Help me, Obi Wan. Help me.

[Quindiana Jones]

I've got a few questions, and I'm hoping y'all can help me out. :)

Firstly: If I bought this game, it'd be on the Xbox 360. To be honest, I've heard mostly not-good things about XI on 360. Can anyone yea or nay this? Is it so bad that it'd make me not want to play the game?

Secondly: I've been doing some research into jobs. I'd probably be an Elvaan, because they're cool. With this, I want to be a Thief. The reason being that it seems that Thieves can really be useful into the later levels, especially when coupled with a nifty sub. Anyone a Thief? Is it something I'd want to replace later on in the game? Would it be better to sub it and pick a different main?

Thirdly: Subbing. From what I understand, subbing mostly does exactly the same as your main (in terms of unlockable abilities), but only up to level 37. Right? If so, what would make a good sub for a thief? I'm looking at either Ninja or Dancer mostly. I like not dying, and both of these look as if they can make me not die more. Ninja could epicarise (totally a word) my SATA damage if I used the right weapons, which could be good. Also, it would allow me to super-safely tank for a little while if the main tank needed a time-out. I like the hate controlling aspects of the Thief, and it just seems to me that Ninja would help with increasing damage and staying power. My worry with this is that it won't be that useful in terms of support, hence the Dancer option. From the looks of things, a Thief/Dancer (in later levels) can act as a pretty good support character for pretty much all occasions and job types, especially when it comes to alleviating some of the stress from the White Mage in the party.

So yeah. If you don't wanna read all the above, this is where you should skip to.

1. Xbox 360 + FFXI = ? I've heard bad things. Are they really that bad?
2/3. Job advice. I'd like Thief to be a main, and I'm liking the look of a Ninja/Dancer sub. Is this good or bad? Just some general in-practice job advice would be nice, as I'm running on theory right now.

Cheers for any help. And 2/3 are optional questions, haha. Number 1 is the only one that I actually care about.

Oh! Actually, one more thing. EoFFer worlds. Is there a more EoFFer filled world? Which one?

[Yeargdribble]

1. Xbox 360 + FFXI = ? I've heard bad things. Are they really that bad?

I don't play it on Xbox so I can't tell you first hand. What I can tell you is that playing it on a console comes with a tremendous number of downsides that currently may or may not sound like an issue to you, but they may become so.

1. Graphics - It's just not going to look as good on a console sadly. The max "default" setting just don't look great. They are silly and made it difficult, but the only way to make this game look stellar is by playing it on PC and fiddling with the registry (which you can do with a 3rd party tool that makes it very simple).

2. Screenshots/Modelviewer - The game is very community oriented. You WILL want to be able to take screenshots of your accomplishments and just general adventures. If you don't have access to a model viewer you may kick yourself at some point in time.

You sound like you've done your homework which I applaud, but that means you are probably the type to delve into community forums and if you are a participant you'll want the above tools.

3. 3rd-party tools - You may think you're a purist and don't want to "cheat", but SE but if you play seriously you will find yourself wanting access to 3rd-party things. Most are completely harmless and are nothing more than features SE should've added. For a Thief things like the addon to display TP can be immensely helpful (as opposed to everyone spamming the chatlog with their TP every 2 seconds). If you ever participate in endgame you may find that you're not necessarily required to have some of these, but will find that most people do.

4. Controls - You will have to buy a keyboard for this. The movement controls are awkward and many PC players use a controller to supplement the keyboard, but you'll have to use a keyboard to communicate and probably to be efficient with macros. Scrolling through and searching your macro palette just isn't as fast and getting there quickly with a keyboard if you have to hit 3-4 macros all in a very short amount of time while also moving around (very likely with Thief).

Some people will disagree with me on this, but if you're familiar with WoW, it's about the same as being a keyboard turner. It will be fine 95% of the time, but once you need to up your game to a certain level of efficiency and proficiency, keyboard turning in WoW just won't cut it.

Sidenote: If you get the game on Xbox, you can always come back later when these issues become important to you. You'll spend 20 bucks (probably less in a bargain bin) to pick up the Vana'diel Collection for PC. You can use the same account both on PC and Xbox. I realize that you may have limitations that preclude you from playing on a PC at the moment. You know that it's not an irreversible decision to go Xbox in the future and don't let it steer you away from trying the game simply because it will be somewhat handicapped by the console.


Secondly: I've been doing some research into jobs. I'd probably be an Elvaan, because they're cool. With this, I want to be a Thief. The reason being that it seems that Thieves can really be useful into the later levels, especially when coupled with a nifty sub. Anyone a Thief? Is it something I'd want to replace later on in the game? Would it be better to sub it and pick a different main?

Picking a race because it's cool is always the way to go. There will be some race discrepancies in this MMO more than some others, but there are plenty of Elvaan everything's out there doing just fine.

Thief's usefulness is a yes and no thing. It depends on what you want out of the game. Thief is one of the better soloers in the game which is good for getting some rare gear later on. Thief also has the ability to get better drop-rates on things. This is good for farming and great for camping rare gear from rare monsters. This will make you useful to the endgame crowd when they need improved drop-rates. A Thief will always be in the main group for the sake of drops.

Once upon a time, when parties used a more traditional setup, SATA with a good Thief was really important. I'm sure it still is, but as you get to higher levels parties become less traditional. But have heart. You won't be at the very bottom of the pile for invites.

Before some of the recent changes to the game I would've said THF was really hard to start with because of early invites before you have a subjob, but now you can just solo it all, even if it is a bit slow. You will have to level a sub and it will probably be Warrior for a while early on.



Thirdly: Subbing. From what I understand, subbing mostly does exactly the same as your main (in terms of unlockable abilities), but only up to level 37. Right? If so, what would make a good sub for a thief? I'm looking at either Ninja or Dancer mostly. I like not dying, and both of these look as if they can make me not die more. Ninja could epicarise (totally a word) my SATA damage if I used the right weapons, which could be good. Also, it would allow me to super-safely tank for a little while if the main tank needed a time-out. I like the hate controlling aspects of the Thief, and it just seems to me that Ninja would help with increasing damage and staying power. My worry with this is that it won't be that useful in terms of support, hence the Dancer option. From the looks of things, a Thief/Dancer (in later levels) can act as a pretty good support character for pretty much all occasions and job types, especially when it comes to alleviating some of the stress from the White Mage in the party.

As above, just keep in mind you won't have access to either NIN or DNC until you've hit 30 and done the quests to unlock those jobs. A likely path you'd have to take is as follows...

WAR ->18
-Get your subjob
THF -> 30
-Get advanced jobs
DNC and/or NIN -> 37
THF -> 75

DNC is a pretty incredible sub and has become one of the subs of choice for many melee especially for solo situations. /NIN is also a great choice for soloing. In the long run the answer is that you need both. FFXI is all about situational stuff. You'll need to level lots of subs and depending on how serious you get, several mains and the relevant subs for those as well.






At this point it's probably a lot to take in and I can ramble forever about very gameplay issues. It would probably be better if I waited and got some feedback from you about what specifically you want to do.

That aside, you can't go too wrong and you'll almost always find yourself being pleasantly surprised by things that you may not have planned to enjoy but end up loving.

[Del Murder]

I don't own an X-Box 360 so I can't help you there.

THF provides a unique function in a party due to it's ability to pull monsters to camp and provide hate management. THFs are the main pullers of the game, and have the highest evasion. In terms of invites to level up THF are generally are ignored during the low and high levels. This is due to not being able to do as much damage as other jobs and not being useful for much else. In the mid levels THFs probably get more invites. In the 30s especially THFs are in high demand due to SATA. Once you get Viper Bite (weapon skill) at level 33 you will become the best DD for that level range.

In terms of 'end game' activities THFs are generally only wanted due to their Treasure Hunter ability. There are many other jobs that can provide better damage output and hate management generally isn't an issue in these situations. However, for many things Treausre Hunter is highly desired so THF has some demand.

THF as a subjob is useful for some jobs but I don't see it being used as much any more. I use it as a sub for BLU sometimes as Sneak Attack provides a damage bonus to my spells.

NIN is the standard subjob for THF. This allows a THF to wield two daggers which provide stat bonuses and more auto-attack damage. With it's high evasion, the blinkable shadows provided by NIN allows THF to solo many monsters without even taking a hit. Also, the use of Bloody Bolts allow THF to recover HP without needing a cure spell. THF are really good at soloing things that have lowish accuracy. The shadows also help THF with pulling duties. I don't see many THF sub DNC so I can't tell you how good it is. It's almost always NIN.

Most people from these forums are on Midgard server, but I'm on Pandemonium. Is my coolness greater than the sum of the coolness of all the people on Midgard? Probably not. However, if Ouch! was here with me (which he was until he BETRAYED ME) I think our combined coolness would put us over the top.

[Lionx]

I am probably one of the few that would choose to sub WAR given the chance because of Berserk and Double Attack. I feel these are stronger alternatives to Dual Wield until the second upgrade around level 30ish for both DoT and WS. By level 60 though Assasin is there, so splitting SATA and subbing NIN makes more sense to me. The subjob of WAR gives you a more offensive boost at the expense of defense.

When pulling monsters that are really slow at running, or the monster does not have very strong AoE attacks(or if the AoE wipes shadows anyway), i would be more inclined to sub WAR if the given situation allows it. The THF should not have hate to begin with so the lack of defense is negligible with a competent tank. If you are smart you should take minimal damage.

That being said, NIN is a more common subjob due to safety reasons(party and solo), and DNC is great for soloing.

[Quindiana Jones]

THF/WAR was going to be my primary setup until I could get to NIN and DNC. Man, I just had an acro-gasm. But yeah, I figure Provoke and Perfect Dodge could help get a party out of a sticky situation if need be.

To be honest, I'll be experimenting like a beast with jobs. As I said, my main worry is how difficult or just plain bad XI might be on 360. Assuming I have the 2008 edition (all extras to the Goddess) and a keyboard, what are the differences between console and PC? I'm not too fussed about graphics, so long as I'm not missing out on any storylines or quests, though I would appreciate a comparison screenshot or two if anyone knows where to get one.

[Del Murder]

They are the same exact game. You will have access to all the same quests and items as the PC version. You could even buy a PC version and play as the same character on PC if you felt like it.

[Quindiana Jones]

So the only real difference is with the controls, which can be solved with a simple 360 keyboard?

[Del Murder]

Having never played on Xbox I can only assume but I think so.

[Quindiana Jones]

Groovy. Thanks for the advice and stuff.

[Rostum]

Del move to Midgard, imo.

[Quindiana Jones]

This thread is now a petition to move Del to Midgard. I hear he totally loves petitions and stuff.

[Ouch!]

Motion for Del to move to Midgardsormr seconded (thirded?).

As far as I know, the only performance issue the Xbox 360 has is for the Besieged event, in which you will almost always disconnect as the event ends, thus preventing you from gaining the experience points and imperial standard accumulated. Otherwise, I've heard nothing bad about it and know quite a few people who play using the console.

There's not much else for me to say that hasn't already been addressed about THF except to emphasize that getting parties, especially merit parties (which will be important) can be pretty difficult for THF. As long as you're prepared for that, there's nothing that should stop you.

Edit: Interestingly enough, I just finished the SCH AF1 quest, in which a character says, "Help me, Ouch. You're my only hope." I laughed pretty hard, and the thread title just reminded me of it.

[Quindiana Jones]

Seeing as this already exists, I may as well ask a new question here.

Xbox keyboard: all I know of is the £60 piece of Microsoft wanker adapter that allows me to plug a mouse and a keyboard into the 360. Is this the only method of keyboarding up a 360? Anyone know of any particularly good ones? :bigsmile:

[Ouch!]

Seeing as this already exists, I may as well ask a new question here.

Xbox keyboard: all I know of is the £60 piece of Microsoft wanker adapter that allows me to plug a mouse and a keyboard into the 360. Is this the only method of keyboarding up a 360? Anyone know of any particularly good ones? :bigsmile:
I just use whatever USB keyboard I have lying around and plug that in. You really shouldn't need a mouse at all for FFXI. In fact, I recommend against it. Mouse controls are fairly awful!

[Quindiana Jones]

Yeah, mousing would make it very hard to play...what with no table and all. I'm doing some research on it all, so it should be groovy. Yum. Game's arriving for July 15th. Huzzah!

[Ouch!]

Yeah, mousing would make it very hard to play...what with no table and all. I'm doing some research on it all, so it should be groovy. Yum. Game's arriving for July 15th. Huzzah!
It also doesn't help that the mouse controls for FFXI are pretty awful to begin with. I use my keyboard exclusively, and that seems to work just fine.

[BlackMoomba]

How many people here are actually from Midgard?

[Dignified Pauper]

I'm in Midgard.

[Rostum]

How many people here are actually from Midgard?

Since 2004.

[Lionx]

Since launch day.

[Ultimage]

Since 2004.

Same here, 5 years last month.

[Ouch!]

Since North American PC launch. Except that brief stay on Pandemonium--but I digress; I prefer not to speak of the dark times.

[Quindiana Jones]

OMG IT CAME.

[Yeargdribble]

OMG IT CAME.

From the enthusiasm I assume you did as well.

[Quindiana Jones]

I started to, but then died of hatred.

I'm hoping the payment option keeps failing miserably because I have no money. I don't know if this is the case. If it's not that, then it just means God hates me. I have a Visa debit card, and it seems that Visa instantly means credit in POs books. If this is correct, then their entire staff will be found dead with Visa debit cards forcibly inserted into their mouths.

But I'm probably just broke, and my pessimism is causing me to overthink things. :)

[Yeargdribble]

SE sucks at billing... seriously. They will often double and triple charge people for a month. I you get double/triple billed, look forward to 3 hours on the phone waiting for support who may or may not tell you to GFY.

The billing issue has been increasingly problematic lately with some people even ending up with bans small issues when an old credit card expires and they attempt to move it to a new card.

When I recently came back it was quite a chore and even worse so because my wife came back at the same time as you cannot activate two accounts on the same card on the same day.

Also, make absolutely certain that your home address, billing address, and everything to do with your address at the bank are absolutely the same. A tiny discrepancy will keep your payment from going through.

SE will always blame the bank if you call them about payment not processing. Before you wait 3 hours on the phone for terrible customer support make sure the bank will not block any transactions (specifically online ones). Many banks have security measures to halt transactions until there is some type of verification. It's not a bad measure, but it doesn't jive with SE too well.

Sadly, changing your information in PlayOnline is about as easy as threading a needle blindfolded while wearing oven-mitts... seriously. It's not that anyone part is that difficult, but more that the menu system is confusing and there are about 3 tiers of logged-in-ness. You have to makes sure all settings at all spots are properly laid out.

For instance, if you can't purchase a content ID, you'll have to go back to a previous set of menus to adjust payment stuff, then re-advance a set of a menus to go back to the content ID menu.


I'd be willing to bet you've got the money but that something just isn't working in POL... To make it worse, due to their anti-RMT measures your repeated attempts may lock out your card for a 24 hour period and you may be hitting your head against a brick wall.

Also, hopefully you're signing up with a trail pass to start. If you start a 30-day trial mid-month, it will last till the next month after which the remainder of the month will be prorated.


BUUUUT!!! If you're returning to the game and came back on say... the 30th... They lose their mathematical ability to prorate bills. You will be charged 12.95 for the 30th... and then another 12.95 starting on the 1st. Yeah... you pay an entire month for a few hours.


Welcome to FFXI where one of the best MMORPGs meets the worst customer service in the world.

[Quindiana Jones]

All information is correct. There are only two things it can be on my end: 1. No money, or 2. POL have yet to realise that Visa do debit cards.

I should have a free trial. I think. Maybe. I bought a new 2008 version that says "30 FREE DAYS WOOT!" in big letters, and I'm assuming that gets automatically done when I register with the 8 million digit registration code.

I've heard some serious complaints about the customer service for this game. And the by the month billing is ridiculous. Seriously. It's not as if that was an accident or anything, since the proper 30 day stuff has been around since time began.

How often is often, when referring to double and triple billing? And is not refunding that money actually against the law? As far as I can tell, the T&C within the manual do not state that I accept that they will smurf up and triple charge me xD.

How often am I likely to come across something that would require customer services? Personal experiences anyone?

EDIT: Haha, do you know what's hilarious? I was curious to check out what people call a business with a proper level of customer care: Blizzard, or more accurately the WoW website. Straight away you can see the differences in customer service. POL: where the hell am I and how do I find out where to go next? WoW: I have this problem. Click. I have found out information on this problem. My problem is solved.

[Rostum]

This is one thing I hate about FFXI - the customer service. It's just so bad... Square-Enix were far out of touch with their playerbase for most of FFXI's life, they are only now starting to come a little closer to the community but it is not enough. They really need to re-design their payment system, customer service and PlayOnline client.

I would agree, from what I have experienced with Blizzard in the past, that they indeed do have some great customer service. But to be fair, I've never actually had any problems with my accounts on FFXI, and I've only been double charged once out of the 4-5 years I've played - and even then, they took back one of the charges.

[Ultimage]

Well, I've never had a problem with SE double charging or their customer service. I was hacked, and everyone I spoke with was helpful and polite, and the GM was awesome (every GM I've met has been, even the one that helped me at FanFest in 2008). I guess I just got lucky, or getting hacked was sooo unlucky, all I had left was good luck. ^^

The only complaint I have about that whole thing is that it took 2 and a half to 3 months to get it back, but even when I did get it back, I got a ZNM pop item back that I spent before getting hacked. So, I got a free try and it actually dropped the second time.

[Quindiana Jones]

So, is the consensus that although SEs customer service sucks balls, it's unlikely that I will ever really be subject to it, and that if I am they will eventually get the job done after several years waiting on the phone, and roughly seven eras of waiting after the phone call for something to actually happen?

From my understanding, Ultimage, you seem to be the exception :laugh:. Although I imagine people rarely post comments on complaint blogs about how great someone was.

[Yeargdribble]

There are some awesome GMs, but most are not. Some of the worst cases in the past I've seen have been straight up racists GMs.

Example1: Some RMT called someone something along the lines of filthy NA. They GM'd it since it was clearly against TOS and was racially negative against their "place of origin" as stated in the rules. GM says it doesn't count because NA is not a race and they can be called filthy NA all day long.... NA is not a race. So the guy asks the GM.... so what if I call them filthy Chinese. GM: "You would be suspended."

Example2: "Holding" certain NMs to pull them into different time zones used to be a huge problem. So some NA linkshells complained about JP linkshells doing this literally for hours at a time to pull the respawn into JP primetime. Eventually someone of the NA LSs got warnings for harassment of GMs but over-reporting the issue. JP LSs were not reprimanded even though it was clearly against the rules. Later NA group... who had been complaining was slow to start... about 10 minutes into the fight they hadn't done any damage as they were waiting for people to get there.

GMs transported all members... including those out leveling and in other zones... to GM jail. They were held for several hours and told that they had created such a mess they would have to wait to talk to a senior GM. As I recall one person ended up with a permaban (due to a previous offense being on their record) and most got 72 hour suspensions and a blot on their record.




As for the billing stuff. Between my wife and I, having played for a 3 year period 2 years ago. We got double billed about 4 times. It's not a lot, but it sucks. You see... you have to pay for any alts you have. Since inventory sucks in the game (way better now, way worse then), but you get tons of stuff.... you need a lot.

I have more than the average to make good money sorting and selling junk. But when you've got two accounts with about 16 mules between them you're nearing 50 bucks. We got double billed on both accounts once which was terrible... nearly 100 bucks. We spend some time on the phone and they fixed that.

They are willing to fix the double billing without much complaint, but most other issues they may not. I've read many complaints about issues similar to yours where they literally say, "It's not my job" about fixing it.



All that aside, I really like the game. My quitting 2 years ago was based probably 10% of game frustration (stagnation and camping NMs/LFG for 6 hours at a time while not being able to do much else) and 90% horrible jadedness about SE as a company.

They still suck horribly at listening to the players. They take us for granted and ignore us. However, in my absence many things have been improved on greatly and many others fixed. Still, they have tons of little problems that could be fixed if they would just listen to the players.

Small example:

If you sell on the AH you have to look up your items slowly to figure out a reasonable price. If listing 7 different items this becomes taxing. They could simply add a feature where you check the price history by clicking the item once. Once you already have it listed... THEN you can check the price history of that item... but before listing you have to go through tons of menus manually.

If this were WoW... Blizzard would've noticed many addons fixing this or listened to player suggestions and added the feature so people didn't have to rely on addons. Not only is Blizzard's billing exquisitely simple... their GMs are ridiculously nice as opposed to the curt, cold, business-like GMs of FFXI (to say nothing of the rude and hateful ones), but they constantly fix things that could've gone without fixing simply because they realize they could make something more convenient.

They have one-on-one discussion with the playerbase (who are horrible horrible people) constantly with nearly immediate feedback.

SE needs to learn from this for FFXIV more than they need to learn anything else. I don't want FFXIV to be easy or a WoW clone. I just want them to learn some customer service and make a community site.

[Rostum]

Small example:

If you sell on the AH you have to look up your items slowly to figure out a reasonable price. If listing 7 different items this becomes taxing. They could simply add a feature where you check the price history by clicking the item once. Once you already have it listed... THEN you can check the price history of that item... but before listing you have to go through tons of menus manually.



I know this isn't SE, but the playerbase decided to step up and create FFXIAH - which is much easier to use for AH stuff I feel. It's not the best solution, and SE really should come up with their own stuff before the playerbase does (see Windower), but it's a solution to use for the time being.

[Quindiana Jones]

Right. Just went through the 300 hour, 9 million password and login setup stuff, and am now creating a handle to play the game. I should be up and running in another 10 years! Nice!

[Rostum]

No no no, you just played the game. Now you wait for FFXIV.

[Mirage]

What, has account creation changed a lot since I started? I don't remember any problems like that.

[Rostum]

Well I guess you have to register a PlayOnline account, then a Square-Enix account, link your security token to it. Then you need to purchase a Content ID, update FFXI, then create your character.

It's a bit of a fuss, imo.

[Quindiana Jones]

But it's all done! Now I'm training whilst trying to figure out where the hell everything is. :)

[Mirage]

Ohright, SE accounts were nonexistent when I got the game.

Did you end up on midgardsormr, and what's your name?

[Yeargdribble]

I wanna be on the EoFF server in FFXIV. I feel left out around here.

If by some off chance you landed on Fenrir you can look me up.


EDIT:
LM-17 wtf - Order of the Blue Gartr (http://www.bluegartrls.com/forum/77075-lm-17-wtf.html)

A bit on topic since I was ranting about their CS earlier. Lot of people on BG got banned again this month for the same credit card issue as last month. Looks like some of them are permanent, some are not. I several cases customer service simply says they were banned for "violating the terms of service" and refuse to elaborate.

Must be great to play a game for 5-7 years and then have your account deleted and without them giving you a reason.

It's an old post, but has gotten updated a bit recently. It's interesting to see so many accounts of people getting screwed and hearing their accounts of dealing with CS.

[Quindiana Jones]

Ohright, SE accounts were nonexistent when I got the game.

Did you end up on midgardsormr, and what's your name?

Midgardsormr, yup. Name: Quintonir. I don't have a keyboard right now, so talking takes aaaaages. But it will arrive in the next few days so bear with me. :)

I started in San D'Oria, but plan on heading to Bastok as there are better resources for...well, everything there. :)

All this crafting lark is pretty bloody confusing. As are quests and stuff. But meh. Confusing good, rather than confusing bad. :)

Whoever on SE thought that a tall, long legged Elvaan would run as slow as a midget Tarutaru is a pillock. I want this changed. If you're gonna make a game real-world with all the unknown laws of nature and stuff, at least make running realistic too. And I can walk faster than these people can run. xD