2012 FFXI Recruitment Drive
Time to take advantage of the additional attention this forum should now be getting.
Thinking of trying FFXI? Played back when the cap was 75 and quit because there was too much poopsocking involved? There has never been a better time to start/return to FFXI. I came back a little under a year ago and everything about FFXI is better now.
No way! I once spent 6 hours looking for a party and got nothing done!
Those days are over. Traditional EXP parties are almost entirely gone now -- occasionally vets will throw one together for nostalgia but they are neither needed nor even an efficient way to level anymore. It has become so easy to level that nobody even cares about the EXP loss when they die--it's too quick and easy to recover. No longer do snobs demand "R3 only" when they die; in Abyssea, I routinely take R1s and have my exp back -- and more -- before weakness wears off.
To start with, the base EXP gained for a simple kill is now double what it used to be--but so what? Base EXP has less and less to do with how fast you level thanks to Grounds of Valor
Some of you may already be familiar with Fields of Valor -- GoV is FoV on meth. It's the same basic principle -- a book assigns you a task, such as killing 3 spiders and 3 funguars. Upon completion of this task, you get bonus EXP and "tabs" redeemable for buffs and transportation (and gil, once per vana'diel day). When FoV first came out, you could only get rewards once per Vana'diel day, but this is no longer the case. FoV and GoV both have the option (set by default) to auto-renew so that as soon as you finish your task, it repeats, and you get the EXP every time. With GoV, the rewards increase each and every time you finish a page, which continue to accumulate as long as you stay in the same zone. Additionally, you get Prowesses, which are buffs that last as long as you stay in the zone. If one page gets too easy for you, you can switch to a higher page and keep your prowesses and bonus modifier.
I haven't done the math at low levels, but in the mid 60's, the bonus EXP from GoV accounted for over 2/3 of the EXP I gained in a single session.
Parties -- The New Way
Now, I have levelled non-Beastmaster jobs to 80 solo, but parties do still exist, it just works differently now. No longer do you put your flag up and wait for a group that needs whatever job you happen to be, only to have it disband because there is either no healer or no tank. Now, at sub-75 levels, the way it generally works is you start out soloing. As an example, let's say you're a level 42 Warrior. GoV Page 1 in the Crawler's Nest is 3 Worker Crawlers and 3 bees, which you are capable of soloing (if you're careful about links) at 41. You head to the Nest and solo for a while, building prowesses and page-chain bonus. A while later, a level 40 dragoon comes along and says {Team up?}. You start duoing with the DRG and now--with page bonuses--you're both gaining exp faster than either one of you could alone, especially if you level sync to the DRG's level. An hour later, there are 9 of you in an alliance, completing a page for 2k+ exp about every 90 seconds. If you started out solo, I guarantee you'll get bored/reach your goal and leave the party long before it breaks up, even if everybody in the party is the same job. No need for a dedicated healer or tank.
Often, at low levels, you'll get an unsolicited /tell to join a party in Gusgen Mines -- I've never done a bones party at those levels, so I don't know how good they are, but they're extremely popular and often recruit aggressively for level sync designees so that people can continue levelling there past the point when bones stop giving exp. (You need to get exp from the mobs you kill for it to count towards GoV)
At Last, Abyssea
Abyssea is the biggest change yet; Starting at Level 30, you can start accumulating Traverser Stones, used to enter the new Abyssea zones. Even if you have accumulated stones, you must be level 30 or higher on your current job to enter Abyssea.
Aby has to be experienced to be believed, from the perspective of someone who has never played or who quit at 75. I have accumulated over 1 million exp in Abyssea in a single session. How it works is that each time you kill a certain type of monster, you gain a "chain bonus" that increases the amount of exp you get from killing that mob. (Chain bonus is reset as soon as anyone in your party/alliance kills any other type of mob, so be sure to call for help if you get aggro so the kill doesn't count. Zoning also clears your chain bonus, so do not accept tractor); Usually your first few kills will yield 0 exp, but after a while it builds up to 600 or even more per kill. The higher your level, the faster the chain bonus builds. There are also "Abyssea Lights," which can increase your exp gained and time allowed to stay in Abyssea, but those are beyond the scope of this post, since a new Abyssea player will generally learn how those work long before they have to.
In the last Abyssea party I did, towards the end I was pulling in 300,000 exp per hour. This wasn't calculated by a plugin -- I got 6 levels while building chain bonus and lights, then switched to limit points, of which I had none. Less than an hour later, my limit points were capped.
If you were to join an Abyssea party at level 30 -- as a key master or leecher -- and you had all of your limit breaks done -- you could go all the way to 99 in a day. It wouldn't be fun to do it that way, but it can be done. There is no exp grinding anymore. You solo for fun, and when it's not fun anymore if you haven't met whatever goal you set, just join an Aby party. (Note I said no exp grinding -- skilling up weapoins, although easier than it used to be -- is still grinding, as is Trial of the Magians)
Now here's where the bad(ish) news comes in: There is no level 30 content in Abyssea. If you want to pull your weight at low levels, you need to buy Forbidden Keys to open chests for the rest of the alliance. Forbidden keys are purchased with Cruor. Cruor is earned by killing mobs in Abyssea. So...unless you leech, you're going to need to level at least one job to 75 to really get started in Aby. At 75 you're strong enough to pull your weight doing worms in Abyssea-La Theine Plateau, and then you can earn enough cruor doing that to buy a few keys and use Aby to skip the levels that you don't enjoy playing on lower-level jobs. RMT and some non-RMT linkshells also offer "FC Parties", where one WAR/RDM AoE farms mobs with Fell Cleave in abyssea while 2 people open chests and 15 people pay to go AFK while the WAR kills for them. Some people scorn this method, others take advantage of it to bypass timesinks like some magian trials and merit upgrades that cost more than 10 merits each.
Trial of the Magians
"But what about gear? Won't I have to spend days farming gil to buy gear so that I'm not gimp?"
No. Everything is cheaper nowadays on account of the fact that gil simply isn't used as much anymore. High end gear comes from drops and from the Trial of the Magians, a new gear upgrade system that becomes available at level 75. Each trial assigns a task -- for example, use the weapon skill Tachi: Koki against birds 400 times. Upon completion of this task, your weapon or armour is upgraded. Trials range from the incredibly dull (as in said example) to the incredibly easy (Empy armour upgrades -- expect to get all 8 of the seals you need in a single upgrade group) with commensurate rewards. Any time you don't have something more pressing to do, you can pass time by banging out part or all of a Magian trial and get better weapons/armour than gil can buy.
But there's so much to learn! I can't possibly get all of this straight within a month of playing!
This is where I come in. I am a sackholder in an active and very helpful linkshell (on two different characters, so if I'm not in a party, even if I have GoV prowesses/chains built up, I can log over to the other, I can invite new people into the shell). As you have questions, you can simply ask the shell and usually at least 3 people will answer. Lost your old account or haven't played FFXI before? No problem, low level content is fun to us. When I created my 2nd character, I solo'd my way to 30 and did the subjob quest myself (it was easy) but you don't have to! The LS can take care of your SJ items, 50-60 caps, initial AF, testimony farming, and all that jazz. (Thinking about going Summoner? Consider your prime avatar fights done. WE don't have enough summoners in the shell). You'll be (back) to 75 in no time. Send me a /tell on Prothall or Profane on Shiva server and you'll be (back) into the swing of things faster than hell can scorch a feather.
Haven't played before? FFXI is currently on sale for $16 including all expansions including abyssea. (Returning players who want to reactivate their old acounts will have to pay $9.99 per abyssea expansion for the same thing ><). During your free month as a new subscriber, I'm certain you'll find enough to entertain you that you'll keep coming back for more. It might seem a little like old-FFXI at first, but you can hit level 30 in a solid day of gaming.
EDIT: Almost forgot to mention: Level caps? Gone. You can solo all of your nation missions and Promyvion now.
