Empty? Worth coming back?

[Shrekbob]

Hey ya'll i am attempting to get into the ffxi community. I am a rather new player sort of. Ive played this game well i have attempted to play this game many times off and on since it first came out. Lets just saying during those periods i was not successful in sticking to it. I always wanted to level up, i love the final fantasy classes and i tried ffxiv and well was sort of boring for me. I wanted to have classes and such, especially a summoner. Anyways i just bought this game for 5 bucks the ultimate collection from a steam sale. I created a char on gilgamesh but noticed no one was around, i did a little form searching attempting to see what are the popular servers and such. Many sites refered players who wanted to know this to ffxiah the database section. I noticed a couple of servers were in the 13k active . Anyways i also read alot of stuff from the bahamut i recreated a char on bahamut but its fairly empty. I noticed that on the database bahamut is not in the 13k... silly me made that mistake but i figured perhaps ill try reaching out to the community. I have some questions and perhaps would like some suggestions of possible. Thank You very much and please do not mis judge me based on my grammar skills or spelling in fact all my typing skill haha, its pretty bad eh? . So my questions are as follows.

If anyone could give me any suggestions on a good server to play on, i speak spanish and english. I live in the united states. I would like to create a char where i can attempt to get into the game and be able to group level or join link shell with to enjoy the game and content.

Is it possible to solo and to what level is it possible or effective? I remember ages ago where you needed to group to be successful which is what i hope to do but in the event i cant find people my level due to lack of low levels.

I play on a pc i dont know if servers are affected by what platform you play on so yeah..
Thank you all for your time and response's! I hope i see you in the game sometime!

PS: i have been playing mmorpgs for a long time so i have a general level of experience in playing such as i understand roles and situations for groups and raids but definetly not for this game. . i would love to be able to get into a raid one day and see the beautiful zones that i have seen pictures and video's for.

[ShepardG]

Re: Empty? Worth coming back?

/sigh.... how to handle this one....

Well brother, FFXI stands at a strange junction. Picture our current situation as players of FFXI:

Game for 3-4 years was level capped at 75
Most players attained the level cap on mulitple jobs (4-8 on avg i'd say of 75 jobs on characters)
we merited, we helped out friends, etc.

Problems arose...
the game isn't very level friendly until you get past 60, and to get to 60 most people did colibri burn parties level syncd to 38ish.
New players stoped coming in that often, as the game had 5-7 years of exhistance.
Endgame got stale, same old events for 2 years for alot of folks...
Suddenly they Litterly out of the blue announce a level cap increase of not 5 levels, but to level 99! along with 3 "mini" expansions.

The "mini" expansions have infact changed the game more than any other "major" expansions. It has been a complete change of pace, Exp flows so freely that dieing to go home quick is now common place, atmas make even the most under geared player play 100x better than the best player before abyssea.

However, SE hasn't addressed the roots of what will keep FFXI working. New blood (like yourself)
The grind from 1-75 is tough, and most players, who would have sync'd to lower levels to help out, or just change up the standard end game exp camps, now have a way to exp that is light years ahead of the next best option, so going back to the slow grind is tough.

Check out a website called BlueGartr for a great disccusion under the ffxi advanced thread titled something like "Opinions on abysseas affect on FFXI" I'm at work, can't view BG, and not sure i am allowed to post links there.
(fair warning most folks on BG are sorta anal about FFXI, they aren't very receptive to new folks like ffxionline is, however they are usually the folks who figure out the in's and out's of new content aswell as "the best dd" debate etc. a bunch of assholes really, but if that's cool, there's lots of good info there also.

Anyway, it's tough right now to level up, but If you can perserver. There's talk that something is going to be addressed to alleviate the strain that is low level grinding. Most servers are evenly populated, so shouldn't be too big of a deal, it's just that 90% of folks are 80+ now.

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Empty? Worth coming back?

If you can make friends who would do things with you, the odds are you will enjoy FF11, on any server/World. That said, you should expect to solo a good number of levels on your own before reaching Lv.75.

Ultimately, the people you play with will define your experience.

[Raydeus]

Re: Empty? Worth coming back?

SE really needs to boost (yes even more) solo xp gain for the 30-50 stretch.

Heck, maybe even go as far as lvl 60.

[Elwynn]

Re: Empty? Worth coming back?

However, SE hasn't addressed the roots of what will keep FFXI working. New blood (like yourself)

...not to mention that it's getting to the point where you almost have to specifically look for an old video card to play it, since they've let the graphics engine get so old. And never moving past the PS2 version on consoles didn't help, either. Imagine what the difference would be if they had done the engine upgrade instead of XIV.

SE really needs to boost (yes even more) solo xp gain for the 30-50 stretch.

I was rather suprised that they didn't do anything about the 50-75 XP curve. That one is much nastier. The new 75+ XP curve is nice, but it doesn't encourage people to take jobs past the 50 they'll need for subjobs. In the 40 range, I can get almost a level a week just from campaign ops and weekly quests.

[Shrekbob]

Re: Empty? Worth coming back?

Thank you for your all your reply's i appreciate the feedback, i definitely will try to level up as much as possible. Clearly and i am aware now that i will need to solo. I know this game was ment to be played together but as currently i probably will not have that option. Can all classes solo? i mean i understand some classes might be harder then others but is it possible to effectively solo on all classes, i come from playing years and years of eq1. definitely know the unbalance for chars when soloing but they have a system with mercs (ai controlled parter/class) so its rather nice and very helpful to solo. By the way if you dont mind listing or saying what server do you guys play on? that way i might be able to join the server or recreate a char on those server and meet friendly people . I figured it might be hard to find groups too i mean being as the game has been out for so long but want to be where people is at, at least perhaps i can stand a chance in joining a linkshell/guild and jazz. Ty for the help with that great site for info, i appreciate further replies and help.

[Elwynn]

Re: Empty? Worth coming back?

I do know that Sylph isn't too badly empty these days.

You absolutely have to solo to level 10 no matter what, but I suppose after that you could just put up your looking for party flag on the chance that someone will notice.

Of the original six jobs, white mage is probably the hardest to solo, but bard can be worse.

You can get an NPC to fight with you, but you have to do fights that aren't for newbs, and they're only out for a limited time. Pet jobs, however, can kick ass. Beastmaster is a good subjob (but unlike most, you have to level it to the full level of your main for best effect), and puppetmaster can be awesome when level synced down to the 10-30 range. (I was soloing Even Match at level 14 or so the other day.)

[ShepardG]

Re: Empty? Worth coming back?

Honestly, shrek bob, if you can, re-roll a toon on slyph, i'll level my blue mage with you (it's 64 but i'm not apposed to syncing down for a dunes party, and I have something like 2 75 rdm mules now.

Actually, on second though... don't i'm leaving on sunday and decmber will be pretty much shot, and january will too... infact i sorta can't play till ... fucking july probably ... stupid afghanistan...

[Yellow Mage]

Re: Empty? Worth coming back?

Litterly

Literally. As in, by its literate meaning.

And "literally out of the blue" doesn't make much sense, either. Out of which "blue" did it come?

/spellingandusagenazi

[Shrekbob]

Re: Empty? Worth coming back?

Ty for the response! thats good to hear! about the soloing ability. Yeah i was reading about the beast master, i was thinking i would have to level up a beastmaster as a main at least until i get high enough level to earn money makes equips and solo the quest's for the other classes. i hear beastmaster's are all about soloing too so i have a route to level up, im going to try it. Slyph is good you say? perhaps ill give it a try! Is questing the way to go? or strait old school grinding? to level up that is. Ty for all your responses and help! im glad there is people still in the game who are kind and helpful!!