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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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 :biggrin:


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. :thumbsup:

[Murphie]

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]

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]

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]

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 :thumbsup:

[Lunaryn]

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]

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]

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]

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]

Thanks murphie!

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

[Kitalrez]

As to the party situation, a lot of how well you do is influenced by how well you play. I.E. are you picking good subjobs to support the role of your main job? Is your gear up to date? Weapons levelled? Using foods that enhance your role and play to your strengths/weaknesses?

Right now, I play most often as a BST/NIN. I'm at lvl 35, and you'll find me on Diabolos levelling most often in the Crawler's Nest/Garlaige Citadel areas. I'm quite easy to spot, just look for the Taru BST with two axes, a tiger pet, and the look of total and utter confusion plastered all over his face. I'm thinking of changing my /seacom to read: "I dunno how I got this party either." It's funny though, once people get the idea that you know what you're doing and can add to the mix, you can usually find a party within like half an hour. Since your usually exp party lasts anywhere from 2-5 hours, the wait's sort of relative. Find something else to do while you have your /seacom and party flag up, and it won't seem like a long boring stretch.

As to your two computer question, it matters whether you're planning on playing two characters simultaneously or just taking the same account with you to two different locations, (like say if mom and dad are separated and you want to play it at two different houses). If it's two characters at the same time, you need two copies of the game. If it's just moving the same account to two different locations, then you just need one copy. I have the same copy of my game loaded on the PC at home, and my laptop. That way when I get stuck in someone's lobby waiting on an appointment, I can at least check my auctions. If they're really inconsiderate of my time, I'll get a little solo exp in.

[hongman]

Cool. I will say one thing though without souding rude - can u either use full words, or explain what the abbrv's mean, as I have no clue!! **Again, not trying to be rude!**

Party fkag? So you can see who is wanting to join a party?

Playing 1 char only is what I mean, so thanks u have answered my question!!

On a different note, anyone with a World pass to Bahamut please save one for me!! Thanks :)

Is Redmage / Warrrior is good combo?

[Lunaryn]

Party Flag: When you select "Seek Party" under the "Party" section of the main menu, you will get a black circle with a green "!" and your name will change color. This signifies that you are looking to be invited to a party, and you will get that same icon in /search and will get the "Invite" command added on the menu others see when they target you. This is considered the primary indication that you're seeking a party, most likely for experience points. You may receive party invites directly when flagged this way, but this is considered bad ettiquette. Most commonly you will be sent a tell asking if you are interested in a party; these vary from "pt?" at their most terse to "{Experience points} {Party} {Do you need it?}" to identifying the xp location to possibly even saying what jobs are currently in the party (rare, but this is what I do when I invite).

Search Comment: You can set a search comment indicating what you're looking for (most often xp parties) which includes useful info for the inviter. Most common basic info is how many xp points you need to level (useful for keeping a party's level spread low), whether you're looking for an English-speaking party, Japanese-speaking party, or both (there's also a flag for this but it can be considered ambiguous), how long you can party for, what subjobs you have leveled to use, whether you can reach certain common xp areas, etc.

Example comment for WHM30:
@1237 /BLM20 /SMN15 JP/EN OK
{Altepa Gate Crystal} O
{Long time} OK

Example comment for RNG25:
@1057 JP/EN OK
{Kazham} O
{Just for a short time is fine.}

A 'short time' vs. 'long time' varies depending on the level, skill, and in some cases nationality of the players (NA parties have a tendency to be short or involve a lot of replacement players, while many JP party leaders don't like reps and will choose to disband the party when someone needs to leave. These days many more are open to replacements, but a tendency for some distinction here remains. In general, more effective parties are less likely to want to deal with replacements regardless, given the difficulty of adapting to a new player. Sadly, unless you static, few of the parties you get will be more than nominally effective.) I would suggest not to offer to party for a {Long time} unless you have at *least* 4 hours to put in. {Just for a short time is fine.} tends to be used for those who have no more than about 2-3 hours. If you have less than 2 hours, then unless you're looking for a Valkurm Dunes party (levels 10-20) I'd say wait until you have more time. Even for the dunes you should have a good 90 minutes.

World passes may be requested in the stickied World Pass Request thread for that server's forum.

RDM/WAR is not considered very good, as RDM's melee capabilities don't scale well over the levels and /WAR offers no MP bonus, unlike basically any mage sub. The 'standard' subs for RDM are WHM and BLM, with BLM not being very useful until high levels. RDM/SMN is also worth looking into, I think.

[Lunaryn]

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

Actually, it sounds like you have a driver issue.

Grab the latest Catalyst drivers for your OS from www.ati.com under the Downloads section.

Once you've installed the ATI driver, check the SMARTGART settings and make sure you are actually getting the correct AGP speed (8x if your motherboard supports it, else 4x). If not, you may need to determine your motherboard chipset and download GART drivers for it.

Edit: nm, misread screenshot, looks like your video driver is up to date. Again, make sure you're getting the right AGP speed, if not you may need motherboard drivers installed. If you do go for a different Radeon, I'd recommend something listed under the R### chipsets instead of the Rv### chipsets on that page I linked earlier, as they are generally more powerful where it counts from what I can tell. I'm using an R200-based card (Radeon 8500 LE) and I get quite decent performance in high res.

[DakAttack]

If you still need a WP to Bahamut send me a PM when you get the game and I should be able to hook you up depending on the time of day.

[hongman]

Excellent....I just cant wait to get my hands on the game!!

Only downfall will be playing time, I have an "active" 1 year old who demands a lot of attention! I anticipate only 2-2.5hrs on a weekday night, maybe a bit longer on weekends. :(

[hongman]

I have gone and bought the Radeon 9800 Pro 128Mb card, heard very good reviews with this card!

[Raydeus]

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.

Nah, I got most of my xp in a party like everyone else, what I meant was that even though xp parties take a lot of time I've spent as much time (if not more) soloing.

Either for fun, for skill, questing, leveling NPC, etc. etc. and even though I've gotten some nice XP solo fights are too slow to be worth it if you are only looking for xp.

I haven't thought much about it but at lvl 75 I've gotten 1.5k+ xp/hour or so while leveling npc (without xp band though), but it's much easier at lower lvls because mobs die faster, specially now that weaker mobs give xp. :biggrin:

[Theyaden]

RDM/WAR is not considered very good, as RDM's melee capabilities don't scale well over the levels and /WAR offers no MP bonus, unlike basically any mage sub. The 'standard' subs for RDM are WHM and BLM, with BLM not being very useful until high levels. RDM/SMN is also worth looking into, I think.

Very well put on the other points I didn't quote since my imput is on the subs part though.

Ninja: I personally cringe when I see redmage/ninja in an xp pt, but the subjob merits mention. You can duel wield wands to get a reduced interupt rate with 2 hermit wands or improved intelegence/Mind stat. Also using ninja sub means you won't get the stat boost from a mage subjob reducing the benifit of this not to mention less mana to work with.

Whitmage: gives area of effect buffs for the pt rather than having to use up mana casting barwater exc on each pt member. You can sometimes cut down the damage from a fire attack like gobiebomb with a well timed Barfira just before it drops is a lifesavor. At level 64 erase from a subbed whitemage is useful.

Blackmage: The most intelegence boosting sub for redmage and 2nd highest mana boost for a subjob. Adding Warp and Escape comes in handy although escape is a bit higher level so it may not be as much of a concern.

Summoner: The most mana available from a sub and a mana regen at later levels. No real addition on spells but it does make the spell list less cluttered, but reducing spell options. Don't bother using your summons for fighting as a sub a club does more damage. (Tested this on my whm for fun). They can still do the carby pull though so there is a little utility. You also get a higher int stat bonus than from whitemage.

Since your just starting and won't have an advanced job yet I sugest whitemage personally for the Area of effect pt buffs. Goodluck and btw since your looking at a starting mage job you'll probably not have to wait long since pt healers are generally in short supply compared other jobs.

[hongman]

Thanks, looks like I may go for RDM and WHM combo, swaping for WAR later on for melee depending on how I like the original combo.

What is area of effect buff?

[hongman]

Just had a phone call from home tell me my game has arrived!!

Will be setting it up tonight, cant wait!

It will be interesting to see as well what FPS I get from the 9200SE compared to the 9800PRO! Lots I hope (R350 if I remember right)

[Theyaden]

What is area of effect buff?

Spells like Protectra, shellra, barstona
They add effects to increase physical defence (Protectra), magical defence (shellra), resistance to earth effects (Stonra) exc. Area or effect buffs hit all pt members within a certain range allowing a single casting to affect the whole party.

[hongman]

Wow...install and registration is a nightmare! PlayOnline Viewer is confusing, I opretty much stumbled through it!

Also, thanks to DakAttack for the WP, I am off this instant to create my character!!

I'll be back...

***EDIT***

Ok, maybe not. Need to wait for another 14588 files to update!!

[hongman]

Ok, finally created my character and started the game, spent the first 15 mins clicking around randomly trying to find out what all the buttons do, etc.

Still no better off!

Anyhow, should I now go to my Mog House, or else where? And where can I get this ring I heard mentioned somewhere on here before?

[neighbortaru]

you'll only get the nation ring if you are of the native race for the nation. these are:

Bastok -> Hume, Galka
Windurst -> Taru, Mithra
Sandoria -> Elvaan

As to what you should do first, hand in your adventurers certificate and get your starting gil. Head to the gate, get signet from the gate guard and then go outside and start killing the newbie monsters.

[hongman]

Is there anyway to restart just the opening scene, the one where an NPC tells me about Sandoria?

I missed the whole bloody thing as my son decided that was the perfect chance to scream so I had to sort him out.

Either that, or tell me where hand in my adventurers certifcate? I presume this was in the intro but I only saw up to introducing me to the home point and that was it, missed the rest!

Thanks

[neighbortaru]

it depends on which zone you are in. forgive me for not remembering the names, but they are:

Port - hooded, white cloak female standing on the docks near the entry way to MH

North - white haired female in red/white stripped robe standing with another female off to the right of the fountain

South - female standing by a tree opposite of AH

[hongman]

Thanks, I'll have a look when I get home.

I think I will follow one of the newbie guides on here, to get me started, i.e setting up my config first etc.

Know of any good linkshells on Bahamut?