Returning PlayerFollow

Returnee myself here, in the same boat as you. Seems all the remaining servers have roughly the same numbers after the last server merger, so your best bet is to browse the world forums and find a social LS that is cool with new / returning players. I'm lookaping at Cerberus and Asura. Let me know where you end up, maybe we can start our new journey together!

yeah the idiot changes they made to mage classes was the death knell for me as well... not to mention the announcement that archer = bard.... I've never felt interested in leveling archer, love bard and yeah, turning a spike DD into a support class doesn't make any sense at all...

As for XI, Xoo I am on Asura, if you do end up there and you see Olor on feel free to shoot me a tell (though truth be told I don't play much anymore) - I've been dinking around on SMN lately (lvl 21 currently) so depending on whether you burn up a job quickly or not, maybe we could duo some pages or something. I've also got a few other jobs (THF (20 something), RDM (60something?), DNC (45), PUP(20 something) I wouldn't mind leveling.

What I mean when I say 'active' is what do AH stocks look like for low to mid-range gear? For example, when was the last sale of a Bone Harness and how many are up? Neckchopper? Just examples. :)

Like I say, I won't be playing to see how fast I can blaze to Lv99. I'll be playing solo much of the time. Is there anyone on any server that might be kind enough to craft some low level gears that aren't always available anymore? I'm not asking for much - just a hookup.

Xoo, you can get a lot of stuff on the AH, though you may have to camp it a bit. While EVERYTHING isn't there, I often find the best stuff is.

Also, although you've expressed that you don't want to rush levels, there is something to be said about even getting 1 job to 75 or so - so you can hunt NMs for gear for your other jobs. A lot of the best gear even at lower levels is r/ex - so while NM drops that aren't r/ex are generally fairly plentiful and not that expensive, it may be worth thinking about taking something easy up (like BST) that can solo some drops for your other jobs.

Also I think you'll have more of a problem making money to pay for gear on the AH than finding gear on the AH. Some easy to farm things sell pretty well but it can be a bit tedious farming money at lower levels. Just stuff to think about.

And I said what I said above as someone who plays solo all the time and doesn't blaze to level 99. Even for us casuals, 1-75 is but a shadow of its former self.

You spend more time running around for Maat than you do XPing, and I mean that literally. (When I hit 65 on my bard, I left for Jeuno and had to deliver 4 kindred's seal around the world, which took about one hour. During that time I gained more than 5 levels on my dualbox ninja that kept killing stuff since she already had her level caps broken). And that's not blazing fast Abyssea leeching xp/hour, that's plain old Guild of Valors book burning.

Don't sweat the lack of AH stuff from 1-75. There's bunch of stuff you can get/wear that doesn't involve too much AHing:
-RSE at 27-33, lasts a decent while, depending on race/job combo
-Conquest point gear. Some of it is pretty good at 10, 30, 40, etc. Legionnaire's mittens can last you from 10 to 60 easily on some jobs.
-AF. It's rarely great gear to full time, but it sure beats low level items -- don't feel pressured to wear inferior gear just because full-timing AF was frowned upon in the days.
-"Big Key items" are often low levels and commonly sold on the AH. Those often last all the way to 78 (Aurore/Pink/Teal), like the Ochiudo's Kote or Fuma Kyahan, etc. It's not because it's low level that you have to get rid of it.

Essentially, having always HQ or even level-appropriate NQ gear is seriously no longer required -- it's borderline neurotic to try to play that way these days.
Hell, my Ninja is 87 and I still don't have Utsu:Ni or all of the :Ni nukes. (But that's a problem of gil, not availability)

Edited, Apr 4th 2012 7:35pm by Docent42

You get double XP from before, so an even match is 200 XP solo, and a VT-IT would be 400 before XP chain or rings.

That's not how people XP anymore, though -- it's just painfully slow to attack even match, and still as suicidal as before to attack tough or above on your own (even match and lower mob have a pretty extreme penalty to accuracy and attack, making them MUCH MUCH easier. This bonus only applies to old Vana'diel areas, when you have Signet on)

People get XP mostly from running Guilds or Fields of Valor; books that give training regiments, such as "kill 4 land worms and 2 bees." and reward you with something like 320 xp, 320 gil and 32 points. The points can be redeemed for free food buffs, protect, reraise, teleports, etc.

At mid/high level, a page will give a base of 1200-2100 xp, depending on area, number of mobs and so on. The mobs themselves only need to give "some" XP to count for the page's progress (So no {Too Weak} mobs). Once you hit level 60+ monsters, they never turn {Too weak}; they're {Easy Prey} even to a level 99. Meaning many level 99 will do training regiments against level 60 enemies (Who die in 1 WS about), give 2-9 xp per kill, but 2100 every 9 mobs or so.

Also, Grounds of Valor (Same as Fields, but inside Dungeons) also give "Prowesses" every page you complete -- attack speed increase, HP increase, Cure potency increase, WS damage increase, etc. Those bonuses stack with each other, and can also stack with themselves (you can get many levels of attack speed increase, etc.) Also, every page increase the XP by 4%, so by 25 pages (the cap), you have +100% XP bonus per page. In other words, you get about 4,200 xp for plowing through monsters that you more or less one shot.

The page XP is not divided when in party or alliance, just the mob XP (Which can fall as low as 1 xp per kill). So imagine if you 18 people running around killing everything, 9 kills may take about 1 minute, and give 4200 xp to everyone. That would be 252,000 xp per hour for every party member.

Okay, that sounds good to me Docent. I don't mind a little EXP boost from FoV as the book Refresh did help quite a bit soloing on mage jobs. Playing BST and every main (minus DRG, SMN and PUP), with /BST, Even Match and Tough are my main targets. Tough-VT if I'm playing NIN/BST.

Yes I did. I started on Asura, literally yesterday evening. Been as great and fun as I remembered it to be! My wife, (also an XIV player), will be coming with me soon as well. See you ingame. /sea all Eyeballed :)