to G1-3?
Link to changes for Limit 1 and 3 (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/23649)
Changes to Limit 2 and 5 (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/21200-dev1095-Limit-Break-Quest-Adjustments?p=285010#post285010)

Collavoce

10-06-2012, 03:33 AM

Thanks for the replies! Probably going to be good for me since I focused on THF first to make cash. :) Perfect Dodge + Flee FTW!

hiko

10-06-2012, 03:34 AM

It's easy for me to say because I have done it on extra characters... Guess what I do have gil but at the time all of that gil was for me not my mule so that doesn't apply.

7. Now that you have Dancer and Beastmaster at 30 you can leech them in Abyssea. It'll take you a few hours to hit 50 level cap. If you got Dancer to 50 and don't plan to level it to 99 at some point you can forget about that job as it is ready for a sub job and can focus on Beastmaster.

how do you leech aby if you are a new player?
note since you seem to have forgotten it:
-new player doesnt have cruor so they can't key coffer
-new player might not have the 2-300k needed to get in a cleave /sh (wasn't the case for your mule unless you are stupid enough to farm with a lvl30 char instead of just sending it from your main wh can farm hundreds time faster)

nobody asked how to create a fast money maker.

Zagen

10-06-2012, 03:38 AM

how do you leech aby if you are a new player?
note since you seem to have forgotten it:
-new player doesnt have cruor so they can't key coffer
-new player might not have the 2-300k needed to get in a cleave /sh (wasn't the case for your mule unless you are stupid enough to farm with a lvl30 char instead of just sending it from your main wh can farm hundreds time faster)

nobody asked how to create a fast money maker.

I said it before, but I'll say it again:

"Lead your own". Start shouting for a worms party, even if you don't have keys get 2 keyers and fill the rest with DD/mages. It's not hard to get EXP unless you're lazy.

Seriously if you're gonna try and call people out at least bother to read the whole thread it's only 3 pages long.

Edit: As it wasn't clear. The same steps can be taken to level any job to endgame level at which point it gives a player options when trying to lead events.

And having a money maker allows you to buy displacers among other things, as well as offer it for people helping out with things like final limit break. In my story about a person who shouted for weeks the one thing s/he never did was offer gil. A shout like "Limit Break 10 Help me out 200k you can have this" would probably have gotten the job done sooner.

Mayoyama

10-06-2012, 09:02 PM

I made a 2nd character about a month ago and it cost me over 500k in spells JUST FROM NPC (not including most of the lv50+ ones that are farming/ah only).

Its not until you do start a new character that you really realise how unappealing this game can feel for a new character. You start in a city which if you're lucky has 10 ppl who arent afk (and out of those 10, 9 are likely to just ignore you). You slog it out in gov/book burns (if you even know what they are when you start). Then have to leave that capped out xp per page (or capped xp/lights if in aby) every 5 levels from 50-95. Only reason I got as far as I did in short time is from being able to dualbox it all with a decently geared main (by no means pimp lol)

This doesnt even factor in the number of game mechanics you will likely not even know of, or the fact you start with 0 fame, 0 gil, 0 gear, 0 cruor, 0 CP/AN/ISP, no atma/abyssites and cant even start acruing VW stones til 75.

Let's just say if anything ever happened to my characters and i had to choose between starting again or just giving up... I'd easily take the latter

Nawesemo

10-06-2012, 09:20 PM

Let's just say if anything ever happened to my characters and i had to choose between starting again or just giving up... I'd easily take the latter

Quiters never win and Winners never quit!!! *cough You can stop for a while, but we like the marines man.... FOR LIFE!

Mostfowl

10-07-2012, 12:38 AM

It's easy for me to say because I have done it on extra characters... Guess what I do have gil but at the time all of that gil was for me not my mule so that doesn't apply.

Here's the secret since you can't figure it out.

1. Start the game, pick your race, and pick your job (the first one you pick doesn't matter as the items they give you are trival at best)

2. Switch to MNK, why? Because it's easy to pound on monsters and you don't actually ever need a weapon for 1-30, don't get me wrong weapons and armor help but not much at this point.

3. Level up to 10-14. Make sure to use Fields of Valor (http://ffxi.gamerescape.com/wiki/Field_Manual) or Grounds of Valor (http://ffxi.gamerescape.com/wiki/Grounds_Tome) pages as you'll get bonus EXP from completing them and once a game day you'll get gil and tabs. I recommend Grounds of Valor personally as it scales up the EXP/Gil/Tabs.

4. Make your way to Gusgen Mines (Page 1 from the book btw). If there aren't people actually there leveling (odd but happens) then head back outside to highlands and grind away until 16-18 range then go back inside as you can solo the skeletons now, and beat up skeletons until 26. You could move further down to hit 30 but it becomes sketchy on safety at that point. Once you're 26 you can shift over to several different locations, check the FoV/GoV links to see what works out.

5. Now that you're level 30 you'll notice a few things: You're gimp but that's ok at this point pimp doesn't matter. You have no sub job (find the quests (hint: search "sub job quest") on the site I linked for FoV/GoV and you'll be on your way. Here's the cool thing now that you're level 30 MNK you can go do all of the advanced job quests that you want, with the exception of SCH (sort of) read up on the jobs from that site (gamerescape) and you're good to go.

6. Let's say your goal is making gil fast then your 2 jobs to unlock and focus on are Dancer and Beastmaster. Repeat steps 1-4 on both of those jobs.

7. Now that you have Dancer and Beastmaster at 30 you can leech them in Abyssea. It'll take you a few hours to hit 50 level cap. If you got Dancer to 50 and don't plan to level it to 99 at some point you can forget about that job as it is ready for a sub job and can focus on Beastmaster.

8. Again refer to gamerescape or any good resource you prefer for your information. With info in hand so to speak complete the limit break quests and return to leeching in Abyssea. Note: thanks to a lot of changes SE has made excluding the final limit break quest you can now solo all of them.

9. Congratulations you now have a level BST95/DNC47 which is more than enough to start farming Dynamis. Here's the catch you need to do missions to gain access to Dynamis as all you've done up to this point is level up jobs. Again refer to whatever source for info you want. Also you'll have to skill up axe which is fairly easy to do especially on BST since you can make your pets do all the tanking allowing you not to worry about keeping your HP up.

10. Congratulations you've gotten access to Dynamis and can begin making 1mil+ gil 2hours out of every day.

So ya it's easy for me to talk not because I have an established character or friends but because the game is seriously that easy to play if you aren't lazy and spend time researching instead of crying.

Well thats fan-freakin-tastic if you wanna lvl bst. But say she likes and wants to play brd or whm one of the many no-so-great solo jobs out there.

Your views come from someone who is also familiar with the game and its new mechanics. If you are returning or new you have no idea how things work so this is not just that easy. Plus she stated she does try to start things herself and gives up cause she cannot find ppl. You gotta admit that after spending 60+ minutes doing /sh for vw or something of that sort is not appealing for most and new players who dont know the content are not going to be so eager to set up a city or akvan or even a seal run if they are completely in the dark about what they are doing.

You also forgot about all the misc stuff you need to do in-between lvling and dyna. If all your doing is soloing dyna on bst everyday you cant expect player retention. Soloing dyna is extemely boring and frustrating, esp with competing with the 100 other bsts out there fighting the same mobs.

Your views are skewed by familiarity and this need you seem to feel that everyone should have bst. So yes its easy for you to talk. Go start an established game blind, get to lvl cap as fast as possible and start beating out content and then come back and try again.

Mirage

10-07-2012, 01:59 AM

100 bsts? I rarely see more than 10-20 people in the same dyna zone when I do it, and not all of them are beastmasters. The zones are huge, there's always somewhere you can go and get some decent drops. Remember that competing with someone over the "best" spot will probably get you less money than if you went to the next best spot and got that all for yourself.

And you don't have to do it on bst anyway, you could just enter with a bst and have him do the tricky TEs while you do the easier ones, then split up and farm by yourselves afterwards. Then you could go on a job that isn't bst as well.

But that again requires knowing someone. If you are a normal person though, you should be able to get to know at least one person you could team up with by the time you're 99 and with enough gear to farm dyna efficiently.

Mostfowl

10-07-2012, 03:39 AM

Demon6324236

10-07-2012, 03:49 AM

I got your point. I myself actually almost quit because I do Dyna as RDM and all of the BSTs made my life hell for 6 months, which drove me to that point of nearly giving up. Someone new to the game using that as their main way for money and spending so much time in an event like that could easily be angered and quit soon after.

Zagen

10-07-2012, 06:19 AM

Well thats fan-freakin-tastic if you wanna lvl bst. But say she likes and wants to play brd or whm one of the many no-so-great solo jobs out there.
Please keep in mind when I say this I'm not trying to be an ass or mean but actually sincere as it seems you're having trouble with this. Look into working on your reading comprehension, when I said this:

6. Let's say your goal is making gil fast then your 2 jobs to unlock and focus on are Dancer and Beastmaster. Repeat steps 1-4 on both of those jobs.

It doesn't mean that it only works for only those 2 jobs, it actually means it works for any job and those 2 are just an example based on the goal of making gil.

Your views come from someone who is also familiar with the game and its new mechanics. If you are returning or new you have no idea how things work so this is not just that easy. Plus she stated she does try to start things herself and gives up cause she cannot find ppl. You gotta admit that after spending 60+ minutes doing /sh for vw or something of that sort is not appealing for most and new players who dont know the content are not going to be so eager to set up a city or akvan or even a seal run if they are completely in the dark about what they are doing.

VW shouts I join on average take 1-2 hours to setup another 1-2 hours depending on how many runs we end up doing so I don't see you point. Maybe it's because I'm from a time in the game's life where you spent days shouting or looking for parties at your level range because level sync and abyssea leeching didn't exist.

I actually took a break from the game shortly after VW was introduced and came back 6 months ago. In that time I researched how Dynamis worked, mostly to see if there were changes but also to see if it was still my best way to make gil without eating too much of my game. And eventually so that I could help my friend who also returned build a Mandau while I built an Apocalypse.

I also researched how Voidwatch worked and learned that when you go to easier ones you don't need temp items to function so I joined a few here and there. I got my Ace's Mail before I even cleared city paths meaning I didn't have fanatic's drinks which is spammed for Uptala fights, I did fine if I died I stood back and tried to help with magical staggers (I was on DRK so options were limited but I didn't stand there waiting for weakness doing nothing).

I can also tell you for a fact that if I could pop Akvan (been lazy about clears lately to be honest) I know exactly how to lead it because of all the research I've done, I know exactly where the bottle necks are for staggers and I know that going with a full 18 is overkill and usually would lead to killing it before all relevant lights are capped due to the fact that magic barrier when it's up delays any magical staggers.

I wasn't lazy, I wasn't a sheep, I did my research and prepared myself within my means before I attempted something, because the last thing I want to do is go into a situation that has already been researched without bothering to read any of it. I love exploring new crap but why waste my and other's time going in blind when others have written down how things generally play out and what the best methods for success are?

You also forgot about all the misc stuff you need to do in-between lvling and dyna. If all your doing is soloing dyna on bst everyday you cant expect player retention. Soloing dyna is extemely boring and frustrating, esp with competing with the 100 other bsts out there fighting the same mobs.

Misc. stuff? You mean like getting rank 6 so that you can even start Dynamis cities? How about getting past Darkness Named so I can get access to Dreamland Dynamis? Oh how about getting access to ToAU zones so I can do VW in those zones?

I researched it all again because it's been so long I forgot about the details on getting those done. I did all of that solo on my extra character. Because you don't need any of that to level up I waited until I hit 95 and with all the level caps removed you don't need other people to help.

The only thing having an established character helped with was having a group of friends to help me unlock 99 on that character. Though to be honest we did that run with 2 other players who had returned so it wasn't 1 95 and 5 99s going in to wipe the floor with that tarutaru, we actually did a weird setup of PLD, WHM, BSTx3. Granted the PLD had an ochain so that likely played a bigger factor in him staying alive. Had I not had those friends or found randomly kind people who were bored and willing to help I would have offered gil to save me time.

As to soloing Dynamis, search a zone if it's got more then 20 people it's going to suck. To be honest with the exception of 1 player who uses BST in Dynamis I've had the most respect from players on BST over players on any other job. Please note I'm not saying BST are awesome, kind, sweet, or whatever nicety you wish to imply I'm implying, I'm simply stating in my experience players who happen to be on BST had respect for me because I respected them.

Oh btw I don't always go BST in Dynamis, I've tried PUP, SAM, THF, DNC, BLU, all because you're right it is boring but the gil is too damn good to pass up.

Your views are skewed by familiarity and this need you seem to feel that everyone should have bst. So yes its easy for you to talk. Go start an established game blind, get to lvl cap as fast as possible and start beating out content and then come back and try again.

My views are skewed by the desire to research before running blind into something that isn't new and unexplored. This is the same approach I take to any game which is why I often find the game to be more enjoyable to me, sure I'm not one of the first to ge through it but I sure as hell got the bang for my buck and that's all I care about at the end of the day when it comes to video games.

Demon6324236

10-07-2012, 06:27 AM

Eh, myself looking up things about a game before playing it alot or beating it seems to make it less fun, then again I like exploration.

Zagen

10-07-2012, 06:50 AM

Eh, myself looking up things about a game before playing it alot or beating it seems to make it less fun, then again I like exploration.

Don't get me wrong I love exploring new zones or trying things that aren't cookie cutter but I'm not going to do that with randoms or when my goal is winning over experimenting.

Demon6324236

10-07-2012, 07:06 AM

True, I was just meaning researching in general isn't always the best/funnest thing to do.

Vitus

10-07-2012, 10:31 PM

I don't see this game going to die anytime soon, FFXI still has a decent population of loyal fans. But i know many people are taking break trying out new things while wait for new contents. I guess with a small developer size, they just can't keep up with the hungry and experienced player base. Every little content they trickling in got consumed quickly. I myself been off from the game for a while having fun with Blizzard games because I don't want to spend, god knows, hundreds more hours into VW abysmal drop rates. I decided to have better fun elsewhere.

IMHO, I think VW is probably the most fun content introduced in FFXI. It covers all the player base, not just the elites and people with connection or big linkshells. Any jack can join and have fun and have a chance at the goodies they aimed for. Only a drawback is bad drop rates. It really doesn't matter how fun to kill a particular monster is, it will get boring after 100 kills or more. And, needless to say, the emotional toll on those fruitless runs (personal record is ~300+ Akvan for the bullet, and heard stories of almost 1000 for body). I wish they implemented a kill-count system or something, where they can keep their low drop rates but the game keeps a record of the number of repeated kills. And every kill would increase your personal drop rate by a tinny amount, like 0.1% or so. This would make life so much easier for the unlucky ones, i'm sure.

Back to the topic, the reason for the current state of the game all in the basic strategy that SE runs the game. Up until now, SE doesn't have a good record of flooding FFXI content in their updates and expansions. Little content with extreme grind is not healthy for retaining players. SE should take a good look at Blizzard and their lesson of success (9 yrs on and still at 10 000 000), as the top dog at Bliz, Mike Morheime, summarizes it: "The more experienced (our players) are, they’ve become much faster at consuming content. We need to be faster in delivering expansions to players. We’re looking at ways to speed up the development process.”

Sparthos

10-08-2012, 06:17 AM

Long story short OP, SE has been phoning in the updates since Abyssea. Seekers of Adoulin is basically the island on the horizon and until the ship docks you've got plenty of seawater to look at in the meantime. Perhaps you'll see a few seabirds, a rock or some floating debris but anything of note? Nope.

Voidwatch ended with 3 lazily thrown together battlefields and a "ultimate zerg" battle in Provenance Watcher that completely went backwards in terms of risk/reward from Shinryu, Dynamis is a money maker but is solo content that's more about hitting procs than bringing friends to participate in something and everything from that point has been designed around this philosophy:

How can we stall the playerbase?

SE time and time again rather create content that is designed around arbitrary caps than simply allowing individuals to have fun and gain rewards in the process. Instead of content designed to be fun, what you get are thrown together rehash designed to say "we released something" instead of content that is addictive in the sense that the fun keeps you returning to the fray and thus building groups becomes fun and active.

Voidwatch? As a healer you're just there to buff.
Tank? lol
Crowd Control? lol
Fisherman? wut
DD? If you're one of the chosen few with buffs perhaps you're having fun.
People in the proc party? ZZZ till HV, EV procs come up.

Things like Einherjar that were fun because of the battlefields that were previous to Odin were completely scrapped because the devs didn't really care to improve upon their original creation but rather chose to churn something out in time for the version update which was simply an Odin+1. Instead of improving upon amphoule rewards (note: here is where you put glow equips SE) or putting drops in chambers for clears all we got was an Odin with rehashed abjs and some marginal +1 Odin gear that largely isn't worth the effort.

Even Meebles is simply a downgrade from the previous Moblin Maze Mongers. Instead of allowing players to create their own battlefields utilizing the previous maze runes and throwing in some rewards relevant for lvl99 what we're left with is a system that is 15mins per day (seriously SE 15mins per DAY???) with varying challenges like dodging enemies, defeating all enemies, fighting boss monsters or surviving for for a period of time and rewards that largely scream "mehhhh".

SE could have recycled virtually dead battlefields (Monarch Linn, Navuko Execution Chamber, Talacca Cove, Ouryu/Bahamut2 arena, Promyvions, Sacrificial Chamber, Throne Room, Bearclaw Pinnacle, unused Tidal Gates, (S) battlefields etc) tossed some monster waves/bosses in and allowed entry at a low cooldown and been moderately successful at keeping people busy without overcrowding being the issue through tokens/points but that'd be too much work.

It's just silly how offbase SE has been with regards to fun and accessible content in their game. All you get are excuses and promises that come to fruition months (if not years) later. It's clear some levels of austerity regarding developmental resources are in effect at SE GHQ and it's affecting their game by taking it away from being about fun and into the direction of roadblocks for the hell of it.

svengalis

10-08-2012, 08:27 AM

I think we are just in a dry spell. Abyssea was the best and worst thing to happen to this game. It bought fun, casual and rewarding end game content but at the same time I think the gear was to good and you gained it to fast. A double edge sword so to speak.

Alot of people say Abyssea isn't end game but you gain end game weapons and gear that can be used for end game so how can it not be end game content? It's still the only content most people do now. Search any Abyssea zone.

Afania

10-08-2012, 08:34 AM

Afania

10-08-2012, 09:22 AM

Voidwatch? As a healer you're just there to buff.
Tank? lol
Crowd Control? lol
Fisherman? wut
DD? If you're one of the chosen few with buffs perhaps you're having fun.
People in the proc party? ZZZ till HV, EV procs come up.

I don't agree with this......I'm not trying to argue that whether VW is fun or not since it's subjective, but I disagree with that only DDs "have fun" everyone else ZZZ besides buff/proc.

Healer just there to buff? So basically your DD will never lose HP from nukes and spikes, never get para, never get slowed, never get slept, never use soul eater?

Ppl in proc pt can still DD. BLM can still nuke and deal dmg, BLU NIN can all deal dmg if it's not higher tier. It's really your choice if you choose to ZZZ until a proc is called. But BLM, BLU and NIN in proc pt can do exactly the same as DDs in DD pt, that is to deal dmg.

Sp1cyryan

10-08-2012, 11:24 AM

FFXI has been dying since 2002. Why do you people continue to ask this question day after day, month after month, year after year, decade after, oh wait it has only been one.

Yup a game that has practically now reached the level of being timeless is merging all the servers tomorrow night and turning them off next week.

No matter what is added or buried by new content this game has something special about it that can not be touched. Enough with these idiotic "is FFXI dying" threads.

Actually, while I am at it. So what? What if SE came out and said in a month they are turning off game? Should you stop playing it before then? The answer is yes only if you are addicted rather than just enjoying it. Also, where are you going to go? Fourteen? Nothing is like FFXI so the question is moot and has no bearing on anything whatsoever.

If you knew the end of the world was coming this December would you go out and commit suicide?
No, just about all of us wouldn't.

Chocobits

10-08-2012, 12:50 PM

"As soon as you're born you start dyin'. So you might as well.. have a good time!"

I will agree wholeheartedly that this game is not newbie friendly. I have played WoW, Ether Saga, Perfect World, TERA, Guild Wars, Guild Wars 2, Ragnorak, and others..

Not 1 of those games listed is less newb friendly than FFXI. Even FFXIV, being brand spanking new, completely devoid of content, glitchy as hell, un-fun as crap, and more zone/scenery rehashed than anything in FFXI.. even all of that notwithstanding, FFXIV was way way more newb friendly than FFXI.. a game that's been around for a decade, received multiple patches an expansions, and had forums (these very same in fact) created to receive and process (lul) player feedback..

I think the faults of this game have been beaten to death so many times that we can recap them in a few sentences. So let's do that:

A) No explanations, tutorial quests or much instruction at all given to players when creating a new character.

B) Quest progression is a blind process. Not that we need to be led by the hand like so other MMO's, but in order to solve quests on your own without an FAQ would require you to have a photographic memory of the dialogue of every NPC in the game.. most quests don't even spell out a zone, particular monster, or eventual destination. It's a lot of "I heard a rumor of a rabbit. Find me a rabbit that rabbits more than other rabbits!"

C) Lack of reasoning or strong storyline in dialogue. Take genkai quests. "Hey whippersnapper.. I know I'm just a random old pedophile lounging around this wishing fountain day in and day out.. but if you visit the inner depths of every beastmen stronghold, collect items from high level monsters, brave the wintry evils of the north, and then trade seals to random people around the globe for no reason.. something might happen!"

D) Grindcore (not to be confused with hardcore). Grindcore was all content pre-ToAU. Exp became a bit less grindcore with ToAU except that it was just grindcore at an accelerated pace. The process for NMs, camping, claiming (if possible vs bots), or force spawning NMs with low drop rates and dealing with lotting rights/DKP that casual players couldn't achieve.. Abyssea came out and it was a breath of fresh air for a bit. Yeah, the gear was too strong and we got it too fast, but FINALLY we got some joy! Goals that we could actually accomplish! And then Voidwatch.. lol.. Un-fun content, decent to amazing rewards, that we repeated again and again not because of great content but because of great rewards with appalling distribution. There's a difference between spamming content because it's fun and spamming content because you have no other content.

E) Lack of updates. As in, not just lack of patches for fixes, adding content, etc, but just a complete lack of communication from the devs to the players before these forums were established, which should have been in 2002/2003.. No other game laughed off its customers for as long as FFXI did.. until they left en masse (get it, En Masse?) :)

F) Xenophobia. The idea of mixed nationality servers and the autotrans function seemed awesome.. until the rest of the free world realized that Japan hates them/considers them stupid, and that even the devs and the company hate them, think of them as stupid or of having opinions that should be dismissed.. oh and that being non-national means they should have to pay more monthly for the game or otherwise have easy payment options taken away from them.

And sadly I think I could probably carry on all the way to Z) but A-F is enough that most people would (and probably should) avoid starting this game. Those of us in the know and already leveled and hardened against the harshness of the game and its devs can shrug it off.

The only thing new players need to know is this: Devs drive expensive luxury vehicles that are powered by a sodium-combustion engine that runs off of the tears of the playerbase.

Teraniku

10-08-2012, 12:52 PM

Where the heck is everyone?

Usually hit a downslide this time of year as people are starting to gear up for the Holidays and such, and don't have time to play, so they cancel their account for a while. They could be looking for the shiny new pretty MMO, or they could be getting in time to play City of Heroes before it goes bye-bye at the end of next month.

Afania

10-08-2012, 05:20 PM

Not 1 of those games listed is less newb friendly than FFXI. Even FFXIV, being brand spanking new, completely devoid of content, glitchy as hell, un-fun as crap, and more zone/scenery rehashed than anything in FFXI.. even all of that notwithstanding, FFXIV was way way more newb friendly than FFXI.. a game that's been around for a decade, received multiple patches an expansions, and had forums (these very same in fact) created to receive and process (lul) player feedback..

I think the faults of this game have been beaten to death so many times that we can recap them in a few sentences. So let's do that:

A) No explanations, tutorial quests or much instruction at all given to players when creating a new character.

B) Quest progression is a blind process. Not that we need to be led by the hand like so other MMO's, but in order to solve quests on your own without an FAQ would require you to have a photographic memory of the dialogue of every NPC in the game.. most quests don't even spell out a zone, particular monster, or eventual destination. It's a lot of "I heard a rumor of a rabbit. Find me a rabbit that rabbits more than other rabbits!"

C) Lack of reasoning or strong storyline in dialogue. Take genkai quests. "Hey whippersnapper.. I know I'm just a random old pedophile lounging around this wishing fountain day in and day out.. but if you visit the inner depths of every beastmen stronghold, collect items from high level monsters, brave the wintry evils of the north, and then trade seals to random people around the globe for no reason.. something might happen!"

D) Grindcore (not to be confused with hardcore). Grindcore was all content pre-ToAU. Exp became a bit less grindcore with ToAU except that it was just grindcore at an accelerated pace. The process for NMs, camping, claiming (if possible vs bots), or force spawning NMs with low drop rates and dealing with lotting rights/DKP that casual players couldn't achieve.. Abyssea came out and it was a breath of fresh air for a bit. Yeah, the gear was too strong and we got it too fast, but FINALLY we got some joy! Goals that we could actually accomplish! And then Voidwatch.. lol.. Un-fun content, decent to amazing rewards, that we repeated again and again not because of great content but because of great rewards with appalling distribution. There's a difference between spamming content because it's fun and spamming content because you have no other content.

E) Lack of updates. As in, not just lack of patches for fixes, adding content, etc, but just a complete lack of communication from the devs to the players before these forums were established, which should have been in 2002/2003.. No other game laughed off its customers for as long as FFXI did.. until they left en masse (get it, En Masse?) :)

F) Xenophobia. The idea of mixed nationality servers and the autotrans function seemed awesome.. until the rest of the free world realized that Japan hates them/considers them stupid, and that even the devs and the company hate them, think of them as stupid or of having opinions that should be dismissed.. oh and that being non-national means they should have to pay more monthly for the game or otherwise have easy payment options taken away from them.

And sadly I think I could probably carry on all the way to Z) but A-F is enough that most people would (and probably should) avoid starting this game. Those of us in the know and already leveled and hardened against the harshness of the game and its devs can shrug it off.

The only thing new players need to know is this: Devs drive expensive luxury vehicles that are powered by a sodium-combustion engine that runs off of the tears of the playerbase.

None of the problem listed are OP's problem though and idk why you bring them up. OP's problem is that he/she can't find anyone to pt with to do stuff.

That's more of a problem of at this point of time, majority of content, besides ADL/Odin/legion/VW, are too solo/duo friendly. If you only have none solo/duo friendly job, don't have mule, and don't have close friend to do those stuff, or if you insist to get a full pt to do everything, then you're just going to have a very hard time and it can't be helped.

When most of the stuff can be done solo or with 2 ppl, you're just not going to see ppl try to make bigger party for it. /Shout takes time, getting everyone on together takes time, so why spend all those time when you can just solo/duo on another job?

It's not necessary a bad thing, back then if you don't have 3~4hr of playtime, you can't get shit done. Making EXp pt takes time, making CoP mission pt is painful, so does making limbus/salvage pt and so on. Now that majority of FFXI playerbase have a job and family, most of them aren't going to spend 4~6hrs a day in this game, and would rather be able to get shit done whenever they're on without having to making a full pt of 6 ppl. Unlike now you can just log on and do a mission or seal NM whenever you want.

Well thats fan-freakin-tastic if you wanna lvl bst. But say she likes and wants to play brd or whm one of the many no-so-great solo jobs out there.

If someone insist to play BRD and WHM without a mule or close friend, then it's that person's choice. But by picking this choice, it's just making his/her life harder due to having to find more ppl if he/she insist to play that job. Either you lv a solo/duo friendly job so you can get shit done easier, or deal with harder life and play BRD and WHM, and deal with the consequences. That's life ;)

I already gave suggestion to solve OP's problem, either lv a solo friendly job and don't try to fill up a full pt via /shout, or work ass out of your connection to get full pt(but not by /shout if no reply)if you insist to BRD WHM.

saevel

10-08-2012, 09:07 PM

Largely we're at an "in-between" time in FFXI right now. Previously was the Tanaka inspired insanity of hamster wheels and doing anything to artificially extend the life of content. New guy / new ideas but it's going to take awhile to implement properly and it seems he's waiting for the next expansion as a vehicle for a new direction. This is good and bad, bad in that we're left with the Tanaka era sh!t burger content (Legion / Voidwatch / Einerjar / NNI / ect..) as the only thing available, good in that it gives them time to fix things and properly prepare for newer content that it's a sh!t burger.

Meebles is an interesting idea, one that most people completely miss. It's not so much "15m per day" but a once per week 75m dungeon crawl that ends with a boss battle. It's pretty clear it was designed for weekly statics, everyone has one pheromone on them and four saved up, then once per week they do a clear on a wing and take on the boss. You can do one boss per week and if your struggling you can spend extra time getting bonus buffs. The rewards are severely lacking though, some are ~ok~ but most are just trash. This is where SE messed up the most, they should of put better rewards inside the event to make it attractive. If they were to just increase the stats slightly on the gear (1~2 per stat) then it would of actually been attractive, as it stands their side-grades or flat out down-grades to other somewhat easily to obtain gear.

scaevola

10-08-2012, 10:53 PM

A friend of mine actually has been working on an empy for awhile since he needs glavoid, he said the easiest/fastest way he found to get it done is to gold box farm the KI and then just brew them til you get 50 drops.

Absurd.

Why is it absurd? Getting the cruor for enough brews to get 50 glavoid shells (I am currently doing the same with Isgebind hearts) takes a long-ass time. Still, we've been getting cruor for 2 years now; what else was I supposed to do with it?

I think FFXI is, by design, more equipped to handle extended lulls in content than most games, because it can always fall back on RMEs to keep us occupied. But I also think too long a lull is potentially dangerous, because too many people actually getting RMEs results in a huge stratification of power among players that's essentially impossible to balance around when the new content's actually ready to be released.

Arbalest

10-09-2012, 01:30 AM

I don't agree with this......I'm not trying to argue that whether VW is fun or not since it's subjective, but I disagree with that only DDs "have fun" everyone else ZZZ besides buff/proc.

Healer just there to buff? So basically your DD will never lose HP from nukes and spikes, never get para, never get slowed, never get slept, never use soul eater?

Ppl in proc pt can still DD. BLM can still nuke and deal dmg, BLU NIN can all deal dmg if it's not higher tier. It's really your choice if you choose to ZZZ until a proc is called. But BLM, BLU and NIN in proc pt can do exactly the same as DDs in DD pt, that is to deal dmg.

Voidwatch is boring because 9/10 fights are spamming procs and riding your temps to victory. A good VW run will almost always involve taking NO damage at all, because of Fanatics - when your fanatics is down + you have hate, you're usually dead too fast for healers to touch you. Overall, VW is boring content with a poorly-designed drop system that desperately needs addressing.

on-topic: I came back to this game in the middle of the summer, and I had a blast getting myself up to date with most of the content. However, I can hardly bring myself to log in anymore. I don't find much about the game fun, and the only times I really have to log on are when nobody is around and I'm usually left to my own devices. I came back to play the game with friends, and meet new faces and all that idealistic crap, but it's boring when you're left playing solo.

For now, the game is in limbo for me, but I'll think about coming back when a couple of unknowns finally reveal themselves - those two being FFXIV: A Realm Reborn, which I've patiently awaited for 2 years now, and Seekers of Adoulin. If Seekers is no good, I'm done with FFXI probably for the last time. And I'm hoping that FFXIV: ARR will be my next big MMO to play, but there's always the chance it'll be no good either. Only time will tell.

Chocobits

10-09-2012, 02:05 PM

None of the problem listed are OP's problem though and idk why you bring them up. OP's problem is that he/she can't find anyone to pt with to do stuff.

I think you missed the crux of my point. The point is, SE allots $0 in advertising to bring in new players to this game. The only way people would even stumble upon this diamond in the rough is by word of mouth from present/former players. If the burden is left to us to advertise for SE, what do we have to tell our potential victims? Everything I just mentioned? Who would play if they read/heard/saw any of that? Nobody, that's who. Nobody in their correct brain.

The game is new player unfriendly and without a constant influx of new players, all you have left is exactly what we are seeing - a dwindling populace.

I'm not saying the game is not fun. Obviously I still play. But I've already seen the best and been given the opportunity to get hooked when the game was in its prime. I'm not fanboyish enough to say that other than the job/subjob system and the immersive storyline, the game isn't woefully behind the curve in all other aspects. Graphics, raids, large scale content, PVP, guild vs guild/world vs world, adequate direction for newbs and general questing, satisfactory reasoning behind grind quests.. and in almost no other game does randomized timer crush your dreams on a regular basis.. Also, most other games REWARD players for their time spent playing (or not playing, in the form of xp multipliers). The time sinks in this game reflect a strategy that by design was meant to keep only a small but dedicated playerbase hooked for years and vehemently cast aside the casualcore player, and a strategy that is now so dated that when that dinosaur MMO comes out, we all might actually get unearthed and cameo in the game. It's ironic that relics have become one of the most popular and most accessible forms of content in the game.. it's a symbol of what the game has become.

I still don't think it's too late to turn all that around, but it would require a complete reshaking of the game from the ground up.

TL;DR - Yes, the game is dying, and will continue to do so. Because no matter how many times you swap captains, you're still left with the same crew. A crew that might be a mighty swashbuckling force to be reckoned with in the offline single player RPG realm, but are woefully in over their heads in the MMO world.

Emilja

10-09-2012, 06:58 PM

this game is all about playing together I can't find anyone to play with me I can't do everything solo and my anglais is poor so I'm taken a break for now ; ;

Afania

10-09-2012, 10:08 PM

I think you missed the crux of my point. The point is, SE allots $0 in advertising to bring in new players to this game. The only way people would even stumble upon this diamond in the rough is by word of mouth from present/former players. If the burden is left to us to advertise for SE, what do we have to tell our potential victims? Everything I just mentioned? Who would play if they read/heard/saw any of that? Nobody, that's who. Nobody in their correct brain.

The game is new player unfriendly and without a constant influx of new players, all you have left is exactly what we are seeing - a dwindling populace.

I'm not saying the game is not fun. Obviously I still play. But I've already seen the best and been given the opportunity to get hooked when the game was in its prime. I'm not fanboyish enough to say that other than the job/subjob system and the immersive storyline, the game isn't woefully behind the curve in all other aspects. Graphics, raids, large scale content, PVP, guild vs guild/world vs world, adequate direction for newbs and general questing, satisfactory reasoning behind grind quests.. and in almost no other game does randomized timer crush your dreams on a regular basis.. Also, most other games REWARD players for their time spent playing (or not playing, in the form of xp multipliers). The time sinks in this game reflect a strategy that by design was meant to keep only a small but dedicated playerbase hooked for years and vehemently cast aside the casualcore player, and a strategy that is now so dated that when that dinosaur MMO comes out, we all might actually get unearthed and cameo in the game. It's ironic that relics have become one of the most popular and most accessible forms of content in the game.. it's a symbol of what the game has become.

I still don't think it's too late to turn all that around, but it would require a complete reshaking of the game from the ground up.

TL;DR - Yes, the game is dying, and will continue to do so. Because no matter how many times you swap captains, you're still left with the same crew. A crew that might be a mighty swashbuckling force to be reckoned with in the offline single player RPG realm, but are woefully in over their heads in the MMO world.

All MMORPG would face the same fate after years of release, that it can no longer attract newer players. That's just the way MMO goes, you got new player when it launch, after 1~2 years you will get a lot less new players. Making newer super awesome content simply slow down old player leaving, but it isn't going to get a lot of brand new players no matter what.

Majority of FFXI players still plays due to the community and experience I belive. If FFXI release in 2012, it's not going to live this long. But it's been established for years and a lot of player simply just keep playing because of community, not because gameplay is super awesome. I played FFXIV sometimes, but never spend more time in 14 than 11. It's not because 11 is more fun(14 is actually more fun IMO), but simply because I'm more connected in 11's community than 14. I have more friends in 11, have more advanced character in 11, understands 11's mechanics more, and easier to do stuff in 11 if I want to.

Sp1cyryan

10-09-2012, 11:32 PM

I can't find anyone to play with me

Guess the one referenced in your signature did not give you friends to choose from after all. :P

Tsukino_Kaji

10-10-2012, 02:38 AM

Elphy

10-10-2012, 11:21 AM

You're a little early for SoA. >.>

Yes I am BUT, need the time to catch up.

From a returning players perspective it looks like this...

Getting a job I HAVE to lvl up...boring/slow/mostly solo'd or costs gillions
Getting +2/top gear/empy...boring/slow/mostly solo'd or costs gillions
+
Repeat above for jobs I actually WANT to play
+
Getting into any decent linkshell/endgame content without the above...lol think again

SoA = pure endgame, already stated by by SE and not going to be used to attract new players

Hence need to return early for SoA or come back before it starts and not even find the rare vw /sh much less anything else

Those who have been around through it all or have reliable ls of course are going to white knight things, but the simple matter is if you are just coming back/starting, don't really know anyone, have lolgear and need to burn your way up its difficult right now and SoA promises to make it moreso.

Also so many ppl commented on my whm status. Im ONLY whm cause its the easiest job to lvl, kill maat with and break all lvl caps. The thought of having to lvl/skill/gear 1-2-3+ more jobs I dislike just so I can lvl 1 I do makes even WoW look good. And that says ALOT

Not sure if Im going to make it. This game has morphed into a whole different entity and the change has not been good for the most part. Most likely will just jump 100% to ARR and if that fails, well there is always GW2 and the new Elder Scrolls MMO coming out next year.

Zagen

10-10-2012, 11:55 AM

Not sure if Im going to make it. This game has morphed into a whole different entity and the change has not been good for the most part. Most likely will just jump 100% to ARR and if that fails, well there is always GW2 and the new Elder Scrolls MMO coming out next year.

I get you came back and seem to have done is solo. Been there done that, Zagen is my 2nd character and I came back and made him when getting to level 75 took a month if you were hardcore about your playtime. I started new because I wanted to leave all the bad associated with my last character which meant losing the good just to be certain.

If you think the game is bad and my suggestions of going BST to make gil, get seals/+2 items isn't to you liking then lead. If you don't want to lead and can't find someone to lead your sheep self (don't get me wrong I love sheeping it up from time to time) along then don't waste your time coming back.

I know I'm coming off as an @$$ but in reality I'm being honest. If leveling and using a job you don't like because it is a means to an end isn't your thing, if leading a group of people who may have 0 idea of what you're about to get them into isn't your thing, if you can't find anyone else who deems you worthy enough to bring into their groups well you're SOL.