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Items for New players
Recently I started playing FFXI again after a long hiatus. I'm the type of player that prefers to start over because honestly I've forgotten a lot about how to play. I love the changes so far but I'm severely disappointed in the availability of gear for leveling up. With the opening of these forums, and the apparent developer ear it gives us, I was hoping the community could provide ideas on how to remedy this situation.
From some basic perusing of the current forums this appears to be a common concern and only one solution has been given. Make low level gear sold by NPCs. Back when I used to play, the AH had the gear for much cheaper. I would say if this is implemented, make the gear less expensive.
Another option may be to make the low level gear a random addition to high level crafting. For instance you're trying to craft a high level sword. You get a message saying "Success! and you had enough scrap material to make a Bronze Sword!" This should not be in place of HQ crafts, but a possible addition. This benefits the crafter in that they have extra cash flow coming in. Even if an item is common on the AH, they can sell it to an NPC. Given that it's an item they gained with no extra investment, I can't see any complaint from them.
What are your ideas? Whether your a crafter or consumer, post it here!
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This has been debated a lot in other threads...but items are already available from NPC's sufficient to gear a player all the way to 90 (provided you go into abbysea at all and can buy cruor gears) Many have tried to discredit it, but concrete examples have been given. Those who argue against it are often trying to use HQ items as an excuse, but tbh, with the way you level the first 50 or so levels (especially now), HQ items are just a luxury item, and by no means have ever really been necessary to level--they just may make it easier is all.
You can already by reasonable gear for reasonable prices to get to at least 20 easily, possible further depending on the job and how you are playing, (solo, low-man/6-man parties). There are also items earned from doing quests/missions in the cities that prove useful as well as some items that actually drop off the mobs you may be killing, or from the chests they drop. By the time you hit 15-20 and have done some missions and such, you start getting access to CP gears which can be easily upgraded by friends you make along the way that have taken thier first or second crafting tests in the appropriate crafts. It should also be noted that a lot of the lower gears you can get from NPC/quests/mobs can also be upgraded in a similar fashion. And they are often cheap upgrads btw, just apply a piece of material to the gear to upgrade it, some of which you will get while leveling.
Eventually, as you outgrow the cheaper vendor and CP gears, you then gain access to allied gears that can go all the way to 70-ish. Granted, you may not have allied notes for a while, but your friends may have a crap-ton still that are just rotting away. After that, there is the level 78 Cruor gears (which many are still selling on the AH, at least on my server).
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