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.