What happens if I press this button...

[Nestama]

It seems to make a new thread for me to say "hello!" Fascinating.

So hi there everyone, I recently bought Final Fantasy XI's Ultimate Collection from Steam. I'm pretty much new to everything that is MMO and am completely lost :D Thankfully I had a USB keyboard lying about to change the keyboard settings to compact, so I can at least move around and harass the unforgiving wildlife. Though figuring out where to buy potions, armour and weapons is beyond me.

I didn't really know which sever/world (or starting town) to pick, so I went with Ragnarok (and Windusrt). Good choice or should I delete my character (I'm only level 6) and pick a different server?

Quick note: I won't be able to play right after making this thread. House work and hospitalised friend in need of visiting are to be done (and dinner).

[Aksannyi]

Re: What happens if I press this button...

Though figuring out where to buy potions

In this game, sad to say, potions are almost completely useless. At least those that heal you or restore your mana. There are potions you will want to use later - echo drops (remove silence), silent oils (gives you sneak effect), prism powders (gives you invisible effect), - but you shouldn't need them at low levels.

Armor and weapons can be bought at both the local shops and at the auction house. Up until about level 10, the armor is much cheaper from a merchant, though up until about level 10, it doesn't really make that much of a difference. And if you're a caster, you should spend your gil on spells above everything else. You should always try to keep your spells up to date.

If you are looking for a specific item, you'll want to check both ffxiclopedia and FFXIAH. The first one is the wiki, and the second one is an online AH (auction house) tracker, so you are looking to buy something, you can look how much the merchant charges on the wiki, then see how much the players are charging. You can also use features of both sites to compare items and see if there's something better/more easily obtained that you can do.

When it comes to server, they are all essentially the same. I do not know offhand if anyone from here plays on Ragnarok, there is a small beginner LS on Valefor that one of our frequent posters is leading, he has been very helpful to a lot of new people. If you'd like more info on that, there is a thread for it here. Starting city doesn't matter all that much. If you enjoy Windurst then that's a perfectly valid reason to pick it.

There is a lot to absorb for a new player, so I'm going to hand out a few pieces of advice (could give you a lot more but it's kind of overwhelming to just barrage you with a huge post):

1. Talk to the gate guards in your city before leaving to kill monsters. In Windurst, they have W.W. after their name. (In the other towns, it is a different two initials but I can't remember them.) Ask them to cast signet on you. Signet helps you to obtain crystals which you can sell on the AH, and also makes it so you don't lose your TP as you rest.
2. Check monsters before attacking them. You may have figured this one out already. Usually, it's much more efficient to beat up on easy prey mobs than it is to take on anything more difficult.
3. Use the Fields of Valor training regiments (they look like floating books and are generally near the gates to the cities and the outposts) to get a little extra experience points and gil.
4. Go into your menu, in your options, and turn auto-sort to ON. This will cause items which stack to automatically do so. If you don't, you'll have to manually sort your inventory every few kills, and before I figured out how to do this, I both lost a lot of items and wasted a ton of time running back to town to sell it all.

There is obviously a lot more to it, but those are some basics to get you started. I stopped playing over a year ago but I know that this information is still valid, as much as the game has changed.

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: What happens if I press this button...

Check out this first if you haven't yet: http://www.playonline.com/ff11newpla...x.html?lang=en

* * *

I'll add that many spells lowbie mages can use are dropped by monsters; if you level up melee jobs first (to say, Lv.20), odds are you'll come across a lot of spells.

Checking FFXIClopedia is a good way to find out if a spell can be had from which monster/shop. Always check the NPC prices if available from shops; for a majority spells, it seem cheaper from NPCs, but that's not a hard and fast rule. So, always check AH prices and NPC prices!

Oh, to save yourself some headaches, find the Config menu (it's in the second portion of the main menu), and set inventory to auto sort. If you find yourself out of room, crystals tend to sell for good prices now on AH, so go sell those once you have a stack of same type.

* * *

FFXI works very nicely with a PS2 style controller, and probably fairly decent with an xBox360 controller, too. It's a bit of a pain to switch back and forth between the controller and keyboard, but moving around is really a lot more natural with the controller for a lot of people.

[cidbahamut]

Re: What happens if I press this button...

The best advice I can offer is to go punch bunnies while wearing a stylish hat.

[KingOfZeal]

Re: What happens if I press this button...

In this game, sad to say, potions are almost completely useless. At least those that heal you or restore your mana.

I don't know... those 15 Hi-Potions I used helped out TREMENDOUSLY for my Maat fight on Bard.

But, truthfully, Ethers and Potions are largely useless except in special cases, like Maat.

And who hasn't had those times in Abyssea that you essentially need to spam Lucid Ethers and Potions? They don't happen very often, but they are quite helpful.

[Armando]

Re: What happens if I press this button...

A word of advice: don't play this like a console game, especially when it comes to doing quests and missions. There's dozens of quests out there, and if you tried to figure all of them out on your own, you'd never get anywhere. Not to mention, some of them give kinda sucky rewards. That aside, here's the advice I gave the last dude:

Regardless, here's some good general advice for you. I haven't touched the game in over a year so some of it may be out of date:
1) Always ask the city's gate guards for Signet before you leave town. It lets you get Conquest Points and crystals from mobs that give you EXP.

2) Never drop Beastmen's Seals. They'll make you money later on, and the fact that they're not tradable/buyable makes them even more valuable.

3) Never fight without food. When you start out, you'll want Meat Jerky or some other inexpensive attack-boosting food.

4) FFXIClopedia is your friend when you need to find what NPCs sell something and for what price, at what level you get certain skills, and quest/mission details.

5) If you're going to be hitting things, keep your weapon up-to-date. This usually means using the weapon your job is most proficient with (e.g. Great Axes for Warriors, Scythes/Great Swords for Dark Knights) and picking the one with the highest DPS (basically the ratio of the weapon's damage rating to its swinging speed.) Use FFXI AH's Power Search to find the weapons with the best DPS for your level and job. (The main exception here is the Thief job, which actually does better with Swords rather than Daggers 'til at least Level 25.)

6) If you're soloing, keep your armor up to date. If you're partying, use armor that will make you better at your job. If you're a caster you'll want MP and INT/MND, if you're a damage dealer you'll want Attack and Accuracy, if you're a tank you'll want a combination of defense and offense to stay alive while keeping the mob's attention.

7) If you're going to get hit, always use big, round wooden shields instead of small bucklers or bone shields. They reduce much more damage. The Defense stat on shields is just a small bonus.

8) FFXIAH is great for finding the prices of things in the Jeuno/Aht Urhgan Auction Houses but these are not representative of the AHs in the starter cities. Starter cities tend to have lower level gear. Regardless, always check NPC prices for your equipment at FFXIClopedia - really low level gear and spells are usually overpriced at AHs.

9) While you're soloing, stay away from Decent Challenge mobs unless you can start the fight with a Weapon Skill and leave them very crippled. Stick to mass-murdering Easy Prey mobs and use your MP for Curing. Leave enfeebles for when you get aggroed by DC or higher mobs.

10) You can run behind most things with eyes and not get aggroed. Things without eyes will usually aggro you no matter which way they're facing, but they have a shorter aggro range. Undead will aggro you from further away the lower your HP is. Bombs and Elementals will aggro you if you cast magic near them.

11) Talk to those books near the zone lines outside the city and do training regimens. While you're at it, if you're a job with MP, buy Refresh with your Tabs.

12) Evasion equipment works nice on easy mobs but bad against Tough and higher mobs. Defense works well against hard mobs but excess defense is wasted on easy solo mobs. Shields are awesome for staying alive if you're soloing or a Paladin. Two-handed weapons get Attack and Accuracy bonuses.

13) It's better to do three Weapon Skills at 100 TP and one Weapon Skill at 300 TP.

14) Buy maps in-game. If you want to go somewhere you don't have a map for, check out Vana'diel Atlas: Final Fantasy XI Maps collection - Treasure, NM, Quests, and Missions locations. When all else fails, stick to the main paths in the zones. They tend to go places. Check out the Regional Map in your menu to have some idea of which zones are in which direction.

Go outside, kill shit. Sell the drops in the Auction House. Stop and explore every now and then, but don't dilly-dally for too long. The real fun starts at the higher levels. Don't grind nonstop either or you'll burn out. Make friends with people. You can't solo your way to the top. And if you ever level Warrior, read this. It's old but probably still very relevant.

If you've got questions don't hesitate to ask. MMOs are all about knowing your shit.

[Nestama]

Re: What happens if I press this button...

Thank you for all the advice :D

I decided to delete my character and then remake it on the Valefor server (picking the town at the top), thanks to Aksannyi for pointing out that thread I somehow missed.

I feel I'm actually doing somewhat better. Though now I just discovered the macro things and... yes, what are those? Also, that "?" next to my characters name, what does that mean?

Oooh, the questions just keep on coming.

[Aksannyi]

Re: What happens if I press this button...

The question mark just means you're new. It goes away on its own I believe once you hit level seven.

Macros, while confusing to set up at first, are a good way to map your spells and abilities so you don't have to go into the menu every time you want to use them (or worse, type out the entire command on the command line). When you're a caster and you have upwards of 50 spells, you can see why that would be a good thing. I'd recommend reading up on macros on the wiki. I think they have a pretty comprehensive list of the commands and how they work.

[Armando]

Re: What happens if I press this button...

What Aks said. Macros do two things for you: they give you quick access to spells and abilities you use often, and they let you automate tedious tasks. For example, you can set up macros to do two abilities back-to-back, or to change to a piece of equipment and then do an ability or spell that benefits from it (and even change back afterwards.) You can also do macros to say things (such as reporting how much TP you have left or what mob you're pulling in a party) but use this prudently - no one wants spam in their chat logs. So don't include a message in your macro saying you're using Provoke when the game clearly lets them know you're using it. Basically, any command that you can type into the chat bar can be put into a macro and vice-versa.

This link'll tell you what you need to know. Macro - FFXIclopedia, the Final Fantasy XI wiki - Characters, items, jobs, and more You don't have a whole lot of things to make a macro for early on but it's better that you familiarize yourself with the system sooner rather than later. Might look intimidating but in practice you only use a small set of all the commands shown there. The most common ones are:
/ws "WS Name" <target> for Weapon Skills
/ja "Ability Name" <target> for Job Abilities
/ma "Spell Name" <target> for spells
/ra <target> for ranged attacks
/use "Item Name" <target> to use items (you'll usually use <me> as the target)
/recast "Ability/Spell Name" tells you how much more you have to wait before reusing the ability.
/equip BodyPart Equipment to equip something
/equip BodyPart to remove what you were wearing in that slot
/p Message to say things to your party
/echo Message to display a message that only shows up on your screen.

The most common targets are <me> for yourself, <t> for whatever you're currently targeting, <stnpc> to let you choose a target among the NPCs nearby (includes mobs), and <stpc> to let you choose among nearby players. <me> is useful for abilities that can only target yourself, <stpc> is useful for Cures and Buffs, and <stnpc> is useful when you're fighting more than one thing so you can easily use spells and abilities on mobs other than the one you're targeting. <stpc> is also useful if you macro your 2-hour ability, so that you can't use it by accident (you'll have to confirm yourself as the target.)

You can also add <wait x> at the end of a command to delay the execution of the next line. For example, adding <wait 5> at the end of the first line will cause the second line to execute 5 seconds later. Otherwise they all get executed instantly.

Try adding simple macros for whatever abilities, spells and Weapon Skills you have. Also, when I copy-pasted my previous post, the link for the Warrior guide got removed. Here it is: http://www.ffxionline.com/forums/war...w-awesome.html

[Aksannyi]

Re: What happens if I press this button...

It sounds much more confusing than it is. When you understand it, it's super easy to set up macros.

You can also add <wait x> at the end of a macro to delay the execution of the next line. For example, adding <wait 5> at the end of the first line will cause the second line to execute 5 seconds later. Otherwise they all get executed instantly.

Want to add, that if you put a <wait> in your macro and then fire off a different macro during that waiting time, it will cancel the second action. For example, say your macro does this:

/ma "Dia II" <t> <wait5>
/ma "Paralyze II" <t>

If you hit the macro, automatically, your character will start casting Dia II. While waiting those five seconds, you realize that your friend needs to be cured, so you fire off your Cure macro. Your first macro has been canceled and Paralyze II will not be cast, even if your cure spell happens to go off within that 5 seconds. Long wait times are not usually beneficial, honestly, but I did it here for the sake of example.

Really for the first 20-30 levels, you'll only need some basic macros. When you get more comfortable with the game, and you've gotten to the point where you're pretty sure what your abilities do and how best to use them in a number of situations, then you'll want to start maximizing and playing with your macros more to swap gear or to combine abilities onto one macro. This is just something that takes time to ease into. For now, basic macros that help you fire off your weapon skills or your most used spells will be sufficient.

[Truece]

Re: What happens if I press this button...

There are also <stpt> and <stal> which are useful because they don't cause you to lose your target if they change visible gear (aka blink).

<stpt> brings up an arrow in your party list, allowing you to use the arrow keys to move up/down through the party list to select the target for your spell/ja/whatever.

<stal> is similar to <stpt> but it works for the entire alliance, not just your party.

[Satori]

Re: What happens if I press this button...

a few more of the target macro cammands I use.

To select player characters use <stpc> you can then use the F keys to identify your party members from a large group of targets. F1 is your self then looking down your party list the next person is F2 and so on.

For enemies you can use <t> for target. <bt> for battle target " red enemy name" <stnpc> select target of non player characters.

It usually isn't advised to macro your 2 hour ability, Mainly because sometimes people press a macro by mistake.

Oh and dont make the mistake I did by using the mouse. It's very difficult to control.
Welcome to the game. I hope you are enjoying it.

Edit :- Didn't see Truece post the F key part. <stpt> really stops losing target after equip swaps? How on earth did I not know this? Thank you Truece dd's swapping gear has always been a headache for me.

[Elwynn]

Re: What happens if I press this button...

a few more of the target macro cammands I use.

To select player characters use <stpc> you can then use the F keys to identify your party members from a large group of targets. F1 is your self then looking down your party list the next person is F2 and so on.

Also F8 targets an NPC, which can be an enemy or an ally. I wish there was a "I don't fucking care about the allied NPCs, I just want something I can hit" key, for when Campaign Battle fights get heavy, but there isn't.

For enemies you can use <t> for target. <bt> for battle target " red enemy name" <stnpc> select target of non player characters.

Also, if someone goes CFH on a mob (sometimes this is the better way to fight something), <ht> is for help target. But there are times when an alliance is fighting something and <bt> doesn't work, then you've just got to fish them out with tabbing.

It usually isn't advised to macro your 2 hour ability, Mainly because sometimes people press a macro by mistake.

<mostinterestingman>But when I do, I use <stpc>.</mostinterestingman> This can be good for Maat fights. I do wish there was an <stme> which targeted only yourself and you had to hit the button a second time, because <stpc> won't work for these commands if you're not solo and target another player.

Oh and dont make the mistake I did by using the mouse. It's very difficult to control.

In fact, put it the hell away, it's more trouble than it's worth. And consider getting a joypad. (Just don't use a 360 controller because its driver does something goofy with the lower shoulder buttons that you can't disable.) If you have a PS3 controller, try it with a USB cable, but some of the buttons may be swapped and you'll have to manually remap them.

[Truece]

Re: What happens if I press this button...

I do wish there was an <stme> which targeted only yourself and you had to hit the button a second time, because <stpc> won't work for these commands if you're not solo and target another player.

There is... kinda.

Take this macro for instance:

/ja Benediction <me> <stnpc>

When you hit this macro, it will function just like a normal <stnpc> macro would (bringing up a sub-target arrow on your enemy), but when you 'confirm', it will fire your macro on yourself.

I make use of this all the time. If I'm on a melee job, I'll do <me> <stnpc>, if I'm serving a role of a job that isn't normally engaged with a mob, but is usually in a party, I'll use <me> <stpt>. actually, there's no reason that <stpt> won't work all the time, whether or not you're in a party, but I prefer <stpc> or <stnpc> because the sub-target arrow is much more obvious than the little arrow pointing to the party list. Sometimes, in the middle of macro spam, I'll miss the little party-list-arrow and start wondering wtf my other macros aren't firing!

I can't count how many times using macros like this has saved me from macro mis-fires.

Try it out! I bet you'll love it

[Armando]

Re: What happens if I press this button...

Also F8 targets an NPC, which can be an enemy or an ally.

To be clearer: F8 targets the nearest NPC.

/ja Benediction <me> <stnpc>

That doesn't even make sense, but that's fucking brilliant. I wish I could thank you twice.