Newbie at FFXI wanting to play

[the_ultimate_shadow]

Hi. I am lately very interested in FFXI and i need some infomation to make a final decision. At the moment i am currently playing World Of Warcraft, so i need to make SURE that i want to switch before i make my decision. If you have played WoW before can you tell me the differences from WoW to FFXI? and if you haven't played WoW then can you tell me how FFXI is played. From what i heard you have to get ALOT of money, or "Gil" to get anywhere which is intimidating. From the jobs i have been interested in making a Ninja, Dragoon or a Summoner if i start playing. Can anyone give me information on any of this so i can make a final decision?

Thank you in advance.

(P.S. i know to get like a Ninja you need X levels with a warrior first, same with other "advanced" jobs, and i know basic MMO termology I.E. Farming, Nerfed, basic group forming such as Tank, Healer, Magic caster, and two other damage "job(s)")

[neighbortaru]

Re: Newbie at FFXI wanting to play

ok that's a pretty broad question, but I'll give it a try.

1. very little ability to solo anything. parties are pretty much required from 10-75

2. XP grind is longer. quests don't give XP. very harsh on the casual gamer.

3. getting equipment and gil is harder. quests don't give very much gil or usable eq.

4. can switch jobs any time (as long as there is a moogle around)

5. sub job system gives abilites from the sub job to your main job. these (the sub jobs) are freely changable as well

6. no PvP

Edit:
here's a thread you might want to check out too (just ignore the flaming):
http://www.ffxionline.com/forums/ret...heck-here.html

[the_ultimate_shadow]

Re: Newbie at FFXI wanting to play

ok, well then i have a couple specific questions. Is it hard to get in a group? If i play at least 5-8 hours a day, would it be hard to get to level 75 and could you give me a estimated time it would take(in months and/or weeks)? And finally is the Ninja, Dragoon, and Summoner jobs hard to start with(once their available)?

[Zamphire]

Re: Newbie at FFXI wanting to play

Party invites depend mainly on your job. Ninja is VERY expensive I woudln't recomend it as your first 75 job. Dragoon doesn't get party invites very well. Summoner gets good invites, but you have to act as a healer and getting your avatars can be expensive and hard.

As far as how long it'll take to get to 75? 6months to a year depending on your job.

[raidenn]

Re: Newbie at FFXI wanting to play

Its challenging, you can lose experience points when you die if you're above level 5.
A lot of higher level quests and activities require cooperation in a party or alliance.

Making gil is up to you, there are several ways to do it. Crafting, doing quests which give out valuable items, farming low level mobs, camping notorious monsters for valuable drops (which dont drop all the the time).

[neighbortaru]

Re: Newbie at FFXI wanting to play

Its challenging, you can lose experience points when you die if you're above level 5.

actually lvl 4

ok, well then i have a couple specific questions. Is it hard to get in a group? If i play at least 5-8 hours a day, would it be hard to get to level 75 and could you give me a estimated time it would take(in months and/or weeks)? And finally is the Ninja, Dragoon, and Summoner jobs hard to start with(once their available)?

as zamp said, getting a group is dependent on your job. certain jobs are more desirable than others (with all melee being less than mages in general).

as for how long, depends on your luck. you could be lfg for 2+ hours if you're unlucky. then comes the artificial leveling blocks that is the level caps (call genkei) at 50, 55, 60, 65 and 70. if you can't find anyone to help you with these, then that's more hours/days you will spend.

6 months - 1 year sounds 'bout right (well, least that's the numbers everyone uses).

[Yuanlung]

Re: Newbie at FFXI wanting to play

Comapred to WoW, FFXI is more... 'involved' (reads: time-consuming).

Even though they had toned it down and shaved a lot of exp off the way to 75 for the whiners of the west after some major whining, it's still a bit harder to take a character to full level.

Also, instead of focusing on super duper leet gear like they do in WoW (so I've heard, I quit WoW rather early), FFXI focus just as much in character developement. You need to spend time and effort to build up your character instead of just getting an elite peice of uber gear from ebay. (although it still happen, to a lesser degree)



You don't need war to x level to get ninja... (although you'd need war as a subjob in party for nin). All the 'advanced', or 'extra' jobs in FFXI are quested. The quests can be started when you have any job at lv 30.



What I would suggest is, since you will need subjobs to whatever path you choose anyways, just for now, decide if you want to go melee or mage. Start as war or thf if you are going melee, or blm or whm you are going mage. These are the jobs that are useful as a sub anyways. Get a feel of the game and a look at the jobs you want in action while you are getting the basic jobs up, then pick.


FYI: Dragoon is one of the jobs getting the cold shoulder atm. Expect prolonged periods of searching for party if you do go that way.

[the_ultimate_shadow]

Re: Newbie at FFXI wanting to play

ok, is their any type of....."talent tree", a section where you can put skill points into certain abilities or spells? what job's get alot of party invites? would playing the 360 or the pc version be better? and do they all connect in the same world although its on different platforms?

[neighbortaru]

Re: Newbie at FFXI wanting to play

no, no talent trees. jobs auto-learn abilities as they level up. spells, otoh, you need to purchase/obtain and learn them.

jobs with the higher chance of invites are the mages and tanks, e.g. bard, red mage, white mage, black mage, ninja, paladin, etc.

yes, all platforms play on the same servers

[Zamphire]

Re: Newbie at FFXI wanting to play

ok, is their any type of....."talent tree", a section where you can put skill points into certain abilities or spells? what job's get alot of party invites? would playing the 360 or the pc version be better? and do they all connect in the same world although its on different platforms?

1. No talent tree.
2. Ummm, RDM, WHM, BLM, COR, BRD, NIN they all get invites pretty fast.
3. I've heard 360 is better graphics.
4. You all connect to the same world.

[Aeolus]

Re: Newbie at FFXI wanting to play

I think if you get to play 5-8 hours a day you should be able to get 75 in 4months at least especcially with the new areas. Some people do take the longest time tho but Ive seen new players get high lv pretty quickly, I guess it just depends how quickly you pick up the game, certainly hasnt taken me long to get back to 65 with my limited play time but again I have played it for a long time. There is a guy I know tho who plays way more than me but has was lv59 Blm when I quit tipsy and has still been lv59 Blm for the last month since I started. He did manage to lv thf to 37 in the 5 months tho on 8-10hours a day lol.

[FranckKnight]

Re: Newbie at FFXI wanting to play

There is much to do in terms of story in the game.

I think the main selling point of FFXI is that 'you're not alone'. You can't do much alone, most quests/missions require some party to win. Those were made to be won with a group at your level, but nowadays you can find help from higher level people that can get the job done more easily. Still, you're not alone.

There's no PVP, you can't just come over and kill someone that bothers you. There's no 'safe zone' or 'aggressive mode' or anything like that as a result. The game is centered around cooperation. Even if you managed to solo all from level 1 to 75, you'd still realize there are other people affecting your world, wether its just from stealing your mobs, or from buying things off the Auction House from other others.

But the cooperation and need to find other people is also the point that makes people leave the game. Everyone wants different things in a game.

Most people that prefer WoW will do because of the lack of soloing and of rewarding quests in FFXI.

But for me, the sheer ammount of quests, areas, things to do offsets this by much. Even at level 73, I haven't visited every area of the game yet. There are areas that are high-level only and drop some amazing gear (Dynamis area for example).

Some areas require you to go through the missions to a certain point, like the Tavnazian Archipelago that can only be accessed once you've went through the Promyvion areas (Chains of Promathia expansion, level 30 capped). The fact that the areas are capped means that you need a solid game experience, because you can't just plow through with a level 75 solo.

Alot of fights would be easy if it wasn't for level limitations like this, like BCNMs (read special staged fights). They are level capped usually, require a good strategy and coordination of the team, a price to apy to enter the field, but the possibility of having rare items dropped, that couldn't be found anywhere else (except bought someone else, perhaps).

And some items are exclusive, meaning you'll definitly want to fight for them yourself, as exclusive items can't be sold/traded to other people.

So yes, there's lots to do, and even 3 years later you can't say that you've done 'everything'. The fact that you can cycle back to other jobs without having to create a new character counts for alot in this as well. You never have to restart anew, you can keep what you have (skill/money/equip) and start from level 1 again, and then you can return to your other high level job with a simple visit to your house, without any loss.

Its a different system, and well balanced overall.

[Auron517]

Re: Newbie at FFXI wanting to play

There actually is quite a bit of PvP content in FFXI, but it differs alot in how it's carried out. While PvP in Wow is very open ended, in FFXI it has a lot more structure.

Ballista and Brenner matches are held in specific zones on a set schedule daily. The level caps range from 30, 40, 50, 60, to 75. In order to participate in Ballista you have to be Rank 3 and complete a quest, but for Brenner you only watch a cutscene.

There's also Diorama, which you can do once you have enough Ballista Points, that let's you set up your own matches, where you can set the cap, rules and so forth.

You may not be able to go around ganking unsuspecting players left and right, but after you get a good match going, Ballista is pretty fun.

[Icemage]

Re: Newbie at FFXI wanting to play

A few more points to be made:

- While there is no "skill tree" per se, there one job (Blue Mage) that has to specifically select their currently available spells, which in turns affects both their characteristics as well as their capabilities. In addition, Puppetmasters must choose a configuration with which to outfit their Automaton pets, which affects how their pet behaves.

- Again, while there is no skill tree, once you get the end-game (level 75), you have the option of earning additional experience points (called Merit Points) which you can spend on a variety of customized traits and abilities. Since you are limited by the total number of points you can spend in any category, this does in fact differentiate players at end-game who would otherwise be similar, aside from equipment. Of course, you have to get to level 75 first to do this, so it shouldn't be a major consideration at the start, but I know a lot of hardcore players who insist that being unique is important to maintaining their interest.

- The Job system in FFXI is much more flexible than WoW's class-based system, since you can simply walk into your house and switch to any job you've unlocked, at will. This is nice because you don't have to create alts if you want to play as another profession; all you have to do is walk into your house, talk to your moogle, and switch - each job is tracked separately for experience points and levels, so you still have to invest the time to level up each new job you want to take up, but it still beats starting over from scratch since there are some common things which cross over from one job to the next (mage jobs with identical spells won't have to re-learn them, jobs with similar combat skills won't need to level them up again, etc.)


Icemage

[Oogami]

Re: Newbie at FFXI wanting to play

The only way you can get to 75 by 4 months, playing 5-8 hours a day, especially on a job like Ninja (or any of the melee jobs), is the illegitimate way. It is highly improbable that it is enough time to party for XP and farm for Gil. Besides, more likely than not, you'd be pretty burnt out by the end of the 4th month. Play to enjoy the game.

Even the RMT that practically have static set party + PL, and wearing uber gimp gear takes about 3 months+ to get to 75. (And a lot of the new batch of Bastokan Rank 1 RMT's are currently stuck at Genkai 2.)