FFXI dying or in a dry spell?

[Nawesemo]

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]

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 or Grounds of Valor 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]

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]

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.

you completely missed my point

[Demon6324236]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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

[Vitus]

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.”