WK Plays FFXI

[chionos]

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.

[Del Murder]

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.

[Wolf Kanno]

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.

[Wolf Kanno]

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.

[Wolf Kanno]

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.

[Wolf Kanno]

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

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.

[Wolf Kanno]

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.

[Wolf Kanno]

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.

[Wolf Kanno]

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.

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.

[Wolf Kanno]

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.

[Del Murder]

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

[Wolf Kanno]

Still need to track them yourself.

[Wolf Kanno]

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.

[Wolf Kanno]

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.

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[Wolf Kanno]

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.