Leveling areas question...

[bungiefan]

Re: Leveling areas question...

I've still to join an abyssea party for exp but a few things I was wondering.
What do you do if you have 0 atmas?
Are you meant to pay to be in and aby party? I've seen a ton of shouts mentioning a fee or people shouting for invites with < Reward > Where the heck am I meant to pull such a ton of gil from and how are newbies meant to have that much?

Cruor (currecy from Abyssea) converts to gil at about 2 gil per cruor. After a few parties in Abyssea, you'll have a ton of cruor, which gets you a ton of gil, which is why leech prices in Abyssea are so high. Gil is near worthless to high level players, so you need a lot of it. Items from yellow abyssea chests are also worth a lot of gil. The things they do want to buy with gil, relics, and high level consumables like ammo, are expensive still.

For Atmas, just pay attention to shouts for NMs that have the atma you need, and let a group know. If you're new to Abyssea, it's understood that you won't have many. Just don't expect to start getting them at level 30. You aren't supposed to go there for your first job until about level 70. Once you've got cruor and atma and abyssite built up, you can leech other jobs from the progress of the first job. Find a LS that does Abyssea and have them help you get important abyssite and atma.

Newbies don't need a lot of gil for initial leveling. Level sync means you don't have to get new gear every few levels. Increased EXP for all enemies, as well as the Field Manual buffs, means you don't have to fight as high level monsters, so you don't need as heavy of armor to survive. You can get by just fine with NPC-sold armor and weapons, using the AH occasionally, especially now that they are all linked. Mage jobs are about the only consumer of a lot of gil, and only for certain spells, when leveling from scratch. Once you max out and start doing Abyssea, you'll have so much money you won't know what to do with it unless you are funding a relic.

Before my account was deactivated from the new payment system, I joined an LS that works on a gil DKP system. You don't have an intangible amount of points stored up, you pay gil to the LS leader for lotting on items, and the gil is then split between everyone that attends the event. When we merc ourselves out, we charge gil, and then it is split into the LS members acting as mercs. Everyone gets rich if they attend events regularly, and everyone gets a chance to bid on items.

Yea well I have started out as a job in Abyssea a few times and then they needed some one on keys so since i have over 1mil curer I was chosen. I went from a lvl 33 job to a lvl 90 + 20 merits in about 8 hours in abbysea. But doing it this does not let you learn how to do your job. Infact as a player you are behind and not well versed in your job so you don't know how to do it. I am learning how to do ninja because of this gimped. It works great for abyssea parties for exp only but if I want to do something in abyssea I will not be ninja since I don't know how to play the job. That is a big problem with the advent of abyssea. it will probably take me a month or two for me to learn the job well enough to play it proficiantly in a normal party setting.

Skilling up is fairly easy in your downtime. Go to Castle Zvahl Baileys (S) and fight Zvahl Fortalices with weak weapons. They have 5k HP and don't fight back, and cap out at level 82 skill caps, with a 30-60 minute respawn, and about 8 spawns, 2 near the front that are aggro-free except for magic. 2-3 nights AFK, checking up on respawns and changing weapons was all it took to cap out all 3 weapons for my SAM. I'll learn the job more by using it to solo the missions I need that my BLM is too squishy for. I don't need a full 8 years to learn a job, though that's what it took to reach 75 on my BLM under the old system. I'd rather have all the abilities at the max level I"m going to be using the job, and tinker with them to learn how they work than go through a grind of years learning them.

The people that care how to learn a job will still do it, they just aren't forced to take a long time doing it. The people that never cared and only wanted the job at max level are still not going to care and aren't going to learn the job.

Curious as to why SE would do this. Just because the game is in its last stretch I suppose?

FFXI had gotten pretty stagnant for the hardcore players who had nearly everything they wanted to do. The census showed a lot of players stuck on missions that needed a lot of people to complete, and had little repetition incentive. The changes made since Abyssea release have made it easier for the casuals and people with few play hours at a time (such as me) to actually make progress, and work in smaller groups. Now everyone can participate in endgame, and a lot more people have completed missions. I've actually started working on other jobs since it's so fast to level them, which means I can do more missions because I can fill more roles. My main concern with the game is to do all the storyline, and that is achievable now, when my time zone, work hours, and frequency of play kept me from that before.