Returning Player (Need Tips)

I've quit since 2008, came back for a few months in 2010 and quit again until today.

I've seen some of Mr Happy's vid in youtube, which made me watch some other's FFXI vids, and it got me interested again.

I've re-sub, reactivate my 3 yr non-active character(jobs: BLM81, BRD78, NIN75, RDM75). Thing is, I'm so lost after I logged in lol.

Then I googled everything I can concerning leveling but many just didn't tell me what I need to know(or it did but I didn't realize). Look through alot of other returning player's post and see what others' tips are, but still didn't find the answer.

Okay, generally what I wanted to know is how to level from 75 to 99. Most of the post I saw are kinda old and it's all in abyssea (I got all expansion till WotG and Abyssea, considering SoA after I familiarize myself again with the game).

I'm kinda concern with partying to gain exp since the playerbase is quite small now compared to before, and that I live in Asia region and that makes it hard to group up with either NAs(Timezone diff), or JPs(I don't speak JP)(Thinking back, it was a nightmare for me to level any jobs during the old days lol).

So is it possible to solo from 75-99? If yes, could anyone kindly elaborate abit on how to do so? (If i need the SoA expansion, I'll buy it).

Thanks in advance.

Edit: opps, I didn't notice that there's a New Player area. Sorry to post in wrong section, or is it fine that I post it here?

I definitely suggest purchasing the SoA expansion.

If you log in late in the evenings, you'll probably be able to catch the european players and perhaps team up with us. Abyssea exp alliances are rare now, but they still happen now and then. You might be able to gather a sufficient amount by shouting and organizing them yourself. If you get an abyssea exp alliance, it won't matter too much where they are from. Very little communication is actually needed to keep them running, so playing with japanese people probably won't pose a big problem.

Search for info on "Grounds Tomes".

These would be a great way to spend your time without a party.

Since I have limited play time, and don't want to bother with parties, I plan to spend my time from 66-99 in places like Fe'yin soloing pages with my trusts, just relying on page xp, while slaying Easy Preys. I need skillups too, and won't get that in Abyssea parties.

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Originally Posted by Wyrmnus

I definitely suggest purchasing the SoA expansion.

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Ah ok, I'll purchase it then after few more days of familiarizing myself again with the game :)

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Originally Posted by Mirage

If you log in late in the evenings, you'll probably be able to catch the european players and perhaps team up with us. Abyssea exp alliances are rare now, but they still happen now and then. You might be able to gather a sufficient amount by shouting and organizing them yourself. If you get an abyssea exp alliance, it won't matter too much where they are from. Very little communication is actually needed to keep them running, so playing with japanese people probably won't pose a big problem.

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I see. Thanks for the heads up on this

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Originally Posted by AyinDygra

Search for info on "Grounds Tomes".

These would be a great way to spend your time without a party.

Since I have limited play time, and don't want to bother with parties, I plan to spend my time from 66-99 in places like Fe'yin soloing pages with my trusts, just relying on page xp, while slaying Easy Preys. I need skillups too, and won't get that in Abyssea parties.

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Thanks for the tip. I manage to finally contact an old XI friend who still plays once a while and she did tell me something about Tomes lol. Told me to first get my Trust NPC, then find info on the Tomes thing and never log out from the map that I'm gonna kill stuffs ~.~ Didn't look it up yet so still kinda blur lol. At least you gave me the proper name which REALLY gonna help me a lot on finding info :D

Welcome back to Vana'diel, Sharlene!

The people in this thread have already been giving good advice, but I just wanted to point out that we have a great resource called the Adventuring Primer that was just updated recently, which should help you catch up on what's going on in Vana'diel these days. :)

Thank you Camate! I did bump into that page yesterday, but was too confuse with all the new "terms" inside the game and didn't even go click the links inside those little chats lol

I'm glad you remind me of the link again, since now I got to understand some stuff like valor/trust/emminence and be able to read that again with more understanding. :D

Teegrins, and balcome weck, Sharlene!


To one of the questions that seems to not have been answered, I would say yes: it is possible to solo to level 99.

Even more so now than ever before. As was mentioned, Abyssea parties probably happen a lot less nowadays (I'm bad at telling though, since I never really participated on those), but that never was a thing for me in the first place. I almost always leveled up either alone, or with a friend or few.
After the introduction of Abyssea, I would mostly make use of Dominion Operations, which would allow me to gain rather quick experience points, and later on, seals to upgrade the empyrean armour (to +1) as well.

The recently introduced, and mentioned, Trust (or Faith) magic can not (yet) be used over at Abyssea, however, and I can't really tell which is faster now, to solo in Abyssea or outside, with the creep- I mean alter egos.

Likewise a freshly new addition, Records of Eminence is certainly something that will help a bunch whether you head for Abyssea, or stick to our home dimension. There are some objectives that can't (yet) be completed over there, but for others it is possible.

You may be interested into restoring your artifact and/or relic armour to previously unseen forms.

The official primer probably says all this, too, but I figured I'd add something from player to another.


If you have more questions to ask, go ahead, at least some of the community is (usually) more than willing to answer!

Best of luck, and again, welcome back!

There is also the "New Player Guide". But it doesn't work at all anymore (at least it doesn't work for me in any browser). Maybe someone from SE might fix it some day (and/or update it)

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Originally Posted by Ellorion

There is also the "New Player Guide". But it doesn't work at all anymore (at least it doesn't work for me in any browser). Maybe someone from SE might fix it some day (and/or update it)

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I still remember the quadav-train in one of those tutorial videos. It was particularly fun to me perhaps because it was one of my favourite past-times at some point in the past (and I did it before I had any clue about the guide videos).

The videos actually still exist and are downloadable if one digs up the links off of the page's code, but indeed the flash (eww) player doesn't seem to be functioning. Could perhaps be java-script (eww too) related as well.

While fun tutorials they are, they also are very outdated, just as are many other parts of the website(s).

However, I should like to imagine Sharlene has not forgotten that much about the basics. ^^;


Also, something I forgot to mention in my first post...

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Originally Posted by Sharlene

So is it possible to solo from 75-99? If yes, could anyone kindly elaborate abit on how to do so? (If i need the SoA expansion, I'll buy it).

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While I described how I do it, I did not mention my thoughts about Adoooulin. I'm not sure if it's helpful with leveling up per se. I guess the coalitions offer some form of experience gain regardless of job-level, but reives may be not-to-good for below level 99. I should not say too much though, for I myself do not have access there. I have not felt the need, but that's me, who still enjoys older content. And fishing. Lots of fishing for the past few months.

Perhaps once the story missions over there have been fully unveiled, and the other content has been tweaked out and outdated to the depths of Movalpolos, I will have a peek.

I guess I would still suggest getting it, if one has too much money in their pocketses.


If one ever liked campaign battle at all, it should be mentioned that some changes that have been waited for years are finally coming over. Namely skillupses. I'm still not happy though, for more needs to be done with that, but I digress!

Again Thanks for all the replies. These few days I had been trying to get one of my jobs to 99, only way I found easy would be to do ground tomes in zeruhn mines. Did /sea all the time on abyssea area, but there's always only 1 or 2 people in each of the abyssea area, either it's my playtime difference or that's not many people needing to level up jobs anymore lol.

If you are willing to shout and organize, people will still take the opportunity to make an Aby party. It's just that most people (including myself) don't want to bother because doing GoV with Trust is more convenient even if it can be somewhat slower.

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Originally Posted by Raydeus

If you are willing to shout and organize, people will still take the opportunity to make an Aby party. It's just that most people (including myself) don't want to bother because doing GoV with Trust is more convenient even if it can be somewhat slower.

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Back in the old days, I do shout and organize for things that I need done. But I only do that when I know what I need to do or have a general idea of what I need to do. I am too unsure of the abyssea leveling area to try and form a group lol. I don't even know what mobs to kill orz. I do agree that doing GoV with Trust is really convenient! I guess i'm one of those "most people that don't want to bother" as well :)

Best tip is to not come back. None of the jobs you listed are useable the way the game is currently set up. SE has a lot of fixing to do before anyone who doesn't have a 119 r/m/e will be welcome.

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Originally Posted by Inafking

Best tip is to not come back. None of the jobs you listed are useable the way the game is currently set up. SE has a lot of fixing to do before anyone who doesn't have a 119 r/m/e will be welcome.

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Screw that, "endgame" is but a fraction of the things to do in XI specially if you are coming back after years of absence. There is a lot of content people can do solo and in small groups nowadays that doesn't require you to deal with the "x gear/job only" nonsense.

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Originally Posted by Inafking

Best tip is to not come back. None of the jobs you listed are useable the way the game is currently set up. SE has a lot of fixing to do before anyone who doesn't have a 119 r/m/e will be welcome.

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Oh look it's the butthurt guy who doesn't know what he's talking about. The 4 jobs listed in the OP, BLM, BRD, NIN, RDM, are all of use in current content, BLM is one of the best DDs in Skirmish if geared at all decently, not hard to get that gear, it's really just from other Skirmishes, BRD is used in all content in the game, show me an event where people don't want a BRD, NIN is used as a nice DD and a tank for some of the current content, specifically AAs, and RDM can be taken to Delve, though admittedly it's the least likely to get you in a party. None of these by the way require a RME at all, at most you might see some request of Skirmish weapons, about it.