After 3 years break: Some questions!

[Frizze]

Yeah, annotating much easier then multi-quoting.

Cool stuff!
That glamour system sounds alright! That was my main "problem".
I do of course know how the basics work, I mean, I was here until iLevel 100 at least (I think it's 106 with my earrings and such). That was exactly the reason why I asked for glamour. Unlike in GW2, where you hit the ceiling and nothing changed anymore really, here I changed my gear every couple of weeks. But once you get used to one of your gear, when it's really reflecting your personality (yes, I love tail-coat wearing midgets with tophats and gauntlet gloves!), then I'd be in a bad situation - and could only wear my trademark outfit in the towns or in low-level areas. Thank god none of the stipulations tied to the glamour system do not matter then. When my gear changes - which will be always higher than iLevel 100 - I hopefully can keep it. Yeah, it doesnt sound like this will be an issue for you.

Just out of curiousity, does it not seem strange to see a person wearing low-level clothes while actually it's glamoured full-stat gear? As far as I understood Frizze (and that's also the better approach to the whole thing) I can make look good gear look like beginner's gear (but not the other way around, which would not be the case because everything > Evenstar's iLevel now^^). It appears to also work on weapons. My Atma Stardust - which stats are outdated and probably to be replaced soon - can be "put over" the new staff? That blue coat you can just barely see in my headshot is glamour gear. Its actually an ilvl 360 robe, but it looks like a Uraeus Coat(level 1, no stats - mine is dyed storm blue). Some people choose to fight in bathing suits. I was in a group the other day with a tank wearing a full-body pig costume. Other people dont care at all about appearances, and they often have ugly mish-mash outfits with clashing colors and styles. Most people dont think twice about what their teammates gear looks like(as long as their stats are somewhat up to date), or will toss out compliments for a good glamour. And yes, you can glamour weapons too. Im using my anima for appearance right now.

Also thanks Frizze about the auto attack thing. I totally forgot how that was. It feels just strange to me coming from a game with fast-paced combat into a game where I take hits while casting. Sure, I know the enemies will die from it, but it looks like I am enjoying some voluntary spanking. Dr.Who up there is right with the level difference, but if I start the beef..............


The grouping in itself is not bad. Actually, it is why I remember this game fondly. I have "file footage" from January of 2014 (that's when NV_ENC - a.k.a. ShadowPlay was available for my GPU) where I had nice chats because of a tank that left and we waited for replacement in Aurum Vale. But before quitting, I met so many elitist people it was just insane. Even math could not help them and we took like 30 seconds longer because I used a different rotation in Brayflox Hard (Haha, all this ancient stuff you probably not even remotely play anymore, I feel like that grandpa telling old stories!) and it caused much mad beef. Tanks were $@~# because they could, friends ganging up on you and kick you before the boss room to let friends in and the general French group that does not understand a single word of the world's language, forcing you to skip cutscenes (those you can't rewatch at the inn) really ASAP which made the missions feel disconnected and in general want players to know the dungeon BEFORE entering it, which is like reading the Tomb Raider guide book before actually playing with Lara.. Maybe that's where my concerns are coming from. One of the things they probly added after you left is the roulette system. You pick one and que(most can be done with groups or solo), and you randomly get assigned a duty from the list of the roulette you picked. You get bonus exp and currency(gil/seals/tomes) for playing via roulette. This system is used to help fill ques. Aurum Vale is in the "Leveling" roulette, Brayflox hard is in the "50/60" roulette. People still wind up in these all the time. There are still some elitists(and some massive slackers), some tanks are still "that way". Most people are good to each other. They added some more of the duty-related cutscenes to the inn, so you can see more of them now if you did skip. And if you tell people youre new before the dungeon starts, 99% of them will cut you slack for not knowing it. Now people wanting you to know how to run savage/extreme level content before you go in is still a major thing, but its not really there for dungeons.

Despite having 600 days of experience as Scholar, Bard and Blackmage, I am trying to find a newbie guild. I never managed to keep virtual friends that long, and Pugs, oh dear... Shout a couple times in town/put up a PF for it. FC invites arent hard to drum up.

Oh, about the BLM 50+ quests, appearently and according to the BLM page on the Lodestone, the questgiver is the same as before (the Lalady in Ul'Dah), but I might trigger these really only upon stepping a feet in HW. That would be not so great, all the queue times together are several weeks, not to mention the 46,303 wipes :S Understandable, don't get me wrong, but also kind off-putting. So far, Nanamo has not even had her "delicious" wine....

If you havent done a single quest beyond the ending credits, then this is what youre looking at. There are 100 patch quests. Lots of running around, lots of talking to people, some fetching and killing(a lot of important upcoming story developments start to happen during these quests so it can be good to pay attention if you want to follow along). Along the way you run 3 required 4-man dungeons(there are a couple dozen optional dungeons and raids available), and 6 trials(all trials are 8 man starting with the one at level 49). Each of these duties is available on a roulette(50/60 and trials respectively), and the ques should fill fairly fast during normal hours. None of those should be hard enough to require more then 1 wipe(most will be clearable with no trouble - even running blind). And as i explained, any of these can be run unsync'd(and most of those fights are soloable at 70) which bypasses the ques entirely. Another option is putting up a Party Finder group to get people to help. You select the instance you need to run, and you can write a short note to attract people from your data center to join. If you say that youre doing something for the first time for story progression, you will often get people to join up in a hurry(either to help you or to help themselves - the devs added incentives to helping newer players with stuff). So when i said a week or two, i meant for everything. If you skip all cutscenes, mash through dialogue, and get FC members to unsync everything for you the whole set of quests and everything can be powered through in under 3 hours. A normal person watching scenes, reading dialogue, and playing the dungeons and trials takes around 25 hours. You can figure out for yourself how many days itd take you to get 25 hours in. With all that said, if you have the expansion youll be getting exp whether you can do the first HW quest for BLM or not. You need to do the quest at 52 to learn your next ability, so thats when itll start hindering you(though if youre still in the patch questline then youll only be doing level 50 fights anyway, so you wouldnt be able to use that new ability yet).

[Iscah]

* I wish I could dye a certain set of equipment. In this case the Acolyth set from Level 15 or something. However, it's undyable. But I think I can remember seeing a white Evenstar hat - how is that possible? Aren't both undyable or was it a different item?

For healer classes, you can get a Lv50 dyeable version of the Acolyte robe called the "Cashmere Robe of Healing". The Casting equivalent is a dyeable Battlemage robe (dungeon loot from Brayflox's Longstop).

There's also a grey version of the Acolyte robe that you can get from doing Hall of the Novice tutorials - either the healer course, or the DPS course as a mage.


Re. the Evenstar set, there was also a second set of gear that reused those designs with different colours, somewhere around Lv60 I think.

Just out of curiousity, does it not seem strange to see a person wearing low-level clothes while actually it's glamoured full-stat gear? As far as I understood Frizze (and that's also the better approach to the whole thing) I can make look good gear look like beginner's gear (but not the other way around, which would not be the case because everything > Evenstar's iLevel now^^). It appears to also work on weapons. My Atma Stardust - which stats are outdated and probably to be replaced soon - can be "put over" the new staff?

It can look strange, I guess, but glamour effects are available from early in the game so you expect it to be the case, and you can always check a person's gear to make sure they aren't actually underequipped!