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CodfishCartographer
Feb 23, 2010

Gadus Maprocephalus

Pillbug
Holy poo poo yes there’s still a FFXI thread, and apparently a return campaign I’m considering joining in for. I used to be on Phoenix back around 2004-2007, and I remember fading out from playing a bit after WotG. I’ll call the number in the OP to see if I can recover my Playonline data, I don’t remember what the credit card was so hopefully I can get by without it! If not, whatever, I had 75 DRG, 60 THF, and like 50-something BLU so it’s not like I had a shitton of endgame content I’ll be missing out on. e: also, is it possible to merge my old playonline account into my current square enix account? Would be nice if possible.

I’m considering roping a buddy of mine into playing too. I know the old days of 6 man parties and taking like a fuckin year to hit 75 on your first job are now gone, and you can use NPCs or whatever to grind up to 75 fairly easily. What a good duo combination for various content? Both EXPing and other stuff. It would be kind of fun to go back and duo the super HNMs I was never cool enough to have killed back in the day like Behemoth or Absolute Virtue.

CodfishCartographer fucked around with this message at 20:33 on Aug 8, 2019

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CodfishCartographer
Feb 23, 2010

Gadus Maprocephalus

Pillbug

DizzyBum posted:

The level cap has been 99 for several years now, and there's now Item Level equipment post-99. The max is i119.

You can take whatever jobs you want, really, so level up whatever strikes your fancy and have a blast steamrolling this game.

Hell yeah

Are there any Kirin/Behemoth/Tiamiat/etc-style megabosses in the game anymore that still pose a challenge? Even though I was never party of an HNMLS, I loved these super huge bosses that took multiple alliances to kill, and only appeared every few days. It was like these mythical beasts that people had to band together to figure out how to topple, and even just getting to see them at all (let alone fight or defeat them) was a rarity and a major event, especially since some of them took weeks / months of grinding other HNMs in order to even attempt once! And of course Absolute Virtue / Pandemonium Warden which loving nobody could figure out how to kill for the longest time, which was SO loving cool. Modern day MMOs don't really seem to do this anymore, instead just opting for very difficult instances that once unlocked can be tried pretty much indefinitely.

CodfishCartographer
Feb 23, 2010

Gadus Maprocephalus

Pillbug
Yeah that's fair enough, but still, alas.

Is besieged still a thing people interact with? Or all the Aht Urhgan NPCs and the astral whatever just eternal captured by the beastmen? Did we ever get a look at the far east or northern continents?

I know I can probably just Google all this, but it's fun to learn via word of mouth, just like the old days :v:

CodfishCartographer
Feb 23, 2010

Gadus Maprocephalus

Pillbug

arisu posted:

Oh no poo poo, a 75 DRG from Phoenix? What was your in game name? I was Freja on that server during that time period.

I was deeeeeeeep in the HNM scene back then haha.

I was Geal, I always hung out with Mayuhaku. Your character name is familiar! Although I can't remember if it was from just seeing you around or if we actually played together in any way, haha.

CodfishCartographer
Feb 23, 2010

Gadus Maprocephalus

Pillbug
Double posting for questions:

Is thief still just relegated to a TH bot in the endgame? I enjoyed it while leveling up, as pulling + hate manipulation was always fun, but remembered the dread that in endgame it was useless beyond providing TH. I remember sometime after I left hearing that THF was used as a tank??

Is LOLDRG still a meme? I remember SAM was almost always the better choice outside of soloing / lowman, but now with trusts I could see drg’s utility for that kind of falling behind SAM again.

What do BSTs & PUPs do nowadays, now that soloing is super easy?

Does it still take hours to try to learn a single BLU spell? I never did manage to learn Frightful Roar…

Do SMNs get to do anything aside form being /WHM healers and exploding poo poo with their 2hr SP?

Did NINs ever get to become DPS like SE wanted, or are they still just tanks? Are NINs and RNGs still super expensive to play?

Speaking of which, what are the good ways to earn gil? I was never very good at this back in the day and was constantly broke, so couldn’t really play NIN or RNG much beyond getting NIN to 37 for subjobing.

CodfishCartographer
Feb 23, 2010

Gadus Maprocephalus

Pillbug
Shields are cool

CodfishCartographer
Feb 23, 2010

Gadus Maprocephalus

Pillbug

Chocobo posted:

A buddy I've gamed with for more than half of my life took his own life earlier this year, and I should have seen it coming after he said he was playing FFXI again. If you're thinking of going back, please don't. Please seek out counseling/therapy or just talk to someone.

I started playing again and I was worried I wouldn’t enjoy the game as much now that there’s less focus on party play while exping. Boy was I wrong, the new mostly-solo way of doing things is pretty drat rad, at least when playing through with a friend. Maybe it’d be less enjoyable if I was 100% solo, but everything moves along so quickly that it’s basically just really cool quest after really cool quest, with constantly discovering new things and areas to enjoy and explore. I think I might be having more fun with the game now than I did back when I played it religiously a decade ago. Back in “classic” FFXI, if I wanted to go try fighting some superboss or try out a new job, it often meant weeks or months of time dedicated to doing that, and it felt completely walled off unless I was willing to commit in a huge way. That’s not really the case anymore, and I can just kinda go wherever and do whatever the gently caress I want.

Please send help, FFXI has dug its claws into me and I can’t escape.

CodfishCartographer
Feb 23, 2010

Gadus Maprocephalus

Pillbug
I just bought the ultimate pack on steam, it was on sale for like ten bucks or something.

CodfishCartographer
Feb 23, 2010

Gadus Maprocephalus

Pillbug
Where can you find news about upcoming stuff like that? A Google turns up nothing.

Also, starting fresh nowadays gives the storylines a very different feel. Before it felt like you dealt with a crisis, the world was calm for a bit, then something else eventually cropped up. Now with everything running in tandem, it feels like the world is goddamn shattering. First a weird shantotto shows up, then the beastmen start organizing, then some girl arrives from the future, then a weird crystal shows up in the sky, then bahamut shows up and says the apocalypse is coming. Yeah, no poo poo dude!

To actually encourage some discussion: what’s the best order / time to do all these storylines? I know Rhapsodies of Vanadiel requires you to make progress in most (all?) of the other storylines, and that it provides some good rewards such as exp boosting stuff. Does that mean I should try to run all of them in tandem? I worry I’ll lose track of what’s happening if I do, as opposed to going through one to completion before starting the next.

CodfishCartographer fucked around with this message at 18:25 on Sep 3, 2019

CodfishCartographer
Feb 23, 2010

Gadus Maprocephalus

Pillbug

Necrosaro posted:

I heard the new summon was Siren as shown in this video, at 2:18:18, but that would kinda be redundant with Garuda.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUd-S9036bU&t=8298s

You can pretty clearly hear them saying "Siren" in that clip, so that settles that I guess.

CodfishCartographer
Feb 23, 2010

Gadus Maprocephalus

Pillbug
Question about thief merits, in the event anyone here plays thief: I see a lot of people saying that Assassin’s Charge is pointless and to not put any merits into it. How come? I would think the big damage buff on weapon skills would be great. Is it mostly just because putting the points into Ambush lets you gear more attack, and that increases damage overall? Wouldn’t it be worth sacrificing one point of Ambush for one point of Assassin’s Charge, to get that extra strong WS every once in a while? Surely that would be more damage than an extra 3 accuracy, even if it is only every 5 minutes, right?

CodfishCartographer
Feb 23, 2010

Gadus Maprocephalus

Pillbug
I'm still playing and loving it, but I only came back in like august so the charm hasn't worn off yet. What's the goon LS?

CodfishCartographer
Feb 23, 2010

Gadus Maprocephalus

Pillbug
As fun as it is to talk about how this is a terrible game, Stockholm syndrome etc, the game is actually really fun and unique. It provides an MMO experience that isn't really seen anymore after WoW streamlined the genre, back when making weird off-the-wall decisions wasn't so big of a risk that no company would do so. Yeah there's a ton of rough edges and wonkiness, but I think the stuff that works well works VERY well.

Bosses are designed to be more about coming up with a winning strategy rather than memorizing a Simon-says style puzzle, NPCs ooze personality, quests require you to pay attention to them rather than following way points, content from a decade ago remains relevant, party and class composition are more flexible and interesting than the generic healer-tank-dps trifecta, etc. I could go on but I think everyone gets the point

CodfishCartographer
Feb 23, 2010

Gadus Maprocephalus

Pillbug

amusinginquiry posted:

I’ve been playing again recently. Last stretch I played I got WHM geared and a Yagrush, now working on SMN and got BLU good enough to solo/farm low tier junk. As others said, ffxi is still unique among MMOs, and even in comparison to its own history, the game right now is better than it has ever been in lots of ways. I play really casually and noncommittal, but with a friend and helping each other with various goals keeps things interesting.

But, it’s hard to overstate how loving terrible and stupid people are on Asura. Like 10 pothead retards just dominate /yells, and if it’s not them it’s mercs and cp bots.

Not to mention I have a hard time imagining some people handling the “Simon says” raid design of a modern mmo. Every single month, Ambuscade is pretty much brain dead easy and people still fail constantly. REMA PLDs with 500 mil worth of gear who have never subbed blu and have to look up a guide to make a simple spell macro, or still don’t understand how hate is generated in Ambuscade. Or DDs who join a VD shout and cant follow the simplest instruction of: don’t WS until the aura is down.

Simon says design is relatively simple, since it's just following simple instructions without needing to think critically or understand them. Go stand here when things light up, don't stand there when monster is doing X, etc.

CodfishCartographer
Feb 23, 2010

Gadus Maprocephalus

Pillbug
While this thread is moderately active: how is Ninja nowadays? I've been enjoying leveling it, but I hear it's in a pretty useless niche nowadays in endgame. If I level it up to 99, will I be able to use it at all at meaningful endgame stuff?

CodfishCartographer
Feb 23, 2010

Gadus Maprocephalus

Pillbug
The mini trial is super easy though. Pop a yagudo drink, astral flow and then pop shining ruby, pop an ether, run away and resummon carbuncle when it dies, repeat until dead.

CodfishCartographer
Feb 23, 2010

Gadus Maprocephalus

Pillbug

brand engager posted:

I can resummon carbuncle a few times but once he gets lucky and interrupts me once it's over. Those trials were a lovely idea when they were added, and they shouldn't have been overlooked with all the other QoL changes.

If you get interrupted while resummoning, you need to run away farther. You don't need to see Carbuncle's health bar to know when to resummon, you can watch for his name to vanish to know when he died.

CodfishCartographer
Feb 23, 2010

Gadus Maprocephalus

Pillbug

Holyshoot posted:

Can't you do them way over leveled? I don't think I had to do any of this to get my summons.

I mean you can do the non-mini trials at any level yeah, so if you really can't do the mini-trials you can do those once you're at like level 75 with trusts, or if you can't summon trusts and your job can't solo them idk wait til 99 or something.

Seriously though the mini-trials are super easy, I even took off the destrier beret and chocobo shirt just for shits and giggles and it's still fairly easy. It is worth it to pay attention to the day of the week and do your attempts on days that the avatar is weak on (such as fighting Ifrit on Watersday)

CodfishCartographer
Feb 23, 2010

Gadus Maprocephalus

Pillbug
While playing through again recently, I remembered Sandy always seemed the most popular. Funny how the most popular nation is also the one where the natives are really really racist and obsessed with their king and national lineage.

CodfishCartographer
Feb 23, 2010

Gadus Maprocephalus

Pillbug

Tsurupettan posted:

my bf asked me last night what I actually enjoyed about FFXI, because I always tell him: 'I won't call FFXI a good game, or a bad game, just a different and weird game'.

I guess the biggest thing for me that I enjoy is the progression, not just at the top end but actually getting there in the first place. It's very... open ended in a way? Like there's a lot of pretty defined Things To Do, but there's no one right way to go about them, and there's a lot of poo poo to do. It might be overwhelming to some, but it fills a similar niche in my time that something like Minecraft would. Setting small goals and things to do, picking some activities or stories etc. that I want to clear.

I like the gearing itself, I initially was pretty turned off by things like swapping gear in combat but instead in practice it leaves me feeling smart when I piece together the various gear set puzzles. I enjoy that there's no clearly defined, set in stone gear to get for each 'tier'. I also like that there's a lot of weird niche use things in game, and that the time invested in your relics* etc. is generally a good investment in a thing you'll get to use more or less forever. Compared to XIV relics which were a similarly wild time sink for a piece of gear that was never optimal and then thrown in the glam dustbin as soon as the expansion ended.

This also ties back into the 'things to do' aspect, since almost every activity will reward you with something of value long term. For example, WotG sucks, but the earring at the end is still something a lot of jobs can make use of.

I'm enjoying the community, and seeing the same people (both good and bad) on a regular basis around the world, and being able to look at a guy and go 'oh yeah that player's a wicked good corsair/war/whatever they are'.

(*not counting the REMA weapons that just flat-out suck though)

The thing I find most interesting about the "good but bad" aspect of the game is the core gameplay. Like, on paper it sounds super boring, and holy hell are watching videos of it boring too, at least on the surface. Like, you sit there auto-attacking, and hit a skill every 10-30 seconds tops. compared to modern MMOs like FFXIV where you're constantly mashing on global cooldowns while trying to hit off cooldown skills in between, etc. FFXI is way less active, but when playing it feels way more intense than many other MMOs. I feel like there could be a thesis written on how FFXI makes such a seemingly boring combat system so engaging.

Frog Act posted:

Can THF find coffers in dungeons? I’m about to go to eldieme necropolis for one, then castle oztroja for the next, and after spending a full hour running around with a goon friend to find the one in Garlaige I am beginning to wish for such a skill

Also the above post, I totally agree, I’m having great fun and I’m not even level 60, my current cap

Also also I’ll be around a lot in the next while cus of the plague, if the awesome world pass giver has time to login and hook me up with the echad ring in the next week or so, I’d really appreciate it

Ed: trying to find coffers in the necropolis is horrible holy gently caress there are three zones to enter from and a dozen doors. I have to fall through the center but I can’t figure out how the gently caress to even get there

Using coffer maps on the wiki is probably the best choice, I've found. While THF can't FIND coffers easier than other jobs, they CAN attempt to use thief tools to pick the locks instead of having to find keys! Although that can backfire and cause you to become weakened, cause the coffer to vanish, or spawn a mimic. On the plus side, treasure hunter helps keys drop faster!

CodfishCartographer
Feb 23, 2010

Gadus Maprocephalus

Pillbug

star eater posted:

it’s the horizontal gear for me. gear swap makes it a completely different game. I love it.

Yeah I really love the horizontal gear.

One thing I've posted about before here, I think, is that the game's boss / encounter design is top-notch. So many MMOs utilize more of a simon-says-style boss design, where you just need to Do The Thing or stand in The Place or you wipe; they're designed like puzzles, where you just need to figure out what the designers want from you, and then execute them. They wind up being more of an exercise in memorization and/or trial and error than anything.

FFXI, meanwhile, tends to design its fights with a more broad challenge, and then asks the players to come up with a strategy on how they want to beat it. Like, a VERY simple example from back when promyvions were capped was the Wreaker boss at the end of Promyvion Holla, which uses an AOE sleep move. Do you bring along poison potions to wake you up, but risk dying from the extra damage? Do you use only ranged damage dealers to stay out of the AOE? Do you bring along a tank that can AOE heal so that they can wake up everyone? Hope your healer can do that? You could also bring along the anima items that prevent TP moves from those bosses, or you can try to bring stunners along to interrupt it using that TP move. Or you can just say "gently caress it" and ignore the mechanic entirely and just hope for the best. There's tons of possibilities, and it leaves the decision of how to handle that up to the individual teams.

I feel like that fight in a modern MMO would be something like "if you don't stand in this specific area, you get put to sleep" and that'd be the end of it. I suppose in FFXI that is still TECHNICALLY true, but without the high mobility and pulled-back camera and big flashing AOEs of modern MMOs, the strategy is more based around deciding if you want to deal with the consequences of the move or figure out ways to avoid it, rather than just doing the thing the game wants you to in order to not die.

(Yes I realize this fight is insanely trivialized nowadays, but it's still a good example of this sort of thing that isn't super complicated, and also I'm not that familiar with current endgame fights enough to find a good example there)

CodfishCartographer
Feb 23, 2010

Gadus Maprocephalus

Pillbug

I said come in! posted:

How come my job abilities, and weapon skills are always greyed out and i'm barely ever able to use them? I'm leveling a warrior right now, and wondering if I am missing something?

Are the job abilities on cool down? Provoke has a 30s cool down, berserk has a 5 minute one. Weapon skills can only be used when you have 1000 tp.

CodfishCartographer
Feb 23, 2010

Gadus Maprocephalus

Pillbug

I said come in! posted:

Okay that is probably it. I didn't realize that. I don't see anything that really indicates this.

Ah yeah, when you highlight a Job Ability that's on cool down, you can see a secondary window showing the time left. If you try to use it, a message will appear in the chat also letting you know how much time is left.

TP's primary use is on weapon skills - you need at least 1000 TP to use a WS, but when you use one it will use up all of your TP. Each weapon Skill gets buffed differently depending on how much TP is used, but generally more TP will mean more damage - often through ignoring defense, raising accuracy, increased crit chance, or even just plain ol' boosting damage.

CodfishCartographer
Feb 23, 2010

Gadus Maprocephalus

Pillbug
Why does everyone get the emperor ring, when the empress ring gives more total exp? It isn't hard to use all the charges each week.

CodfishCartographer
Feb 23, 2010

Gadus Maprocephalus

Pillbug

Shart Carbuncle posted:

I would never violate the code of bushido like you lowly curs.

Same. Solely because I know if I did even one little thing like turning off animation lock, it'd snowball into me teleporting all over the place and poo poo. Once I get a taste for that kinda stuff I can't help myself, so I gotta be sure I never start in the first place! I must stay pure.

CodfishCartographer
Feb 23, 2010

Gadus Maprocephalus

Pillbug
I know Ninja isn't really endgame relevant, but this youtube channel has such an amazing guide on it that I'm really heavily considering just going for it. It explicitly lays out each individual step of what gear to get and in what order, from starting out as a fresh 99 to being fully kitted out with best in slot gear, along with giving alternatives for various pieces and detailed explanations on why to choose those pieces and how to get them all and how long to expect it to take depending on varying levels of commitment. It's seriously the best guide for any job I've ever seen, and as a returning player who doesn't know what any loving endgame content is, let alone where to begin and what kind of gear to aim for, this is phenomenally helpful. Doubly so because the videos are still being released, so I know it's all up-to-date.

I know other jobs I'm interested in, like DRG and the above-mentioned RDM, are much more useful to endgame. However, the depth this guide gives is so fantastic for a new player, it's hard to ignore. I know other guides do give tiered equipment progression as well, but usually not quite so in depth, and they usually don't explain why you want one equipment set over another, when it's good to go for them, etc. Like, the linked RDM guide above is great, but lists like 20+ gear sets, NOT counting the HQ ones. Are all those ones I should immediately start working on as soon as I hit 99? Are there ones I should prioritize? Are some of them easier / faster to get than others and should be gotten first? Will getting one of them make getting others easier / faster? I dunno, and none of that is covered in the guide - and most guides don't cover it as well. I realize it's probably something I'll pick up as I play more at endgame, but having a guide that explains that is SUPER helpful.

CodfishCartographer
Feb 23, 2010

Gadus Maprocephalus

Pillbug
I'm under the impression NIN mostly functions as a DPS that can transition into a tanking role if poo poo goes south for your Real Tank. The problem comes from MNK and WAR mostly being able to do this as well, but having higher DPS potential. I think maybe NIN has better tanking potential than either of those two, but since it's mostly there as emergency measures it means it's kind of wasted, especially since if you have a decent tank / healer then you won't need the support tanking NIN provides, and if you don't have a decent tank / healer then you probably have bigger problems than who's going to offtank. But I'm not even at fuckin 99 yet so who knows

Also I feel like nobody plays DRK cus it's boring as poo poo. DRG gets to jump all over the place, DNC and MNK get to attack like a billion times a second, DRG and SAM get to spam the hell out of weapon skills, WAR gets a billion different weapons to choose from, etc. DRK in theory gets black magic, but is it at all ever worth it to really cast? Otherwise you're just bopping away with slow weapons in between WSs. Again, maybe it's different at 99 though.

CodfishCartographer
Feb 23, 2010

Gadus Maprocephalus

Pillbug
Speak of the devil, here's a video talking about the tanking capabilities of PLD, RUN, NIN, and WAR. Timestamped for Ninja, since we were just talking about it (or I was, at least), but the whole video is great:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSDmionVRD8&t=1167s

CodfishCartographer
Feb 23, 2010

Gadus Maprocephalus

Pillbug

Frog Act posted:

I’m a bit overwhelmed right now - off the top of my head, I have

GEO quest
PUP quest
COP (two promyvions)
Zilart (on M3)
Adoulin (M3)
Aht’Urghan (M2)
ROV
Bastok 6-2
Limit Break 5

Then all the other expansion packs, jobs, cities, event missions, conquest, abyssea, shadowreign, etc. also hitting 119

There is just so much poo poo to do. DRG is fun though, my Wyvern is named George

Good name good wyvern.

I've heard it recommended to do the expansion stories in order, so Zilart > CoP > Aht Urghan. I guess next would be Wings of the Goddess but everyone says that story kind of sucks so maybe just do up to mission 7 since that's all that's required for RoV.

CodfishCartographer
Feb 23, 2010

Gadus Maprocephalus

Pillbug
I love the stories for the game, they're really well done, but on the other hand the player character never really feels like they're DOING much, at least in Zilart and CoP (I haven't gotten through ToAH or WotG yet) - it's mostly you just tagging along as the mainline NPCs do all the important stuff. They're decent stories, but after a buddy pointed that out as we were going through them, it sticks out like a sore thumb to me now.

CodfishCartographer
Feb 23, 2010

Gadus Maprocephalus

Pillbug
So on the topic of story progression, is it very easy to replay story missions as long as there's a friend going through them for the first time? I've been playing through with a buddy of mine, but he's much more casual about things than I am - he'll play maybe for 2-3 hours, one or twice a week. I'm wanting to play much more than that, but don't want to totally leave him in the dust story-wise. He'd be fine with me going ahead in the story stuff as long as I'm cool playing through it again with him (which I am) but I wanna be sure it'll be easy enough for me to actually do so. Like obviously I can just lead him around showing him what NPCs to talk to and which ??? points to check (which is how we go through the story-lines currently, I mostly lead and he just follows along getting what cut scenes he needs to), but I wanna be sure for BCNMs I can still join him fine.

CodfishCartographer
Feb 23, 2010

Gadus Maprocephalus

Pillbug
Once you're at like lv60, do your grinding in aht urghan zones while you have sanction on. You'll get a fuckton of imperial standing, which you can spend on imperial bronze pieces. Stacks of 99 are easy to get and sell for 100k-ish on the AH depending on server.

CodfishCartographer fucked around with this message at 15:25 on Mar 27, 2020

CodfishCartographer
Feb 23, 2010

Gadus Maprocephalus

Pillbug
Early on before I hit Aht Urghan areas, my money making scheme was to buy scrolls of haste from Selbina for like 20k, then AH them for 100k+ but apparently other people caught on cus the price for them has tanked on the AH.

Stacks of imperial bronze pieces are still my go-to whenever I need gil and don't have many sparks on hand. I know 100k is pretty much chump change later on but it's been more than enough to keep me going this early on.

CodfishCartographer
Feb 23, 2010

Gadus Maprocephalus

Pillbug

Frog Act posted:

So I don’t know if anyone else is like me and they occasionally get distracted by other games, but right now I’m pretty into bannerlord. Last time this happened I didn’t log in for three days and lost yoran Oran for over a week

Making this post as a reminder to anyone else just returning to at least log in long enough every day to do your unity dailies and do an echads worth of exp for accolades. I’ve been doing that I’m doing a level and a half a day plus getting just enough accolades to retain the hands down best trust I’ve run into so far

Also: what’s the difference between indi and geo spells? The wiki says they’re the same potency, is it just where the AOE bubble is centered? Indi on you, geo on....wherever you place your luopuoan? I only just unlocked GEO and haven’t even learned the first spell yet

Indi spells will be an aoe bubble around you. Geo spells you need to target someone (or an enemy) and then it will summon a luopan at that location, which has an aoe bubble of its own. Once summoned, the luopan will slowly lose HP. It can also take HP damage from AOE stuff and other enemy spells/skills. Obviously when it runs out of hp, it dies and the bubble vanishes. Whether the bubble effects allies or enemies depends on the specific spell - buffing ones effect allies, debuffing ones effect enemies, etc. You can only ever have one of each going, but you do eventually get an ability to place an indi spell on a teammate instead of you, allowing you to have two indi spells at once.

You get indi-spells the same way as other jobs do - just buying a scroll plate and using it to learn the spell. Geo spells you need to go to a specific location on the map to find a Geomagnetic Fount, and then examine it to learn the spell. You can only learn the geo version of a spell once you're at the required level, AND have learned the indi version. For example, while indi-poison is available at lv1, to learn geo-poison you need to have already learned indi-poison and then examine the geomagnetic fount in East Ronfaure after you've reached level 5.

Most often the "ideal" way to play is to ensure that things are stacked naturally - so an attack buffing bubble and a defense debuffing bubble, for example.

CodfishCartographer fucked around with this message at 21:29 on Apr 1, 2020

CodfishCartographer
Feb 23, 2010

Gadus Maprocephalus

Pillbug

Frog Act posted:

Very interesting, so it's sort of like Bard song things but with an additional element of AOE management. So you can eventually have three aoe buffs/debuffs going, like, one on you emanating outward to other casters, one on the tank that buffs melee and a third that debuffs the target, or something, that sounds cool. I'm gonna give that a go when I hit 99. I'm 83 now and doing at least a level or two a day so it won't be too terribly long, and Bannerlord won't distract me for too long until mods come out

Yeah GEO is pretty neat! The indi spells follow along with you as you run around, so your individual positioning matters as well. The jobs also has a lot of abilities to mess with the luopan's strength and health. For example, one summons a luopan with half health, but a far stronger effect. Another increases the bubble's strength further but drains the luopan's HP faster - which can be counteracted with a third ability that slows the HP drain! So you can run into a cool balancing act with what effects you want to boost with these abilities, but also how you want to manage the ability cooldowns. Do you want to load all three on one luopan to have one super duper strong bubble, but then once it's gone you'll have to wait a while for all three JAs to go off cooldown? Do you want to use one per luopan to ensure they last longer? etc. Essentailly, lots of balancing between strength of an effect and the length it'll stick around for. And, of course, which effects you even decide to use this on - boosting player damage? Buffing mages? etc.

It also has some nuking capabilities, with some powerful spells that are AOEs around the caster. As far as I know these aren't hugely used in endgame, but it gives you some more positioning puzzle to work around, and gives you some more active things to do - one criticism of GEO is that it can be boring, since theoretically you just drop your bubbles then sit there waiting for the party to do work. But like most support jobs it's as boring as you make it, and you can make GEO pretty interesting and interactive.

It also gets goofycool looking job-specific gear.

CodfishCartographer
Feb 23, 2010

Gadus Maprocephalus

Pillbug

Shinjobi posted:

By the time you get to WotG and Rhapsodies, welcome to "jesus christ you haven't quit yet? I guess you're like a god now, huh"-level power creep for your character. Don't get me wrong, there's always someone "cooler" than you in every storyline, but by the time you get to Rhapsodies the game and the setting in it have accepted that you are the Goku of FFXI and no one can really deny it. Leads to one of my favorite story bits in the game in WotG. An otherwise forgettable fight where the big bad tries something clever to stop you. They yank the you from their dimension and send them to take you down.

It's not even really a matter of "power" or anything like that, it's more just direct agency in the story. In Zilart the player character is almost literally just a cameraman - the story is 100% driven by Lion, Zeid, and Aldo. All the player really does is run around doing errands, and then during the big plot moments that actually matter it's the Lion Zeid Aldo show. CoP is pretty much similar, but with Prishe Ulmia Tenzen and Louverance. It's always "let's go to location to do plot thing! come along player!" and so the player just tags along because well we can't let the world end I guess. Almost every major battle or plot point the player could be ignored, and things would happen just the same - when you fight Kam'Lanaut, it'd be just as easy for Lion Zeid and Aldo to have fought him instead of those three + player, etc.

I've started up ToAU missions, and so far they're waaaay better about this. The characters are just as impactful on the story, but they're usually off doing their own thing while the player goes to do the things driving the main story. The player is the one who gives Trion Raillefal the info on the Astral Candescense that kicks off the meeting of the four nations, the player is the one who goes off to investigate the ghost ship, etc. The player's direct impact on CoP that ignores other characters is...idk, accidentally getting warped to Tavnazia I guess? Saving some people from Promyvion Vahzl, even though them getting trapped feels much more like an excuse for a dungeon rather than actual plot.

CodfishCartographer
Feb 23, 2010

Gadus Maprocephalus

Pillbug
How easy is it to get RUN geared up to where people will accept you? I'm currently gearing up my first 99, RDM, and while I love the job's ability to solo like crazy I also enjoyed RUN quite a lot and see a TON of people asking for tanks for content. I realize the ~ideal~ is to get REMA poo poo and all that, but what's like, the minimum I should have in order to be able to reasonably participate in content? I feel like with RDM I can participate even if I'm slightly undergeared because I can contribute damage, healing, and debuffing - so if I'm slacking in one area, I can make up for it in others. However with a tank if I'm not geared enough to tank, I'm failing at literally my one job.

CodfishCartographer
Feb 23, 2010

Gadus Maprocephalus

Pillbug
Shoutout to Taels for booting a dude in the middle of an ambuscade who examined my undergeared rdm, then said "yo you can replace me after this"

lol that we then went on to spam out 5 minute clears

CodfishCartographer
Feb 23, 2010

Gadus Maprocephalus

Pillbug

Edly posted:

Tangentially related, I was shouting for a learning group for Ambuscade V1E and someone told me to just run D instead. I can barely damage the mobs in easy so I'm not sure how that's supposed to work.

I think there's secretly a lot of demand for beginner/non-elitist groups because I got a bunch of replies within seconds. And then one overgeared guy who carried us by one shotting everything, which kinda defeated the point since I still have no idea how to play in a group, but I was at least grateful for the free points.

With the huge number of returning players over the past couple months, I suspect there's a lot of poorly geared newbies looking to get their feet wet more.

I've been hesitant to join CP parties partly because I don't have all the RoV KIs yet, but also cus I'm worried I won't contribute to a "real" party. Maybe I should just start shouting for "poorly geared players only" or something and specifically try to target that group of players, might have an easier time getting groups together.

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CodfishCartographer
Feb 23, 2010

Gadus Maprocephalus

Pillbug
I'd definitely be interested, if only because I haven't done any if that poo poo yet. I still need to beat ToAU story so don't think I can start the mythic quest proper, but fairly sure I can participate in the pre-reqs until I do?

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