Question about quests and levels

[NegativeFPS]

Hi, I'm coming here from WoW, and I'm wondering about quests.
In WoW, quest giving NPCs had question marks over their heads, that's how you knew they were giving out quests, instead of having to talk to every NPC as it seems in FFXI.
Now, if you were too high or too low for a quest, they would have nothing at all over their heads, or an exlemation mark.
My question is, how can you tell if NPCs have quests for you, and do I have to talk to a whole freaking town again just to see if new quests opened up for me?

[Necropolis]

Re: Question about quests and levels

Sadly there isn't a similar system in FFXI. There are the main city Missions, those are received by talking to the main gate guards, but you'll need to trade a number of crystals to the signet man.

Quest are entirely optional in FFXI. There are unlockable quest at level 1, and more open as you aquire more fame. Each city (Bastok, Windurst, San d' Oria, Jueno, and Norg) have independent fame statistics. You aquire fame by doing various quest that you can unlock.

In all honesty, I have no idea how the original players of this game figured out all the quest. Many are unclear what they want, or what you have to do.

www.ffxiclopedia.com

This site has links to Missions and Quest on the main page. You can click and browse through each of the city quest if you like. Also, if you're looking for a particular item or spell use that site to search for it. Some items are drops, some crafted, and many are questable. So before paying a large sum of gil on an item, consider doing the quest to save a bit of gil.

EDIT: Fame is not related to you job level, or mission rank. It is a seperate statistic based on quest you've done.

[NegativeFPS]

Re: Question about quests and levels

Umm, so how important are quests while leveling? If you have to go around asking NPCs all over town, it sounds quite unimportant, and only a thing to do while you're waiting for a party or something for 6 hours. I started about 5 hours ago, I'm still level one, haven't killed a single monster or quest. I've litterally been going all over Windhurst, talking to every single NPC in hopes to get quest out of them. So for 5 hours straight I've just been gathering quests.
Is this not the right thing to do?

[DakAttack]

Re: Question about quests and levels

They're not necessary, but they'll reward you with fame. Some quests that offer nice rewards will require higher amounts of fame so you'll have to have done quests to earn the fame.

Just take what you have now and head out to level while completing them. Missions are the most important at your level so make sure you're talking to gate guards and recieving them as well as Signet.

[Necropolis]

Re: Question about quests and levels

There aren't really quest you NEED to do right now. It doesn't hurt to do a few though. I would suggest looking up any items that drop while you exp (level grind, what ever WoW people call it). The items that drop can be traded in for a little reward, usually either gil, item or just fame.

In particular, Crawler Calculis (sp?), cornettes, 2 leaf mandagora buds can be traded to particular NPCs in town for a little gil, but you don't have to start the quest before leaving town.

Also, since you're new, KEEP YOUR BEASTMEN SEALS! You'll appreciate them later. For at least the first 20 levels they are utterly usless to you, but do not throw a single one away! They are a great way of making gil later on in the game.

[NegativeFPS]

Re: Question about quests and levels

They're not necessary, but they'll reward you with fame. Some quests that offer nice rewards will require higher amounts of fame so you'll have to have done quests to earn the fame.

Just take what you have now and head out to level while completing them. Missions are the most important at your level so make sure you're talking to gate guards and recieving them as well as Signet.

Does that mean if I wanted to, I could get to 75 by just doing missions and nothing more?

[Mhurron]

Re: Question about quests and levels

You could get to 75 by doing no missions and only 5 quests given by an old man in Jeuno starting at lvl50.

You will miss out on a lot of the game however.

[NegativeFPS]

Re: Question about quests and levels

OK, well is there a way to dump all the quests I've taken then? Not that I really want to dump all of em, but I don't have much of an incentive to do most now.. if not, they're just going to fill up my quest log forever now?

And again, how do I know more quests opened up to me? I mean, I'm sure there are quests that level 1s can't handle, and are meant to be done by higher levels. Same goes for lvl 75s, if I've never been to Winurst and I'm 75 now, I can just pick up all the quests in Winurst that level 1s can do? Why would someone do that?

[Necropolis]

Re: Question about quests and levels

You don't need to dump the quest, after hours and hours of leveling to 75 you'll want something to do other than swing at a mob or support a party.

Some are funny, some have good story, some are just...odd. FFXI is very storyline driven, and the quest are just a supplement to the main story lines. Also, those little quest lead to things you'll want later on. For example, Ballad (a bard song), sells for nearly 100k on my server usually. This is quested, and takes about 15 minutes to do if you can find the right people.

Also, you'll need fame for things later on in the game. Utsusemi (a ninja spell) is used by every melee in the game at some point (through a support job). Your choices are pay 500k+ for it, or quest it for free.

Also you need fame to get the summoner quest. If you choose to level summoner, you'll want more avatars than carbuncle at some point, thus fame is need to activate the quest.

There are plenty of example, but for the time being, just see what drops you get from leveling can be used for a quest. If they can't be used in a quest, sell them on the Auction house or to a NPC for some gil.

[NegativeFPS]

Re: Question about quests and levels

So there's no way to get rid of a quest?

And someone please answer my main question about questing; do I have to go around the whole town talking to NPCs again every few levels to see if new quests opened up to me?

[Mhurron]

Re: Question about quests and levels

Quests (mostly) don't open up based on your level. They open up based on mission or quest progress or an increase in fame.

For instance the prime avatar battles in each of the starting cities require lvl7 fame in that city. You could get lvl7 fame and be level 1 or you could be level 75 and not have the fame requirement.

[NegativeFPS]

Re: Question about quests and levels

It's still very confusing to me.

So what is the best way to quest? I mean there are about 300 NPCs alone in Winurst, and it takes about 7 hours to talk to all of them (and you pretty much have to because you don't know which NPCs give out quests, and which don't), and then after all that, you have to do it all over again because you may have gained extra fame that may have opened up a couple of new quests?

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Question about quests and levels

So there's no way to get rid of a quest?

Typically, there's no need to get rid of any. I probably have quests yet to be completed for over two years. They do no harm.

By the time you came across quests you do need getting rid of, you'll find better ways (i.e. http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/Main_Page ) to find info than asking these kinds of questions.

And, depending on what you want to do, many quests cannot be ignored. Beyond those"Limit Breaks" ("Genkai") which allows you to level beyond 50, some important armor and weapons are only obtainable from certain quests.

I would encourage you to look up FFXIclopedia for any quest you may be interested; just type in the full name of the quest (as it appears in your quest log) into the search box.

[Mhurron]

Re: Question about quests and levels

Do a quest here and there when you want to do something different. When you need gear check wiki.ffxiclopedia.org to see if the item is a quest reward.

Quests are just part of playing the game. Some days you'll go exp, others you might do some crafting (eventually) or farming. So just do some quests sometimes.

[Ameroth]

Re: Question about quests and levels

It's still very confusing to me.

So what is the best way to quest? I mean there are about 300 NPCs alone in Winurst, and it takes about 7 hours to talk to all of them (and you pretty much have to because you don't know which NPCs give out quests, and which don't), and then after all that, you have to do it all over again because you may have gained extra fame that may have opened up a couple of new quests?

Maybe you're just still in the WoW mindset. You are not required to do any quests (save the Limit Break quests if you plan to level past 50) in the game at all. You are not rewarded with EXP, but most often items and gil, and also fame. Harder quests usually reward you with better items and more gil, and reward more fame than quests that are very simple. This isn't always the case, but is a good rule of thumb.

Much to your dismay, the only way to activate a quest is to talk to an NPC that starts the quest. There is no way of actually knowing if an NPC will give you a quest before you actually talk to them (or look it up online).

In the beginning, I would recommend doing a little leveling, experimenting with the jobs, and getting an overall feel of how FFXI works. Don't make quests your first priority, but don't totally forget about them either.