Final Fantasy XI Beginner Guide

Hanza

A beginners guide to Final Fantasy 11 Online
by Dan Lynam

Firstly, I have been playing and reading into this game for the last 7 months. This is the first final fantasy game to be souly basised online. People frown apon it for that aspect, which is a tragic misperception. Final Fantasy is a genre in its own right, and this genre has always been based to intence story driven game play. How can an M.M.O.R.P.G. (Massivly Multiplayer Online Role Playing game) carry an intense story? I dont know, but ffxi pulls it off.

However, to understand this, think of ffxi as new life experience. Before you go to war, you need to be trained. Before you start experincing the story,you need to be trained. This isnt a bad thing, infact, some people prefer it to the actual story. Its not a simple case of killing Mobs/enemies to level up, it can be as simple or as intricite as you wish. The fact of the matter is, you can do what ever you want to do in ffxi, how you play the game is souly up to you. There are no set rules.

Now, of all the beginners guides I've read, I have yet to find one that is aimed at beginners. They are all written as if the reader already as an understanding of the game. Therefore, it took me and my fellow ffxi gamer, Gonzo a long time to understand the meaning of this game. We read the manual from page to page, and it doesnt give you much to work with. So, this guide is going to be written as if you have just installed the game and are about to play it for the first time. Also, for all of you that are courious about ffxi, hopefully this will persuade you to buy the game. Here we go:

Vana'dial is the contenent on which you adventure. There are 3 cities which you can choose to begin the game. They are Bastock, a city of Humes and Galaka, where mining, industry and sales flurish. Then there is San'doria, the towering cathedral city of the elvaan people. Windrust is the forested home of the magical Tarutaru and cat-like Mithra. These are also the 5 races you choose from. The Hume (Humans), Elvaan (Elves), Tarutaru (Pixie-like, like the little guy from FF Crystal Cronicles), Galaka (Huge Beast-men), Mithra (half cat, half women, skilled hunters).

***NOTE*** There is a 4th city called Jeauno, you cannot start here, we will talk about it later, as it doenst really concern people below the level of 20.

Once you pick your name, race and home/allegence (starting point) you pick your job. There are 6 starting jobs, and another 9 that are unlocked later on in the game.

The reason why you have to unlock the other 9 jobs is because they are superior in almost every sence to the starting 6 jobs. The best way to think of it, is that these 9 unlockable jobs are like a reward for getting so far, but dont worry about them just now. The starting jobs are Warrior/WAR (very powerful defence, good damage dealing, but can take more damage then what they can deal), Monk/MNK (Martial artists, very good at damage dealing, not as good defence as warriors but there hitting power evens both jobs out), Theif/THF (Think Rikku and Zidane, ok defence, ok attack, but has the ability to steal, lots of gil...), White Mage/WHM (Uses white magic, to cure and protect them self and others) Black Mage (Uses black magic to weaken, hurt and hinder enemies) Red Mage (uses both white and black magic, but at a reduced power).

Races ARE suited to a perticular job, but if your starting off, dont worry about it, the difference is minimal. Its not as important as some people make it out to be, as you will find your self trying every job down the line anyway.

So, you have your race picked out, your home town and job. The only thing you will start the game with, is a Mog house, here you live (we'll talk about the mog house in a second), and a set of really bad armour. Get rid of it quickly. To do this you need gil/money. Leave your city, but dont be afraid to have a look around. Every character in the game will have a name over their head, in a differnt colour. The colour of their name signifies what they are. WHITE is another player just like you. BLUE is a player wished to be left alone LIGHT BLUE a player in your party (we'll talk about parties later) GREEN: A NPC/ Non-player character, these are the citizens of Vana'diel, the people you buy off, the people that give you quests and interact with, they are not players, they are pre-programmed game characters. LIGHT YELLOW is an enemy. PINK is an enemy attacking another player (you cannot attack this monster if another player has alrady claimed them, if the player disengages, you may fight them). RED a enemy you or your party is attacking.

Dont worry! There are no enemies in the cities, so feel free to roam around safely. There will be alot of things you will hear and not understand from other player. Dont worry about that either, we will talk about everything in due time.

Press your main menu button. A list of options will appear in the top right hand corner of the screen. Your status, equiptment, items and map are all you have to worry about at the moment. There are 2 red arrowns at the top of the menu, once clicked they open the second part of the menu. If you click staus, it tells you everything from your job and level, how much experience you have, and your basic stats. Click equipment. This shows you your armour, gil and eqipable items. Items shows you what you are carrying. Highlighting an item will tell you what it does. Now, click your map. This tells you where you are in the world, you are obviously the little red dot. Ignore the markers menu in the top right corner for now. Follow your map around your city, when you get to an exit called a ZONE, a blank loading screen will appear, and when the game play continues you will be in a linking area. There are several zones in a city, but once you zone outside the city, you are ready to do battle.

Now we are going to go over leveling up. You are level 1. You have no weapon, crappy armour and 1 skill. You see an enemy. Press tab to select and enter to confirm, or select an enemy with your curser. There name will apear above your name in the bottom right corner. They have been selected. Click them again, or press enter. A small menu will apear in the bottom left hand corner. Use your mouse or arrow keys to select what you want. The first option is to attack, but dont jump in head first. Dieing is not something you want to be always doing. This is a way help you dont meet your demise. The last option on the menu (that has just apeared apon selecting an enemy) is CHEAK. Click this. On your infromation bar (long blue bar on the bottom part of the screen), a message will apear, telling you how the enemy compares to you. The message will have 1 of the following phrases.

Too weak to be worthwhile: Dont bother! You wont get any EXP/experience or anything worth selling, and lower level players will frown apon it.
Easy prey: Will give you minimal experience, ok drops/treasure and will be easy to kill. This is what you want to be fighting when you are playing solo.
Decent Challenge: Quite hard, you may die, but will get a good bit of exp, and ok drops
Even match: When you are playing solo, the differnce between easy prey and decient challenge/even match is quite big, you will get good exp but may die easily.
Tough: Dont! It will kill you. You may kill a tough enemy in a blue moon, with help from other players, but its not worth it.
Increadably Tough: You cannot kill it, you will die.
Impossible to gauge: It could be anything from not worthwile to level 75 (highest level) monsters. Unless you know what you are doing, leave it alone.

Hanza

So you have cheaked it. At the start of the game the lowest difficulty rating will be decent challenge. Once you are comfortable with the difficulty rating, to start killing, hit attack. You will attack automatticaly after a certin time period (on average, every 6 seconds) depending on your weapon. This will deal a certin amount of damage, that will show up on your info bar. When there HP hits 0, you have won, and vica verca. If you win you will be told in the info bar. It will also tell you the exp you have gained (which can be cheaked at any time in your main menu under Status).

You will also be told of any drops you get from the defeated monster. For example, it will say [Your name] finds a [droped items name] on [defeated enemy], [Your name] obtains the [droped items name]. The reason why it says it twice is because for a numver of reasons you may not have not obtained the item. To obtain an item means it is now in your Items list in your main menu. You can only have 1 of some items. These items are called EX or exclusives. If you high light the item, it will have a yellow circle in it with EX on it. This means you can only have 1. Or your items could be full. You have 30 items slots. Some items can be auto grouped, this means, they can be bundled together to a certin amount an still only take up one item slot. For example crystals can be auto group to a number of 12. So if you have 12 fire crystals, click the auto-group button, they will go from 12 slots to one slot with the number 12 beside it. You can also choose to drop items. They will be gone for good if you do this. You also will get gil off some enemies, this goes straight to your gil amount in your equiptemnt, it does not take up an item slot.

If you die in a battle you will go back to your home point.You will see home points all over Vana'diel. They are like big blue crystals. Select them. Choose set home point here and if you did you will respawn here. Some NPCs can also set your home point. These NPCs are usually dressed as city guards, either in a city or stationed at out posts. You will see them easily. Ask them to set your home point, and like before if you die, you will respawn there. These 'guard' NPCs will also be able to cast your nations signet on you. Signet is a special spell only these NPCs can cast on you. It last for about 3 earth hours. When Signet is cast on you, you have the ability to obtain crystals as drops from defeated enemies. Always try to have signet cast on you. Crystals can be used for so much and are also a good sourse of income.

So, lets say you have defeated a good few enemies, you have reached level 5 and you have 30 items to sell:

Now, if you hit level 5, and if you die, you will loose 10% your next levels required experience, from the exp you have already gained. Dont die! Loosing experience is crap, and you can go back a level if you loose a relivent amount of experience. You DO NOT want that to happen.

Now, you have 30 items to sell. Go back to your city and talk to some NPCs. Some NPCs will give you the option to Buy or Sell. Click Sell for now. Your item list will appear. If an item is green, that means its equipt on you, you can not sell it unless its un-equipt. Grey items are items the NPC will not buy. White items they will buy from you. Click on a white item. A price will apear beside it. If you wish to sell it, obviously click sell. The gil you recieve will go into your gil amount in your Equiptment section in your main menu. The item will disapear from your items. You cannot buy back items most of the time from NPCs, so be careful.

***NOTE*** If you are in a city that is not your home/allegence you may not be able to sell or buy from NPCs.

Now you have a few empty slots, and a decent amount of gil. You can buy some armour or waepons. You can buy some items off some NPCs, but this time, lets explore a very important and unique part of ffxi. The AUCTION HOUSE.

There is an auction house in every big city. Go to your auction house, it will say where it is on your map. (Before I forget, while we are on the topic of gil and maps, maps for different areas need to be purchased, they dont take up item slots, they will apear when you select map when u are in an area. If you dont have the map for the area you are in and you select map, NO MAP will apear) Anyway, you find your auction house, go up to the wooden pannels and click on them. Select them as you would an NPC or enemy. A menu will appear with 3 options. BID, SELL and SALES STATUS.

When you click bid, you can sell up to 7 different items, or 12 of the same items for a specified price. But first click bid. Lets say you have some fire crystals to sell. Go to the relivent section, for example crystals, hit crystals, select the fire crystals and hit sales status. They will tell you in decending order what they have been selling for reciently. The lowest option will be what the last fire crystal sold for. Lets say it was 500gil. Exit from the bid menu and go back to sell, your items will open again like you are selling them from an NPC. Click one of your fire crystals and hit sell. This time, you will be asked to input your own price. Since the last fire crystal sold for 500 gil, you should sell this one for in and around the same price. Select 500 and click enter. You will be charged a small selling tax. Select ok to pay the tax. Your item is now in the auction house. Players that are currently in that city, can buy from that auction house. If they buy your item the money will go to your Mog house.

***NOTE*** You will make more money selling in the Auction house 99.9% of the time, the selling to NPCs. But remember, you can only sell 7 items at one time.

Go to your sales status now. It will tell you if you have sold anything, what you have on sale and what has been returned. It will also list the date you put it on sale and the amount you are trying to sell it for. When you sell some thing or it is returned to you, click it to clear it from your current Auction House records so you have an extra space to sell items.

***NOTE*** If your items remain in the Auction house for more then 9 earth days at a time, they will be returned to your mog house. Your tax will not be returned. That is gone and paid when you put the auction up for sale.

Now if you want to buy from the AH (short for Auction house) its almost the same procedure. Lets say you want to buy some armour and a weapon. Click the auction counter again, click bid and go to the section you desire. Like I said, pretend we are looking for armour. Click armour. You have differnt 10 armour types (head, ear, neck, body, hands, fingers, waist, back, legs and feet). Click body. A list of all the armour the Auction house has had will be listed. If the armour name is green, you already have it equipt, if its yellow, your race, sex, job and level are suited to it and you can use/wear the armour. If its ghosted, there is really no point buying the item, unless you can use it soon,ie: next time you level up. Click the item you want. Cheak the items history and see how much it has been curently selling for. Bid on the item, until you have been told in your info bar that you have purchased the item. You can now equip it. Do the same with everything else you wish to purchase. Always cheak up to see if you can up grade your armour.

Ok... Like I said, money you get from selling items in the AH is sent to your Mog house/MH. Lets got visit your MH...

Look at your map for your Mog residencial area. Go to it and Zone into your Mog house. Only you can enter your own Mog house. Once you enter this small room, a Moogle will appear. Talk to him by clicking on him. He can hold up to 50 items for you, you can collect money and returned items from your delivery box and you can change jobs. Thats all we need to worry about for now. If you change jobs, apon leaving your MH, your Moogle will tell you its safe to set your home point here, which it is. Set it there, and leave. Mog houses are the simpelest thing in the game cos you are alonein them and have lots of time to mess around in them. When you are in another city that isnt your allegence, you will have to rent a MH. This is one of the great mysteries of ffxi. No one knows why its called rent a mog house, cos its free. Talk to the NPC outside the Mog residencal area so they can summon your Moogle to the rented mog house. If you have been away and are returning to your home, you will still need your Moogle re-summoned if you asked for him to be summoned to another Mog house in a different city.

Hanza

So, leave your MH and head back into the city. Remember ffxi is a MMORPG, so interact with other people. If you see another Player or PC (playing character), select them the same way you selected an NPC or an enemy. You can cheak them by hitting the cheak button, like you would an enemy. Their equipt items will apear. You can hover your courser over them and cheak their items. Also under their equipt items there may be to other features. A Linkshell and a Bazaar. You may see people walk around with a coloured circle beside their name. These signify they are a member of a linkshell. Linkshells are communication devices much like a in game chat system. If you have a link pearl, you are a member of the link shell, and communicate with other people in your linkshell. If you get a link pearl (which will take up a slot in your items menu) you can communicate with your fellow link shell members via the linkshell option in the main menue.

The linkshell name will be listed below the items. Also there will be a button that is either ghosted or not. Thats their bazaar. A Bazaar is a tool used to sell items you are carrying to any one that cheaks you. Like a linkshell, a person with a bazaar will have a small picture of a bag beside their name. Cheak them and their bazaar button should be on. Click it and if you wish you can buy items off them as you would a NPC. You can set up a bazaar in your main menu. Its the same as selling items, but they stay in your items slots. You can not sell these items to the AH or NPCs unless you remove them from your bazaar. The prices are up to you. But keep them reasonable.

Now that you have an understanding of basic battling and how to conduct your self in cities, lets get into the guts of the game... Lets explore the battle system further:

Leveling up right outside your city, always be sure to keep a keen eye on the difficulty of your enemies. As you wander around people will help you in various ways. Such as curing you. Magic, like all FF games is a big part of it. If you are either a red, black or white mage (along with other jobs) you will have the ability to cast spells. Talk to mages and/or become on your self. Use spell scrolls to learn spells.

The next big part of the battling in ffxi is the party, which is the ffxi equivilent of the standard 3 character battle syetem. But instead of you controlling all the characters, you team up with other players to defeat advanced enemies. Lets go over the party in detail.

First of all, there are partying areas, Valcum Dunes is a good place to start around level 11 or 12, maybe a bit earlier if you are a WHM (white mage). These are areas where the enemies will be very hard. Go to your main menu and click party. Then click the option seek party. Your name will change colour and a ! will apear beside it in a box. Go to party again, click find member. Here will be a list of all the other PCs looking for a party. You can either start your own party (which is highly UNADVISABLE at first) or wait til some one invites you. When they invite you, either click yes to join or no to continue searching. When you join a party, your members will be stacked on top of your name at the bottom right corner. They will also show up as markers on your map. Go to map, and click markers, until the blue squares show up. This is where your party members are located. There health will show up, if they are in the same zone as you, if they are not in the same zone, the zone will be where there HP and MP is.

Now, the whole idea of a party is to gain EXP increadibley quickly. Therefore, you will not be fighting easy prey and even matches. You will fight Tough monsters and if you know your party can handle it, INCREADIBLY TOUGH. IT enemies range very much. Know what you can take on. This is why and experienced person should lead a party, beacuse if you die and drop EXP, so will other players. Dont let this happen...

A party should consist of 6 players which is the max alowed. A party consists of 2 to 6 members. You will need a player to do each of the following:
LEAD: A leader makes the decissions but can also Tank, heal, dd and/or pull
TANK: A tank takes all the punishment. A WAR is a good tank, they have high defence, can use provoke to keep enemies attention on them, and strong armour. It is up to your healer to keep you alive, and cured to max, while the others do damage to the enemy.
HEALER: A WHM is probally the only good healer. RDM and SMN(summoners) are ok, but WHM are best. Your job is to keep the tank and puller cured up.
DD: or Damage dealer, MNKs are good, but DRK(dark knights), BLM and DRG (dragoons) are good too. You kick the eneies ass, and kill it.
PULL: When a party camps in a certin place, you need to attract enemies to your members. Thats what a pull does. They engae and enemy, use a ranged attack, provoke or use an offensive spell. They then take a bit of damage, run back towards the party and let the other members engae the enemy. Dont worry, you wont die doing this. Your mage will cure you as soon as he can and the tank will get the enemies attention. Just make a enemy attack you, dont attack it, and run back to the rest of your party.

Do damage and get lots of exp. Thats the purpose behind a party.

Now, a very important quest you will need to do is the sub job quest. If you cheak people where it says their level, (example lvl. 18 WAR) some times you may see lvl 18 WAR/ 9 MNK. This person has 2 jobs? NO! They have a sub job. The idea of a sub job is that you gain attributes from another job, making you more powerful. Your sub job will be half as powerful as your main job. You will need to have both powered up. To explain it better, lets say you are a WAR. Well, you need defence and HP. A monk has HP bonuses at certin lvls. You will also gain strengh from that sub. But if your a WAR, dont think you can use a WHM as a sub and cure yourself. It doesnt work that way, you would get crappy half powered spells, MP that will run out and no health or def bonuses. Pick a sub that will help your main job. You can do this quest at lvl 18.

The quest isnt that hard. It starts in Selbia. But to keep this guide simple, im not going to go over quests. Go to ffxi.allakhazam.com for all the quest walkthroughs.

Another key quest to look into is you chukabo licence quest. You will see players speeding around Vana'diel on chukabos. They are alot beter then running around on foot. This quest can be done at lvl 20, you will need to go to Jeauno for this. Its quiet hard. Also see allakhazam for this.

Then at level 30, comes your Advanced job quest. This is where the game kicks ass IMO. At lvl 30 in any job you can do quests to get more advanced jobs that have more perks and are alot more fun and versatile. These jobs are unlocked in your mog house by doing FLAG QUESTS. See allakhazam for these quests. Here are the jobs and a breif description.

Paladin/PLD: A holy warrior that has high defence and can use White magic spells to heal themself and party members.
Dark Knight/DRK: A lonley dark warrior that has high attack power and deals Black magic spells to hinder enemies.
Beast master/BSM: Can control various beasts in Vana'diel to fight by their side.
Bard/BRD: Uses songs and instruments to gain magical effects for them self and their party.
Summoner/SMN: A heretic mage, that summons forbidden creatures called Avatars to fight with them.
Ranger/RNG: A skilled marks man, that excells in ranged weaponary
SAM/Samurai: A damage dealing god. Gains TP like there is no tommorow. Excellent for fighting demons and ghosts.
Ninja/NIN: A monk, with magic and the ability to use Katanas and weild 2 main weapos at one time.
Dragoon/DRG: A stong warrior with the added aid of a babt dragon, a wyvern to fight by its side.

Yes, I know. They sound fun, and they are.

Well thats most of the stuff you will need to get started. Everything else that I have not mentioned (which is quite a bit) is stuff that you will learn your self along the way.There is so much to learn about in this game.

Thanks for reading
And questions PM me
Dan/Hanza