Hey everyone.  I doubt anyone is out there that still checks my page, but I figured I might as well update since there finally is something to update.

I’ve decided to come back to FFXI.  I’ve resisted quite a bit, but FFXI has a flavor that other MMOs just plainly lack.  WoW was a great way to get away and learn how to play casually, but it’s missing something I need.  I also played LOTRO a bit and it’s a fair game with gorgeous graphics, but just not quite what I was looking for.  My return is in no small part due to Chal either.  She’s had the itch more than I have and I’ve simply used cold logic as a reason not to come back.

The re-learning curve after 2ish years would be too steep.  People would be more elitist and we’d be ill-equipped to rejoin.  The game is utterly soul-sucking and doesn’t allow for any level of casual play.  SE’s customer service is terrible, etc. etc.

Due to that terrible CS and billing BS we’ll not be attempting to return until the first (rather than be billed an entire month for roughly a week or less).  Here’s hoping the accounts are still there and unblemished.

In the interim I decided to use the buddy pass that came with my Vana’diel Collection to check out some of the stuff and bend out that learning curve a bit while I was playing for free. 

This is Hobufopu:

Originally the plan was to get two buddy passes but that fell through and we were unable to make him a friend to play with.  Instead, Chal and I shared him.  Hobu is less than a week old if you can believe it.  Sadly we were playing on the 50” TV rather than on a computer and I was lax about taking screenshots as we go so I’ll have to discuss his short journey sans copious visual stimulation.

Before I begin, if anyone is planning to get back into the game or has a friend who is curious (or wants to talk a friend into it) send them here to read this.  I didn’t trust SE because they are lying scumbags.  They treat their players like shit and scarcely deliver a service.  I’ll be giving no bias.  I didn’t trust any of the reviews other people were giving because I was afraid they were being too nice for various unsound reasons. 

I started Hobu in San d’Oria since that’s where Yearg started.  I was unoriginal and even used the same model.  I went with RDM because I figured it would give me the best shot solo, but having leveled all but the newest jobs to 20 on Yearg, I know that the strengths and weaknesses of various classes would still play out okay especially with the new “Fields of Valor” stuff.

We had starter gear and a crappy dagger.  We soloed for a while with great success (who didn’t from 1-5?).   Eventually we went and found a cheap sword at Helbort’s Blades (lol vendor gear) because Wasp Sting sucks and at least Fast Blade does something.  We found that for new accounts there’s a chick that walks you through some basics and even gives you some money and XP as rewards for her little mini-quests.  It’s not much but it’s nice.

Somewhere around level 8 we discovered a Field Manual for Fields of Valor.   It’s too bad we’d not discovered it earlier.  From the position of one planning to solo, this is probably the best thing SE has ever done to the game.  We’d also left before they made Signet give you def/eva buffs against lower mobs.  They really show (especially if you find yourself running out of signet mid-fight).

So here’s how it works.  In many zones (primarily Zilart and earlier zones) there are these floating books.  There are generally several in a zone, usually at places where zones meet, at crags, at outposts, etc.

These books allow you to get little mini-quests to kill mobs that you would already be fighting for a bonus of XP, gil and something called tabs (another type of currency).  Each zone with a Field Manual has 5 options (pages) for individual training.  These generally scale from easiest to hardest (with some exceptions).  There is a level at which you can no longer take a page (which is the same level that none of the mobs still check as EP).

At these low levels I would get around 300 XP, 300 gil and 30 tabs to killing stuff.  The only limit is that you can only do one per Vana’diel day (rough 1 RL hour).  However, you can flag one up and finish it on a subsequent day and then pick up another.  Once you’ve killed all of the mobs you are given the reward immediately without having to travel back to the book.  BTW, these little mini-quests are called regimes for future reference.

I like to flag up a regime before logging out.  Whenever I come back I can do two regimes in a row netting a good deal of XP.  Considering you still get XP from the mobs, it adds up quickly and two regimes back-to-back even in the mid-20s only takes me about 30-45 minutes.  If you had a free time and didn’t wanna spend it grinding or LFG you could easily keep a rough eye on Vana’diel time and just play in short 30 minute bursts every 1.5 hours and get easy, free XP while still getting other things done between regimes.

Oh but it gets better… much better.  You might be curious what you can use these tabs for.  Something great.  You can spend your tabs on a variety of buffs for yourself.  Among them Reraise (10 tabs), Refresh (20 tabs, 1 hour duration), Regen (20 tabs, 1 hour duration).  You can also get Protect and Shell as well as foods and a port to your home nation.   Tabs add up damn fast.  I’ve got a surplus of about 1300 tabs on my less-than-a-week-old taru who spend at least 30 tabs once an hour to get Refresh and Reraise.

With Refresh and Regen you virtually never have to rest before 10 and if you’re playing smart, rarely even up to 27 where I’m at.   Reraise makes things much less annoying as well.  A death doesn’t mean a huge pain the ass walk back to where you were and minimal XP loss.

So that’s the Fields of Valor thing and it’s awesome.  So now some more about Hobu.  Hobu’s gear is frickin’ terrible.  Anyone who knows me knows I’m a whore for white and blue boxes and researching the best gear for each slot for each level.   Well, I didn’t have that much money so I didn’t have those kinds of options.  I basically bought what I could through conquest and I was so miserly that I could scarcely bring myself to buy a sword at 23 when I was still using a level 9 Spatha.

But think about what this says about how reasonable it is to solo!  Before, in my most pimped gear it was a pain to solo past 10.  EPs took forever, gave less XP than they do now, and you had to rest forever between them.  Even decked out duoing with Chal in Ghelsba we could only effectively make it to 15 before it became such a ridiculous grind as to be impossible (Several 1000 XP at 12 XP per mob).

But now, in my craptastic gear, subless, I could solo just fine.  I finally finished soloing my Magicked Skull at 25 and leveled my WHM sub up to 6 for Poisona (though I should’ve gone to 9 for Paralyna).

I sold whatever I got as drops to make my money.  I probably spent between 15k and 30k on scrolls and a sword to stay current and have around 50k now.  Not too bad really.  To make it better, I got lucky because nobody seems to give a crap about NMs like Spook any more.  I went 1/1 on the drop because he was just sitting up every time I was in Ranperre’s Tomb.

Another nice feature is the treasure caskets that randomly drop from mobs.  The blue ones give you temporary items that go away if you leave the zone and the brown ones give you permanent items (and even gear) if you can use a tiny bit of logic to open their locks.  Mostly it’s just medicines and other consumables.  Daedalus wings are very nice and allowed me to skillchain and magic burst solo with myself putting a mob under instantly.  Potions  kept me alive when I would get links (not the death knell they once were) and ethers –on top of refresh- kept me from every having to rest.

In conclusion I will say if you’re an old vet who left and is curious about coming back, it’s definitely a lot better and things I’ve yet to even try (Campaign stuff) will definitely make it even better.  Level syncing also should make XPing much easier.  I still wouldn’t suggest getting anyone new started on this game though even in its current stated.  It’s just not friendly enough to those weaned on WoW.  Aside from it being a harder MMO, it’s just not user friendly enough.  So much of the progress I made was purely because of my previous knowledge of the game.   I could easily manipulate the AH.  I knew how to approach things and how to watch for aggro.  I knew the benefits of using items strategically.

I will also so say that FFXI looks great on PC with the registry edited.  It also doesn’t seem to take a beast to run for how great it looks.  The environments are nice, but what’s really amazing are the character models both for characters and enemy mobs.  I’d have to say these are some of the best looking in any MMO I’ve played (including LOTRO which has the best MMO graphics out there).  It’s amazing these things are from 2002.  If you crank your background res above normal settings things just look stunning.

Well…. That’s a dissertation.  Perhaps I’ll update Hobufopu again before I cancel him but no promises.  Hopefully come the first I can be updating stuff about Yeargdribble and Chalumeau (hopefully with any more pics)