Returning to Vana'diel

Many players are talking about returning to the game following the announcement of Seekers of Adoulin, but a lot has changed since when they quit, almost regardless of when that was. Speaking to players and looking around, it seems that their departure times vary from the height of Treasures of Aht Urhgan to the doldrums of Wings of the Goddess to the well-brewed finish of Abyssea. I will, in writing this guide, assume that players quit right in the middle of Treasures of Aht Urhgan but I will attempt to keep it chronological enough that you can simply skip through to wherever you quit.

For information regarding version updates of the past several years and their timing, please reference the FFXI Version Update History.

For the sake of simplicity and contrasting, I will be using "L75" to refer to thing from the Level 75 era.

Should you Return?

Still not sure if you want to come back? Here are the big changes that will help you decide:

Changes to Characters

The level cap is now 99 with 5 new Limit Break quests. This has a dramatic impact on the damage dealt to L75 monsters, a large impact on Evasion rates against L75 content, and smaller impact on the damage taken from L75 monsters. A level 99 Warrior has more evasion than a level 75 Thief did. Just let that one roll around in your head for a little while. This makes old events that were once difficult (like Salvage) very possible lowman. If you remember about how difficult L75 Nyzul Isle monsters were, now all monsters from that era are that easy or easier. Duoing Byakko is no longer a challenge and a wipe to him would be greeted with ridicule.

Additionally, there are new merit point caps and categories. Some of the represent the best available option for their weapon type.

Changes to Experience Points

Another incredibly large change to the game is how much easier Experience Points are to get these days. Players can attain solo XP/hr rates these days that would make the most elite L75 merit parties jealous. It is not very uncommon to break 200,000 XP/hr in an XP Alliance. That brings me to my next point. There are no more 6 person XP parties. Almost all XPing is done in alliances. I'm sure that we all have fond memories of meeting friends in XP parties, but I'm equally sure that we've all had "45 minutes to form, 30 minutes to get to camp, XP for half an hour and the healer has to go" experiences as well. Finally, many other new parts of endgame these days, like Voidwatch, reward Experience Points. Unless you are leveling a new job or really need some specific merits, there is almost no reason to join an XP alliance.

Overall, I would say that this change to the game was very much for the best. SquareEnix has decided to nearly remove XPing as an event unto itself, which was met with glee followed by nostalgia pangs and followed by acceptance. We don't need XPing to be an event anymore. There are dozens of other things to do in the game, and they keep adding more.

That said, in the years between ToAU's peak and now there were several other changes made to XPing. First of all, they roughly doubled the XP/kill from monsters. EMs now yield 200xp to a solo player, and EPs can yield up to 100. This makes grinding low level jobs very easy and is still a common way to get from 1-13ish. Secondly, they added Fields of Valor and Grounds of Valor, where you kill 5~10 specific monsters and receive a bonus amount of experience points. This is still a very common way to get to 30ish, the lowest level for Abyssea. Finally, they added Level Sync, a system that allows players to synchronize their level with any party member of their choice. No more xping out of camps and having to get replacements for party members that dingged 37 in Garliage Citadel! No one XPs this way anymore, though.

Economic Changes

Fundamentally, the economy has changed from being Crafting based to being more farming based. The primary high-gil item that people buy these days are Relics, Mythics, and a new class of special weapon known as an Empyrean. This is not to say that it is impossible to make gil crafting, but it's no longer the crafter's market that it once was. Ideal gearsets are no longer riddled with Tier 0 and Tier 1 HQs that require capped skills to synth. There are a few for each craft, but not to the extent that it was at L75. It is still possible to make gil crafting, but farming is now competitive with it.

So what does this mean? Well, players that prefer to farm for their gil are now handily rewarded. Dynamis has undergone dramatic adjustments and now can be entered for two hours once a day to farm Dynamis Currency solo. Salvage has not been changed (yet), but it is still a great way to make gil by farming Alexandrite. Abyssea is a new set of areas that rewards both Experience Points and a new currency known as Cruor upon defeating monsters. This Cruor can be indirectly exchanged for gil via and item and then NPC and is another good way to make gil. Overall, these changes have made obtaining special weapons infinitely easier than they once were. You can farm a relic in two months doing Dynamis once per day.

As you may have noticed from the last paragraph, I mentioned NPCing items being a major source of income. This has led to somewhat gentle inflation. So when you return, price might look the same but they are actually much less valuable. Farming 4,000,000 for a Roundel Earring is a matter of two good Dynamis runs, or four hours of work.

Crafting Changes

Mega-Moglification and Crafting Torques have given skills a 4-6 point boost over the level 75 maximums. Additionally, the crafting cap for main crafts was raised to level 110 with the subcrafts being raised to 70. It is now possible to Tier 1 every synth from the L75 era. Additionally, it is possible for crafts with Torques to skill up on a synth that they are Tier 1 on. So a level 100+12 Smith could skill up on a 101 recipe while also being Tier 1 on it.

Quality-of-life wise, SE recently addressed several major crafting annoyances. There is now no synthesis delay (that annoying period after completing a craft before you can start another) and there is effectively no delay when buying ingredients at the guild.

Many of the crafts do not have sufficient skillup recipes from 100-110, but that will likely change in time. SE has hinted that the caps will continue to increase to a final cap of level 140. If you were primarily a crafter, this is both a frustrating and an exciting time to be playing.

Social Changes

I don't know an easy way to deliver the news, so I'll just say it. There is no more 21-24 hour HNM camping endgame and there are no more HNMLSs. King Behemoth, Nidhogg, and Aspidochelone are now forced pops using items that you indirectly get from their respective Themis Orb fights. Tiamat, Dark Ixion, Sandworm, and various other HNMs have not had their pop conditions changed, but the lack of the big-three and ease of soloing these formerly ferocious monsters has led to the disbanding of all HNM shells. Their drops are still worth gil, if you choose to camp them solo or duo. Some people love these changes and some are still itching for a Fafnir ToD that will never come, but this has unarguably changed. Every large shell that still exists is an event shell but there aren't even many of those left, as you will see.

Abyssea was the expansion set that accompanied the level cap increase and dramatically restructured linkshells. Everything in Abyssea can be duoed by a strong melee and a White Mage. At most, you need about 5 people in Abyssea to accomplish whatever your goal is. Large event linkshells that pulled 18+ people were now facing running split events every single night, and most of them just split into smaller groups of friends that formed their own linkshells. As the level cap went up and old content became easier and easier, there was less and less justification for linkshells that could pull more a full alliance of players. Some have managed to adapt and hang on, but they are the exception rather than the rule. It has finally happened. Your socials are now also your event shells. This has also led to a lot of Melee + Mage dualboxing, which is far more common than it ever used to be.

This was followed by Voidwatch, which is an event that requires an alliance of specific jobs for maximum efficiency. This can be done either by an event shell or by shout groups. Shout groups? Those things that wipe to Hakutaku five times after two mages Sneak and Invis a full alliance of melee through the Den of Rancor because no one has powders or oils? Well, the world has changed my friend. There are certainly still bad players that respond to shouts and there are fights that you don't want to do with just anyone, but by and large most of Voidwatch can be done by an alliance of the kind of players that respond to Voidwatch shouts. It's self selecting, as super-casual players don't want to deal with Voidwatch's admittedly horrible drop rates and simply don't respond, but it has changed the social dynamic of the game once again. Shout groups are in vogue.

Legion is threatening to reverse all this proposed progress by being too difficult to do with a shout group. It's also too difficult for the average event shell and offers pretty mediocre rewards, so people seem content to ignore it. If you are looking to return to the game with some friends and gun for a challenge, this event is your target.

Job Balance

The opening of the Forums has led to more direct conversation between the players and the Developers (at least for the Japanese players), but it has not been very useful when it comes to fixing things (other than spelling, the Localization subforum is amazing). It has, however, been useful in understanding what the Developer's ideas for different jobs are. Their goal is not to balance the damage these jobs do, it is to balance their utility.

For instance, the Devs seem content to give Thief relatively little utility besides Treasure Hunter. This appears to be entirely intentional because they feel TH is so useful. Sorry, Thieves. They seem to generally aim to make 2H DDs have relatively weak passive defenses (like Evasion) with high damage potential while 1H DDs have high passive defenses but lower damage potential. They are not aiming to make it so everyone does the same damage in all situations. They are aiming to make it so certain jobs will be preferred in some events (like heavy DDs in Voidwatch) and some in others (like light DDs in Dynamis).

There is an inevitable conflict between the Devs' job concepts and the players' job concepts. They have been entirely unyielding and I cannot think of a single suggestion (at least from the NA community) that would affect game balance and has been implemented. The official forums opening did herald a new level of communication between the Dev team and the playerbase, but it was mostly so they could tell us to screw off more directly.

Quality of Life Adjustments

Apart from the above, SE has changed many things that were formerly quite annoying so that they are less annoying. Most of these changes are "Why didn't you do that before release?" kinds of obvious gameplay problems, but some of them are an outgrowth of a shrinking game population. Depending when you quit, any of these may be new:

• There are now 6 different storage locations, all with a maximum capacity of 80. Three of them are available to you when you are in the field, though you can still only use gear and equip items from one of them (Items menu, Control-I).
• All auction houses now connect to the same AH. There can be only one. /Highlander.
• Crafting delay and guild salesroom delay have both been eliminated.
• The Runic Portal in Whitegate no longer requires a permit. You can pay to use it right at the portal.
• No more trips to Nashmau to exchange Imperial currency! You can select how many coins you want directly at the coin NPC.
• More common and just more sources of Movement Speed. There are boots that give a +12% enchantment and there are common (if not always cheap) +12~18% options for all jobs. You can use them in conjunction with one another.

Other things that have been promised but not yet delivered upon:

• SE is allegedly going to make it so we can access storage from any mog house, though they mentioned this a year ago and it still hasn't happened.
• SE says they're going to re-make icons at higher resolution and in more unique ways. Sort of like an official version of the old icon .dat swaps (now known as XI-View).
• Apart from the last point, SE has promised a general UI overhaul (for PC). There were some demos of it at 2013 FanFest.

Returning

If you choose to return to the game, before you read any further you will need to do these things:

• Buy all the Abyssea expansions. The cheapest way to do this may be by buying the FFXI Ultimate Abyssea Collector's Edition copy (digital download works). You may also get the Mini-Expansions depending how you do this, and will likely get a bunch of cutscenes related to them that I won't be discussing below.
  • It is recommended that you follow the instructions in Kohan's thread to speed up your update if you're reinstalling, as SE still does not offer a pre-patched download.
• Create a SquareEnix ID for your account (if necessary) and migrate to the Account Management system.[1]
• Log In. Welcome back! Now the fun begins.

Abyssea

The first thing you want to do when you come back is become minimally competent in Abyss-a-lese due to all the awesome armor and XP available within. While FFXI is downloading, I'd recommend reading over the Abyssea Guide.

Voidwatch

Similar to Abyssea, Voidwatch also uses stones that regenerate on a timer. You also have to start this timer with a very basic cutscene and this should also be a high priority, though you may not use your Voidstones for some time. Voidwatch drops various pieces of equipment and can be a nice source of gil, but (perhaps more importantly), it offers a really excellent transportation method. When you have beaten all of the monsters at least once (in order, as will be explained), you will have 66 new locations that you can warp to from conveniently located NPCs in each city. Get jealous, Outpost Warp NPCs.

So, how to start your timer and get started with Voidwatch:

• Return to any starting city in the past or present and visit the local Voidwatch Officer. (Guardian of the Void)
• Choose to participate in the Voidwatch operation and you will receive a Voidstone and a colored Abyssite (two key items)
  • That is all you needed to do to start the stone timer, but you can additionally visit the other two starting cities (in the past or present) and collect colored Abyssites from them. You will need these colored abyssites in order to get credit for kills along each city's paths.

New/Adjusted Events

Abyssea

Abyssea is one of the newest and most popular events in the game. It deserves its own guide, so it has its own guide: Abyssea Guide

Voidwatch

Voidwatch is less beloved than Abyssea, but it has been fairly popular overall. The Voidwatch page does a very commendable job of acting as a Guide for group strategy and I recommend you read it, but here are some brief notes specific to returning players:

• If you are returning to the game and looking at City paths so you can get started evolving your Abyssites, do the Bastok path first as it offers the most useful Periapts.
• You will want to buy all the Periapts that you can from the Voidwatch Officers. This unfortunately costs an ungodly amount of Cruor, so I recommend hanging out in Abyssea for a while after starting your Voidwatch stone counter.
• The important categories of Periapt for someone that's just returning are "Exploration", "Frontiers", "Readiness", "Adaptability", and "Emergence" in that order. You will really need to get both "Readiness" Periapts if you are a melee. They come from fairly easy fights, so friends could help you get them in an hour or so.

Dynamis

Dynamis was re-worked dramatically and is now a 2-hour event that people do daily for gil or to farm themselves Relic Weapons. Relic Armor +2 was also added, which gives yet another reason to do this event. I strongly recommend reading the Dynamis page (especially the proc information part). You will need to buy a Perpetual Hourglass for 50k from the Goblin near the entrance of Davoi, Beadeaux, or Castle Oztroja. You can also buy maps here, if you want. These Key Items are permanent, so you will only need to do this once.

Also, you will have the most fun in Dynamis as a duo of some kind, so find a friend that also wants to make gil and get to work.

Trials of the Magians

Trial of the Magians is a system that allows players to upgrade equipment and weapons by fulfilling specific conditions. This is something of a response to players' demands for a system where a constant amount of effort would yield a constant reward, unlike SE's typical skinner box-ish event designs where you kill 50 Nidhoggs and see two E.bodies and then your LS gets four in two kills while you're on vacation.

A few important notes:

• All of the best equipment comes from this, but not all of it is easy to get.
• Mage weapons from this system are amazing, but their trials are a huuuuuuge pain in the... well, you get the idea. They're for the brave. I'm apparently not brave.
• You can use this system to upgrade Relic Weapons, Mythic Weapons, and to create Empyrean Weapons or Empyrean Armor +2. Additionally, SE has taken to making it part of some quests lately.

Some melee jobs use easily obtained weapons from this system. Here are a few that people typically approve of over AH options:

• Strength Axe, Dagger, or Katana
• Weapon Skill Damage Great Katana

Harder to obtain weapons that people like are:

• Occasionally Attacks Twice Polearm, Great Sword, and Scythe