Looking For Up To Date Info Beyond the Lodestone

Haven't played the game since the first two to three months. Apparently a lot has changed. Been looking for a detailed post/blog/report/wiki/etc that details how the game has changed without any luck. Almost anything I search for on google ends up being outdated info. I'd ask a bunch of specific questions, except I'm not even sure what those questions should be. From logging in today, I do have a few to get started with, barring the existence of some great community repository I could sift through. Ended up logging off as it was all a bit overwhelming. :p

1) Job Change Macros: I noticed that switching weapons now seems to automatically switch your skills as well. Does this mean there's no point to including the placement of job-skills in your job change macro? Do you set the skills, and then the game remembers what you had set for a particular job and auto loads them when changing gear?

2) Confusion over sub-job skills: Since you apparently can't switch weapons in combat anymore, does this mean skills you slot from sub-jobs can only be used out of combat or does this mean sub-job skills no longer require you to wield that job-specific weapon?

3) Crafting changes: Anyone want to go into detail how crafting has changed since the initial couple months of release?

4) Dated Equipment: Should I be looking to replace all my 'dated' equipment as soon as possible?

5) Level and Equipment: The level of equipment seems to have huge penalties now if it is higher than your class level. Are there sites that allow you to compare level appropriate gear to gear that is higher level than you are? Or is it always essentially not worth using gear you haven't leveled up to yet? Just about every single piece of gear I am currently wearing is at least 10+ levels higher than I am, and seems to be virtually irrelevant.

6) Skills. When last I played, there were definitely some skills that were more...important...than others when trying to decide how to build your character and chart the way it went through various jobs. Presumably this is still true (please, if you're the type of person who really believes any combination of skills is equally valid, just skip this question). Any suggestions? You can see my character's job (and skill) progression via the signature. Edit: Hrm, apparently the forum asking me to select a character to use as a signature was misleading as I don't see it anywhere. My 'main' is a level 22 Pugilist, 22 Archer, 17 Lancer, 17 Thaum, 16, Conj.

7) Back to Macros. The main use of macros, for me, was to use sub-job skills. ie: Switching weapon, switching skills, use a skill, switching weapon back, switching skills back, in one button. If, and this is a big if, you no longer need to switch weapons to use sub-job skills, what's the main purpose of macros today? Pretty much every macro guide I've found on google seems incredibly out of date.

8) Servers. I have two characters I can reactivate on Durandal. I notice it's one of the servers we aren't allowed to create new characters on. Would Durandal be considered a healthy server? I ask, because I am toying with the idea of simply starting all over again, and thus learning how to play the game again orgainically from the beginning, but that would force me to create a character on another server. Of the available servers, I popped onto them all and all seemed extremely 'dead' compared to the amount of people I saw on Durandal (I saw maybe three people in the ~30 minutes of running around with a new character in Gridania on the four available servers that had full chocobos on the server list).

9) If I do stick with this mid-level 'main' character as seen in my sig, keeping in mind that I have not played it since the first two-three months of the game, what would be your suggestions of the first few things I should be doing? In my head, it would seem to be to re-learn crafting as all her gear is worthless, then pick up any available quests while getting ready to join a Grand Company. Obviously joining a Link Shell, though I would prefer to be far more comfortable with the game than I am currently before I threw myself into a position where other players would have to rely on me. ;p

10) What, exactly, is the additional content that has been added? If memory serves correctly, what I used to do was login, do my 8 levequests-if I was able to, since it took three days to refresh-and then go grind on a couple hundred mobs, broken up by trying to keep myself amused via televisions while eeking out a crafting level or two.

I feel like there must be someone out there that has attempted to consolidate all the info pertaining to how the game has changed over time, but I can't find it. Ideally, I'd love it if someone was to simply point me in the right direction. I don't count the lodestone, as while it has some info, it's severely lacking on anything that might be considered 'opinion'.

I am NOT looking for some basic guide on what the jobs are, or what the races are, or anything else full of fluff like that.

If you've read through all this and are about to answer, thanks for your time! :)

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Since you apparently can't switch weapons in combat anymore, does this mean skills you slot from sub-jobs can only be used out of combat or does this mean sub-job skills no longer require you to wield that job-specific weapon?

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Who are you and what game have you been playing. I don't remember a time when we were able to switch jobs during combat.

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3) Crafting changes: Anyone want to go into detail how crafting has changed since the initial couple months of release?

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You now have a list of your 10 most recent used recipes that you can click to repeat what you just did. Also, it's possible to spam the Accept button until all your crafting is done, both in leves and out.

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4) Dated Equipment: Should I be looking to replace all my 'dated' equipment as soon as possible?

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Not necessarily. You can keep it equipped and level up on it until it's spiritbond reaches 100%. Then (after completing the required quest), you can turn that gear into Materia. Look up about Materia here.

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5) Level and Equipment: The level of equipment seems to have huge penalties now if it is higher than your class level. Are there sites that allow you to compare level appropriate gear to gear that is higher level than you are? Or is it always essentially not worth using gear you haven't leveled up to yet? Just about every single piece of gear I am currently wearing is at least 10+ levels higher than I am, and seems to be virtually irrelevant.

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Don't hang on to anything that's cluttering up your box unless you know you can equip it in 10 levels. Leveling is faster than it was, especially if you find an exp party.

As of right now though, unless your current level is greater than or equal to the required/optimal level of the gear you're equipping, the gear's stats get penalized. At low levels this can mean the difference between winning and losing. Later on its debatable. Keeping your gear up to level is your best option.

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6) Skills. When last I played, there were definitely some skills that were more...important...than others when trying to decide how to build your character and chart the way it went through various jobs. Presumably this is still true (please, if you're the type of person who really believes any combination of skills is equally valid, just skip this question). Any suggestions? You can see my character's job (and skill) progression via the signature. Edit: Hrm, apparently the forum asking me to select a character to use as a signature was misleading as I don't see it anywhere. My 'main' is a level 22 Pugilist, 22 Archer, 17 Lancer, 17 Thaum, 16, Conj.

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It's good to get all jobs to about level 20 for a wider range of skills to choose from. After that? Level your main (class you want to play). The skills you gain from each job become more and more specialized after level 20, and most can't even be shared anymore. If you're confused, you can just look at all the skills each job offers in your Abilities menu. They're all there with descriptions.

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7) Back to Macros. The main use of macros, for me, was to use sub-job skills. ie: Switching weapon, switching skills, use a skill, switching weapon back, switching skills back, in one button. If, and this is a big if, you no longer need to switch weapons to use sub-job skills, what's the main purpose of macros today? Pretty much every macro guide I've found on google seems incredibly out of date.

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That would be because macros are only really useful in switching jobs and stringing commands together now. You can't switch weapons during combat. I still don't get what game you were playing when you say you had to switch a weapon to use 'subjob' abilities. What is this... 'subjob' you speak of~.

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8) Servers. I have two characters I can reactivate on Durandal. I notice it's one of the servers we aren't allowed to create new characters on. Would Durandal be considered a healthy server? I ask, because I am toying with the idea of simply starting all over again, and thus learning how to play the game again orgainically from the beginning, but that would force me to create a character on another server. Of the available servers, I popped onto them all and all seemed extremely 'dead' compared to the amount of people I saw on Durandal (I saw maybe three people in the ~30 minutes of running around with a new character in Gridania on the four available servers that had full chocobos on the server list).

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Since the server merge, all servers are very healthy indeed, and none are anywhere near dead just yet. Where you choose to go is up to you.

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9) If I do stick with this mid-level 'main' character as seen in my sig, keeping in mind that I have not played it since the first two-three months of the game, what would be your suggestions of the first few things I should be doing? In my head, it would seem to be to re-learn crafting as all her gear is worthless, then pick up any available quests while getting ready to join a Grand Company. Obviously joining a Link Shell, though I would prefer to be far more comfortable with the game than I am currently before I threw myself into a position where other players would have to rely on me. ;p

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Join a linkshell. Plenty are recruiting. Preferably join one that accepts new people, is social, and has a lot of active players.

Level to 30 and get your chocobo and Goobbue mount so you can really start running around and questing. Then quest it up. There's tons to do. You don't even need to craft as much to update your gear. It's all there in Ul'dah's market wards, or should be. There's NPCs at each adventurer's guild now selling low level equipment if you can't find any. Gil is easily earned by doing levequests and sidequests.

After level 30, focus on getting your main class to 50 and finishing main story and GC quests. Your new linkshell can help in all that.

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10) What, exactly, is the additional content that has been added? If memory serves correctly, what I used to do was login, do my 8 levequests-if I was able to, since it took three days to refresh-and then go grind on a couple hundred mobs, broken up by trying to keep myself amused via televisions while eeking out a crafting level or two.

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Instanced dungeons, sidequests found in town, NMs to hunt, The Job System, materia crafting, Grand Company related content including single player leves, chocobo escort quests, and the acheivement system. There's tons to do. Figure it out.

The game has changed in so many different ways, it's hard to centralize a single place for all of the changes, so specific questions are better.

Looks like the guy above already answered most of the questions, but here's 1, 2, & 3.

1) The game will remember your action list when you change jobs/classes now, so you should only have to set it up once (and whenever you want the skills rearranged).

2) You can use sub-job skills in and out of combat once you set them. That said, sub-job skills have never required you to equip the weapon, so... no change really. I'm not sure where you got that impression.

3) I wrote this up today for someone else, but it should serve your purposes as well.
Hidden because it's a wall of text:

Crafting actions
Standard
• Highest chance of success
• Up to 25% progress gain
• ~10 durability loss per attempt (Up to ~20 loss on failure)
Rapid
• Zero durability loss on success (~20 durability loss on failure)
• Up to 35% progress gain
Careful
• 7~10 durability loss per action (success or failure)
• 3%~5% progress gain (success or failure)
• Heavy quality gains, even on failure
Wait
• Durability loss of [# of consecutive waits]
• Rerolls the orb color

Quality exp bonus
• You gain +8% exp bonus for every 10 quality you add
• Your starting quality does not factor into the exp bonus, it is only calculated off of what you add to the initial quality.

Crafting abilities
• Your crafting abilities are now always available for use (until you use them, of course)
• If you have more than 5 crafting abilities available for use, it will randomly select 5 to display

HQ/NQ mats
• Using all HQ mats will start you with 100 durability and 500 quality
• Using all NQ mats will start you with 100 durability and 0 quality
• Using a mashup of HQ/NQ will start you with 100 durability and 0~500 quality (see below for details)
Starting quality is weighted by optimal level of a material except when it is below 10. In that case, the optimal level is treated as 10 regardless of what it is.
InitialQuality = FLOOR(500 * (SumHQLevels / TotalLevels) )
SumHQLevels = Sum of HQ Material's Optimal Levels
TotalLevels = Sum of all Material's Optimal Levels

HQ rate
• HQ rate increases exponentially as your quality increases and is indicated at the bottom-right of the crafting window
• 300 quality = 1% HQ rate
• 500 quality = 7% HQ rate
• 750 quality = ~50% HQ rate
• 850 quality = ~75% HQ rate
• 1000 quality = 100% HQ rate

DoH stats
Base attributes for Disciples of the Hand will increase the resulting product's quality.
• Carpenter
- Main Hand: VIT / Off Hand: DEX
• Blacksmith
- Main Hand: STR / Off Hand: MND
• Armorer
- Main Hand: VIT / Off Hand: STR
• Goldsmith
- Main Hand: DEX / Off Hand: INT
• Leatherworker
- Main Hand: VIT / Off Hand: INT
• Weaver
- Main Hand: DEX / Off Hand: MND
• Alchemist
- Main Hand: INT / Off Hand: PIE
• Culinarian
- Main Hand: MND / Off Hand: PIE

Double Down
• "Touch Up" is gone, as has been replaced by "Double Down"
• You can Double Down on any synth (yes, even materials) that reaches an HQ rate of 2% or greater
• You can only Double Down once, and the result is either an HQ or a break
• Your ending HQ percentage is cut in half, and you can get another attempt at HQ

Synthesis Interruption
• In order to combat people from using bots or turbo controllers to craft while afk, if you craft 50 synths in one sitting, you will automatically stand up after the 50th. You can kneel right back down and continue crafting again right away with no penalties; it's just there to fight simple automated systems.

Deprecated stuff
• Non-dated synths no longer use crafting support
• Non-dated synths no longer use any of the treatises
• Non-dated synths no longer use sub-crafts (no recipe relies on multiple crafts anymore)

Old, but mostly still relevant official crafting info
Ask the Devs: Synthesis
This details craftsmanship, magic craftsmanship, control, which elemental instabilities do what, crafting orb colors, and aetherial sparks.

General Advice
The best way to grind now is to get something several levels above you and push the quality as high as you can without failing. Don't feel too bad if your exp gains don't match what some people claim to get; having a bunch of different crafts' abilities makes a world of difference. With a synth 8~10 levels above you and a bunch of crafting abilities at your disposal, it's easy to get ~2k exp per synth. All foods give +3% exp bonus now, so don't forget to eat while you're grinding. There are also exp manuals from Grand Companies (+50% exp) and rested exp (+50% exp).

It's been long enough that you'll have to excuse me for faulty memory. I could have sworn I used to have to say...switch from my pair of cestus to a rod, for example, in order to use certain Thaum/Conj skills as a Pugilist. Though, it's entirely possible those were actions I did in between fights, so out of combat. In fact, the more I look at the old skills, the more I'm thinking I was doing the weapon switch in between fights for quick mana regen, run speed, etc. I'm totally open to the idea that my memory is simply faulty though. It has been a long time. :p

Anyways, presumably, this means I can use the ranged attacks of an Archer while wielding a pair of knuckles then? Or are those ranged Archer skills unavailable when running around as a Pugilist?

I'll look into the bazaar, as I never enjoy crafting, but I'm also leery of the inevitable inflation of an economy I have not been part of for over a year, hence my questions concerning crafting, as I suspect I will have to just bite the bullet and continue to level those up, for now, especially since all of my gear is essentially useless, being over 10 levels higher than my level, and I'm pretty sure even back when the economy was nascent, I wouldn't have been able to afford to buy an entire new set of gear.

As far as server populations go, forgive me for being leery, as there are always people who claim servers are healthy, even when they aren't. Is it possible that Gridania simply isn't a place anyone hangs out in? I'll reiterate that I only saw maybe 3-4 people while running around Gridania for half an hour on each of the four 'heavy' population servers that I tried making a new character on. And, in those couple of hours, not a single person talking out loud (though, if memory serves, even at release, hardly anyone ever spoke publicly in-game). That said, I logged into Durandal, but my character was in Limsa, where there were a lot of other players running around. Is comparing Limsa to Gridania a mistake? Perhaps people simply hang out in one city more than the other?

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Anyways, presumably, this means I can use the ranged attacks of an Archer while wielding a pair of knuckles then? Or are those ranged Archer skills unavailable when running around as a Pugilist?

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They'll just be whatever range the Pugilist can do (short). An archer can do weapon skills of other classes at long range. Pugs, MRDs, GLDs, and LNC do have throwing weapons available to them though.

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I'll look into the bazaar, as I never enjoy crafting, but I'm also leery of the inevitable inflation of an economy I have not been part of for over a year, hence my questions concerning crafting, as I suspect I will have to just bite the bullet and continue to level those up, for now, especially since all of my gear is essentially useless, being over 10 levels higher than my level, and I'm pretty sure even back when the economy was nascent, I wouldn't have been able to afford to buy an entire new set of gear.

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Prices aren't as inflated as you think. You'd be surprised how quickly you can earn 100k just by questing. Right now the only big issue is players overcharging for low level gear, because there's just not a whole lot of supply, yet enough demand to warrant high prices.

But if you're crafting, it's extremely easy to make low level equipment thanks to the revamped synthesis recipes. So you can make quite a bit of profit right now if you're even just a little bit enterprising (I made 2 mil this way).

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As far as server populations go, forgive me for being leery, as there are always people who claim servers are healthy, even when they aren't. Is it possible that Gridania simply isn't a place anyone hangs out in? I'll reiterate that I only saw maybe 3-4 people while running around Gridania for half an hour on each of the four 'heavy' population servers that I tried making a new character on. And, in those couple of hours, not a single person talking out loud (though, if memory serves, even at release, hardly anyone ever spoke publicly in-game). That said, I logged into Durandal, but my character was in Limsa, where there were a lot of other players running around. Is comparing Limsa to Gridania a mistake? Perhaps people simply hang out in one city more than the other?

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Everyone's in Ul'dah. That's the game's current center of activity by general choice of the players. Try running through there before you write off your server as dead.