I fully intend on beating every FF's story, which means I might need to mark this one off the list before it becomes... less playable :p
What's a reasonable timeline in terms of number of hours to complete this game's story? How long with all the expansions? How long would it take to level cap? Etc.
A lot of it depends on how fast you can level up and if you can get help with the story missions. Also which missions you would count as 'completing the story'.
Bleys could probably tell you how long it takes to get leveled up. It's a lot quicker than it used to be.
The nation missions (which could be considered the 'main story') do not take a long time if you use a guide and have helpers. Some of the missions were capped but I think that they did away with the level caps a while ago. If this is the case you could probably solo 90% of it with a good solo job (RDM, BST, NIN, BLU etc.) and duo with most jobs. In fact you can probably duo all of the missions in this game up through ToAU and WotG final few missions. I'm going to assume 10-15 hours per set of nation quests. So that's about 40 hours if you want to do all 3 nations.
RoZ missions are not hard but some of them take a bit of time. Probably 15 hours for it.
CoP missions are pretty time consuming, but CoP is the best storyline in the game so you would want to do it. I'd say 25 hours for the whole thing assuming you don't mess up and can get a group for the final battles.
ToAU missions are a bit more challenging and you can't solo most of them. So 20 hours there.
WotG is the most recent expansion and the missions require you to do other missions for the three nations and that is time consuming. I think 25 hours is pretty liberal estimate.
There are also the mini-expansions which have pretty silly storylines but if you are going for completeness then you have to do them. They are probably 10 hours each and there are three of them.
I'm not going to count anything related to Abyssea as storyline to make it easy on you. :)
So in total you are looking at about 150 hours to complete the FFXI storyline, not including time spent leveling up. Ouch! or someone can come in and check my assumptions.
Ask and ye shall receive. The only comment I can make about Del's assumptions is that his comments about what you can and can't solo may be untrue for a majority of the content now that the level cap is 99. Everything through Treasures of Aht Urghan was designed with a level 75 cap in mind. A large portion of Wings of the Goddess is also scaled for that. A great deal of what used to be impossible for a player to complete solo is now largely a joke (such as Chains of Promathia, I completed all that at level 75 when they uncapped player level restrictions, and everything except the last few fights were a joke then).
Also don't forget the new expansion coming out. Obviously we can't comment on how long that will take to complete yet.
How long will it take to level to various level "mile markers"?
1-30 is going to be the most difficult grind. Bleys can probably comment to that better than I can, since he still plays, but that will be the only point you'll be soloing. As I understand it, partying doesn't happen much between 1-30 anymore. Even if it does, it will still be considerably slower than leveling in Abyssea. It's absurd how fast exp. gain became once people figured Abyssea out, and you can jump in as a leech starting at level 30. The most obnoxious part will be that beyond level 50, you have to complete a limit break quest every five levels. You only have to do this for your first job, but it will likely be very obnoxious as some of them MUST be completed solo.
The biggest roadblock I see isn't leveling but rather skilling up. I understand that this, too, has become more manageable, but the problem with rocketing from 30-99 in Abyssea parties is that your skill levels (which determine stats such as attack and accuracy for weapons or magic accuracy for spells) are going to be SEVERELY gimped. It will be a grind on its own to keep them up, and something you'll absolutely need to do if you want to be able to complete the story content. Being level 99 will certainly help if you're trying to take down bosses that used to be difficult fights at level 75, but if your great axe skill on warrior is the equivalent of a level 30 warrior's great axe skill because you've just spammed Abyssea, you're going to have a lot of trouble hitting the damn thing reliably even if you've got decent gear at level 99.
You soloed Promathia? I know Prishe can tank it, but I thought it wasn't as simple as that.
I realize now that the placement of that parenthetical leads to that confusion. I meant that I solo'd most of the content up until the last couple fights (after Tenzen) which were too difficult for it (ran with full-parties). I very much imagine that a level 99 job could solo it, though.
Really, you can solo all the way to 75 -- doing Abyssea from 30-99 is doable, but you wouldn't be able to afford go gear yourself appropriately and your skill levels would be so badly gimped that you might as well be 30.
I'd say if you really pushed you could knock it out in a month or two of serious playing. In terms of hours I really have no damned idea. A lot longer than a single-player FF game, that's for sure.
Getting help won't really be a problem if you roll on Shiva and hit me up for a linkpearl, my shell has lots of helpful people in it.
Before I left I managed to duo Wings of the Goddess with a friend, we were at level 99 and extremely well geared / skilled, it took us about 3 weeks from start to finish. Abyssea's story line is quite easy so long as you can find a few active people that are willing to help take down all the bosses.
I think you're forgetting Rani. Every time I've done Rani "Yakety Sax" has been playing in my head as people die, and die, and die. That includes Rani fights with multiple brewers.
Rani is worse than gonorrhea.
Would within 250 hours seem appropriate? (longest I've ever spent on one FF was FFX, had a 150 hour beat everything playthrough, and two rebeat the story out of love playthroughs)Quote:
Originally Posted by Citizen Bleys
I heard some shenanigans about needing a "gaming controller" for my computer to enjoy the game better. Can anyone comment on this? Perhaps even make recommendations?
EDIT: Also does anyone know if this game is available on a Mac? I see nothing on their site.
You can run it on a Mac but only if you have a Windows partition. There is no version that runs on Mac OS.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Del Murder
Probably just killed this for me. :yuck:
Although, my old PC can still run Starcraft II, so I can probably use that, so all my other questions still stand.
Or you can play it on the PS2 and people will think you're an illiterate, dummy because you can't type fast because you don't have the keyboard accessory.
I played on and off for eight years without ever using a gamepad on my computer; although the keyboard controls aren't similar to other MMORPGs (basically, don't use a mouse), I never had any trouble with it.
Miriel ran the game on Bootcamp Windows for years and had no issues. It's not hard to set up a Windows partition on Mac.
Yes, just like every other FF game; they're meant to be played with a gamepad.Quote:
Originally Posted by Goldenboko
You could use BootCamp, Crossover Gaming, or WINE, but with anything but an actual Windows install, you wouldn't be able to use Windower, which adds a lot of functionality that should be part of the game. I can't imagine being without the rangefinder, it helps me know when I'm far enough away from an aggressive mob to avoid aggro (15 yalms for sound, 25 for sight), and Infobar, though not always accurate with newer mobs, is an easy to tell which mobs are aggressive and which ones aren't.Quote:
Originally Posted by Goldenboko