WK Plays FFXI

We'll see how long this lasts. I'm currently a Lv. 21 Monk in San'Odaria. Picking up my playthrough from Fynn's time playing. I'm on Mission 2-1 for the nation and just found the missing trainee.

I seriously don't know what I'm doing. This game is also slooooooowwwww.

Good ol' Sandy. I don't know what's wrong with my psychology that the thought of killing rabbits to that incredible Ronfaure music makes me sick with nostalgia even after a decade. I'm glad I have it uninstalled on everything or I'd be so tempted right now to go back.

I turned in the Rescue quest and managed to find my way to the beach city where I've started the sub-class quest. I was able to obtain the first item he asked for, but not the second just yet. I then decided that if I'm going to be subbing a class for my Monk, perhaps I should level a new job, so I changed to a warrior and have been leveling up some new weapon types.

So far, my biggest gripe with the game is the limited inventory that counts your equipment as part of your inventory. It's really annoying to have to stop and drop items left and right because my inventory space gets filled up too quickly. I wish I had more furnishings in my Mog House as well but that trout is expensive, and I haven't quite looked into how to make money quickly in this game.

MNK is a fun class, and I liked WAR as well, it's a bit nostalgic playing this class again because my first time trying the game out I was this class, though I was in Bastok instead of San'Doria. I must say, I do prefer Bastok a little bit more than San'Doria because the Elvann are certainly a bit more insufferable than the Humes and Galka. With all that said, I am also thinking of trying out RDM as well since I've heard it;s a good class to sub with MNK if you're doing a solo play. Well until I unlock DNC of course.

I do have a quest that involves me needing to find some Jungle forest thing to get some info, so I will have to look into that as well. But first, I need to turn in maybe two quests I managed to do, and I really should look into seeing if I can acquire more Trusts since my schedule is going to make coordinating with other players too much of a hassle.

Elvs are the worst. Windurst is my favorite starting area, and it's not particularly close, but I love Sandy's music. I'm a Galka4Lifebro, but Bastok is too drab. /rdm or /whm cut downtime in half at the very least.

Leveled WAR to 15 and switched to RDM since I rarely dabble in magic much and wanted to give it a try. I finished a few quests, including one to unlock the Paladin class.

It also looks like I'm almost far enough in my kingdoms questline that they may sjhip me off to another kingdom, so we'll see how that goes.

Right now, I'm hooping to level RDM and finish some of these nagging smaller quests. I still need to unlock Sub-Classing as well. Overall, I'm starting to have fun outside of the item management nonsense. Will be fun to see how magic changes the game up for me and I want to complete a few more Trust quests so I can build a strong enough party to help me advance further into the game.

Just hearing someone talk about the game "inspired" me to redownload and resub. :roll2
I'll probably not end up playing, though, cause I don't remember for the life of me all the millions of tweaks I had to do to get it running properly before. I'd forgotten what a pain that was. Even getting a controller to work is annoying.

Item management definitely gets better once you start getting inventory extensions and greater moghouse storage, but then it gets worse at the same time, because you get more and more classes to gear, random quest items, and lord forbid you ever get into crafting. I'd always ran at least two mules minimum, and sometimes up to 4 to deal with it all.

I don't think I'll go full crafting or what not. I doubt, I'll even get a Job to. Lv. 99. My main goal is to defeat Shadow Lord and finish the OG questline before the expansions. Which is not to say I won't dip into some of the expansions, but I don't have a plan to do 85% of FFXI. I'll likely do just 405 at best, but we'll see. The game has been growing on me lately and I've been oddly looking forward to playing it, so that's a great sign for me.

Mostly spent my evening clearing up a few quests in my quest log and learning how to do a few things like turning in Ciphers to get more Trust options. I think I won one from a event, cause I unlocked some Paladin dude who goes a little over the top in battle and murders everything. Made leveling easier.

I finally finished the quest to pass out magic flyers, delivered a receipt to a prince, amd I am currently catching a pickpocket.

My classes are:
MNK - 22 starting class
WAR - 15
RDM - 15 Current class

Even though I have magic, I haven't delved too much into using it because having a full party of Trusts means everything dies before I get a chance. I was hoping to try out the new sword I obtained in the Knight class questline, but since my sword proficiency is stupidly high thanks to my time as WAR, I've been using a club instead which confers better benefits for my RDM than a sword would.

I do feel like the FFXI Wiki is missing some information when it comes to finding some items. Like I'm trying to find the 5 Beetle Shells and the wiki is pointing towards buying them in a far off country or doing a Lv. 30 Instance, and I'm just a bit baffled that such a simple request would require that to acquire. Then again, I've been murdering Scarab Beetles for days now, and not one has dropped one so perhaps I'm in the wrong here...

Anyway, I had to stop while out on the field, I need to head back home because my inventory is getting full due to carrying a bunch of low level armor because I started off as a Lv. 4-5ish RDM when I left the town last night.

Semi-productive night. Mostly just learning my way around a few elements and the maps.I'm trying to do this optional Mission for my city that involves finding a fort, but I keep either getting lost, or party wiped by carelessness. I did manage to complete a few quests and dabbled more into magic with my RDM. Managed to get him to Lv. 20 and then decided to level warrior up to the same point, afterwards, I'll be going back to MNK for a bit since I have too much good gear for the class. I will grateful when I reach Lv. 30 with some classes, because then I can ditch the silly beginner's hat and shirt that makes me look like a dorky tourist. But the buffs they provide are just too good to pass up and I'll likely bring them out again if I decide to dabble in BLM or THF.

My new pet peeve of the game is how Trusts will disappear anytime you enter a new area. Almost got wiped because I forgot this fact and picked a fight I shouldn't have. I managed to acquire another Trust that is a Mithra that I believe is a WHM but I am not sure. She might be a RDM with a weird spell selection. I also learned that two of my Trusts are weird support units that offer a bonus for being in the party, but at the cost of them sort of wasting a slot as a combat unit. Kupfrend is adorable with his little crown and I love me a moogle that seems to offer an XP bonus, but my god man. I may have to bench him for awhile so I can get my death squad going.

So the plan for my next session is to finish the story Mission and see if I can finish any quests that I'll find in the area. Then I will make a serious effort to unlock sub-classes and see how I can really open this game up. I will also try to unlock PLD and potentially DRG if I can before heading to a new nation. I would also like to unlock a Chocobo because teleportation is expensive and weird in this game.

Are you playing on a private server or in the retail game? The retail game is super slow. On private servers, many of them tweak the settings to increase exp gain and movement speed and enable more fast travel options earlier in the game.

Oh no. I am playing on Steam. I am using Windower to help smooth some aspects out though.

Oof, a lot going on.

Mainly was having issues finding the Davoi camp because the instructions were very vague and even using the Wiki, it wasn't the most helpful since the game really wants you to learn to read the map with their grid structure and I'm just a little more visual inclined when it comes to finding places. Also, it was a troll (or should I say orcish?) move to place a very high level Orc Commander right by the entrance to this place.

I also tried to do a hunt and... that wasted a good chunk of my evening because the damn thing never seemed to spawn. Not sure if there was something else I was suppose to do, but the XI Wiki just says it has a chance to spawn in this one area, and yeah, that took forever. I remember one of my friends whom their main complaint about FFXII is that it basically played like XI, which he liked, and now playing XI, I can see what he means. But my god, XII got rid of so much of the bulltrout. It's like if XI played well.

Anyway, I am about to start the quest that sends my dumb ass to the two other kingdoms, so I'm probably going to try and unlock sub-classes and maybe a few advanced jobs before I leave. I'm thinking of going to Windhurst first, since it would be the only one of the main three kingdoms I have not been to in any of my attempted playthroughs of XI.

I have leveled WAR to 20 and I must say, I don't particularly care for the class. Not sure why, but it might be due to having issues keeping him well equipped. The few weapons I have that are at his current level are ones I haven't used before so his low proficiency makes using them awful.

I did really enjoy RDM more than I thought I would. I honestly feel it's probably the best starter class since it will give you a taste of using the other classes barring the thief. I may jump back onto that for awhile. But for now, I am back to my starting class of MNK and doing really well. The class is wrecking ball, and while I don't care for staff weapons, the fists have been great, though I really need to see if I can find an upgrade for the Brass pair I am currently using, at least see if there is a copper variant.

Overall, despite my whining this update, I am still having fun with the game and surprised to learn I'm close to the halfway mark of the OG campaign. I may dip into one of the expansions, if only so I can unlock BLU despite all the mixed things I hear about the class. SAM and DRK are also classes I am interested in, but we'll see if we get there. I am not even sure I have the levels to finish the quests to get PAL or even start DRA, but we'll see.

WAR has always been kind of bland, if versatile. There have been a few times in the past when it had specific niche usefulness, but it's mostly always been a subjob-only type class.
Good luck getting to the other kingdoms. I recall many many deaths during that portion of the game.

I am starting to dislike the FFXI Wiki. Lost an hour of time trying to do a Squire's Test II and all because the Wiki left out a few steps like needing to talk to two other people to get the effect to work. I am trying to do a Knight's Test, but this might be a challenge because it involves making a long trip through the Orc Camp in Davoi.

I am also a bit stuck trying to get the sub-job quest to finish. Ghouls just don't seem to like to spawn in the places they allegedly spawn all the time out, while the one spot I do find them tend to spawn at most two, and the RNG has not been kind to me despite the item I need being like a common drop from them. Ironically, the third item needed from the quest and is actually a rare drop, I managed to acquire after my fifth or sixth crab monster.

I finished a few quests, and learned I may have tossed a valuable item not realizing it boosts one of the crafting skills. I did dabble in a little crafting but it feels like way more of an investment than I really want to do. Though I would like to give my Mog Room a bed...

I leveled MNK to like 32 and I am back on RDM because I've acquired a ton of spells and I am now seeing some issues with the class because the options in battle are a bit overwhelming and unlike half the FFs in the series, status magic is actually useful in this game. I will likely level the class for a bit and I am debating about checking out the other three classes I've been avoiding of the starter pack. I feel like I would have fun with BLM and THF is probably not as bad as I think. WHM would likely be one of the most useful to level, but since I'm largely a Trust Fund player at this point, I doubt it will feel as rewarding. On the brightside, I finally figured out how to re-target with the keyboard commands so healing and support magic is finally useful for my RDM.

I think I will focus on getting the SUB-Job nonsense finished. It's just annoying that the areas he spawns in that I have access to, require it to be night for him to spawn. I guess I could do the Auction House, but I'm a bit poor. So my list of things to do keeps growing.

Mixed evening for sure.

On the one hand, I couldn't hardly get the Ghoul enemy to spawn. The Wiki has not been helpful as I explored two area that allegedly they spawn at and neither had the enemy show up. I can only seem to get them to spawn at the beach area where the quest is given by Selbina and even then, I only ever get two to spawn and waiting for night to fall again for the next spawn is tedious. So I ended up largely just leveling my RDM job.

On the other hand, I finally figured out how to use the river to bypass all the ridiculously overleveled Orcs in Davoi and managed to acquire the Knight's token needed to unlock the Paladin class. I also learned I could start the Dragoon quest if I switch back over to my MNK that is over lv. 32. But I might hold off for just a bit.

With my first Advanced job unlocked, I'm debating about checking it out or seeing if I should level the other three starter classes. I've been kind of wanting to try out BLM at least, despite the fact I would probably only use it with RDM at the moment if I can ever finish the Sub-Job quest.

I've also been thinking about leveling some of my crafting skills or finally reading up on how to make money in this game so I can level up my crafting better or at least make it easier to check off stuff to get me to the end of the base game. I know if I want to get that Bronze bed for my Mog House, I';m either going to have to move the story along and travel to Windhurst or try my luck with the Auction House, because it looks like one item for the crafting recipe is only cheaply accessible there.

Regardless, I'm probably going to keep trying to get this drop from Ghoul. :cry:

Alternatively, if you continue to have trouble with getting the subjob that way, the Rhapsodies of Vana'diel storyline provides a key item very early on that also unlocks subjobs.

A mixed evening for sure.

The good news is that I discovered I had two Mog Wardrobes I didn't realize. So I had a place to dump all my equipment and now I can use the Safe and other Mog Storage options for crafting/quest item. So that was a plus. I also managed to finish a few quests and I must say, I haven't really been too invested in the characters or the plot of the game so far, just because it feels sparse due to all the gaming distractions, but I really love Halver. I unlocked the quest where he has to find a bride for the prince, and the cutscene explaining the whole sequence is hilarious and made him a more endearing figure than I thought. Shame I'm probably not going to be able to do this quest since it involves getting another player involved, but I really do appreciate the creativity of the whole thing.

On the other hand, I am still not close to getting my sub-jobs. I took chionos advice and tried farming Giant Wasps for Pollen so I can finish Rhapsodies of Vana'diel that gives me Gilgamesh's Introductory Letter, but the enemy did not like spawning or dropping items for me. I tried hunting Ghouls again, but only managed to get one to spawn all night before the server crashed (or my internet got spotty, not sure which) and decided to call it a night.

I do think once I acquire the sub-job ability, or get my RDM to lv. 30 I may, switch over to BLM and give that a whirl for a bit. I had not originally planned on using all the starter classes, but at least trying out different options has helped mitigate some of the game's frustrations.

Attachment 78277

Huzzah! I obtained sub-classes! Managed to obtain the Magicked Skull with the first ghouls I spawned for the evening. Unfortunately for me, it looks like the Mog Tablet's are somewhat like the Dragon Balls and need to be found every once and a while, so I ended up having to walk back to my Mog House to use them because I am not spending 1000 gil to teleport home. In retrospect, the Sub-Class quest has been one of the most disappointing. Not because it was a pain in the ass for me the last few nights, but more because it just felt incredibly underwhelming for a quest that is giving you a major boon to your play styles. Go to this beach town and talk to this old dude. He makes you fetch the last few items needed on his shopping list and voila! you can use sub-jobs now. Very underwhelming compared to say the quest I had to do to unlock Paladin or the story intrigue I am getting in the Dragoon one.

With all that said, I unlocked the Dragoon quest and it looks like I need to travel a bit to get that accomplished, so I was initially going switch to MNK/RDM to finally start making the trek to another nation, but I still have a few quests to unlock that are not going to be worth my time when I get back, but I could use the items or gil they give. So instead, I switched to BLM and I am leveling that up.

Funny enough though, I discovered that I am not as good at exploring as I thought and while leveling in the West Ronafure area, I stumbled on the mountain pass the Orcs had set up shop nearby to harass the Elvaan of San Ondaria.Which is a bit amusing because I am not really struggling here since I was likely suppose to have found this spot ages ago. I have also not been cashing in my Records of Eminence tasks like I should be. So suffice to say, BLM is at Lv. 10 currently.

I also have not been cashing in my Conquests Points and I bought two more Trusts. One is a Tantaru Ranger who is a bit ho-hum but I am using a new class. The other was amusing because he's an the Captain of the Guards who seems intricately connected to the Dragoon class as a potential villain. So that's kind of an odd synchronicity. I also unlocked a third one, but have not had the time to activate them, so I have no idea.

For now, I am leveling up BLM to around 20ish and then I might switch over to WHM or THF and get them all to the 20ish spot while doing these last couple of easy tasks before I really head out into the world. I might even level PLD.

Congrats! That's a relief.

Getting one's subjob was almost an afterthought in the early days of the game. Valkurm Dunes was THE party spot 15-20, so everyone would get their subjob items as a consequence of partying there.

I had a few setbacks, but largely had a pretty good night.

I like BLM more than I thought I would. sub RDM with it was also nice just to get some WHite magic since I haven't touched WHM yet. Managed to get the class to Lv. 22 just fighting my way through that Orc base. Managed to fi9nishe the quest for the Temple Knight lady, and I got the holy tapestry needed to get that one lady to trust me for another quest. I unfortunately wasn't able to get a second Shaman Garlic for another quest, but I at least got one so far and I did manage to get a treasure chest key.

I need like one more fight to get BLM to 23 and then I'm debating about switching classes again. I might go white mage just to get it over with. I was a bit sad, but not necessarily surprised that BLM has very limited equipment options compared to other classes this early in the game. Like I was still running around with a few starting gear cause I couldn't find upgrades for certain equipment. The fact he is resticted from wearing certain belts feels a little bit like bulltrout, but thinking back on this class in other games, they usually get the shaft. It was amusing they use staffs, so my BLM does hit hard due to my high proficiency from my time as a MNK.

And we're back! A brief holiday interlude and now I can go back to playing this for a bit.

A slow evening as I try to get back into the swing of things. I tried out my new Trust which was a Hume BLM or possibly RDM but overall, I like her. I finished one minor quest I had forgotten about that earned me a little gil and even started another quest that involves me making friends and trying to build a team of living people. Not sure if that will happen.

I did earn my level for my BLM who is now lv. 23 and opted to switch over to WHM and try to get that class up to Lv. 20 as well. Kind of annoying that WHM, RDM, and WAR seem to be the best sub-classes. WHM has been okay, at least I am back to using clubs and shield again. I am trying to raise my Healing proficiency but it is surprisingly slow to level, even as a WHM. I don't exactly enjoy using the toggle feature, so that might be the issue. I imagine like other FFs, healing other characters nets me more XP. WHM is at level 8 currently. Once at Lv. 20ish I will switch to THF and later PLD.

I also tried to synthesize a Rabbit Mantle after I tossed my old one for inventory sake before realizing I had way more space than first thought. Unfortunately it went disastrously, so I am going to have to find more Grass Thread. Crafting is kind of a tedious affair in this game. Like the possibilities are neat, but leveling skills is a chore and it requires way more materials than I feel it should for some jobs. Leatherwork especially seems to require four to five components for basic nonsense like Sheep Leather and that's foundational to almost every other basic recipe. I am not sure If I am going to get terribly far into it sadly.

Crafting in FFXI is insanely intensive, and it gets worse and worse as you go. I enjoy the process of it, but to get anywhere you have to have infinite money/space/time.

Not as productive of a night as I would hope. Mainly leveled my WHM to about Lv. 14 but mostly spent the night delving a bit more into crafting in hopes that I can expand my inventory one.

I think the biggest beef I have with synthesis at the moment is that it levels so slowly. I understand their are items and gear I can acquire later to fix this issue, but that's the rub... later. I honestly feel like getting enough levels to be recognized by a guild should be easier so you can get into the thick of it faster, but I have been crafting quite a lot throughout this playthrough and I think I only have one or two skills up to Lv. 1 at this point despite a bunch of effort to show for it. Fishing is also just painfully slow to level up as well.

The other issue I am running into is the fact most of the beginner recipes need either Earth, Wind, or Fire Crystals to use. The issue is that the enemies around me drop a lot of Fire and a modest amount of Earth crystals, but Wind has been a bit trickier to get. Not helping is that the crafts that require this crystal are more prone to failing for me, and thus burning through the supply of crystals I have is exasperating this problem. I'll keep working at it though. I need Beeswax to finish one of my quests, so I am trying to farm Bee Hive Chips, though I don't think the enemy I think that drops it actually does (the Giant Bees in the canyon area) but rather the low level Orc Mesmerizers have dropped it, so I might be heading back to the orc camp.

WHM has been okay, definitely my least favorite class so far, but I tend to go for more offensive classes in general, so support is not really my thing. But if I head into the camp, I'll likely level pretty fast and can move onto THF.

Not a lot happened last night in terms of serious momentum, but I did get quite a few things accomplished last night.

• I leveled WHM to 20, so I am switching to THF and focusing on leveling Daggers and Throw, so it will be interesting.
• I acquired the last Trust magic I can easily get with the starter quest line chain. He was a Bard with healing magic and support songs. I do have one other Trust I can try to acquire in San D'oria but I need to increase my Fame to get that one to budge.
• I managed to farm a ton of Wind Crystals, so I can finally start doing some serious crafting. I also managed to acquire some Beehive Chips I need to craft into Beeswax for a quest I have.
• I accidentally pushed forward one quest that involves a potential thief from the capital and a guard who is desperately waiting for his chance to shine.
• I made a Workbench for my Mog House. Still have to go through the nonsense that is crafting Paper to make a Parchment for the Padded Box quest goal. I also managed to make a Leather Bandana which was another quest, but now I need purchase more Distilled Water for all that.
• I finally managed to take down a Hunt that I was actually assigned! Still need to turn in my kill.

So the goal now is to level THF and possibly PLD while finishing up the last few quests I can do in the local area. I'm shooting for Lv. 20 for all the base classes. Then I'll probably do MNK/WAR to the next area. I don't quite know how to reach the foreign lands since all the direct paths require me have already traveled to these places. I am assuming I need to go through Jeuno, which is an area I know I have access to, but I held off because I didn't want to stray too far. I am a little annoyed because I was able to teleport to at least local areas awhile ago, but once the Mog Tablet thing reset, now it costs $1000 Gil to go anywhere and I am too cheap, but traveling is its own pain.

I am just chugging along, but still having fun.

And of course the first evening when I had a lot of free time to play this is the night they decide to maintenance.
Attachment 78278

Okay, I did manage to get in a little time tonight.

I leveled THF up to about Lv. 13. Have been doing a good job raising my Dagger proficiency, but I am switching over to fists because the only knives I own so far are two low level ones, and one I can't use until I am lv. 20. So fists it is, and it will make the fact I am MNK sub class not seem so bad.

I was a bit distraught, because it seems I've lost one of my Trusts. Granted, not one I use a lot, but it still threw me off because I would hate to lose one I do use all the time. I am not quite sure how to get her back, but from what little I've been able to find on the matter, it seems this is more common than thought and depends on the Unity system.

I also did a bit more synthesizing and now am Lv. 2 at Leathercraft. I also made the first of the two beeswax items I need for one of my silly quests. Speaking of, I am having fun with one particular quest I unlocked that seems to involve helping a time traveler.

Slow evening but I've been a little too tired from RL to play for too long.

• Got PLD up to Lv. 18. Been liking it so far, though I am not using the class the way I should be. Mainly been using it to level up spears while I let my PLD Trusts do the actual tanking. Interesting to see Banish back as a spell and a Holy one at that.
• Speaking of Trusts, one of the Moogle vendors redid their inventory for the new month and I managed to snag the Trust of Shantatto herself, so that's something to look forward to.
• I also pushed forward and met Gilgamesh, who wishes to whisk me off my feet and sale me across the ocean to meet my dream girl. I may go that route.
• I also turned in some Conquest points to get some decent gear for my PLD. Finally got a bow too, I just need to buy some arrows. So that's a new weapon option to check out.

Now that I've leveled all the starting classes, I may give a little WK assessment for them next post. I won't include PLD just yet, only the starters. But I'll debate what my next course of action will be. I guess I should move the plot along at this point, even though I do still have a lot of quests I could still potentially do. I may try to get the one with the creepy dungeon guard done so I can acquire the Drain spell. I also noticed the magic shop unlocked some stuff, but I am guessing they base it partially on level and class. I haven't eve touched the spell selection at Selbina. But I am sitting on a modest amount of money I could use to purchase some stuff. I mainly hope I can find an upgrade to the Brass Xiphos that I have which can carry me a little further without breaking my bank. I may switch back to MNK soonish to continue on the story just because I have better equipment options for it over my other classes.

So I guess I need to decide if I am going on a magical boat ride with Gilgamesh or if I am going to level up and fight my way to Jueno.

Okay, I promised a quick WK style assessment of the starting classes. Going to rank them in the order of my enjoyment, starting with my least favorite class to my fave. I will not that this only really accounts for the first 20 levels of the classes and I expect to change my opinion as I get farther into the game.

WHM - I am not a fan of playing support classes, so this class was a bit of a drag. Not helped that I don't have any macros setup to make this class more efficient. But despite my personal play-style grievances, this is a pretty good class and I appreciate that it takes it's cues from FFI's version with the class being closer to a actual D&D Cleric build than the FFTactics style "healing mage" it eventually devolved into. There is enough equipment options to make this class a surprisingly tanky combat medic for a mage class, and I always feel that's the best way to handle this class. I do low key wish it was based off the FFIII incarnation and had access to Wind Magic but I guess I should be grateful I got Dia back and it's actually moire useful than it was in FFI.

THF - Again, not a bad class at all. It just lacks the satisfaction of other versions of the class within the series. Part of the issue is that I don't enjoy using thieves very much in games with crafting as a mechanics, because that usually means that 99% of the stuff you can steal is just crafting materials which just delays the gratification of getting something cool and useful. Other than that, I can see why this class is a popular Subjob because some of it's abilities are pretty damn useful. So it ultimately feels like a typical Thief in the series in terms of being the weakest melee option of the starting classes, but making up for it with some useful quirks.

WAR - This one surprised me a bit. I was expecting this to be my #2 but WAR just never felt right to me. I blame it on the nature of MMO equipment and classes innate weakness of being dependent on said equipment as the main issue. There were time when this class rocked and other times it felt like the weak link in my party, and it usually depended on what I had available for equipment. The other issue is that while the class is obviously the starter tank class since it gains Provoke, it just doesn't feel really well equipped for the task. Stat wise, MNK is beefier and more durable despite crappier equipment options, and that's when it kind of hit me the weird thing about this class. it is like one of THE Sunjob in this game if you're doing a melee build. So it almost feels like the point of leveling this class is so you can use it as a sub for a better class. I still like it, but I am hoping getting a more stable flow of gear will make this class click better for me.

BLM - The other surprise for me. I don't usually play mages often but I had a surprising amount of fun playing with this class. Outside of my favorite class, this was the one where I felt like I started using it, blinked, and then I was over Lv. 20 still having a blast nuking everything that came within proximity of me. One thing that certainly helped was leveling staffs as a MNK so my poor BLM wasn't completely useless at melee, especially since they have the most atrocious equipment selection of the starting classes. Like seriously, it almost feels like Vana'diel has some deep seated animosity for BLM's and purposely gives them the shaft in that department. The other nice thing was that this class made getting skillchains much easier. Which also likely attributed to leveling it up so fast. Still I had fun, and I like that you can also get spells that do elemental damage and inflict status debuffs. Overall, I really enjoyed my time with this class.

RDM - Of all the classes, this one was the one that reminded me how the game's producer Hiromichi Tanaka had said the game's job system had taken it's cues from Final Fantasy III, because much like FFIII's version, the XI version is a beast. I would argue it's the perfect starter class since it gives you a buffet taste of most of the starting classes. Obviously debuffing is the class' specialty, but overall it was fun jumping back and forth from healing to nuking to smacking. It is also a fairly solid Subjob despite the fact most of it's abilities don't unlock until the class is high level. RDM doesn't necessarily feel like a class you will ever need for an active party, but like it's single player counterparts, it's also a class that will never hurt a team it's part of.

MNK - Yes, I am bias. This was my starting class for this attempt and I don't regret it. Like Monks in the rest of the series, MNK is a surprising beast of a melee class. Fists being able to do two separate hits gives it a damage edge over WAR despite the damaging boosting skills WAR gets. Course MNK gets some too, and it gets more abilities than some other classes much earlier and makes a huge difference. Popping off Boost, Hundred Fist, and Focus in succession has allowed me to get out of some sticky situations where I was punching above my weight class with high level enemies. The high HP and decent evasion makes this a pretty soluid class, and I've been having a blast playing as it.

Okay, so now for a real update.

• Managed to level PLD to 25. Had a lot of fun with this class.
• Trust Shantatto II is intense, but love having her on the team regardless.
• Finally managed to finish the Beeswax quest for the church.
• Discovered I am not strong enough to do the Time Traveler quest, because that enemy encounter wrecked me.
• I did finish the Eco-Friendly quest and I managed to get a Carbuncle Ruby while I was down there before my party was brutally murdered by, and I trout you not, Buds Bunny.
• I was able to collect the first Clay Tablet for the Mayor of Selbina.
• I've decided I really don't care for XI's way of doing Hunts. It's just too time-consuming. I still feel that XII does them better overall.
• I get frustrating pulls from the Goblin treasure dude when I get special keys. Managed to snag a Lv. 99 armor for my mages, and today I got a Lv. 30 gun for the COR class.

I am back to being a MNK and I feel like I'm going to need to finally move on from San'Doria. I might go do some stuff with Gilgamesh just so I can move that starter questline along and get the perks that will make doing the rest of the game less of a chore. Assuming I don't whisked away to Windhurst or Bastok by doing so, I'll eventually make my way to Jueno and will likely hit up Windhurst first. My overall goal though will be to reach Bastok and unlock my sweet sweet DRK class, but I'll play around with more classes as I move on. I doubt I'll unlock the advanced jobs past the first expansion. Though I really did want to try out BLU and COR.

Forgot to update. I didn't get a whole lot done. I mostly played around Jugner Forest trying to get the quest for the Woodworking Guild that requires I get five different types of wood logs from the trees. I am only missing the Willow Log. Not sure if it's random what you get when you forage or if there is a a specific tree I need to find to get it.

I was also trying to find a Thread Leech around the lake in the forest and only discovered today that it appears only when you fish it. I'll probably try to wrap up these two quests tonight.

New update.

• I didn't find the Beastman Blood yet, my poor fishing rod broke before I could. I did not expect this thing to be so damn rare.
• I did finally farm five Beetle Shells for a stupid starter quest I've been holding onto for ages.
• I reached Jueno finally and started a few quests. I did dig the story of the Galka who works on the Clock Tower.
• The new Ballista alternative cutscene was amusing to see how the three nations deal with each other. Finally got to see Shantatto in action.
• I now understand why the Tarutaru are kind of divisive with their strange speech patters. Low key glad this game is old and doesn't have voice acting.
• Went to Norg and met Iroha, and learned this questline is technically the game's finale questline.
• Leveled MNK to Lv. 40. I am switching back to WAR and seeing if I can farm better equipment for it because next to PLD, it's the class I have the most disjointed equipment options for. I also don't have any real equipment options for my party above Lv. 24.
• With that said, I am finally reaching the end of my more generous inventory options in my Mog House, so I will need to start selling stuff soon to stay on top of that, and look into seeing if any of the expansion questlines have opened up for me since I've reached Jueno.
• The price jump for equipment in shops in Jueno is insane. I was finally feeling good about my money because I have over 22,000 gil, but that would only afford me one piece of any equipment for my MNK's level range and it would be the cheapest option too. I will need to look into better ways to make money.
• One of the most annoying things that's happened recently is that the Beastmen have taken control of quite a few zones on my server, and I don't think there are enough active players in the San'Doria region to do Conquest to liberate them. I am also not Rank 3, so I can't do anything either.
• I am constantly reminded that Bastok really was the ideal starting city for me, because most of the classes I want to play as are from there. Though I believe I have started the questlines to earn both the DNC and SAM classes.

Overall, a much more productive night, and look at me finally leaving the safe haven of my Elvaan nest and actually venturing to real cities beyond my starter one. I will probably cycle through some of the classes again until they hit Lv. 40. While it is probably better to stick to two or three classes at most for early game, I like to keep my options open and the whole point of a Job system is variety anyway.

Somehow i completely missed you were playing this again? Lol

Glad to see you’re making progress!

Not as productive of a night.

• Leveled WAR to 26 and raised Axes to the 50 range. Still a ways to go.
• Finished some super easy starter quests I missed.
• Managed to finally get the Willow Log needed to finish the Carpenter Guild's quest and got a Trainee Axe, which is the first Great-axe I've seen, but has terrible stats.
• It's a Christmas event going on, and it's pretty cute with the decorations. I only wish we had a snow effect to go with it.
• Finally noticed what the Ephermial Moogle is for and dumped all my elemental crystals onto it.
• Just realized I was two levels away from starting the MNK's Artifact Weapon. Of course, my first issue is the questline is in Bastok, which I haven't reached yet. The second issue is that hardcore players consider it awful with much better alternatives for it's level range. But then I would need it for the Artifact Gear.
• Reading up on some MNK builds, I've learned I am apparently not optimizing very well. Which I frankly don't care about. :lol:
• Part of me is thinking about slipping back into Norg and seeing if Shantatto II may help me kill the enemies in the area so I can level up WAR faster.
• I did manage to get him into some better gear, but now my weapon options are kind of bleh. My strongest weapon is a Spear and I would rather keep him working on axes, since they are his best weapons.
• Broke another damn fishing rod trying to get a higher leveled Thread Leech to spwan in Jugner Forest. Since I have yet to acquire any Light Crystals, I am stuck buying another rod...
• Course, with the rod broken, I could try out bows...

The plan is to go back to Jueno and maybe explore the Ballista Downs area a bit more to level up and hopefully get some good weapon.equipment drops.

Shorter update from last night.

• Got WAR to Lv. 32 and managed to get a better piece of body armor that is actually not in the teen range. Funny enough, I do keep finding some weapons that are higher level than the axe I am using, but not surprisingly, they are not as powerful as the axe I am currently using. The nice boost for WAR was gaining Double Attack, which has finally allowed the class to step up to MNK in damage potential.
• Won a really neat sword for PLD in the Goblin Treasure thing. At least that class has a cool weapon to look forward to since it's not above the level cap.
• Managed to make a scythe that I might start using so DRK isn't handicapped when I get it. Of course, it is significantly weaker than my axe. but what are you going to do?
• Finished the flower questline for the Mithra child I started way back when I first started the game. The pacing of quests in this game is so weird, but I guess it's just a result of my single players brain dealing with a very different medium.
• Found a path to reach Bastok since I started encountering their beastmen in the region. Was not planning on heading there first, but we'll see. I do have NIN and DRK waiting for me there.

I think one of my goals right now is to see if I can find a better weapon upgrade for my WAR. Specifically a Great Axe if I can. I've noticed that equipment drops are getting a bit rarer with higher level monsters, so it looks like Lv. 25 is about the point where upgrading equipment is going to come down to buying or making it, outside of the rare enemy drops. So I will need to look up ways to make money fast, because lord knows quests and gil drops are incredibly stingy compared to the price gouging of Valan'diel's greedy merchant class.

Interesting evening. I spent most of it exploring Jueno so I can try to make it to Windhurst after my second attempt to reach it started to send me to Bastok. Realized I left the wrong exit. I did manage to acquire a Greataxe which does great damage for it's level but has the worst accuracy and delay. Not sure how I feel about that, and I almost went back to Norg to see if I could power level my way through the proficiency levels by fighting the tough crabs there. On the brightside, I almost have a complete set of the Studded Armor set, but I am missing the head piece which I really want because I'm not a big fan of the Iron Mask design. Kind of wish the game had better helmet options, but not helping is my preference to Souls game design where I prefer ones that cover most of the head instead of these accent pieces XI is doing.

Alas, I was killed by a rare monster I accidentally aggro and for some reason, my ReRaise Earrings did not activate, so I decided to feed some chocolate to the annoying Merrymaking Goblins and finish a Christmas event, but then the game crashed and I figured that was a sign to call it a night.

I only have like Five levels before WAR hits Lv. 40 and then I plan on jumping to RDM again. While part of me was thinking of raising all the classes to Lv. 40 as I explore, part of me is thinking I may drop the ones I didn't care for, especially since I will likely be getting more advanced classes and this will take forever if I go that route. So I'll likely ignore THF and WHM for the time being until I gain a class that really needs them.

After several trials and errors, I made it to Windhurst. I actually got killed by the same monster as before. I don't think it's so much a Hunt as it is just a high level creature roaming the map, similar to the Saurian in the Estersands of FFXII.

Outside of talking to the Fisherman's Guild leader and farming five of the six special Chocobo Healing grass I need for the Chocobo quest, I didn't really get as much done last night as I would have liked, but I also got a late start. Greataxe is up to Lv. 40 which is still way too low for my taste. My WAR is close to 40, but not quite there. On the brightside, being in the starting region of a new area, means it won't be quite as daunting jumping back into other classes or starting new ones.

The Windhurst region was not what I expected visually. I knew it was based around a tree, so I was expecting more like an evergreen type environment or something like Seiken Densetsu. I was not expecting it to be something closer to Australia or the African Savannah, but I do appreciate the visual variety. Especially since Jueno looks like it was built in the middle of Mordor. Once I get settled in to Windhurst, I'll sneak back to Norg to finish leveling WAR so I can do either RDM or BLM missions for Windhurst. I like the idea of leveling up my mage classes in the mage-centric nation of this game. I am surprised the devs didn't name the city Mysidia though.

Another mini-update. The holiday season and the obligations that come with it are eating up my free time.

Mostly explored Windhurst last night, and I must say, I am so grateful this game does not have voice acting because this place would drive me smurfing nuts. Like the culture of the region is cool, and I like the interesting dynamic between the Tarutaru, Mithra, and the Yagudo Beast tribe. But Holy hell is the funny talk translation driving me crazy. I wasn't necessarily a fan of Shantatto's rhyming dialogue, but now that's I've been listening to regular Tarutaru talk, I can see why she's the fan favorite because the rhyming is less annoying than the baby talk of the rest of her species. The Mithra rolling their Rs like a purr for the cat talk is also obnoxious, but I imagine the Japanese has them doing the Nyaa sound in every talking point, so I guess this was the best they could do. But the worst has to be the Cardians. Like I don't even bother trying to read their dialogue because it's such a visual mess that I might get an aneurysm from attempting. Amusingly, I imagine they would be the least annoying if the game did have VA work.

I activated the first of the Shantatto Ascension quest, and I do really like the fact the little black mage Tarutaru army she has has the shadow face like the OG Black mages. One of the things that makes me a little sad about XI is that the outfits don't give you that effect. I also realized I could use all these Spark points to purchase better gear for my party, but I have to be careful because I am hitting the inventory cap in my Mog House and it may be time for an intervention for my hoarding tendencies in video games. I'm thinking of selling off everything that is leveled between lv. 1 and 10 at first, just because I know I will be leveling future classes eventually. I'll likely keep my starting armor set so I have something and a few lv. 1 weapons, but leveling is so fast, that I could easily go without the rest of the gear until my teens. Then I would likely do something similar where I'll keep anything around lv. 14 or 15 and sell everything between that and Lv. 24. I will start with the starting gear first before I jump to that step though. I almost used my Sparks to buy a really neat set of armor with some great stat bonuses and decent defense for it's lv. range, but the armor can only be used by WAR and PLD, and I just couldn't bother getting an armor set for just two classes that isn't level cap lv. I imagine at Lv. 50, I'm going to have to start focusing on equipment options for the classes I want to keep using, so I shouldn't waste inventory space for anything before that point.

I also went to Norg and leveled, WAR to lv. 40 and got Great Axe skills level up a bit more, though it is still lower than I would care for and I will likely need to double down when I take the class to lv 50. I have now returned to RDM, who I leveled two more levels just so I could get him into some decent gear, but I need a better sword for him, so I may invest in that. Perhaps a rapier since it fits the image of a red mage better? I could do maces as well, but I might hold off since I'll likely need to use WHM again. I do like the idea of leveling up my mage classes while running quests in Windhurst, seems fitting. I also unlocked the quest to do the Ranger quest, and that seems like it will be a fairly easy task compared to PLD and DRG have been. I do need to look for the SUM class, as well so I guess I should put the ruby stone in my inventory.

Anyway, we'll see where this all leads me in my next playthrough. I went to the San'Doria embassy and got my next mission. The Elvvan are kind of insufferable to be honest, like stereotypical, stuffy, aristocratic Europeans. I was not expecting the Mithra to be the tree hugging race though, I was kind of thinking the Galka were going that route with their more Native American sounding naming schemes.

Another short evening. Mainly finished exploring Windhurst and did a few quests within the town. Between the two nations, Windhurst is far more interesting. San'Doria's plotline doesn't feel as interesting with a simple succession crisis and the Elvaan being wary of the rise of the Beastmen races again, with the only interesting aspect being that they seem to blame the other nations for not keeping their Beastmen in check while being in total denial that they are also struggling to push back the Orcs. Granted, there is some intrigue with the lost of one of their settlements in the Crystal War, but I get the impression this is just a colorful footnote until later expansions delve into it. Even the Orcs are kind of boring just being a more brutish version of the Elvaan that is invading from the north.

Probably the most intriguing revelation as someone whose knowledge of the game is based on tidbits thrown out by side content that features characters from the game is the fact Shantatto is not the most powerful mage among the Tarutaru. Stuff like Dissidia and the Opera Omnia give the impression she's like the most powerful magic using being in FF short of an actual deity with even Terra and most FF villains quaking in their boots at how powerful she is. It's interesting that the Tarutaru spend more of their time talking up the legendary hero who saved the Federation by summoning Fenrir than her, since she's considered to be a powerful but eccentric war hero the people ignore and the government puts up with. So lesson learned there.

I am hoping to actually get outside of the city soon and finish up some of these quests that I've been accumulating. So far, I find one of the most interesting facets of the XI Community is how scattered it feels. For the second best selling FF game with over twenty years of existence, the Wiki's for the game are inconsistent in terms of content and organization. Like the actual FF Wiki has a full page on the history of the Tarutaru and Mithra, and goes into details about their culture but either of the other races get footnotes at best. In fact, it's becoming likely the only people playing XI are horny cat girl fans since the Mithra are the only race that consistently gets attention in fan made projects. Probably why Windhurst is also the only nation outside of the expansions that has detailed information on it. Though oddly the FFXI Wiki I'm using to help navigate through this game does not have the Windhurst Quests organized very well like they did for San'Ondoria. The fact that players views of Galka refrlects how the in-game world views them is also a bit ironic. If they weren't so tied into the overarching plot of the games, I doubt they would be mentioned. They also seem to be the race with the fewest Trusts you can acquire as it's still the only race I have no Trust magic for.

I will try to track down the Spark NPC to upgrade my sword and shield for my RDM and then head out to do some quests proper and really explore the region.

Holidays have kept me away from my PC so I have not played for a few days outside of logging in each day to get the log in item. But tonight I was able to put in some time.

I keep exploring these ruins near Windhurst that have those Cardian machine and undead wandering around, but it doesn't take much to get overwhelmed and I've died a few times while exploring. I did manage to start a quest with the other eccentric Tarutaru whom might be doing some kind of drug if his dialogue is to be believed. I also went back to Norg and finished a Mission for Rhapsodies of Vana'diel which netted me a really good key item that cut down the gil cost for fast travel by quite a bit. So cheers to that. I also discovered I was supposed to be talking to some peeps to get the items needed for the Samurai class quest, so now I have three class quests I need to get on with. My RDM also reached Lv. 34, so I can start the SMN quest as well. I should switch back to WAR and MNK to use the items I was rewarded for reached Lv. 30 with both of them.

My goal for the next few nights is:

• I want to get further in the Job Class quests. Specifically RNG and DRG, but SAM would be nice too.
• See if I can start a Windhurst nation mission so I can start getting some good mojo going on here.
• Finish the two Chocobo Quests so I can start using Chocobos.
• Get RDM to Lv. 40 and then I'll switch to BLM and WHM respectively. See if the new Key Item I gained is going to make this faster.
• See if I can get Smithing and Woodcrafting skills a bit higher.
• Finish some quests in Windhurst.

So we will see how this goes. I have a feeling I won't be able to get much done tonight because I have plans to hang out with friends, but if I manage to get home before midnight, I'll slide in and see if I can at least get myself in position to tackle one of these objectives on Sunday.

Was a bit too tired to really go at it last night, but I did check off a few things, such as getting my chocobo license and acquiring the Beastmaster job class. Was a pretty heartwarming set of quests when the dust settled. I also acquired two more pieces of furnishings for my Mog House back in San D'oria and one is another pot to grow things. I also got RDM up to Lv. 36. So I am not far off from switching jobs again. I also started the SMN class quest, but so far, I have not been able to activate the cutscenes needed for it, so I may need to do some more investigating. I hope I can get more work in tonight.

Short evening, but I got a few things done.

• Started the Mirror quest that lets me make a Fellow Adventurer. I don't really read all the guides for missions sometimes. I will try to figure it out myself, but in this case I was a bit perplexed and didn't realize I was making a character. Went with a Galka that has Jet from Cowboy Bebop's hair.
• Because I often feel treasure is extremely arbitrary in this game on what it wants to drop, I some how managed to acquire Malboro Vines from a Sabertooth Lion? Anyway, it was the last item needed for a quest in San D'oria so guess I will be heading back that way.
• Managed to get the Yellow Weather for the Carbuncle Ruby.
• Since I am in Jueno, I decided I will walk back to Windhurst since a few quests I need to do there will be on the way anyway. Hoping to pick up RNG and get the SAM quest along a bit more. I may also try to do the quest I was asked to do by my nations embassy. We'll see.
• Got my RDM to Lv. 37 and I picked up some more Studded Armor pieces I plan to sell before leaving Jueno.

Oof. the last two nights have been a bit more aimless than I would care for.

The silly "The Rumor" quest has turned into my white whale, so to speak. The reward is a simple Drain spell, but for the life of me, I can't find anything that will drop Beastmen's Blood. Even the AH doesn't have it for sale. I wasted yesterday evening farming Poison Leeches on Rolanberry Field for the drop, but apparently the drop rate is abysmal with them. I may try fishing the Swamp Leech in the adjacent Marshlands once I acquire more bait, because they allegedly have the second best drop rate for the item behind some lv. 60+ creature roaming in the dungeon basement where the damn quest giver is.

I tried to do a bit of the Bard quest, but yikes, why is parchment a pain in the ass to acquire? Making it requires like a lv. 30+Leather-craft, that AH is selling it for 10k gil, and my cheapest option involves finding some distant city I don't think anyone has even mentioned called Mahura.

I also screwed up the SAM quest. I found the spot to bury the steel item I got and fogot about the part where it spawns some NM Bomb monster I have to beat. Well two things happened: 1) I got RDM to Lv. 40, so I switched to BLM who was lv. 22 ish at the time. Which is welkl below the Lv. 30 NM I just summoned. 2) One of my new Trusts Zeid was in the way of this monster, so when I tried to target it to get the aggro off of me, I kept pulling the Menuy option with the NPC and in my panic, I was unable to target the monster in time before he murdered my squishy mage. So I lost the special steel. So I had to track down another piece and that ended up involving either buying it at an extortionist rate at the Auction House or trying to farm it at some Raid event that involved another item I had to get from a secret shop in Jueno. Since I didn't like my odds due to their being like thirty different prizes, I went with extortion instead and bought the Damascus Orb for 5000gil so I can get the item back. I decided I would level a bit before trying the quest again, just to be on the safe side.

On the bright side, I did manage to grow the best item needed for the kid Tarutaru quest in Windhurst and I bough an expensive cupboard in San D'oria that's suppose to get me a lucrative quest that will cover the cost of the cupboard. I have also decided to put a lot of stuff I keep getting handed up for auction because I keep getting stuff for the Lv. 75+ part of the game and I really don't think I'm going to be bothering with all of that, so I have a few items up and will hopefully get some much needed Gil to buy all the expensive spells in Windhurst. I've also managed to find four of the weather colors for the Carbuncle Ruby, but I may need to zone into Vakrum Dunes a bit to try to get the rare Red light.

At this point, I'm starting to feel a bit of choice paralysis kicking in. I have like a dozen quests in each town unlocked and my OCD wants to start checking them off, but I still have to crawl around all of Altana's creation to get this done for the pitiful amount of gil some of them are giving as rewards. I still haven't even done the quest my nation wanted me to do in Windhurst. There is just so much to do and it's getting a bit overwhelming. So I may have to devise a plan of action to streamline all of this nonsense. Maybe narrow down the classes I am going to bother using and focus on moving the main story along more.

Great to hear your progress. Curious how many other players are on while you play? Do they help you?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Del Murder

Great to hear your progress. Curious how many other players are on while you play? Do they help you?

---

There are quite a few other players, but it is rare to see a full party in the field. Jueno is covered with mules trying to sell stuff. I think I once had someone ask me for something, but I didn't catch it because I was logging out for the day., Felt bad being a bit rude, but I don't use the chat feature very often. I will say that of the areas I've visited, Windhurst is the most vacant, San D'oria has quite a few peeps. Everyone seems to be in Bastok because they usually win the Campaign rankings. Jueno, as I said, is littered with second accounts and regular players.

In update news, I finally got that stupid Beastmen's Blood. I don't know why this quest came to possess me, likely because Drain isn't a great spell and yet for str5ange circumstances, the item needed for the quest was strangely rare for early game. I also managed to unlock the RNG class, which was hilariously awkward because when I found the cave for the quest, I encountered another player there and we had a quiet awkward moment where we both weren't sure if one of us was going to have to reload the area to get the item needed for the quest. I let them go first since they were there first and then found out that as long as the creatures body is there, I can still get the item regardless of whether another player has done so.

DNC is out of the question for the moment because I do not have the means to time travel yet, so that's one class I'm probably going to avoid. My House Moogle wrote me a BRD song which was nice. I seriously need to sell some of my gear to free up room in my Mog House. Though I should be careful with some. I acquired some Mistletoe awhile ago and ended up selling it, now I need it. So back to Jugner Forest to farm Walking Trees. Speaking of, these holiday events are killing my inventory and I need to stop engaging in them. I have four trading cards, none being enough to make a whole set requested by the moogles. Shame I can't trade them to the Goblins for loot.

Now that I am getting into the more challenging zones, the squishyness of BLM is becoming more apparent. I switched to a mace and shield combo they can use to give me more survivability and to raise the weapon level since staffs seem to be one of the worst weapons in the game due to all the classes that can use it having better options. I think my next order of business is to get on with the Nation Mission and maybe bee line it to Bastok to work on getting the class I really want and to finally have the means to get the Lv. upgrades for MNK and WAR. Though I have unlocked BST and RNG, I am probably not going to bother using them for the time being just to save myself some time. Same deal with SUM and BRD, I won't actively seek out completing those quests for the moment and will just see where I go from there. I will at least go back to get the item I lost for the SAM class since I did want to use that one.

I'm curious how you level, and what bonuses are available these days. Back in the day, the levels after around 40 start getting really slow. However, with level sync and maybe some additional options/zones for exp, it might not be that bad.

For BLM you definitely want to go with +INT wands up until level 51. After that, the elemental staves are basically all you need. Macro in the one for the element you are casting, and you get a damage bonus. You typically don't get a lot of good damage pulling out your club and whacking things as BLM. If you are solo doing EP mobs, maybe those extra melee points are helpful. In a party, if you aren't nuking, you are better off resting for MP than whacking. That keeps you out of AOE skill range as well.

A great solo option for BLM or any nuking job back in the day was the pets on BST mobs. The pets have very low HP and you can typically 1 or 2 shot the EM-T pets with your best nukes. Just make sure the main BST goblin or whatever has its back to you as if it sees you killing its pet, it will probably kill you. If it does not see this, it will respawn the pet in about a minute. Then you can repeat and make great exp chains that way.

Leveling now is like a completely different game compared to back in the day. Trusts + Fields of Valor + XP boost options + xp per mob level shifts = easy (relative) leveling all the way to 99 for the first class, getting exponentially easier from there.

The choice paralysis is going to get worse and worse as you go along. I'm pretty sure FFXI has infinite pointless side-quests mixed with occasional important or super beneficial quests and there's no in-game way to know the difference.

Yes, most sidequests are completely useless for rewards. There are a few very useful ones for spells, like Sleepga II! Do the quests only if you are interested in the lore as they often give good NPC development.

I wish I played in the Trust era just to see it in action. The old level grind was hard, but once you got to 75 you did feel like you accomplished something.

Yeah, leveling has not been much of an issue. I already have three classes at Lv. 40 and everything but BST and RNG are above Lv. 20 or more at this point. Getting to Lv. 20 can take just an evening of my time, and if I really just made it my focus, I'd probably have all the classes close to Lv. 50 by this point. I haven't even bothered using the special ring that also boosts XP. Was going to save that for leveling classes I don't enjoy playing but likely need their skill sets like WHM.

Trusts are fun though and I feel it helps endear the player to the characters and world since most of them are NPC in the story. I am able to summon up to four to go adventuring with me, so my go to team for ass kicking are:

• PLD Valaineral who is pretty OP since he has a Weapon Art called Uriel Blade that does AoE Holy damage and he hits hard for a Tank class. I have yet to meet him in the story though.
• DRK Zeid who is my newest one I use, but he murders things pretty quickly as his class should. I vaguely remember him from my Bastok playthrough years ago.
• BLM Shantotto II is a souped up version of her that I'm guessing is from her special campaign Shantotto's Ascension. She badass looking because she floats in the air and has different magic orbs floating around her. She's my best damage dealer despite the fact she's limited to the base elemental spells. But apparently her Magic is so high they hit for Tier 2 versions instead.
• WHM Mihli Aliapoh is my main healer who can also slow and paralyze enemies and does decent damage with her mace skills. Judging by her clothes, I'm guessing she's from an expansion.

There are a few others I use occasionally but these are my main four for actually getting trout done. There is also Kupfried who can't fight, but boosts XP gain by 20% I believe. He also does it for capacity points but that is ahead of where I am currently.

Update time. I didn't get a lot done tonight because I have to get up early tomorrow. The highlight of my evening was someone buying one of my auction items and now I am not so broke. I even made an extra 1000 Gil than expected. I started to do my nation mission, but realized (thankfully before I wasted the evening) that I had failed to acquire a key item for it because it turned out the NPC I needed to talk to about it was a Trust, and I accidentally accessed the scene to acquire her and didn't realize I needed to talk to her a second time to do the scene where I get the Mission item. I also obtained another Trust Semih Lafihna, who I haven't used yet, but reading up on her, she's like the ranged equivalent of Valaineral being a bit OP and programmed to do Skill Chains.

I ended up calling it a night after that, but I did drop a few items I decided I wasn't going to bother with and sold a few items from my Mog Storage to get some extra space. I also partially completed one other quest involving finding a researcher to interpret some documents and I did finish the mercenary badge mission for Windhurst. So go me. Assuming I'm not drained from work or get distracted by TheaterRhythm, the plan is to finish the mission for my nation and head to Bastok. I'm going to try and speed this up a bit because I'm getting too bogged down by superfluous nonsense within the game and I would like to get around to playing another numbered FF before Spring.

Oof, been a while since I had a chance to play. Did not do much, but I am moving a few things along.

My two biggest accomplishments for the evening was discovering another item I found had sold at the auction house for 20,000 Gil, so I don't feel poor anymore. I am surprised the cheaper items didn't go first but not complaining.

I also finally did my Nation Mission in Windhurst since I'm kind of limited in what I can do here without being a citizen. I think I have a few more quests I can do here, but for the most part, I'm going to head out and go to Bastok finally. It's been over fifteen actual years since I last lay foot in Bastok, so this should be an interesting trip down memory lane. I might stop over in Norg and power level a bit to get my poor BLM to Lv. 40 before leaving. I also need to do the part of the quest for the SAM job. Anyway, I am hoping to stay a bit more focused and start moving along with the actual main story quests going forward.

Oof, miserable night but got a few things done. I had my last two items returned to me so instead I put two different items on auction. So we'll see how that goes.

I managed to complete the Chocobo quest that got me an egg, so now I'm raising a Chocobo. I then opted to try and do the SAM quest again, only to have the server crap out on me when the NM showed up. When I finally got back in... well you guessed it, I am out another Oriental Steel, so I had to buy another Darksteel Ore from the auction house to trade and get another. I decided not to attempt again in case the server or my own internet crashed again and instead headed to Bastok. But first I tried to do a bit of leveling in Norg and managed to accidentally aggro like four enemies at once and was promptly killed for my trouble. So I decided to see if I could at least just make it to Bastok before going to bed.

It is very interesting being back. Certainly don't remember as well as I thought, but I also didn't play the game that much back then. I did laugh, because as if destiny itself guided me. Without using a guide, I manged to beeline to the NPC that starts the DRK quest. So even though I've started like half a dozen quests since waltzing into town, I at least found the one I really want to do. I also realized that now that I'm in Bastok, I can start the Lv. 40 quests for MNK and WAR, so I switched from my Lv. 30 BLM back to a MNK for the moment because in addition to the armor quest, I believe there is also a weapon art quest for the class as well in Bastok. So I might be here for a bit.

Just had a quick session tonight. I meant to play longer but my evening got tied up with personal stuff. Also, I've been playing too much TheaterRhythm FBL.

Not much really happened tonight, I spent most of the evening exploring Bastok and acquiring way more quests than I would care for. I did get to see Cid, but he's less interested in you when you're not from Bastok. I do like the city and I appreciate the fact the embassies are all in one place, unlike Windhurst :colbert:

And then I met the true evil that is within Bastok. I know some would say it's the racial tensions between the Humes and Galka, but the real evil is...Bureaucracy

So I'll probably be starting the mission on my next session. Especially since I did unlock the quest for my first piece of special gear for the MNK. I also hope to track down Zeid and unlock the DRK class as well.

Uneventful night. I tried to do the MNK gear quest but got promptly lost in the Gusgen Mines and then accidentally got cocky because I was slaughtering all the monsters and didn't notice I waltzed into a high level zone and pissed off a few unassuming dragonflies that promptly murdered me and my Trust unit for our trouble.

On the brightside, this did send my sorry ass back to San d'Oria where I remembered I left a Chocobo egg in the stable, so I spent part of my evening raising the little guy that I named Autumn Ghost, because Autumn is my favorite season and I like ghosts.

I then tried to use one of my Chocobo passes that is clogging up my inventory to grab a chocobo to get to the Paborough Mines quickly and instead, unlocked some quest to get a chocobo to another country's stable. Unfortunately, I was asked to take it to Windhurst... which for anyone who is oddly reading this and has not actually played XI, is like the farthest place I could have had to take this chocobo that wasn't going to involve a ship. Now I am very directionally challenged person in general. So I obviously got lost and while I don't remember hitting the dismount option, my Chocobo eventually ditched me in the Rolanberry Fields, so I warped back home and called it a night.

Not an actual gameplay update, but just something I've been mulling over the last few days since reaching Bastok. XI's portrayal of racism is very interesting and probably one of the more nuanced versions we've seen in the series. Like usually the people getting persecuted are usually treated as just outright pariah's of decent society such as the Al Bhed, or in other cases it's downplayed as a piece of flavor text such as Bangaa and Seeq being looked down upon by the humans and other Ivalice races as being associated with criminals or being brutish.

I think what caught my attention here in terms of the Galka is that there is a derision within the group itself. When I entered Bastok, I came in through the Mines area, so I was smack dabbed in the Galka slums, which I would point out seem to house the Mithra as well. But when I moved into the Hume residential area, I spoke with other Galka from these regions and they also shared in perpetuating the racial and class stereotyping and that was actually a step further than I've seen most games do, because it's an ugly part of this whole business people don't like to talk about. From the Galka guard who feels guilty about following orders to seal the bridge leading to the Mines area during the Crystal Wars, when the area was razed, and remembering watching a lot of the Galka refugees burn and be slaughtered because the Humes wanted to only protect what they deemed was the important parts of the city. To the other Galka guards and workers in the richer sections of the city speaking derogatorily about the Galka from the slum section.

It's a nice touch to bring out a better understanding of what racism really looks like and how classism is also used as means to further divide groups as desirable and undesirable. Because again, it's not like other Galka in higher positions of Bastok don't have a bone to pick the Humes and their place in Bastok society, but I imagine they are grateful they get better treatment than the miners.

I kind of wish the devs had implemented a way where your interactions with the races and city factions actually put into consideration your race you chose, because I imagine I would be having more issues in Bastok and San d'Oria as a Hume in some places.

Finally, after visiting all three main factions, plus Jueno, I can safely say San d'Oria is probably the most boring faction with the Elvaan largely being just stuffy and out of touch aristocrats and the main conflict of their city being a boring succession crisis and maybe a feud between the Temple Knights and the Royal Guard? I don;t know, it's just basic sword and sorcery nonsense, whereas the other two factions seem to have more depth to them. Hell, even the Elvaan's Beastman problem is the least interesting with the Orks just being a more brutish invader force that have the same proud warrior race mentality as the Elvaan.

Windhurst on the other hand is led by a sage with visions and five government units all run by or formerly run by crazy narcissists, who you can tell have largely sown the seeds of the Federations problems. The Yagudo are a fanatical theocracy that the Tarutaru are hoping they can placate in order to keep the peace and this is causing tension with the Mithra who see the folly in the Tarutaru's aversion for conflict. There is also some low level racial tensions going on here as well. Despite having a more fair relationship with each other over what's going on in Bastok, you can see that the Tarutaru don;t completely trust the Mithra and the few who are part of the government are no longer trusted by their own kind because they were not raised in their culture but the Tarutaru one instead.

Bastok on the other hand is basically one giant ass allegory of the United States with the country being the most inventive and financially minded faction, but a lot of that success is built on exploitation of the Galka and even their Beastmen are frankly the most justified to be pissed off because the Republic is taking over their territory so Bastok are the invading force in their narrative, giving these Beastmen an allegory for the Native Americans. It's interesting that some of the most personable NPCs I've met have come from here, so you don;t completely walked away feeling disgusted, but woof, Bastok is like a powder keg of chaos waiting to explode just like Windhurst.

I imagine if I come back to XI to finish up later expansions, I may need to immigrate to another nations so I can check out their own Nation missions.

Semi-productive couple of nights. The main thing is that I acquired my beloved DRK Job. And in a subversion, I'm currently leveling PLD instead. :lol:

But yeah, the previous night I scoured the Gustaberg region looking for the Palborough Mines and when I finally found them, I wandered around there endlessly until I finally found Zeid with the help of a guide. Since I got such a late start, I called it quits after that.

Tonight I finished off a few quests in Bastok so I could clear up my inventory. Sold some items that didn't succeed at the auction as well. I have one more item there, but it looks like competition is tough, and while I went for a lower price, a lot of other have followed suit, so I don't expect to have this item sold.

With all that said and done, I thew on a FFUnion playlist of various FF facts and spent most of the night killing the 100 enemies with the Chaosbringer so I can earn my DRK Job. Learned a lot of FF trivia, and learned to really hate this weapon due to it's painfully slow Delay time of 666. It was like my WAR had to have a contractual cigarette break between swings. But, despite the tedium, and the annoyance that I get to do it all again for another quest to get an upgrade, I did like the idea of the quest. Especially since it thematically tied back into FFIV in some ways. Souleater/Dark Wave was a neat AoE spell, but it;s damage was only good for taking out small mobs of enemies. Likewise, the fastest way to level the Chaosbringer is to farm the weak enemies right outside the walls of the different nations. At least the next hundred will also be during me leveling DRK up.

But with all that said, I realized I never finished the DRG quest, and since I am an FFIV fanboy, I figure i should unlock that class before I give DRK a proper run. But in the meantime, I want to level up PLD to 40ish. I may need to see if I an find another good weapon for the class though. I picked up an Inferno Great Sword not long ago, but I sort of want to keep the class with a shield, so I may look to see if I can find another regular sword, because the Tuck sword I currently have feel like a wet noodle that was fine when I was trolling things as a RDM and had magic to fall back on, but I sort of want to actually damage things as a PLD. I may also switch my sub class from WAR back to MNK to get Counter. Shame Provoke is a WAR Job skill, because it would be great to combine the skill with MNK's counter and PLD's stats.

Anyway, it looks like I'm heading back to Windhurst real fast before I finish my business in Bastok. Also, I know I fling around a lot of San d'Oria slander in this thread, but the one thing I will say about the place is that environmentally, it would be the area I would live in because I like trees and I can't stand the heat, so Windhurst's outback prairie vibe and Bastok's rocky desert may not be for me. Honestly, I'm still wondering how Jueno survives without going bankrupt from food exports because it seems to be located in the middle of some wasteland. I've also been wondering about the large bone like structures found throughout the lands, and while I am sure I will learn along the way, I can't help but wonder if they are the remains of one of Vana'diel's gods? I wonder because FFXII's Ivalice has a myth that the land is literally a god that is bound for all eternity and that the various races and creatures of Ivalice were created to destroy and break down his body piece by piece for all eternity. And since XI and XII actually shared a lot of the same development team, I wouldn't be surprised if the idea was used twice.

Mostly spent the night exploring Mhaura and picking up some Parchment, which allowed me to finish the chain of quests to get the BRD job. I also managed to find another color for Carbuncle and obtained some plans to add a patio for my Mog House once I do the two flower quests in Windhurst and Bastok.

Other than that, I gained some levels for PLD and did some Chocobo care. I really like the Chocobo raising in this game. I know it;s bit slow, but it has made me feel very attached to my little guy.

Also, third time is the charm and I managed to obtain the Bomb Steel for the SAM class. My next session is going to be me trying to finish some lingering quests.

To-Do-List

• Obtain SAM
• Obtain DRG
• Transform Chaosbringer into Deathbringer
• Finish Nation mission in Bastok
• Hopefully acquire the last few colors for Carbuncle to obtain SUM
• Do flower girl quest lines in Windhurst and Bastok to expand my Mog House
• Price a Bronze Bed to see if I should go back to grinding Crafting skills

These are the main things for the moment. I feel like I should stop dragging out the Nation mission because I get the feeling I will get some very useful stuff for doing it which will make doing the rest of my to-do-list easier.

Did they ever put an in game tracker for Chaosbringer or do you still need to track the kills yourself?

Still need to track them yourself. :mamu:

Didn't get as much done as I would like but I managed to clear out some inventory by finishing two quests in Windhurst. I did manage to get a second floor for my Mog House and now I have more storage space, so yay!

Beyond that, I mostly spent my evening trying to find all the places in the DRG questline and made some headway in there. I also put a few items clogging up my inventory up for auction. I am still leveling PLD, and may have to drop the other PLD Trust in my arsenal when I go out to fight because I would really like to raise my shield levels for the class and it;s difficult to do when the other PLD paladins better than you.

Currently in the DRG quest, I have acquired the Wyvern Egg and spoke to one of the scholars who told me to take it to a different place to see if I can hatch it. I looked a bit ahead and was excited to see I get to name the wyvern as well, but sad the names are predetermined, but on the other hand, it makes sense the player can't choose their own name, otherwise the server would be filled with wyverns with variations of the names Kain, Freya, Highwind, and Ricard for the hardcore ones.

My biggest distress at the moment is that poor Chicobo Autumn Ghost is sick and I can't seem to find the healing item needed to cure him. I mean I know where to buy it, but it doesn't use a currency I have and the auction house is asking for some extortionist levels of gil for it. I guess I'll see if I can do the Chocobo racing without a full grown chocobo.

Made a little progress but ran out of time to complete some stuff.

I moved the GRG Quest a long a bit more, it took a dramatic turn where my poor baby wyvern got his ass kicked so some other dude can become a dragoon. Now I have to go kick his ass because he's apparently been possessed by his former dragon. So that was a neat turn.

I wasted some time trying to farm Slime Oil for an easy 3k Gil for a mission in Bastok. Kind of annoyed with myself because I have gotten this drop before but have often dropped it to make room for different items. Unfortunately, it never dropped for me this evening, but I did get to explore further into a dungeon I frequented earlier in the game.

Trying for the Slime Oil did have me go to Gungsen Mines, where I tried to do the first unique weapon quest for my MNK as well. Unfortunately for me, I was both a little too underleveled for the fight with the NM I summoned, and I managed to aggro another monster in the fight who had very annoying complimentary abilities to help said NM. Suffice to say I took the L for that one.

On the other hand, I did manage to complete another unrelated quest while looking for this NM, so that's neat. Got a special Warp spell for my WHM, if I ever go back to leveling that class.

I also tried to go through the Ti'Zah sanctuary forest place in hopes of finishing the SAM quest, but was stopped by the unexpected level increase of the surrounding monsters. I may need to use the Invisible enchantment on my cape to walt through this area, but I did manage to gain some levels for my trouble and found an outpost for teleportation. So I'll likely make another attempt on my next playthrough.

My Chicobo is also feeling better and I learned that the Rest plan for raising them is sort of bugged and prevents the Chicobo from doing much, so I switched the plan over to play music instead. I also have some quest that involves finding another Chicobo's owner but for the life of me I don't even know where to start on that one.

I didn't get as far this evening as I wanted, but I made some good strides in other areas, so I'd call tonight a success.

Attachment 78285

I had a pretty short night due to being tired, but I got two major things done. I finally managed to collect the items needed to make a katana to earn the SAM class, so I'm just waiting the "three days' aspect to get that class unlocked. I also defeated the evil DRG and unlocked the DRG class! So, booya! I have two new classes unlocked more or less and can finally play around with some of the classes I really wanted to play in this game.I still need to unlock SUM and NIN, but I'm in no rush for either. The only other class I really wanted to try out was BLU, but looking it up, I am going to need to get a bit farther in my Nation Missions to reach Aht Urghan to unlock it.

I will finish leveling PLD to 40 and then switch to DRK and get my Deathbringer. Once that class is level 40 or more, I'll switch to DRG or SAM. I am excited for DRK though, but I want my PLD up so I can use this weapon I got from one of the Goblin draws that is exclusive to the class but has better stats than the other regular swords I own.

Update Time!

Got my katana, so now I have access to SAM. Managed to power level PLD to 40ish, so I've switched over to DRK and leveled it to about Lv. 11. The plan is to now kill the additional 100 enemies. I used Trusts to level up, but since I believe the kill has to come from the blade, I'm likely starting now with the countdown.

Still no action at the auction house, but I did manage to farm the Mistletoe needed for that weird quest in San d'Oria with the dresser and earned 12,000 gil for my trouble. I also played around the Crawler's Nest and snagged the item for the Castle Gardner. It did take all freaking evening to get the mistletoe though because the Walking Trees didn't want to spawn. Not helped that I ran into a NM that was way out out of my league and I was promptly killed for my hubris.

It has been a while since I was this low level, so the Chocobo shirt and Destrier Cap are back out of the closet and making me look like a tourist again for DRK. I do plan on leveling SAM as well, and perhaps DRG, but we'll see. I kind of think I am going to basically focus on either MNK, PLD, DRK, or Sam for the rest of the game. I may level WAR RDM, depending on if I need them as a subclass. But I plan on sticking to these four classes for the rest of the scenario I am planning on actually doing. If I do manage to reach Aht Urghan in my travels, I may add BLU to this list, but we'll see.

For now, the plan is to level DRK, upgrade Chaosbringer, do a few quests in Bastok while I am doing the first two things, and finally complete the last task for my Nation Mission so I can obtain my Adventurer's License and move this whole thing along.

Update Time!

Finally got a chance to do an extensive play session and I finally feel like I am moving a bit forward now. I've gotten DRK to level 30 and have been working on raising proficiency with Scythes. Didn't think I would like them, but surprisingly I do. Though I have him back with a Flame Sword now. I also did get the extra hundred kills and have Deathbringer. I am a little sad this wasn't the weapon they chose for his Relic Weapon seeing how it was Cecil's best Dark Knight sword, but I'll stop whining and let XI be its own thing.

Managed to clear up a few lingering quests I had in Windhurst so I could make some room in my inventory. Raised my Smithing to Lv. 6 and got Woodworking to Lv. 7. I am still annoyed how tedious leveling crafting skills is, but whatever. It is technically cheaper than grinding 100,000 gill for a Bronze bed and storage upgrade it brings.

The big news was finally finishing the last Rank 2 Mission and getting Rank 3 finally. The funny part is that I read the wiki wrong and was doing the wrong mission because apparently the mission objective changes depending on which order you go to the nations. Got to see Ayame in action and Lion is still always showing up at the wrong time. I also tripped over the first cutscene for the Chains of Promethia expansion. Altana save us all.

With my Adventurer Certificate, I was finally able to access my Mog Garden which was really cute. My Chocobo is also now in his teens and has turned into a real brat now. I'll have to keep letting him race or something to change his disposition, but I miss my cute Chicobo.

So Now I am going to dive into the next nation mission on my next playthrough and see if I can get DRK to level 40 before switching to SAM. Still debating about DRG, but once those two are at Lv. 40, I plan on moving one of the classes to Lv. 50 so I can start working on getting to Lv. 65-75 so I will have a good shot at beating the Shadow Lord. I am really loving DRK, so I may drop MNK for it, but we'll see. I kind of feel sentimental about beating the game with the class I started with. I also want to do the Tenshido quest just so I can reach Aht Urghan because I really do want to unlock BLU. SMN is the only base game class I have not unlocked and Ninja is the only one from the Zilart Expansion I haven't either. We'll see if we get there.

I also should start really cleaning out my inventory and spend my Sparks of Eminence because I've managed to max it out. I may do my original plan and sell anything of no use between powers of tens to clean out the space and then spend my hard earned sparks on some decent gear. I am also surprised how good the Conquest gear actually is with the stat bonuses they give.

Update Time!

Not a huge one, but I did the Infiltrate Davoi mission, and that was easy peasy. So it didn;t take long to complete. So now I'm on the mission to catch a Crystal Bass in Jugner Forest. Which has not been going super well, but I'm exactly trying too hard here. I don;t want to buy it from the auction because 10,000 gil seems a bit steep. Course I'm a miser in general in FF games. So we'll just keep going at it. I am finally leveling up my fishing skill, which is nice.

I also let my Chocobo teen race the choco-breeder team, so hopefully his mood improves. I'm also switching up his feed to San d'Orian Carrots to raise his abilities more. I did not check back on my Mog Garden though.

I also tried to finish the time traveler quest from my Nation, and still got my ass kicked by the NM it summons, but I lasted much longer this time and managed to beat the skelly he summons with him. So I feel if I just gain one or two more levels, I can finally beat this one.

I also used my Conquest points to pick up some better armor options than what I am wearing. Again, the Conquest gear is nice because in addition to having decent defense stats, all of it comes with some boost to it as well. Why yes, I would love to have armlets that boost my accuracy and boots that increase my agility. Please and thank you!

So I will keep trying at the fishing mini-game and likely level DRK a bit more in my next playthrough.

Very minor update.

I largely spent my night fishing for the Crystal Bass for one of my Nation missions, and I am now starting to understand why the guide I'm using said to just buy it.

The issue is that when I use this one type of bait that's supposed to lower the opportunity of catching the wrong fish, it seems the only option I really have is to try and catch something I don't have a good probability of catching. So I have a feeling its a numbers game because I get the impression I need some serious fishing levels to catch it somewhat painlessly. The other bait option I had kept having me catch an army of crayfish I put up for auction for various prices as a screw over the economy in there because I'm more interested in getting quick cash, not gouging prices to get the most money. Which has surprisingly been working for me in the past.

Anyway, I may spend one more night trying to catch this fish naturally before I just stop being a dragon miser and just spend some gil I'm hoarding.

Major Update!

Got more than I was bargained for done last night. So I managed to catch the Crystal Bass for the Nation mission. As I began to expect the other night, the trick was going for the fish where the text read, "you don't think you'll be able to catch this one" as that turned out to be the one I needed. Though it took me three nights to catch this thing, I can't argue that it wasn't very lucrative for me. I managed to put up at least four stacks of 12 Crayfish on the Auction and managed to sell two of them for a combined total of 30,000 gil. So it wasn't a complete waste of time for me.

Following that, I barreled into the next Mission which had me becoming a member of my Nations embassy in Jueno. This was going to send me to Quifim Island to explore the Delfkutt Tower for the ambassador, but I decided to do a few side gigs first, the main one being getting access to the Tenshodo organization, which means I might be able to access Aht Urghan and obtain my coveted BLU class.

I did climb the tower and finish the mission first, and I managed to build my DRK to Lv. 40, so I am currently a SAM at the moment and will start working on that next. I know I haven't done a Job Breakdown in a while, but I've only dabbled in two of the Advance Classes and I feel if I tried to get to Lv. with the others, I would be ballooning my time even further. I'm only like two story missions away from my goal line of beating the Shadowlord, and while I've been having fun, I'm ready to move onto the other FFs at this point. I will say that I LOVE DRK. Definitely my favorite class so far.

Unfortunately, the server maintenance will be active during my usual play time, so I will have to keep myself occupied differently this evening.

Whoops, looks like I spoke too soon, the maintenance is the following day from when I posted.

So Minor Update.

Reached Rank 4, moved the Rhapsodies of Vana'diel forward again, and I sort of wish I had been doing that when I was a DRK because looking ahead, I was in the location I needed to be and the proper level. Not that I couldn't just change back to a Lv40+ Job and reach that point... I might do that because the next item I gain from this questline boosts my XP gains again and that should help me for the final stretch.

Other than that, I leveled SAM to about Lv. 14 currently. Nice to have a Job Class that can actually hit things with their two-handed weapons, not that DRK was completely awful, but damn WAR can be annoying with Greataxes. I am liking the class so far, but I'm not sure what to Sub with it, so I originally had my DRK, but later switched it to WAR for the Double Attack ability. I am also switching out my fishing gear for a proper bow and arrow to finally raise that weapon up as well. Though I may frop this eventually since I do have RNG for this kind of stuff.

Other than that, I am leveling SAM, probably going to do a few minor quests next playthrough since it looks like I need to raise my Fame in Jueno, and probably trade in some Conquest Points and Sparks of Eminence to get some good good gear while I phase out more of the gear clogging up my storage. I did forget to check on my Chocobo though... :choc2::ffviscorn:

Update time!

I'm on the 4th Mission tear where I have to investigate the strongholds of the three biggest Beastmen tribes to obtain their Magicite they are using to revive the Shadowlord. I've acquired several of the items needed to enter these places with the exception of the two needed to reach the inner sanctum of the Quadav territory. I did have to hunt some Coeurl to get one item.

I also raised my nice Chocobo to adulthood and have a mount, I also unlocked the non-chocobo mounts as well and my favorite is an adorable red crab.

SAM is around Lv. 38, and is in stiff competition with DRK as my fave job. Also helps they have great synergy with each other. I also reached the area the Galka used to live! I can't fight anything in the are or I will be turned into a bloodstain but hey, we got some lore, I reached an oasis, and I finally managed to get the Fire weather for the damn SMN quest. Now I just need the Ice weather, but unfortunately for me, all of the Ice zones are basically locked until I reach the Shadowlord. I tried real hard to hoof it through Raugemont Pass, but the demon enemies pretty much succeed with their Gandalf roles. So it looks like I won;t be unlocking the class until almost the end. This is easily the most annoying and worst Job class quest of the bunch due to all the RNG.

So, when I have more time to play, my goal is to:

• Get SAM to Lv. 40ish.
• Finish the Rhapsody of Van'Diel questline up to the point where I don't need to reach the original hardcap of Lv. 75 so I can get the item with the next XP boost.
• Try out DRG for a bit, but likely just get it to Lv. 20.
• Finish getting the MNK's first class-centric weapon in Bastok.
• Lv. MNK to the lv. Cap. so I can start the Lv. Cap quests. and get up to the one I can coincide with my current mission and kill two birds with one stone.
• Finish Mission 4-1.
• Decide if I'm doing MNK/WAR for endgame or DRK/SAM.
• Try my best not to get sidetracked with nonsense that doesn't pertain to any of these things.

So that's my game plan. My overall goal is to have this game finished sometime in March so I can move back to FFXII and move through the rest of my backwards playthrough.

Minor Update!

I did an attempt on the NM that spawns in the Rhapsody questline, and was killed at the last minute when it managed to pull off a devastating attack that killed all my squishy trusts, but he had almost no health by that point. I did attempt this two levels shy of the recommended level. So I'm going to get SAM to Lv. 40 and try again.

Other than that, I finished one easy quest to get a specific weapon to a dude in Jueno once I learned I can purchase said weapon from the Sparks Vendor, of which I have almost maxed out Sparks to use. There is also a neat armor set for MNK/NIN/SAM the vendor sells, but I'm going to have to wait until I get one of those classes to the default lv. cap.

Other than that, I visited my Chocobo and finally unloaded a bunch of elemental crystals I had been hoarding to the Moogle in the craft shops. I also got another 13,000 gil for a set of Crayfish i put up to auction.

I may slightly alter my plans. I know I said I wasn't going to bother with the other Job Classes, but I noticed I have a few abilities/spells taking up inventory space in my Mog House, so I might venture into a few of them to clear up the space. But I'm going to wait until after I get the next XP Boosting Key Item so I can make those ventures as short as possible. Though it looks like I'll have to level WHM again...

Weirdly productive evening.

So I attempted the NM for the Rhapsodies quest once again after gaining another level and still got destroyed towards the end of the fight due to a super move it likes to save when it has low health and lots of TP. So I opted to try to level again the Raugement Pass dungeon and managed to actually make it to the glacier and get the last weather element to gain the SMN class. But before I did that, I decided to do get the SAM's Artifact weapon because I happen to have acquired one of the items needed for it when I was originally trying to unlock the job. So I did that questline and was thinking of jumping into DRG instead, but then read up on the NM that keeps beating me and learned the creep has a move I hated in FFXII where the monster caps the damage I can do. This largely might be affecting how I am losing to it because Shantatto II and Zeid may not be as ideal as some other choices. Likewise, it recommended going for multi-hit attacks and that's why I jumped back into MNK!

So I had to upgrade the armor because everything I had for the class was Lv. 28 and not going to do for my Lv. 42 MNK. But I also remembered I never finished getting his Artefact Weapon either, and then realized I can alos fo a quest to upgrade the MNK White Belt.

So the goal is to get the Artefact Weapon, maybe acquire the Purple Belt depending on how tedious NM farming gets, and level it up a bit to fight the Rhapsodies NM and get the next Umbra key needed to boost my XP gains. Then I'm going to level MNK to the soft cap of Lv. 50 so I can start doing the Level upgrade quests. I think when I need to upgrade to 65+ is when I will get a quest that coincides with the current Nation Mission and then I'll do it so I can kill two birds with one stone. I also haven't played MNK in awhile and figured it would be nice to go back to my starting class.

Minor Update!

I mainly did the quest to get the MNK Artefact Weapon, which was better this time around due to being more thorough about wiping out the surrounding monsters and being better leveled and geared. Wandering Ghost was still a bitch though with his status effect. I did manage to also fight another NM that spawned in the same room, and despite being higher leveled, I had a much easier time dealing with him and snagged a nifty halberd for my trouble. I also gained two more levels for MNK so he's about Lv. 42 at the moment, so slowly getting close to the Lv. Cap.

While in Bastok, I started the quest to obtain a Purple Belt and may focus on that my next night. I'm a little annoyed my evening got sidetracked so bad as I was hoping to do more this evening, but every step is still a step forward.

Minor Update

Had a semi-productive evening. I tried to get the items needed for the Purple Belt, but I might give up on this idea because it involves farming to get thew NMs, of which I am really not a fan of XI's NM system. I mean it makes sense for the medium, but I still feel it is annoying having to murder weak ass monster in the chance the rare powerful one you need might show up. I gave up, but I did manage to farm enough Ram Skins to put up to auction and I got that special animal fat needed to make the Holy Candle for a quest in Jueno.

My biggest success for the evening was beating the monster to get to the first soft cap of the Rhapsodies of Vala'diel questline. This monster just kept wrecking my team and sort of proving why Trusts are very limited because their A.I. can sometimes reach FFXIII levels of stupidity. Like Shantatto II is a wrecking ball, but she's not very bright as a mage and doesn't try to steer clear of an enemy blast zone. I managed to beat the guy, because another high level PLD player was watching me get my ass kicked and saw this monster practically one-shot my team when it entered it;s final phase and took pity on me. He kept casting Cure IV on me which kept the monster aggro on him despite not being part of the fight, and gave me the chance to whittle down the things health to zero. He saluted me, I thanked him, and we both went on our merry way. I managed to push the questline up to the point where I got another Umbra Key to boost XP gains, and now the questline is stalled, because I need to beat the Shadow Lord to move it forward again.

So, my next goal is to basically grind until I reach lv. 50. I am going to the Moblim holdout in Movlopolis or whatever it is called, because one of the guides placed it as the best leveling spot for my lv. 45 MNK. Once I hit the level cap, I'll do the quest for it and also start the next Artefact quest for MNK. The goal is to get to level 65 before I face the Shadow Lord. But I alos have to deal with the fact that while MNK is badass, I think I had more fun as a DRK and a SAM. So I am debating now if I should switch gears class wise or stick to my starting class?

Update Time!

After getting smacked around by a l;ot of NM's wandering around the Goblin area, I learned a better spot was actually the gray ash version of T-Zah I unlocked by doing the Rhapsodies quest. So I was able to power myself up to Lv. 50 and start both the Lv. increase questline and the next MNK Artefact Armor quest. I feel like I will stick to MNK to do these quests, but I may end up switching over to DRK or SAM instead because as nice as MNK is, I did enjoy those job classes a little more.

So the first grind is over. Only two more to go. I think I'll finish collecting the MNK Artefact Armor and move back to either DRK or SAM and do their questlines now that I know some spots to level quickly. I may even throw in PLD if I feel saucy, but not likely.

I also picked up an item to see if I can reach Aht Urghan, because I do still want to unlock BLU, since it sounded like the most interesting class lore wise.

Update Time!

Finished the quest for the first level increase. I capped MNK at 50+ but switched over to DRK to level it while I finished the actual questline. I also managed to finish the Save my Sister quest and received a Holy Mace for my trouble. I had to get some upgraded armor fro DRK though, because I was running with Lv. 30 gear. Granted, I liked that gear better because most of the pieces had some stat bonus, but sometimes defense is the better option.

I also did the Weapon Artefact quest for DRK as well and got him some more magic. I might farm some enemies for the ABS spells I'm missing. I really wish I had noticed the Dark Magic class when I was running BLM or RDM, because it is woefully under-leveled compared to some of my other magic classes. I'll jump DRK to Lv. 51, so I can start the next level increase quest and probably switch to SAM and get it to the soft lv cap of 50.

So we're making some slow progress, but I am reminding myself that this is sort of like the endgame grind in games like FFII and III, where being prepared is better than not. Besides, I get the impression the next couple of Missions assume I stuck to one class and would be trying to get the level increases. So I feel I am good with my current plan. Been making money sending items to the auction, I may need to go fishing again though. :lol:

Attachment 78288

Update Time!

Leveled DRK to Lv. 50 and did the first Artefact armor quest to get the leggings. Unfortunately, the quest involved going back to a low level area, so I am still stuck at Lv. 50 and I can't even equip the armor piece yet, because I need to be Lv. 52. I also unlocked this other quest to find some special lumber for Cid's assistant, and that took me back to Carpernter's Landing, which, I never fully explored because I was a bit underleveled when I found the place originally. Unfortunately, I could not get the right creatures to spawn or get to the place where easier targets do spawn, but the reward if 2k gold and I'm not going to sweat over it. I did manage to finish up two more stacks of Crayfish, so that went to the auction house.

Unfortunately, this quest would spell the theme of the rest of my evening. I decided I was going to hunt down the missing Dark Magic spells and focused on trying to get Tractor, which involves hunting down Wights. The drop rate isn't bad, but the enemy mostly spawns at night, so I opted to hunt them in the Gusgen Mines instead. I must have terrible luck, because they dropped everything, but that spell, including two that are supposedly rarer. Lost two hours grinding and nothing. So I am not bothering with this anymore. I might still do the quest quest in Windhurst for Aspir but I will likely just purchase the remaining spells I'm missing if I feel up to it.

I did splurge and buy a Bronze Bed so my Moogle would shut up about it, but now he wants me to find a Power Bow and Beetle Necklace. ^^;

The one good thing I will say is that I finally tried DRK/SAM and this is certainly a magical combo of death that I really appreciate. Feels much nicer than MNK/WAR. I will be curious to see if SAM/DRK is just as fun.

Minor Update!

I largely spent the evening activating quests. I started the quest for the Lv. 60 increase, the Chaos Helmet, and the Chaos Glove quests. For the Helmet, I even managed to get the drop I needed to do the second part with the nasty fight. I might try to acquire the gloves first, and may even see if I can get the leggings and armor itself since I do happen to have keys for both dungeons. I also upgraded to a Darksteel Sword, and was surprised to learn that Zeid's "Flamberge" must be a unique weapon because DRK can't use it, unless it's a different weapon and just uses the same design.

I also raked in a bunch of money with some of my auction sales. I did get to Xarcabad or whatever it is called thanks to a tip I received about abusing the Unity system to teleport you to places you haven't been before. I tried to beat one of the beasts to get the item for the level increase quest, but was badly beaten just as I got it down to an inch of it's life. C'est la Vie I guess. So the goal now is to focus on the armor acquisition and hope the upgrades they bring may turn the tide of the conflict. That or change my team lineup to something more offensive focused that can perform Magic Bursts or Skillchains better.

My DRK is Lv. 54 at the moment, so I may end up switching to SAM soon. I also emptied a few items filling up space in my inventory because they were spells for various classes. I may have to level WHM just so I can dump all these spell scrolls I keep getting.

Update Time!

Mainly spent the evening doing the Borghetz Quest so I can start getting Artefact Gloves. I was able to obtain the ones for DRK and even reached the level cap with the class, so I switched to SAM for the moment.

I will say, DRK/SAM is much better than SAM/DRK. The lack of Souleater does a number on my needed buffs. So I may switch back to WAR as my sub class for SAM. I will say, SAM is a far more technical class than most, so I get the feeling I'm not really playing the class to its full potential sometimes, but we'll see as time goes if I get the swing of things. For now, I needed to level the class to Lv. 45 at least, because my best armor for him in in that range.

EDITGA: Looks like DRG might be the best subclass besides WAR for SAM, go figure.

Update time!

I opted to try to finish a quest with Nonoto in Lower Jueno who wanted me to visit all the large crystals usually located by the large skeleton looking structures that summon demons. I realize I am only missing two, so I traveled the Altepa Desert to find one I missed because I didn't really explore this place, and the other is in the area Norg was. I unfortunately got lost in the local jungles and wound up finding the Mithra homeland instead. The OG batch are, quite different for sure... Like initially it sounds like a similar situation to the Viera, where leaving the homeland makes you an outcast because you are disconnecting from your heritage, but after meeting the Cheiftan and talking to a few peeps around, it sounds more like the main warrior class of Mithra, whom often are the ones in charge, left and the rest are kind of okay with the major power dynamic change. I would need to do more quests here to figure that out, but that's likely not going to happen.

I also tried to get the Aspir spell doing the quest in Windhurst, only to discover too late that I can't beat this quest as a solo act, since the item drops from an enemy located past a locked door that requires another player. I could check to see if the AH has the item in question, but honestly, I don't really use DRK as a mage much, so I don't have a real reason to bust my ass and my fictional bank account to get him up to par on that front. Especially since I would need to hit the next soft cap of Lv. 75 to get access to spells worth using magic one. So I'm going to leave filling up missing spells for another year.

I've enjoyed my time with XI, but I'm ready to move onto something else for a change. So, I may be switching gears because I really want to be done with this game before March ends. So I am going to go back to DRK/SAM since I enjoy this build the most, and then do the following:

• Finish the Lv. 60 Increase quest so I can start the Lv. 65 one and do it while I'm working on Mission 4
• Obtain the DRK Chaos Helmet by finishing that quest.
• While focusing on Mission 4, my two sub-objectives is to finish quest Lv. 65 Increase and obtain the last two armor pieces found in coffers in two of the dungeons I'll be visiting while doing this questline. So the Chaos Legging and Chaos Armor.
• Finish Mission 4
• Start and focus on Mission 5-1 and 5-2, with 5-2 being my goal line of beating the Shadowlord.
• Give XI a rest and play something else, maybe DMC5 to give me a break from RPGs for a moment.

So yeah, going to focus on collecting my final gear and level upgrades, and then focus on finishing the base game. I'm really starting to feel the burnout, but I worry if I stop before finishing, I won;t come back to this for months, so I would rather just get the job done since I am so close. Hell, I've even noticed some guides say I have a fighting chance to finish the game now if I chose, but I would rather get the level caps lifted and increase my chances of making the boss battle less of an annoyance.

Update Time!

I finished the Lv 60 increase quest and started the Lv. 65 one. I cheezed this one by using Mounts to get past the guards, I did get spotted by two of them, but I trounced one and was killed by the second since he has one of those spells that does elemental spike damage. But unfortunately for the one I managed to beat, I managed to grab the final item before he spotted me, so my death was just a free Warp back home for me.

I also grabbed the last item I needed to officially start Mission 4.

The bad news was me trying to finish the Chaos Helmet quest and getting thumped by the NM I summoned thanks to him being a RDM that kept chain casting enfeeblements on my team and he also summons two cronies with their own annoyances. So I am going to have to make sure I farm another Quadav Magic Blood when I return to the Quadav stronghold.

I also raced my chocobo, and he managed to get third place! I need to raise him a bit better though, but it looks like I really need Chocobucks if I want to do that.

So my next phase will be doing Mission 4 and getting all the stuff for the Lv. 65 quest and the Chaos Helmet while I am at it. So my next stop is back to Davois to find the Monastic Cavern and the Magicite.

Update Time!

Not as productive of an evening as I would have liked. I was largely wandering around Davoi trying to get the Orc Crest for the Lv. 65 increase quest and getting thumped by either wandering into too many swarms of orcs or particularly strong ones that decimate my tank. I may need to grind to the level cap to make this less annoying. The Orcs do give me XP still, but it's kind of on the modest side, so I may going back to the Ashen Tzh Forest place to see if I can find more lucrative XP gains. The real annoying thing about the Orcs is that in addition to low XP gains, they are tanky. So fighting them is a pain in the ass, but I also have to be hitting switches, so I can't be running around invisible either.

The only high point of the evening was finding a coffer and obtaining my Chaos leggings for DRK. So that's only two more pieces of the Artefact Armor I need.

Update Time!

I haven't had much time to play got a few things done. I managed to level my Character to the cap of 60, so hopefully that will make the Magicite Mission a little less obnoxious. I also finished the Mirror Mirror quest and got a Signal Pearl!...which I'll probably never use, but at least I can say I have one. I also bit the bullet and spent some of my hard earned gil for the materials needed to increase my standard bag by five more items. I also threw a bunch of items clogging up my mog storage onto the auction, so I am hopefully I will earn all my gil back because I haven't been this poor in a while.

So my next playthrough will focus on doing my Nation Mission while also doing the Whence the Wind Blows quest to get the next level increase.

Update Time!

Made it through Davoi and found the Magicite (pretty easy) and managed to get the crest as well. I did end up cheating for the crest. I lucked out and another player was in the area and I sneaked in past the barrier without having to do the silly Orb quest. I was not so fortunate in Castle Ostraja. I can't say I like this place. It's big, easy to get lost in and has too many trapdoors. The highlight was finding my Chaos Armor, so I now only need the helmet for my DRK class. Unfortunately, I got impatient and YOLO my way to the ??? mark to get the Ostraja Crest and was promptly vaporized while trying to toggle to the right spot because I aggro like twenty of those bastards. I'll need to switch my Subjob to WHM potentially or get some items to be able to sneak past all the enemies here. Then try to track down their magicite. At least I have a better sense of the dungeons layout.

I called it a night there, so I'll attempt again next time, but I ma excited I got my armor piece. I look pretty cool with the head piece I currently wear. I am sad the game lacks really cool helmets. Largely because all of them insist on letting you see your avatars face, I prefer the Dark Souls approach where like 90% of the helmets will cover most of your face. :lol:

Update Time!

Finally got the Yagudo crest. Had to pull a Dark Souls and do a suicide run to get it but the deed is done. Afterwards I returned and checked out the Magicite and got a cool story bit about Windhurst. I'm going to assume the real reason the area is being drained by magic is due to the summoning of Fenrir. Will be interesting to see what the Bastok Quadave Magicite is going to show me.

That will have to wait though, I'm pretty tired this evening. Not helping is that I have a lot to do in Bedeaux or whatever it is called. In addition to getting the Magicite and the Crest, I also have to farm Qudav Magic Blood so I can make another attempt at obtaining the final piece of my DRK armor. I also hope I cap Scythe soonish, because I sort of want to switch back to Greatswords, but since the Scythe has better stats, I opted to raise my proficiency with it first, because I'll likely be using it for the Shadowlord fight. I am sad I won;t be able to find a really good Greatsword for my DRK until I unlock Dynamis though, which won;t be until the Shadowlord is defeated. So scythe it is.

Update Time!

A lot of successes, and one set back, but otherwise, a very productive day.

I managed to find the last Magicite shard (by accident no less) while exploring the Quadav area. I also managed to get the Crest as well, though I did have a few close calls because the Ruby Quadav isn't fooled by Silent Oils. I even got a the Quadav Magic Blood off my first Topz Quadav for the Blade of Evil quest.

So Mission got done and I can ride airships finally. I'm in the home stretch for my initial goal of 'beating XI". I also managed to get my level cap increased all the way to 70 since the quest after Lv. 65 ended up being super easy (with a guide of course) and I just happened to have 4 Kindred Seals on my person.

My setback for the day was once again attempting the Blade of Evil quest to get my Chaos helmet for DRK and once again getting thumped bad by the NM I have to summon. So it looks like I need to go back to the Quadav stronghold and farm more Magic Blood, but I'm thinking where I go wrong is that I keep getting distracted by his two annoying henchmen, and I really need to be focusing on him due to him being a RDM/DRK combo that loves to enfeeble the hell out of my tank and drain all the MP from my healer. With that said, now that I have the Lv cap raised to 70, I might grind to that cap so I can just bulldoze this asshole.

Update Time!

Took a break for a few days, but came back with a vengeance this evening. I managed to grind my DRK to Lv. 65. Managed to get my last piece of Artefact Armor, and finished the second to last mission for Rank 6. So All I have left to do is take on the Shadowlord himself. So the end is nigh!

My only setback tonight was discovering I really neglected my poor Chocobo, so in addition to being sick, he doesn't even like me anymore. :cry:

So I got him some medicine and spent some quality time with him. Probably overfed him though... But yeah. I'm probably going to be wrapping this up pretty soon. I'll get my chocobo back to liking me and probably retire him just so I don't ever have to come back to the Chocobo Stables to see my little guy sick and unhappy. :ohdear:

Attachment 78315

Shadow Lord has been defeated. I fell into my usual FF curse of always getting killed by the final boss at least once, but that was due to the game being weird about when I could summon Trusts and some unwritten rule that says I can't summon Trusts I had before I enter the boss room. :roll2 So the first attempt ended poorly. A-Team on the other hand decimated him. The story bits around the final battle and afterwards were neat and he was an interesting boss that was very reminiscent of The Undying from XII, just less flashy and with physical pailings that last 2x longer than I would care for.

Afterwards, I watched my Rank 6 cutscene, collected a ton of Trusts, and got this over with. My only remaining tasks is to do a few missions for Shantatto to get her initial Trust (though Shantatto II is better) and retire my poor Chocobo so whenever I come back to this game, I won;t have to deal with the heartbreak of the Chocobo ranchers berating me about how I'm an bad Chocobo Owner and they had to confiscate poor Autumn Ghost away from me. :cry:

So once those tasks are done, I'll put this game to rest for awhile. My next post will likely be my final thoughts on the whole experience.

10 Days 10 Hours 9 minutes and 35 seconds

That's how long I stayed in Vana'diel and for vets, that's just enough time to scratch the surface. XI was an interesting ride, and while I still have four more expansions and half a dozen special events left to do, I can lie to myself and say I at least beat the "base" game of XI. For someone who doesn't particularly care for the MMO genre, I will say I enjoyed my time. I often feel XI gets knocked around a bit in both the FF community (myself being one who slandered this game) and the MMO community at large since it's still a pretty active pre-WoW MMO. The game is certainly not user-friendly, but I actually kind of liked that about it. Maybe it's because I'm not a big fan of modern UI design that tries to spell out everything to the player, but I kind of enjoyed needing to look up guides, have several Wiki's pulled up, and often just find myself stumbling into situations. It was kind of refreshing.

XI is not an easy game to love, but despite it's best efforts (and my own OCD) I managed to look past the flaws and really get to enjoy the game. Like on the one hand, I'm grateful to finally be 'finished" and moving on from it, but on the other hand, I am going to miss it. When I initially started, one of my goals was to finish enough to feel done with it so I could finally cancel my subscription for it, but now, I'll probably hold onto it for a bit longer. The idea of coming back to explore the expansions doesn't feel like such a bad idea anymore. XI is a very cozy game, something that doesn't feel like it's rushing you to do much, but also offering you a ton of things to occupy your time. I still have like 30+ quests in my quest log I probably still need to finish.

My biggest gripes with the game don't really have to do with the game's design, but rather just the nature of MMOs. Mainly, everything take forever. Crafting was so tedious I gave up halfway through my runtime, and while leveling is much easier than it once was, it still could be a slog to spend evenings leveling up. It's a large part of why I gave up on playing with all the classes, because it would take ages to get a real feel for all of them and once I found a setup that clicked for me, it was hard to go back. But I did appreciate the variety and the missions to obtain them were mostly fun, except the RNG bulltrout that was the SMN class.

I did like the world and setting even if some locales weren't as interesting as others. But the lore of the game is pretty good, and I find that XI might be the last FF that really managed to tackle its central theme in a pretty strong way, as opposed to some of the clumsier efforts we see in other entries. I even started to get attached to some of the characters as well. Zeid being a big one for me, as he really did feel like a mentor figure after awhile. I was also surprised to find some characters I didn't expect to like such as Halver who won me over during the quest to find Prince Trion a bride. The story and characters are a real slow burn though, but again, that's the nature of the genre.

Come to think of it, I think my biggest gripe overall was the limited inventory, made more obnoxious by some of the steep requirements to expand it being either tedious quests that often involve spending way too much gil or mastering multiple crafting fields (which are hindered by the limited inventory) or spending real world money to buy additional wardrobes. I eventually just had to learn to cut my losses and keep my character focused, but it can be challenging when the game keeps throwing items at you that are useless now, can't be sold, but have value if you bother to see the game to the end.

The music was okay, very pastoral if that makes any sense. Not the type of music that pumps you up, but more like the type of music that makes you feel calm and easier to fall into the background of your thoughts while you spend time crafting, fighting, and exploring. So it gets the job done. Not sure if I'll bother to own it, but at least TheaterRhythm will be more enjoyable.

Combat was good as well. Not necessarily great, but kept you involved without being tedious about it. See FFXIII, you can make an engaging combat system without dumbing down all the RPG mechanics to the bare minimum and creating a speedy battle system that forces me to be hyper vigilant all the time so I can press two buttons. :p

DRK and SAM were easily my two favorite classes to play and I enjoyed the fact they had great synergy with each other and I can finally drop WAR. WAR and MNK were good, but I was annoyed WAR had to be constantly leveled because its like THE melee class for subjob work. Whereas MNK was fun to play but had little synergy with other classes besides WAR. BLM was fun, but I prefer melee over casting classes. RDM was great in the beginning, but eventually it's jack of all trades design got the better of it for me as I was eventually overwhelmed by the options it offered, but it did eventually lead me to see I wanted to focus on a DPS class. I'm still a bit sad I didn't check out NIN, DRG, and SMN but by that point I knew I needed to start staying focus on the goal of beating the Shadow Lord. It's a large part of why I didn't pick up BLU either, because that is basically Time Sink the Class. Still, it's nice to think I have things to look forward to when I get back, and now that I know all the good leveling spots, I can power level any class I'm interested in up to getting their Artefact gear.

Overall, I found this to be a fun and rewarding experience. XI might not be my favorite FF, but I appreciate the fact I can feel safe actually ranking it within the FF series if I had to. Now I'll backtrack and move onto FFXII after I take a little break. I may revive this thread in the future if I choose to tackle the expansion down the road, but I am still trying to wrap my head around the time sink I put into this game. I don't think I've played any game consecutively for as long as I've played XI.

Attachment 78316

I'm glad you did this. It's been enjoyable reading through your experience with the game, and I'm glad that it was a good experience for you in the end. Thanks for the experience.