Hello folks,
I have recently been bitten by a nostalgic itch and have been pondering the thought of returning. I have not played since 2009 (I think) and my highest jobs were BLM at 73 and BST at 75. Should I make a return, I may have to start with a new account as my old account info eludes me. I would be willing to do that, however, my life has changed dramatically since I last played... I am now a father of a 4 month old son and have a family. Much of my play time would be on my breaks at work and on Monday's and Tuesdays whenever my little buddy decides to nap for daddy! Be that as it may, I have read that the game is more casual than ever before, even more so than when I last played! With all that in mind, I have some questions related to my particular situation and the current state of the game:
1) Based upon my limited playtime, what activities would be accessible to me? From my reading, I see there are new systems in place to enhance solo play, which no doubt, will greatly benefit a player with my time constraints. However, beyond leveling, and looking ahead, what activities at the level cap would I be able to participate in?
2) Out of all I can remember, I loved the fishing mechanics in FFXI. I remember sometimes just logining on to do nothing more than roam around and fish. Has anything changed with the fishing system at all? Anything been added or improved (subjective I know)?
3) My favorite job by far was Beastmaster. I have read up on them a bit, but still have some questions regarding any changes since I played... Such as the strength of their jug pets (I remember they use to be weak), the jug pet duration, and the beastmasters overall role in the current version of the game.
4) One thing I always wanted in FFXI was a way to customize my appearance. For those of you who have ever played Everquest 2, you would know of the fantastic wardrobe system they have in place. However, upon browsing the forums, I noticed an update note that mentioned something about a command to 'set' an individuals appearance to be 'locked' even after changing equipment! Would anyone be so kind as to explain this to me? Or perhaps I mis-read something and am mistaken?
5) I just recently purchased a Lenovo Y510p laptop (Windows 8.1, 8GB RAM, 755GT X2 SLI). I know FFXI will of course not utilize SLI, however, I am wondering how well the game would run with a single Nvidia 755 GT graphics card? I last played on a desktop, and I had followed a guide I found online in order to enhance the graphics a bit by changing things in the registry... I am wondering if this weaker laptop graphics solution would be able to handle such enhancements. Does anyone else play the game on a laptop and windows 8.1?
I apologize for contributing to the already abundant posts of would-be returning players, however, some of the other more recent posts were of players in a much different situation than myself. I appreciate any feedback! Thank you!
*Edited to add an additional question :)
Edited, May 9th 2014 6:30am by Pjstock
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1) You can solo pretty much all missions (except for Adoulin missions) - do many of the tiers of meeble burrows (some tiers/objectives would be difficult or impossible to solo though) - dynamis (could feasibly solo many, but not all wins, can farm it) - many assualts are soloable (and you're allowed to solo them now) - salvage is soloable - abyssea pretty much everything is soloable once you have atma/ilevel gear - do most of the Zeni nms solo - rieves can be soloed - wildskeeper rieves are like campaign in that you just go in on your own and do what you want to get points - campaign can be soloed - Walk of Echoes, some tiers can be soloed by some jobs... Voidwatch, a lot of mobs can be soloed especially with displacers.... ETC Realistically you can do a TON of stuff solo. I never find that I log on and there is nothing I can do alone. A lot of it still gives relevant rewards as well.
2) Fishing has changed. Good or bad is subjective. I'm not a huge fan of some of the recent changes which make skill a lot more important. I am only fishing 3 or 4 or something (keep in mind) but I can't pull up gold carps anymore because I lack the skill. Used to be able to. Gear matters more now, and just having a good rod won't mean you can target fish way over your cap.
3) BST is great for soloing stuff. No one wants it for pretty much any party activity though. If you want to do party stuff, I suggest leveling a support job or heavy DD that you can bring to groups. Most useful sub is /DNC (in my opinion) since it gives dual wield and a way to heal yourself, and ability to wear axes that buff yourself or your pet (our shield selection is still pretty garbage). Jug pets are EVERYTHING pretty much now. They can be pretty powerful, but they aren't really good for parties since they don't get buffs. SE is adding food that affects both master and pet in the next update. That might help with our serious pet accuracy problems (higher ilevel content).
4) "/lockstyle on" locks your appearance to what you are wearing. You can then swap any non-weapon slot for things that are better. If you swap weapons it unlocks. Still it's nice for melee since you don't often swap weapons due to TP loss.
5) It would be difficult to find a computer sold recently that will not play XI just fine. No promises about level of graphics but I played on a (crappy) laptop with the inbuilt card back when wings of the goddess was new so I can't imagine you'll have any trouble.
Edited, May 9th 2014 12:22pm by Olorinus
2) Fishing has changed. Good or bad is subjective. I'm not a huge fan of some of the recent changes which make skill a lot more important. I am only fishing 3 or 4 or something (keep in mind) but I can't pull up gold carps anymore because I lack the skill. Used to be able to. Gear matters more now, and just having a good rod won't mean you can target fish way over your cap.
3) BST is great for soloing stuff. No one wants it for pretty much any party activity though. If you want to do party stuff, I suggest leveling a support job or heavy DD that you can bring to groups. Most useful sub is /DNC (in my opinion) since it gives dual wield and a way to heal yourself, and ability to wear axes that buff yourself or your pet (our shield selection is still pretty garbage). Jug pets are EVERYTHING pretty much now. They can be pretty powerful, but they aren't really good for parties since they don't get buffs. SE is adding food that affects both master and pet in the next update. That might help with our serious pet accuracy problems (higher ilevel content).
4) "/lockstyle on" locks your appearance to what you are wearing. You can then swap any non-weapon slot for things that are better. If you swap weapons it unlocks. Still it's nice for melee since you don't often swap weapons due to TP loss.
5) It would be difficult to find a computer sold recently that will not play XI just fine. No promises about level of graphics but I played on a (crappy) laptop with the inbuilt card back when wings of the goddess was new so I can't imagine you'll have any trouble.
Edited, May 9th 2014 12:22pm by Olorinus
Only thing I can think of that the poster above me didn't say is ,As far as the registry tweeks to improve the graphics go, there is no longer a need to do this, as SE has added some higher resolution options in the config. I think 2048 x 2048 is the highest available now.
[ffxivsig]1793378[/ffxivsig]
Thanks for all the information! I appreciate it! I recently purchased the Seeker complete collection via download from Amazon (I had problems buying the download from the official site for some reason). Regardless, I have run into some difficulty that perhaps you folks could offer some assistance... I see that there is a config option added to the title screen, however, it does not include all the config options that I remember and lacks controller configuration. I searched around the file location of the download and found the FFXI config, as well as a seperate controller config application... Problem solved, I thought! However, to my dismay, I discovered that the config was full of missing information. In many of the sections, they were outlined with question marks instead of text. I had enough to go by in the configuration of the game options to work my way through. However, the game controller configuration was near impossible to navigate as all sections had ??? rather than text, so I had no idea what button I was configuring to do what... What's more, the attached manual was in japanese and not english. Is there any place I can download these configuration applications seperately? Any ideas would greatly be appreciated! I am anxious to get my character created and begin playing again!
I found the FFXI config... The correct one. All is working properly now! Thanks!
On another note however, I was wondering if you folks would be willing to offer me some server suggestions? Way back in the day, when I played at the PS2 release, I played on Bahamut. Upon my last return to the game back in 2009, I believe I was playing on Cerberus or Ragnarok (can't quite remember). I would love any and all suggestions on server / linkshell choices for a returning 'casual' player! I won't have time to play around on a variety of jobs, but I know exactly what I want to play regardless; Beastmaster / Dancer. So not sure if any all Beastmaster linkshells still exsist anymore? Thanks again!
Edited, May 16th 2014 3:33am by Pjstock
On another note however, I was wondering if you folks would be willing to offer me some server suggestions? Way back in the day, when I played at the PS2 release, I played on Bahamut. Upon my last return to the game back in 2009, I believe I was playing on Cerberus or Ragnarok (can't quite remember). I would love any and all suggestions on server / linkshell choices for a returning 'casual' player! I won't have time to play around on a variety of jobs, but I know exactly what I want to play regardless; Beastmaster / Dancer. So not sure if any all Beastmaster linkshells still exsist anymore? Thanks again!
Edited, May 16th 2014 3:33am by Pjstock
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