Lots of questions thread!

[hongman]

Hi all

Ordered the game yesterday, as FFXI is the only one in the series I havebnt played!

Now I had a whole list of Q's in my herad but I probably will forget to write them in this post...I have searched for some, others I cant find anwsers to.

1. Partying. How easy it it to find a party when you need to? I guess you have to find a new party everytime you log in/out?

1-1. If a quest/mission requires a party to do, do you just have to keep searching for a party that also wants to do the same quest/mission?

2. What happens if I am inthe middle of a quest/mission, and something in real life happens and I have to log off? Esp when there is a party involved?

3. I have been doing loads of reading, in an attempt to satisfy my excitement! But I have been reading about lots of negative stuff...its not really THAT bad, is it?

4. Did a benchmark on my system, and I got around 3000 I think on Low res. I want to play this on high, so will a Radeon 9600 with AthlonXP 2800+, 1GB do it? Currently have Radeon 9200SE. The 9200SE will play Low res 1024x768 no probs?


5. I am looking to maybe play this on 2 PC's or 1 PC 1 Laptop. Can I do so?

6. Thinking of starting out as a Red Mage, as they seem to be able to do a bit of everything...comments? Cant decide what race yet, in which case I'll go for the safe Hume option.

I'll leave it at that for now, thanks in advance!

Hong

PS Seems like a great community here!

[Murphie]

Re: Lots of questions thread!

1. Past level 10-15 or so you'll need to find a party to get any reasonable exp. There are exceptions to this (Beastmaster), but for the most part, you'll need to find a party. Depending on the popularity of your job, and the time of day that you seek, it could be really easy or somewhat difficult.

1-1. Yes. Or find a group of friends who can help with it.

2. If you have to log out, you have to log out. But if you just spent a bunch of time getting people together for a mission and then suddenly have to go, they can either wait until you (and they) are available again, or just go without you. Depending on the mission, and the party setup, they may choose one or the other.

3. No, it's not that bad.

4. The game draws a lot more on the CPU than it does on your video card, to be honest. But you shouldn't have any problems running the game on your system.

5. Do you mean dual box? Or just have it on multiple systems?

6. Red Mages certainly do sound like they can do everything, and they can do an awful lot, but not quite everything. As time goes by, they do a lot less of everything, and a lot more back line spellcasting, like White and Black Mages. Still, it's a great job if you like that sort of thing.

[Miakis]

Re: Lots of questions thread!

Welcome,
I'm also new here but I'll try to answer your questions.

1. Partying. How easy it it to find a party when you need to? I guess you have to find a new party everytime you log in/out?

I would say it depends on your job how easy or hard it is to find a party.
You start partying around lvl 10+ thats up to you.
As soon you log off you're out of the party.

1-1. If a quest/mission requires a party to do, do you just have to keep searching for a party that also wants to do the same quest/mission?

I think anyone who does or did the quest can help you out there.

2. What happens if I am inthe middle of a quest/mission, and something in real life happens and I have to log off? Esp when there is a party involved?

Just let them know about it before you leave... no one likes random leaver in a party. As for the quest/mission you can do it later with another party or the same if they agree to wait.

3. I have been doing loads of reading, in an attempt to satisfy my excitement! But I have been reading about lots of negative stuff...its not really THAT bad, is it?

No, rumors like that come from player who are too lazy to work for their stuff and want everything on the silver tablet. (WoW *cough, cough*)
FFXI requires some more effort than other games from what I heard but its worth it.

4. Did a benchmark on my system, and I got around 3000 I think on Low res. I want to play this on high, so will a Radeon 9600 with AthlonXP 2800+, 1GB do it? Currently have Radeon 9200SE. The 9200SE will play Low res 1024x768 no probs?

That should be good enough but you can check it by yourself. http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/referrer/srtest

5. I am looking to maybe play this on 2 PC's or 1 PC 1 Laptop. Can I do so?

Should be possible but I'm not sure.

6. Thinking of starting out as a Red Mage, as they seem to be able to do a bit of everything...comments? Cant decide what race yet, in which case I'll go for the safe Hume option.

Thats up to you.

PS Seems like a great community here!

Yes, it sure is a nice community.

[Mhurron]

Re: Lots of questions thread!

4. Did a benchmark on my system, and I got around 3000 I think on Low res. I want to play this on high, so will a Radeon 9600 with AthlonXP 2800+, 1GB do it? Currently have Radeon 9200SE. The 9200SE will play Low res 1024x768 no probs?

The 9600 will have no problems at 1024x768, but I dont think I would say the same thing about the 9200. 800x600 would probably be a better idea for it. With both cards, you will probably want to turn off weather effects in the game.

Red Mages certainly do sound like they can do everything, and they can do an awful lot, but not quite everything. As time goes by, they do a lot less of everything, and a lot more back line spellcasting, like White and Black Mages. Still, it's a great job if you like that sort of thing.

Now thats only in EXP parties were RDM pretty much must become a back line Mage. For quests and missions, depending on which ones and your level RDM still can fill any role needed. Also if you're so inclined to explore the job to it's fullest, you have soloing oppertunities that some other jobs just don't get, though you don't really get to see a lot of RDM soloing potential until later in your RDM career.

To the OP, don't worry too much about what job to pick, you can change at any time. What you start off as might not be what you're playing as 3 months from now.

[Murphie]

Re: Lots of questions thread!

I guess I should have been more clear. Since the majority of the time spent on any job (with a couple of exceptions) is in EXP Parties, I thought it would be best to point out what their role would be like in those situations.

Solo, is of course a totally different story.

[Raydeus]

Re: Lots of questions thread!

I guess I should have been more clear. Since the majority of the time spent on any job (with a couple of exceptions) is in EXP Parties, I thought it would be best to point out what their role would be like in those situations.

I think I've spent as much time soloing as I have in xp parties

Solo, is of course a totally different story.

But new players have to consider something, some players who level RDM because of the godly soloing skillz (or so they say) don't consider that soloing as a RDM is hard work.

Battles as a RDM are very long, since we can't deal much damage, and you gotta keep at least 10 spells on you at all times. You also have to pay at least 99% of attention to whats going on in the battle because one spell you miss (a buff or a debuff that wore off) can be your death.

RDM is not for ADD people, that's for sure. You gotta cast, cast and recast many times in a long battle and keep track of everything that's going on in the chat log (no matter if you are in a xp party or soloing), also learning Equip macros and Chat filters is a must if you want to be a good RDM.

I could go as far as saying RDM is the Air Traffic Controller job in XI, specially while soloing. But it's definitely worth it.

[Murphie]

Re: Lots of questions thread!

Well, I guess I'm just not very good at explaining RDM. But from my experience, most Red Mages (and in fact, most jobs in general) will spend the majority of their time getting exp in a party.

Doing quests, missions, or farming mobs for drops or just for fun will mostly likely be done solo or in a smaller group. At that point you do need to know what spells to cast on yourself and how best to use your abilities to stay alive. But that wasn't what I was talking about, since most new players need to understand that they will be spending the bulk of their exp time in a party situation.

If you've managed to get the bulk of your exp in a solo situation, Raydeus, please post a guide or something, because I sure could use it. My LFG lately has been really frustrating.

[Icemage]

Re: Lots of questions thread!

Regarding 2-boxing:

You'll need two copies of the game, and two accounts. You can't log in twice with the same account in FFXI.


Icemage

[Murphie]

Re: Lots of questions thread!

Yeah, I wasn't sure what he meant there which is why I didn't clarify. Some people do have the game on multiple systems for flexibility. I sure wish I did someitmes. :/

[Eleisha]

Re: Lots of questions thread!

6. Thinking of starting out as a Red Mage, as they seem to be able to do a bit of everything...comments? Cant decide what race yet, in which case I'll go for the safe Hume option.

Hey Hong!

This is precisely why I chose Red Mage.....I couldn't decide what I wanted more and liked the idea of doing a "bit of everything" so went for RDM and Hume.

It's easy enough to change jobs if you want and it's a good idea to try each one out until you can work out which one you like best.....there are good and bad points for each and it will come in useful later when you get your support job.

I'm still fairly new to this myself, but I've managed to solo for the majority of the time up to my current level, 21. I've only participated in parties a few times, mainly for help with quests or missions, but help is not hard to find if you need it

The one thing I would mention, which I'm sure most people on here would agree with, is RDM is probably one of the most difficult jobs to have in a party as your role is not as clearly defined as some of the others....but it's still worth having

[Lunaryn]

Re: Lots of questions thread!

I'd say bench the system on high, it will tell you a bit about your video situation and how it compares to CPU. A decent video chipset (video accel does matter) will not show a very dramatic difference between High res and Low res scores. A poor video chipset will often show a very dramatic difference between High res and low res, say on the order of 1000 points. I think my Radeon 8500 LE only has a difference of a few hundred.

If you're getting 3000-L, then your CPU power is pretty good, and any proper Radeon should give good enough video accel to make high res matter little. That said, the 9200 is basically a 9000 w/ AGP8x support tacked on, and the 9200SE is the 9200 with 80% clock speed and 50% memory bandwidth. I don't know how well the Rv2x0 chipsets work compared to the R200. Again, I'd recommend actually checking out your high res bench. If it's within a few hundred points of low res, you're good to go. If it's off by nearly a thousand, you may want a better card.

http://dri.freedesktop.org/wiki/ATIRadeon has some good information about the actual chipset capabilities of the Radeon series, especially the older ones.

[hongman]

Re: Lots of questions thread!

Wow, thanks for all the replies!! I value all opinions.

In guess I was just worried I would have to spend AGES trying to find parties everytime I logged on, but I suppose I'll see first hand when the game gets posted thru my door. I guess if I cant find a party I can ask on here!

When I mentioned having it on 2 boxes, I meant say one install on the PC downstairs and one upstairs, but I would only ever be using one at a time - dont need 2 accounts do I?

Oh, a question just popped in my head - if you are with someone else in an attack, what happens to any drops? WHo gets it?

Also, are there any "introductory" quests in the beginning to help u pick things up, or do you just get plonked in the middle of a city and go from there?

Hong

PS If any of you are going to be online mostly in the evenings 8pm onwards, UK time, let me know!

[hongman]

Re: Lots of questions thread!

I'd say bench the system on high, it will tell you a bit about your video situation and how it compares to CPU. A decent video chipset (video accel does matter) will not show a very dramatic difference between High res and Low res scores. A poor video chipset will often show a very dramatic difference between High res and low res, say on the order of 1000 points. I think my Radeon 8500 LE only has a difference of a few hundred.

If you're getting 3000-L, then your CPU power is pretty good, and any proper Radeon should give good enough video accel to make high res matter little. That said, the 9200 is basically a 9000 w/ AGP8x support tacked on, and the 9200SE is the 9200 with 80% clock speed and 50% memory bandwidth. I don't know how well the Rv2x0 chipsets work compared to the R200. Again, I'd recommend actually checking out your high res bench. If it's within a few hundred points of low res, you're good to go. If it's off by nearly a thousand, you may want a better card.

http://dri.freedesktop.org/wiki/ATIRadeon has some good information about the actual chipset capabilities of the Radeon series, especially the older ones.

Er, yeah. On High Res I could even be bothered for it to finish it was going so slow!!

[Murphie]

Re: Lots of questions thread!

In guess I was just worried I would have to spend AGES trying to find parties everytime I logged on, but I suppose I'll see first hand when the game gets posted thru my door. I guess if I cant find a party I can ask on here!

Depending on your job and the time of day, you may have a bit of a wait, but that doesn't mean you just have to sit around. You can craft, quest, or even fight weaker monsters for a little bit of exp if you like (job depending). Or try and make a party yourself, of course.

When I mentioned having it on 2 boxes, I meant say one install on the PC downstairs and one upstairs, but I would only ever be using one at a time - dont need 2 accounts do I?

One account will work just fine in this instance.^^

Oh, a question just popped in my head - if you are with someone else in an attack, what happens to any drops? WHo gets it?

When you are alone, things automatically enter your inventory (provided you have room), if you're in a group, they enter a Treasure Pool and are auto-distributed to the party. If an item drops that you or several people want, you can elect to lot on it which will determine who gets it.

Also, are there any "introductory" quests in the beginning to help u pick things up, or do you just get plonked in the middle of a city and go from there?

You kind of just get dropped into the city and go from there. Talk to every NPC you see though, as many of them have some handy information.

[hongman]

Re: Lots of questions thread!

Thanks murphie!

Looks like I need a better card...will be a while but I can play on lo res for a while