Faction Leve: Special Missions

[Raldo]

Today I got asked by some friends to do the Buffalo Special Mission faction leve (Wanted: Mammoth and Master). I went to the leve counter to pick it up and... it wasn't available. In fact, none of the Special Missions were available.

In the past, I have done the prerequisite Special Mission faction leves, but that was back in January (or possibly even earlier). Now, the Special Missions don't even show up (they do show up under Horn and Hand, however).

Image of what I see: http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h2...ctionLeves.png

I realize that the faction leves have some kind of minimum rank requirement in order to partake in, but I've seen these Special Mission leves in the past, so my question is this...
Did some patch this year increase the minimum rank (or some other prerequisite) to select any of the Special Mission faction leves at all, or did I encounter some kind of bug?

I changed classes, logged out and back in, switches cities, but nothing I did made the Special Missions show up.

Possibly relevant info:
Platform: Windows 7 x64
ISP: AT&T U-Verse
Type/Speed: Fiber, ...fast?
Date: Shortly before the date/time of this post
Frequency: Just now
Character Name: Raldo Volca
Race: Hyuran (I think that's how it's spelled, anyway)
World: Selbina
Class/Skill Rank: R43 MRD
Phys Level: 50
NPC Name: Whoever issues leves behind the counter at Ul'dah and Limsa
Party or solo: Solo
In-Game Time: Whenever
Steps:
I originally spoke to the Ul'dah leve counter on my R32 CRP, switches to R40 THM, switched to R43 MRD, logged out and logged back in, and ported to Limsa Lominsa. Then I picked up a R30 Az Shields faction leve, completed it, and returned to LL. The special mission option was still not there. After completion of the Az Shields faction leve I just did, I have just over 500 Az Shields points.

I apologize if this is not a bug and is just some kind of ninja-change that I was unaware of.

Edit: You can disregard this--my problem has been pointed out in the following posts.

[Coldfire]

I think the rank-requirement was increased for all kind of leves. Should be -5 instead of -7 for regular and -5 instead of -10 for faction leves.

from 1.18 patch notes:
•Players must now be within 5 levels of the recommended class rank for a guildleve to become available.

[Raldo]

But I should still be able to see the two Special Mission leves that show up before the buffalo one, right? I don't see any of the Special Missions for anything but Horn and Hand.

Edit: Nevermind, it seems that the prereqs are all R50 now (or perhaps they always were), which means I will not reach the required rank until R45. That's ... unfortunate. You can disregard/close this issue then.

[Baccanale]

Greetings, Raldo!
Thank you for posting your concerns about the Buffalo Special Mission faction leve. I am glad to hear that you were able to find a solution to your problem (thanks, Coldfire!). If you have any further concerns, please do not hesitate to post them in this forum. Thanks again for your participation!