New player with lots of advanced questions (LONG)

[Llama]

#3: Money, what can a poor noob do about it?

Scrolls/Spells are worth a fair bit of coin. One's of top of my head that are worth money still, sleepga II, drain, blaze spikes, aspir, utsusemi: ichi, kurayami: ichi, dokumori: ichi, all tele-spells, recall-spells, retrace. They are all one time reward from quests, that you can do for yourself and your wifes characters.

I started a new character a few months ago, and I got about 4 mil, from all these.
Some of these require some level of reputation/pre-req to activate the quests, but they are worth the time.

[Aethon]

Summoner and Beastmaster are fun jobs and can solo almost anything in the game that isnt timed. Takes forever but still. My wife and i have been playing for 6 years together and had a lot of fun with this game. on to the #s.

#1 - Get to 99 and you can low man party (2-6 players) everything in the game except current "endgame" i.e voidwatch and legion. All it takes is planning and patience to do this game.

#1a - The only time you'll face the ungodly timesinks are if you REALLY want to get deep into gameplay. Making relic, mythic, or empyrean weapons are worth it but are not at all must haves. The same with the trial of the magian weapons. You can get everything you need to just casually have fun off the auction house. Hard cores players may turn their nose up at it but they invest more time to get that stuff.

#2 - Play the jobs you love. Most things in this game can be overcome with any job combo. it just takes trial and error to figure out how to make it work. It never hurts to have other jobs on the back burner for utility but first and foremost play what you love.

#3 - there are so many ways to make money. Not all of it really fast or fun but can still be done. are the ways listed are solid money makers. There also is voidwatch later on if you want to dabble in that. Market trends have changed so much from when i started that i cant think of what works for low level "farming".

In closing: Have fun! Look for a linkshell if you want to talk to and team up with others. It helps a lot in this game. Even just a social one to chat with others and shoot the breeze. New friends help make the best memories with XI.