Old player coming back

[ShadowOfLife]

Hello,

I used to play FFXI when it came out and switched to WoW when that came out 4 years ago. I've been feeling nostalgic and came back to FFXI this week. Having lost too much info I couldn't retrieve my account, so I bought the game anew.

Being a masochist, I want to give a shot at playing FFXI the hard way (soloing). Just before I quit, I remember SquareEnix adding a slash command that prevented others from casting Cure or other beneficial spells on you. I'm posting here to ask if anyone knows/remembers what that command is ? I've looked at guides, forums and the official site, but didn't find any reference to it anywhere.

Thanks

 

[Trish]

That would be /blockaid

Welcome back to the game

 

[ShadowOfLife]

Woah, that was fast. Thanks a ton !

Still figuring out some of the new stuff (like chests), and amazed at the Decent challenge / Easy Prey xp.

 

[Trish]

Yeah, they've made it super easy to level low jobs. I don't know anything about it, but there are even NPCs in town that give you mini-quests (kill 4 yagudos, for example) and give you things for doing them. Like a tutorial NPC to teach noobs how to play. And with level synch, once you're ready to party, you have a much better chance of playing with someone who knows their job better than soemone in the dunes used to, and therefore knows how to better help you learn your job. It's a beautiful thing, man!

How far are you planning to solo, and what job, if I may ask? I'm just curious. I started working DRK as a subjob for RDM and I'm up to 17 from soloing, and still going strong. I'm wondering how long i can get away with this. lol I'm used to mage jobs, where you HAVE to party to gain experience.

 

[ShadowOfLife]

I rolled a RDM mithra. Thing is, I want to solo as far as I can. And by "solo", I also include not buying anything off the AH or another player. I'll probably end up having to lvl a few crafts (like cooking, for juice). Yes, I know how crazy that is, I got my Leatherworking up to 75 on my old account. Took months.

I expect the fun part will be soloing Ghouls to get my subjob. I figure spellchain + offensive spells will be my best bet. I'll have to be lvl 30 for that, methink. Once I get my subjob, the boost to stats ought to be good enough for me to hit lvl 50. Back in the days I read a few reports of RDM soloing IT mob by sleeping them when necessary, so I could probably go all the way up to 75 like that.

As you might see, I got bored to death with World of Warcraft's easiness, and I'm up to a challenge ! The first job I leveled back in the days was monk, and I soloed half my lvls as mnk/whm up to lvl 50. It all requires knowing WTF you're doing to not die. And to never try soloing a new area unless you're right beside a zone, or at least have your 2 hour ready.

What surprised me the most was the economy. Fire and wind crystals are worth 1/5 of what they did when I was playing. I expected that with inflation their price would have gone way up.

 

[Trish]

I'm coming up on 2 years of playing, nowhere near the experience of most of the FFXI community. And I've never played WoW. But from what I understand, even playing FFXI the traditional way is a challenge compared to WoW, lol.

That said, I don't think what you're doing is so crazy. I did level Summoner to 75, after all.

As for the economy, SE cracked down hard on RMTs, and when they did, everything got cheaper. San d'Orian crystals on Caitsith run 400 (ice) to 4000 (light) and fluctuate often.

 

[ShadowOfLife]

yeah, WoW was way easier than FFXI is when it started a few years back, and only got easier with time. The newest expansion that came out (Wrath of the Lich King) was intended for people who had barely ever played a video game before. That's right, it's not even targetted to people new to MMOs; it's intended for everybody's uncle who might have had problems turning on his computer himself a few weeks back. For that it is very successful, unfortunately people who want it a tad (or a lot) more difficult, it's losing its interest.

On a side note, for your Dark Knight, I don't see why you couldn't solo up to a least lvl 30. Try to fight worms when you can (Koroloka tunnel, or w/e its name is below Bastok) has bunches of close worms you can xp chain off. If your dark magic is maxed, I believe Drain is amazing too. I soloed there when I was leveling my whm, and regularly got xp chain #3 off these worms. As a drk, it should be even easier (although never underestimate the power of the hammer !) Finally, everything I just said is from what I knew of the game years ago and probably don't really apply anymore.

 

[Trish]

never underestimate the power of the hammer !

{word}

I hate partying, but I hate how long it takes to solo too. I was just surprised to be smashing up even match in LaTheinne without even breaking a sweat. I couldn't do that on WHM BLM SMN RDM. And yeah, Drain is amazing. But I can see why the DRK is always the first to die in a party. lol

 

[ShadowOfLife]

Dark Knight is one of the few jobs that I never tried. I guess seeing all those elvaan Drk miss for 30 sec. in a row kept me away. Beside whm, I mostly played melee classes (monk, warrior, ninja, samurai, paladin). Samurai was definitely one of my favorites. It's quite fun to chain with 2, sometimes 3 people in the party constently and sometimes even wait for them !

On the other hand, I tried so many jobs that I never got any above lvl 55. Maybe once I'm done with my rdm challenge, I'll start trying to do more end-game content.

 

[Trish]

Dark Knight is one of the few jobs that I never tried. I guess seeing all those elvaan Drk miss for 30 sec. in a row kept me away.

Yeah, I die a little inside every time I miss. But boy when they hit it's good stuff. Tentacle sushi for the win!

I have everything up to at least 11 except RNG and PUP, my way of freeing gear inventory space and farming beastmen seals. There are a couple of those jobs I'd love to level, if only I had the money and inventory to store yet another set of gear. Just having bare minimum DRK gear is putting me in a bad spot inventory wise so i'd love to just get it to 37 and be done with it. But so far I've just picked it up here and there when I don't have the time to commit to a party. I can't see myself taking it to 75 (what's the point? I'm a friggin WHM, that's all I get called to do in endgame), but I can see where it would be a fun job to play up to the top.