WARNING - New Players or Players thinking of coming back - Consider this first.

[Demendred]

Well, I had started a week ago, and when I did start, I was buffed by someone, healed by another. I'm pretty sure if I asked for help in a respectful manner, someone would help me.
I'm hoping to get better so I can in turn help those who are new. This game is great, and should be enjoyed by everyone.

[Phirefly]

I started back up about 10 days ago. I have not had to solo for more than a couple hours. The game has radically changed in many ways. But last night we had some "drama" in the Gusgen Mines which proved this is the FFXI I so fondly remember. The game is different, not better or worse, and the player base is full of the same helpful and elitist people -- per usual. You still have to figure out how to farm gil, you still have to find or form groups, and there are still those who whine about how hard the game is... FFXI is as playable today as it ever has been.

[Leonlionheart]

I can't imagine it being less noob friendly than it was when I started. 160 exp max for killing a lizard for 2.5 minutes straight, struggling to get chain 3 because no one knew wtf was going on.

Now you can get what, 200 exp for a kill solo? Unless you were spamming colibri as a DRG/mage or a pro BST or /BST you could never do that solo back at 75 cap. 30k per MMM run now, and it was stupid fast EXP back at 75 cap. Who knows what exp/hour book burns are.

As for missions, just get to 95 and solo them. I can only think of a handful that wouldn't be soloable/duoable.

Not to mention you can burn it all up to 75 in a handful of hours in Abyssea if you so desired.

Only problem I currently see is for certain jobs like MNK, any caster really, PUP, and maybe BLU. MNK you essentially need to have Ascetic's Fury to be good, and Black Belt is a whore to farm without tons of gil. BLMs have spells that range from 500 gil to 2.5million, I'd say that the average cost for a spell after level 50 is like 500k. Similar for WHM RDM SCH and even NIN, who all have spells over 1m that can be rather vital. PUP you need butloads of gil for automaton attachments, and you also need stringing pummel to be any good. BLU you need to farm all those spells, which has always been a pain to an extent; just now you level up so fast that the amount of spells you need to learn is overwhelming (not to mention I've never seen a noob who knows how to fucking gear the job correctly).

Other than that I'd say the game is more noob friendly than ever.

[Nianny]

What Leon said. He said it better than I could.

What I'd like to add is, you're not confined to do everything alone as a new player. At least in Asura (from my personal experience) there's quite a few new players around which I bet would gladly join other ones. Also, some veterans would lend a hand aswell.

FFXI is still fun even as a low level/new player, you just need to find the right people for you.

[Bellamelly]

Ultimately, it's your decision what type of experience you're going to have playing FFXI. You can let others negative behavior and elitism get you down, or you can seek out the people who are more than willing to help you and/or be friends There ARE still people who play this game that fall into the latter category, I assure you. Be proactive in finding these people.

I agree that the game is more noob friendly than it ever has been. You can easily solo 1-15 and grab a Party in Gusgen Mines (GoV) till the 30's or even 50's and beyond if you wanted. An easy Magicked Skull, anyone? You could then take that same level 30 - 50 job (now you are high enough to solo the rest of your SJ items) and get to the 60's, even the 70's in a few long party sessions doing GoV again in either Garliage or Crawler's Nest. You don't even have to seek, really. Just go into the zone and ask if there's any space. Or hell, make your own ally yourself! Before you know it you'll be popping your party flag up and getting ready for Abyssea. Sure, you can technically level a job to 30 and go straight to Aby -- but if you'd like a different route (leveling in Aby all the time can get quite boring, especially combined with doing Endgame activity) it is still quite possible, and one I prefer myself.

For newer players, ffxiclopedia is your BEST FRIEND. I can not stress that enough. To this day I still refer to that wiki. It has a wide array of useful information to pretty much everything you could ever need/want to know about FFXI. Chances are if nobody in your LS knows, Wiki does. FFXIAH is a handy website to check the Auction House online and is useful as well.

Above all, have fun! It's a game after all

[Khajit]

Reading anything infaking says in this thread is making me want to help new players LESS.

[Trangnai]

I can't imagine it being less noob friendly than it was when I started. 160 exp max for killing a lizard for 2.5 minutes straight, struggling to get chain 3 because no one knew wtf was going on.

Now you can get what, 200 exp for a kill solo? Unless you were spamming colibri as a DRG/mage or a pro BST or /BST you could never do that solo back at 75 cap. 30k per MMM run now, and it was stupid fast EXP back at 75 cap. Who knows what exp/hour book burns are.

As for missions, just get to 95 and solo them. I can only think of a handful that wouldn't be soloable/duoable.

Not to mention you can burn it all up to 75 in a handful of hours in Abyssea if you so desired.

Only problem I currently see is for certain jobs like MNK, any caster really, PUP, and maybe BLU. MNK you essentially need to have Ascetic's Fury to be good, and Black Belt is a whore to farm without tons of gil. BLMs have spells that range from 500 gil to 2.5million, I'd say that the average cost for a spell after level 50 is like 500k. Similar for WHM RDM SCH and even NIN, who all have spells over 1m that can be rather vital. PUP you need butloads of gil for automaton attachments, and you also need stringing pummel to be any good. BLU you need to farm all those spells, which has always been a pain to an extent; just now you level up so fast that the amount of spells you need to learn is overwhelming (not to mention I've never seen a noob who knows how to fucking gear the job correctly).

Other than that I'd say the game is more noob friendly than ever.

My Highest level jobs beg to differ. Hell, I even soloed rdm 1-75 >.>. mind you that most of these were imps (blu), pets or some squishy mob that made it possible to exp chain a decent amount to produce good exp. it was in no ways as fast as a 6 man pt back in the day, but it was good enough.

As for the topic of this thread I do have to say I'm glad to see some improvement on the areas of old and exp outside of keywhorebyssea my issues still stem from the seemingly dead gear market and the abilities for low level/new players to obtain gear and required things such as jobs, sub-job and level caps etc. Most End game Players arn't going to help someone who needs a simple level cap, unless theres gil involved, good luck finding a new player with the type of gil required to get said assistance.

[Preed]

I'm an older player from '05 that's comeback and has been playing for a month now no and I've got to say there are a lot of nice players out there. Two even helped me when I turned Level 18 to get subjobs (which I probably couldn't do until 30) just because they saw me struggling. They even invited me to their Linkshell, which has been a great help. I just think some newbies should learn to ask for help and veterans should try to help, not necessarily hands-on, but at least give tips or something. :B

[Kei-chan]

I just came back after a couple months of hiatus and I've been experiencing this, too. Luckily I've got a couple friends playing with me, but leveling parties beyond Qufim Isle just plain don't exist. I've gotten some book burning parties at Garlaige, but they're just as power level-y as Abyssea.

I see what everyone means when they say that Abyssea has ruined FFXI, and I agree. I just wish the devs would actually open their ears and listen to the players, because pretty soon they won't have a playerbase if this keeps up.

EDIT: By the way, I've been trying to solo and mooch my DRK to 95 so that I can help my group of friends get through their limit break quests, their rank-up missions, etc, because we're just not numerous enough to do them legitimately.

There are definitely helpful, nice players, but they are few and far between. Seeing as limit break quests are impossible now without a higher-level player doing it for you (since there aren't enough low-level players to do them legitimately in a party), I've spent hours /yell-ing myself hoarse in Jeuno before getting any assistance.

I'd like to get my AF armor, but who knows if that'll ever happen, again, due to lack of lower-level players and the difficulty I'm going to have in recruiting a high-level to tag along for such a long series of quests.

[Komori]

If you were on Bismarck, I would gladly help. I just did LB1 for a LS member the other day ):