A little help for a new tank and other questions

This forum is the only forum I can post in otherwise id be posting in the tank forum.
First I'm wondering if anyone could point me in the direction of a solo leveling build.
Second I must admit over a couple of decades of MMO's I still don't understand macros and how to input them.
Could anyone help me out making macros for my early skills for the gladiator?
I've watched youtube tutorials and read many articles and im still left scratching my head.

Now for my other question. My friend invited me to play. However I can not get on his server. Ive spent the past week constantly checking the character creation thread which displays what servers are allowing character creation. The particular server in question "Gilgamesh NA server" is never open. It keeps new players who already have friends playing from trying out the game.
Is a character transfer the only way to get on that server?

Hmmmm solo level build you have some options;

Fast way; If you have access to POTD you can level up there with quick runs until around lvl 25-30depening on patience. You won't have to worry about gear until 25 if you have some experience.

Traditional: if you have MSQ done just do dungeons practice with choco.and so forth. Weekly quest. ect.

Macros can be pain if your not use to them, mainly used for notifications and such they help but to each their own.

I would not macro any combat actions, they have uses, but using them for combat actions isn't one of them.

As far as making a character on Gilgamesh, you may want to try tonight as soon as the servers come back online. I have seen several people say they were able to make characters on usually locked servers right after maintenance.

Thanks for the replies. Right now im on a trial and only level 7 and i stopped playing because there is no point leveling a charcter up if im going to make one on another server. $19 character transfer isn't worth it for someone as low as level as I. Im waiting for payday to buy the game.
I've read all over the place right after maintenance is best so I will try that.

The main scenario quest is your best bet for initial leveling. If you need more EXP to access the next MSQ, try your Hunting Log.

I can't think of any particularly useful gladiator-specific macros for level 7. When you get provoke, a macro that announces what you're provoking in party chat can be useful in certain trials. As others hint, though, you'd want that to be separate from the actual execution of the action: for that, just use the action button directly. You'll likely perform far better if you make active decisions about which skill to use and when rather than trying to automate it.

Beyond all that, though, if there's something specific you want a macro to do, just ask and we can help.

As for character creation restrictions, while the page that announces them only updates every few hours, the actual restrictions can change much more frequently. So even if the page keeps saying no, actually trying to create a character may say yes. Balmung is reputed to have even more active players than Gilgamesh, and there are plenty of people that wrongly insist it's "always" closed. It's not; I frequently see new players that managed to create their characters there. Still, don't expect to manage to catch it; that $18 transfer might be the only practical option even if it's not actually the only option.

Be sure to have your character made and saved so you don't need to waste time on the character creation screen when trying to get in.

Leveling gear: When you hit 15ish in the story quest, I think you're directed to the Hall of the Novice, which will guide you through a few tutorials and throw some pretty good gear at you, including a ring that boosts exp.

As for character creation restrictions, my own experience is from making character to Phoenix some years ago but it seems to follow the logic: If the server is currently having a login queue (however brief they are), at that time the character creation is restricted. So even on high population server, it's possible to make a character during the server's off hours when majority of the server population is either sleeping or at school/work.

As for solo build, there is not much in the way of that in this game. The one thing you can choose to spec differently are the cross class skills but you only have options for those when you have leveled some other classes that give them (though this will have some changes in the coming expansion). For Gladiator, Protect and to some extent, Cure from the Conjurer early levels are handy when soloing (in party it's usually the healer who uses the Protect buff)

Thank you everyone for your input. Believe me if I can get on gilgamesh I will be grinding pretty heavy to level where my friends are at. I brought up macros because a lot of MMO's have made it a banable offense. I thought it was pretty neat the feature was built into the game. Pretty much what i've heard is they arent necessary and sometimes can be problematic in raids.

most MMOs have macros built into the game. What is usually ban-able is using outside programs to macro continuous actions. pretty much botting as they call it... farming money by having your character go through the actions of killing everything in a dungeon or open world for hours without actually being at the controls.

Also, make sure you have appearance data for the character saved for when you want to make your character, as said before the notes saying if a world is open for creation isn't actively refreshed, so, just as something opens it can close back up again based on congestion of new characters being made. So having that pre set data can help speed the process and make sure you can get in before the gates close again.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CharlieBlake

most MMOs have macros built into the game. What is usually ban-able is using outside programs to macro continuous actions. pretty much botting as they call it... farming money by having your character go through the actions of killing everything in a dungeon or open world for hours without actually being at the controls.

Also, make sure you have appearance data for the character saved for when you want to make your character, as said before the notes saying if a world is open for creation isn't actively refreshed, so, just as something opens it can close back up again based on congestion of new characters being made. So having that pre set data can help speed the process and make sure you can get in before the gates close again.

---

Oh ive saved the appearance data. First thing I did. :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Quinthom

Ive spent the past week constantly checking the character creation thread which displays what servers are allowing character creation.

---

Don't use that since it's getting updated only every 4 or 5 hours, I can't remember what the schedule is for that and it always been inaccurate.

Here's what you do, as others mentioned save your appearance data, after maintenance (keep an eye on the news section, or use this link since sometimes maintenance's finish earlier) hop on and create that character, don't waste a lot of time thinking about a name etc. Make sure you're prepared and fully ready.

Other then that, and having done it on Gilgamesh plenty of times, there's always a opening during non prime time. Meaning try between the hours of 1am pst - 3am pst, 6am pst - 8am pst (there's is always a 85% that right before the daily reset at 8am pst - example 7:45 or 7:33am etc), one more chance you'll be getting at around 10am pst - 11am pst. This applies only to weekdays and due to the fact that we are all waiting for the expansion, or what we call patch break. Sometimes you have to try on multiple days throughout the week.

After these hours or on weekends, as well as on patch & expansion days, there will be a extremely low chance, if not nearly impossible of creating new characters on that server, unless you want to pay for a transfer. Good Luck.

As far as solo levelling, you have Palace of the Dead after lv 17. There are also tons of Main Story Quests and side quests that grant XP. At 15, I highly recommend Hall of the Novice, as completing those awards gil, xp, and good gear for the level. Levequests and Fates work well. The only issue is, if you are playing as a tank, you will /need/ to get used to operating in a party. You will need to learn when to use your enmity generators, when you can use a stronger damage combo, how to retrieve a mob that is peeling off towards your healer or dps, how to deal with certain mechanics.

Don't worry about not doing perfect at first, just explain to your party that this is your first time tanking this dungeon/first time in the dungeon. Most players will be cool with it, even more so if they are levelling and not roulette farming for tomes.

If it's just a preference and you don't want to tank in a party setting, I recommend levelling a dps or a healer for MSQ required dungeons.

Gilgamesh is still closed and its right after 2 days of down time. Yay me.

Im pretty convinced they want people to pay for character transfers at this point. This is quite discouraging.

From the sound of today's news, seems like they've close Gilgamesh completely to transfers and new characters for being among the overpopulated servers.

On the bright side, you won't have to pay a transfer fee. But, probably not getting in at all for a while now.

My best bet is just play the game and you will eventually understand everything. the MSQ like everyone else said, is your best bet. Although if you are going to main a tank, I recommend you looking more into the eminity system or aggro system. Trust me, it will help you tremendously and make tanking more sense in a way. Plus the combo system is very easy for gladiator, I doubt you will be trouble by anything since the class is designed for beginner players.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hasrat

From the sound of today's news, seems like they've close Gilgamesh completely to transfers and new characters for being among the overpopulated servers.

On the bright side, you won't have to pay a transfer fee. But, probably not getting in at all for a while now.

---

What kind of business model is this though? They clearly have a refer a friend which was used in my scenario. Kind of bogus if you ask me. "here join your friends" "server is closed for character creation" So basically my friends need to pay money to transfer. To me it sounds like one big scheme to make more money. Either I transfer to server or in this case an entire guild transfer to a less populated server. This entire process is to much to play a game with friends. After this instance I wont be buying the game.

I wont be paying for a subscription. Some of my friends resubed because they thought some of us would be able to play with them. This isn't square, this is the company that is running everything at this point, which isn't square. Square is more concerned with copyright infringement than keeping this IP alive. Their concerns are money and not player satisfaction. That is what i've learned from this business model.
It's pretty sad because this community is the friendliest and most helpful i've experienced in an MMO in a very long time. Kudos to you guys who have been helpful and friendly. Shame on square for their false advertisement "play with friends" I will be reporting them to the BBB later today.

So i filed a complaint and square updated the info. Gilgamesh and Balmung are closed to transfers and character creation indefinitely. My friends will be transferring and relocating the guild to ultros.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Quinthom

What kind of business model is this though?

---

A pretty standard one. No MMO can survive having everyone gather to the same couple servers while others stand idle. They all have to find ways to get the player base to spread out between different servers. SE tried encouraging it with temporary character creation closures, and that worked well enough for a while, but too many people got around it by creating characters at low traffic periods or by transferring. Finally they had to block such creation/transfers completely until the numbers stabilize, along with offering free transfers (and some other perks) to lower population servers. It's a lot better than reaching the point where they'd need more drastic measures like splitting the servers.

Meanwhile, Duty Finder has always been cross-world, they've recently given us cross-world Party Finder, and there's talk of additional cross-world chat and Friends lists coming at some point. So while the open world is limited to your own server, it's not like those are the only people you'll be playing with.