*** Not been playing, much, or at all, but I think most of the info is somewhat still valid ***
Special October 2011 Notes
2011 October Update: Get all the expansion packs. Should be cheap enough now and there's that stuff on Steam, I believe, which sells everything very cheapily (via the "all in one" game packs) and the development team seems to be showing signs of rehashing every area for level 99 content.
Level cap is currently 95.
HNM/Events section no longer 100% valid. Due to level cap reaching to 95, most of the "good stuff" comes from Abyssea.
Sky Gear is still somewhat valuable, and so are Abjuration gear, for they can be augmented using Synergy.
The 3 HNM and their 3 HQ counterparts are no longer 21-24 hour lotto, but spawned by pop items dropped from their respective KSNM99 versions. The pop item can be traded to spawn the NQ HNM, where, upon kill, there's a small % of it dropping the HQ item.
Last updated: October 2011 (loose info)
In light of so many players that have once played and are now once again returning back to the game, this is a topic made to answer the common questions you may have in regards to the game's current situation/condition. You may also use it to refresh yourselves or learn about the game as it is today.
Look out for the bolded "2011 update:" text for the latest/most important notes.
This topic is written in assumption that you've left before the 2 new expansions came out after Chains of Promanthia OR in between the 2 expansion packs.
This topic is split into sections. The idea is that you can quickly refer to it without needing to dig through updates and updates from Playonline itself.
NOTE: Active players, if you want to contribute/correct me on anything, please post and I will wrangle the changes in. Please note that I am speaking from a general point of view, and do not plan to go indepth on anything. Should anything require "indepth" discussion then a new topic can be made.
NOTE2: I am writing this from my understanding of things based on what I have read on this and some other forums. If anything is incorrect, please do express your opinions and I'll wrangle it in the post. I do not know everything about the game.
New Jobs
The last 2 expansion packs, Treasures of Aht Urhgan (ToAU) and Wings of the Goddess (WoTG), introduced Puppetmaster, Blue Mage, Corsair (ToAU), Dancer, Scholar (WoTG).
Puppetmaster is a new pet job. (PUP)
Blue Mage is a mage/melee hybrid with emphasis on Enemy Skills. (BLU)
Corsair is a "luck" based job, focusing on dice rolls. (COR)
All the AF+1/Dynamis AF and their +1 parts have been released for the above jobs.
Scholar is a mix of White Mage and Black Mage. (SCH)
Dancer utilizes "dances" for effects, which uses TP instead of MP or consumables like a Ninja would. (DNC)
NOTE: It is interesting to point out that the SCH is a very good subjob for all mage jobs and DNC is a very good subjob across all frontline jobs, greatly enhancing the soloability of those jobs.
Depending on situation, a SCH can replace a BLM, WHM or RDM no problem due to their abilities and spell list.
December 2008 update added SCH and DNC AF+1/Dynamis AF and their +1 versions to the game, as well as Category II merits.
Economy
Due to the Special Task Force, a group of people Square-Enix moved in to resolve RMT issues, prices have been dropping rapidly across most items. Also, the availability of items have increased widely due to the introduction of specific events/quests. Another reason is that everyone has these items already, so the price will be naturally lowered.
Example: Scorpion Harness = 13mil~ during Christmas 2005; now as of June 2008 it is about 200k.
Even though there are still RMT/Gilsellers in the game, the numbers have been severely reduced and are not as noticable before. You'll see the odd fishers/RMT parties every now and then but it's quite cleaned up now.
Valuable items remain in the rarer items, for example a few new crafting materials that drop from ToAU are still rather rare as they come from specific events/battlefields, however the items produced from these specific materials isn't "essential" but are essentially fancy add ons you can obtain. Otherwise, high quality versions of gear, particularly Haubergeon remain "expensive" in today's terms, but otherwise everything else is more or less affordable.
It is interesting to note that gil is a bit harder to make for a first time player or a returning player starting from scratch, due to crystals selling much lower than before per stack. Typically, Earth and Wind Crystals are 500g a stack and Fire Crystals are 1000g. One thing to consider is that buying off the Auction House isn't the only option, as for lower levels of gear, buying off the NPCs are now a better option more often than not.
Events/Gear
Zilart HNMs still remain fairly dominant in terms of gear, the prime examples being Defending Ring, Adaman Hauberk and Ridill. From Sky, Byakko's Haidate still remain a dominant and desirable piece. It is no longer as difficult to gather the items to fight Byakko, as the conditions to get such items have been adjusted to a more player friendly manner.
2011 Update: Defending Ring is still a good piece but there are several new pieces of higher level gear such as AF3+1/+2 (yes, a new set of AFs) that provide very good stats that are actually useful for the jobs they are for. Less priority is placed on the HNMs now and instead players are given a more casual system of farming NMs in Abyssea to upgrade their gear.
However, efforts have been made to draw people away from them, but otherwise competition for the mentioned items above remain high. For example, ToAU introduced 5 new events with near equal gear (it's all situational depending on what you think, but all in all it's quite desirable gear).
"Assaults" "Nyzul Assaults" "Einherjar" "Salvage" "Zeni NMs"
Assaults require you to sign up on mini missions as required by the empire and you can earn unique gear and "Assault" gear as prizes.
Nyzul Assaults are designed for small, 3-6 man party groups to go against a series of monsters, puzzles and limitations. It is an instanced event which drops quite good gear for all the available jobs. It is a branch off the Assault system, with better rewards.
Einherjar is a similar to Dynamis but on a 30 minute timer, with possible Abjurations drops from the Zilart HNMs, along with 2 sets of entirely new Abjurations that you can obtain, plus further possible accessories via the "Therion Ichor" system, which are like points you can use to obtain items with.
Salvage is a 6-18 man event with a more focus on smaller groups teamworking well together due to the limitations placed within these areas. You basically start off naked and severely weakened in all aspects of your character, and you'll have to work your way around the dungeon unlocking your abilities, stats, spells, subjobs, armor slots. Salvage provides very good and desirable gear for all the jobs that can equip it.
Zeni NMs are simple NMs which you can pop via the acquisition of "Zeni", another points system. For this, you simply take photos of monsters asked by the specific 2 NPCs and trade the photos in for "Zeni" which can then be used to purchase pop items for specific NMs, dropping quite unique and desirable gear. There is progression as you have to defeat specific tiers of NMs to pop the higher tiers of NMs.
Note: Dancer and Scholar currently do not have Salvage gear available/assigned to them.
WoTG introduced Campaign, in which you can help defend or attack a location for "Allied Notes" which you can trade in for some decent gear, if you do not have options to obtain gear anywhere else. Otherwise for most jobs there are better gear elsewhere.
Otherwise, to sum up, the "end game" events you can now do to obtain gear are:
Sky
Sea
Limbus
Dynamis
Assault
Nyzul Assault
Einherjar
Salvage
Zeni NMs
HNMs I (via camping)
HNMs II (via chasing)
The latest patch (June 2008 patch) for FFXI introduced 2 new versions of HNM, which, can be a future trend:
Ixion: A HNM which roams across several zones and is not really campable as it requires very precise and quick reaction to get a team together to take Ixion down.
Sandworm: By engaging battle with Sandworm, it can use an ability called "Doomvoid" which will suck your alliance in to a special battlefield with one of the other HNMs in the game, Serket, King Arthro or Guivre, each with their respective drops as well as additional drops. These HNMs are buffed up compared to their original counterparts.
Partying/Experience Points
Early 2011 updates doubled EXP gain across the board. For example, an Even Match monster would've provided 100 exp, but now provides 200 exp. This means even while soloing Easy Preys/Decent Challenges will yield you significant EXP and you can make great progress in a party.
Abyssea is nearly/more or less a requirement to level to 95 due to unique dynamics in those areas to EXP parties. It's absolutely possible, depending on group/people, to level 75-95 in one sitting assuming all level cap quests has been achieved.
Adventuring Fellow
Adventuring Fellows cannot access ToAU areas, but however CAN now access WoTG areas.
Level cap has been risen to 70.
A lot more customisable with the introduction of "Fellow Points". Customisable stuff includes personalities and gear.
Job/Gameplay Adjustments
Note that the level updates has significantly changed and added a lot of stuff for all the jobs in FFXI. Therefore, below was a list as of June 2010 before the level cap update. For all updates it would be better to refer to the FFXI Wiki than list it all here.
General
Specific
NOTE: These are changes made to the job directly NOT related to merits.
WAR:
Retaliation | Job Ability - Allows a WAR to counterattack, but decreases movement speed.
MNK:
Footwork | Job Ability - Allows a MNK to switch its primary mode of attack to kick attacks only. Increase in damage but also an increase in delay.
THF:
Accomplice/Collaborator | Job Ability - Allows a THF to steal 50%/25% Hate from another part member. Shares a recast timer.
Base damage on all daggers above Level 68 have been modified.
WHM:
Repose | Spell - A light based Sleep spell.
Recall (Location) | Spell - 3 new teleport spells which teleports you to the past, Jugner Forest, Pashhow Marshlands and Meriphataud Mountains in the past (WoTG)
4 new spells: Cura, Auspice, Esune and Sacrifice which is better looked up on as there's too much to explain here.
2 new abilities:
Afflatus Solace - Inspires you to draw strength from the healing spells you cast.
Afflatus Misery - Inspires you to draw strength from the damage you take.
Again, best to look them up, these 2 new abilities work with the 4 new spells as well as existing spells providing a large amount of added effects.
BLM:
Retrace | Spell - A spell which sends you or party members to their home nation in the past (WoTG)
RDM:
Composure | Job Ability - Increases accuracy and lengthens recast time. Enhancement effects gained through white and black magic you cast on yourself last longer. For example, Refresh lasts approximately 3x as long.
PLD:
Sentinel now acts as a mini invincible and reduces damage taken from 90% and gradually decreases until the ability wears off. Also an increase in hate.
Rampart grants a Magical stoneskin effect, which reduces damage taken from magic spells.
Shield Mastery | Job Trait - Blocked hits with the shield gives TP.
Auto Refresh | Job Trait - Grants Auto-Refresh.
Reprisal | Spell - Reflects damage blocked by shield back to attacker.
SAM:
Hasso | Job Ability - Grants a bonus to attack speed, accuracy, and Strength when using two-handed weapons, but increases recast and casting times.
Seigan | Job Ability - Grants a bonus to Third Eye when using two-handed weapons. Allows you to anticipate or counter without losing Third Eye's effect, but increases recast and casting times.
Sekkanoki | Job Ability - Limits TP cost of next weapon skill to 100.
NOTE: SAM has become a very powerful subjob choice for all other jobs with a Two Handed Weapon, due to how Hasso and Seigan can be used while SAM is used as a subjob.
DRK:
Absorb Accuracy | Spell - Absorbs a target's accuracy, lowers their accuracy.
Absorb TP | Spell - Absorbs a target's TP, lowers their TP.
Dread Spikes | Spell - Covers you with magical darkness spikes. Steals HP from enemies that hit you. Ineffective against undead.
Drain II | Spell - Steals an enemy's HP, potentially increasing maximum HP. Ineffective against undead.
BST:
Charmed pets have a regen effect if NOT engaged in battle.
Using "Stay" grants a pet a regen effect which is similar to resting HP.
"Reward" timer has been lowered from 3:00 to 1:30.
Snarl | Job Ability - Transfers all emnity to your pet, jug pets ONLY.
Ready | Job Ability - On jug pets ONLY, based on a "charge" system, if you have 100% TP or more you can pick a TP move of choice from your pet. This replaces the "Sic" command. Different moves use up different amounts of charges (minimum 1, maximum 3).
Leave, Heel and Stay now share a recast timer.
EXP Penalty for having an Even Match or lower pet does NOT penalise a BST's or the party's EXP.
DRG:
Call Wyvern is now on a 20 minute timer and is no longer the job's 2 hour ability.
Spirit Surge | Job Ability - DRG's new 2 hour ability, sacrifices wyvern and increases the master's HP, strength and lower delay. All 3 of the DRG's jumps are also affects by this ability, with Jump decreasing defence, High Jump decreasing TP and Super Jump removing 50% emnity depending on who's in front of the DRG.
Super Jump's recast of 5 minutes has been reduced to 3 minutes.
BRD:
Pianissimo | Job Ability - Next song becomes a single target song.
NIN:
Monomi: Ichi | Spell - A sneak ninjitsu.
Yonin | Job Ability - Increases enmity and enhances "Ninja Tool Expertise" effect, but impairs accuracy. Improves evasion and reduced enemy's Critical Hit Rate when in front of target.
Innin | Job Ability - Reduces enmity and impairs evasion. Grants a bonus to accuracy, critical hit rate, and ninjutsu damage when striking target from behind.
Perhaps that Dual-Wield TP nerf? I forget the exact maths/science behind it.
RNG:
Velocity Shot | Job Ability - Increases attack power and speed of ranged attacks, while reducing attack power and speed of melee attacks.
SMN:
Elemental Siphon | Job Ability - Drains MP from your summoned spirit.
Blood Pact has been split into 2 categories, offensive and defensive, known as "Blood Pact: Rage" and "Blood Pact: Ward" respectively, each with their own respective timers. Before you had to wait if you wanted to, for example, perform a Earth IV and then Earthen Ward on Titan. Now, you can do both, 1 after another.
IF YOU CAME HERE EXPECTING A NEW AVATAR SINCE DIABOLOS, NO, THERE ARE NO NEW AVATARS
-- Scrap that, 2 new avatars were added in March 2010, but are not controllable and can only be called using Astral Flow. Upon summoning them they will unleash their special move and then disappear. The 2 new avatars are Odin and Alexander. Odin will attempt to Zantetsuken all mobs in its radius, one shotting normal mobs and doing (varied) heavy damage on NMs. Alexander will use Perfect Defense to reduce the damage taken for 60-90 seconds on party members.
Hobbies
Introduction of other events which potentially allows you to earn gil and other valuable items:
Chocobo Breeding - Raise your own chocobo and eventually it'll grow up and you can even ride it like a normal chocobo.
Chocobo Racing - Participate in races with the chocobo you raised.
Chocobo Mini Games (Hot&Cold) - Dig up potentially rare and valuable items.
Misc
A function that autosorts your inventory has been added.
It is possible to recieve a sound notification if you get a /tell message.
There is now an official Windower for the game. Verdict says that the unofficial one is still far superior, but it does the job.
A function to turn on battle music the moment you are in range of kind of battle, for example, if a party member has engaged, then the battle music will play.
Absolute Virtue still remains undefeatable and all previous "methods" of defeating have been patched up. Previous methods include locking his abilities (somehow) and the wall thing -- Square Enix released a hint video on how to defeat Absolute Virtue. However, after many many many tests done by people throughout various servers no one was able to reproduced the results shown in the video. To conclude, no one has figured out the true hint in the video although there are apparently some. The fight continues...
After the September 2008 patch, Absolute Virtue was tweaked to 100% pop after Jailer of Love is defeated, but will depop in 2 hours. This countermeasure was implemented to stop people fighting it for extended periods of time. Likewise, the Tier 5 ZNM also got the same treatment. Both NMs got tweaked in terms of behaviour and HP values.
However, due to this updated HP value, some shells were able to kill AV really really fast by throwing DRKs at it with zerging weapons such as Kraken Club. This resulted in an emergency maintenance which takes us back to step one. So AV was defeatable for a few days but now it's back to where we started.
2011 update: Due to new level cap, and clever usage of the new summons, both PW and AV are now defeated on a regular basis.
Additions/Changes from the September 2008 Update:
Level Sync System
Level sync allows you to lower your level to match a party member's level, allowing you to play on the same level as them so you can still get EXP or limit points on your main job with no penalties at all.
With the addition to this system, a gear reduction system which alters the gear's stats to match your sync'ed level has also been placed in. So if you're using this feature but have all your gear from Level 75, you can still wear that gear, it just won't be as effective. It is important to note that Square Enix has said that any other gear at the same level would be much better than the gear reduction system, but it serves as a mean to play with other people or do certain events without needing to fully deck out yourself just for say, a Level 50 cap event.
Most players have expressed positive views with the level sync system, as it allows them to play with others/help do events without needing to transfer like 20 items across from another account/mule. However, a few has given negative comments about it such as how unfair or heavy the penalty for the gear scaling system operates. For example, at Level 10 your Kirin's Osode will only give you some DEF, at level 70 your Kirin's
Osode will give you +3 (need clarification) to all stats. Whether it is fair or not is down to you, but either way it opens up a lot of the game (again) for everyone. Also, most bonuses/additional effects are completely lost.
New Relic System
A new relic system called "Mythic Weapons" is in place which serves as an alternative way to get powerful weapons without doing Dynamis (the
previous method to get relics). In this feature, it is important to note that Square Enix has said that the weapons that you're able to obtain here are NOT as good as the original relics, but some people may argue otherwise. This new relic system is based entirely on the ToAU expansion
pack.
For example, looking at it from a PLD's perspective, here's the sword relic (original):
Excalibur Rare/Ex
(Sword) All Races
DMG: 49 Delay: 233 Attack +20
Additional effect:
Damage proportionate to current HP
"Knights of Round"
Lv. 75 RDM / PLD
And here's the new sword relic
Burtgang Rare/Ex
(Sword) All Races
DMG: 46 Delay: 264
Enmity + 10
Physical Damage Taken -10%
Reduces Enmity decrease when taking physical damage.
"Atonement"
Aftermath: Increases Acc./Atk.
Occasionally attacks twice
Lv. 75 PLD
Situational of course, but a few argue that a lot of the new relics are better than the old ones. I'm not going to comment on anything else but as you can see, the sword is much better for tanking than Excalibur is.
The difficulty of obtaining these relics can be classified as the same or as long as the Dynamis way. With the old system, you collect the base
weapon in Dynamis and about 17000 ancient currency (varies) and a few specific items from NMs in specific Dynamis areas.
In the new system, you're required to collect 30000 Alexandrites (rocks or currency, depending on how you look at it) from Salvage, beat the 3 Beastmen Kings (for the title), beat the 3 HNMs (for the title), do all 50 assaults (even if you've completed them), beat Nyzul Isle and collect 150,000 tokens, do Einhenjar until you collect 100,000 ampoules, beat the 3 Tier 4 ZNMs for their trophe items (rare drop rate) and most likely face a mega boss at the end.
2011 update: Empyrean Weapons and Upgrading Dynamis and Mythic Weapons
Empyrean Weapons:
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Category:Empyrean_Weapons
To sum it up, a set of items obtained via the Magian system, but can be more or less summed up as relics. Usually involves killing NM x times and getting x amount of said items from the NMs, which I believe are all poppable.
New Battlefield System
A new battlefield type system similar to BCNM and KSNM has been added which applies to areas in the latest expansion pack (WoTG). You go around killing specific NMs in their respective strongholds and trade these items to a spot to gain access to a battlefield. I believe the unofficial term is "SHNM" - Strong Hold NM.
Seal Storage
It is possible to store you Kindred/Beastmen seals with the NPC in Port Jueno. This saves inventory room for people who may have a few stacks. You then exchange them off the NPC for orbs. So if you deposit 43 Kindred Seals with the NPC, and then talk to the NPC again, the NPC tells how many seals you have for either category, then asks you which orb you want in exchange.
Dynamis and Limbus
Costs to both of these events are halved. So you pay 500,000g for the hour glass to get into Dynamis and pay 15,000g to get into Limbus.
On that note, CoP Dynamis Areas and Dynamis Iceland areas have increased drop rates on AF. Someone over at BG reported 5 RDM hats dropping.
Experience Points
Doubled across the board as mentioned earlier. Even Match gives 200exp now, making soloing a viable option. Can achieve significantly more in parties now.
Fields of Valor
An extension of the Experience Points section, players can now participate in "Fields Of Valor" designed for lower level players (10-50) which pits you with small objectives, where upon completion, grants you small packets of EXP and gil. Typically you're required to kill X number of X mob and Y mob and return back to the starting point to collect the reward. It can be done once per Vanadiel Day.
2011 update: changed it so you can spam these FoVs indefinitely, which is a good option for soloers. However, the tabs and gil can only be recieved once day Vanadiel Day (to prevent RMT and such).
Treasure Caskets/Boxes
Defeating monsters in normal areas (none expansion and also none dungeon) may pop a treasure box which can give you temporary items like TP Wings, Potions, Antidotes which you can use while you're in the zone, to locked boxes where you must figure out the lock combination using the clues provided to provide you with some unique low level gear and synthesis materials.
Moblin Maze Mongers (MMM)
A new once a RL day event (you can join as many as you like, but you can only "host" (lead) once per RL day) which you can participate in and "build your own dungeon" which is essentially being able to customise what you want within the base/template layout. This includes slotting in mobs specifically allowing you to gain EXP, or crafting "missions" allowing you to gain skill ups, and place hard specific bosses (NMs) in the dungeon which can drop new rare/ex weapons (some good, some OK) as well as customising the power (level) of these NMs!
Item Augmentation
Via FoV and MMM and a few other events it is possible to achieve items with "augments" (which becomes unsellable/tradeable). This can greatly enhance or ruin (ruin is more likely, most good augments seem to be luck/determination) a piece of gear. For example with enough determination or luck it's possible to get INT+6 on an Igqira Weskit. Others have been trying +Acc on their Dusk Gloves. The possibilities are endless as long as the item isn't Rare or EX it can be augmented.
New Craft - Synergy
There is a new craft called Synergy. It's quite a complex system but in a nutshell it allows a party to help each other craft items, along with customising it for specific situations.
3 sets of new gear has been released for this purpose, which can also change in colour (Red, Black, White). They can then be further changed into "EX" gear which are more specialised for certain jobs, containing beneficial stats in relation to that job.
The final result of the gear is that it's augmented but with a more situational purpose. For example on the PLD sets of gear, it's possible to get "augments" which allow Divine Spells to have a lesser recast time, or grant a Magic Defense Bonus vs Undead.
Other people have been making gear specifically for "bird" fighting (Colibri), i.e. it's possible to get Augments such as "Vs Birds: Attack +5" on these new types of gears.
3 Mini "Add On" Scenarios
There are 3 add on scenarios which basically grants a questline for $10/each. After registering them you will be able to do them. These scenarios are gotten via download only. They are called:
A Crystalline Prophecy (ACP)
A Moogle Kupo d'Etat (AMK)
A Shantotto Ascension (ASA)
Each pack has you visiting old areas again to do minor quests until the final 2 fights which typically requires a full party to beat. The prizes are level 75 armor (from each pack), ACP gives you a body piece, AMK gives you a head piece and ASA gives you a leg piece, all with selectable list of augments you can put on them. The downside is that there are 3 pieces for each piece (melee, mage, hybrid) and you can only pick 2 augments. The upside is that you can reobtain the armor after dropping it and redoing the quest. The downside to that? Unless you carry 5 slaves around with you, it's quite difficult to get people to redo these quests, primarily because it's all such a pain in the ass.
Want to come back/thinking about coming back?
The "norm" these days requires you to have at least the first 3 expansion packs. If you want to do Moblin Maze Monger, which is still relatively new/fresh, you will need the 4th expansion pack. Otherwise however it is STILL normal to NOT have Sea, but people getting Sky and Dynamis access seems to be "base", and if you get ToAU then you'd be expected to do a few (quite easy) missions to access Assault and later on Salvage/Einhenjar.
In 2011, having all 3 Abyssea is a requirement, as most if not all activities take place in here.
Magian Weapon System
March 2010 introduced the quest "Trial of the Magians". Currently it allows you to pick a base weapon type, and by completing certain "trials" (objectives) upgrade it 5 times down a specific path, giving it a variety of stats, such as "Occasionally Attacks Twice". One thing to note is that all weapons allows you to go down a specific path which will allow it to exceed an equivalent relic weapon, DMG rating wise. For example, on the Great Sword, the DMG rating on it was 83+10 (augmented) but no additional stats, which exceeds Ragnarok's DMG rating by 7 (86).
Relic/Mythic holders, except Shield/Horn, don't worry. The system also allows you to upgrade your mythic/relic, but currently only twice, each upgrade giving a +DMG augment. In the Great Sword case, when fully completed to the second stage, will give Ragnarok a +9 DMG augment, making it 86+9, exceeding the one with no stats already.
This system gives people that already have relics to upgrade their weapon even more, whereas at the same time it gives people with no means to complete a relic an opportunity to get something stronger by making them work for it in a different manner.
All trials in this system requires you do one of the following:
1. Kill a specific NM X number of times (usually low level ones)
2. Kill specific family of mobs X number of times
3. Kill specific families of mobs under X weather and/or X day X number of times
4. On some of the later stages where it contains additional effects, you need to trigger this additional effect X number of times
5. For relic weapons, you need to perform the relic weaponskill X number of times on a specific family of mobs for the 1st stage, and on the 2nd tage perform the relic weaponskill X number of times ensuring you kill the mob with it on a specific family of mobs.
This also added several new abilities/traits to the 20 jobs. Details can be found @ http://www.playonline.com/pcd/topics/ff11eu/detail/5562/detail.html
New Event/Area: Abyssea
An area that can be accessed by purchasing the Abyssea addons. Unlike the previous addons these focus purely on battling. You can earn a variety of good gear here as well as use it as a place to gain experience. Currently as of June 2010 3 Abyssea zones can be accessed:
http://www.playonline.com/pcd/verup/ff11us/detail/5578/detail.html
This is 1 of the 3 Abyssea addons.
Special October 2011 Notes
2011 October Update: Get all the expansion packs. Should be cheap enough now and there's that stuff on Steam, I believe, which sells everything very cheapily (via the "all in one" game packs) and the development team seems to be showing signs of rehashing every area for level 99 content.
Level cap is currently 95.
HNM/Events section no longer 100% valid. Due to level cap reaching to 95, most of the "good stuff" comes from Abyssea.
Sky Gear is still somewhat valuable, and so are Abjuration gear, for they can be augmented using Synergy.
The 3 HNM and their 3 HQ counterparts are no longer 21-24 hour lotto, but spawned by pop items dropped from their respective KSNM99 versions. The pop item can be traded to spawn the NQ HNM, where, upon kill, there's a small % of it dropping the HQ item.
Last updated: October 2011 (loose info)
In light of so many players that have once played and are now once again returning back to the game, this is a topic made to answer the common questions you may have in regards to the game's current situation/condition. You may also use it to refresh yourselves or learn about the game as it is today.
Look out for the bolded "2011 update:" text for the latest/most important notes.
This topic is written in assumption that you've left before the 2 new expansions came out after Chains of Promanthia OR in between the 2 expansion packs.
This topic is split into sections. The idea is that you can quickly refer to it without needing to dig through updates and updates from Playonline itself.
NOTE: Active players, if you want to contribute/correct me on anything, please post and I will wrangle the changes in. Please note that I am speaking from a general point of view, and do not plan to go indepth on anything. Should anything require "indepth" discussion then a new topic can be made.
NOTE2: I am writing this from my understanding of things based on what I have read on this and some other forums. If anything is incorrect, please do express your opinions and I'll wrangle it in the post. I do not know everything about the game.
New Jobs
The last 2 expansion packs, Treasures of Aht Urhgan (ToAU) and Wings of the Goddess (WoTG), introduced Puppetmaster, Blue Mage, Corsair (ToAU), Dancer, Scholar (WoTG).
Puppetmaster is a new pet job. (PUP)
Blue Mage is a mage/melee hybrid with emphasis on Enemy Skills. (BLU)
Corsair is a "luck" based job, focusing on dice rolls. (COR)
All the AF+1/Dynamis AF and their +1 parts have been released for the above jobs.
Scholar is a mix of White Mage and Black Mage. (SCH)
Dancer utilizes "dances" for effects, which uses TP instead of MP or consumables like a Ninja would. (DNC)
NOTE: It is interesting to point out that the SCH is a very good subjob for all mage jobs and DNC is a very good subjob across all frontline jobs, greatly enhancing the soloability of those jobs.
Depending on situation, a SCH can replace a BLM, WHM or RDM no problem due to their abilities and spell list.
December 2008 update added SCH and DNC AF+1/Dynamis AF and their +1 versions to the game, as well as Category II merits.
Economy
Due to the Special Task Force, a group of people Square-Enix moved in to resolve RMT issues, prices have been dropping rapidly across most items. Also, the availability of items have increased widely due to the introduction of specific events/quests. Another reason is that everyone has these items already, so the price will be naturally lowered.
Example: Scorpion Harness = 13mil~ during Christmas 2005; now as of June 2008 it is about 200k.
Even though there are still RMT/Gilsellers in the game, the numbers have been severely reduced and are not as noticable before. You'll see the odd fishers/RMT parties every now and then but it's quite cleaned up now.
Valuable items remain in the rarer items, for example a few new crafting materials that drop from ToAU are still rather rare as they come from specific events/battlefields, however the items produced from these specific materials isn't "essential" but are essentially fancy add ons you can obtain. Otherwise, high quality versions of gear, particularly Haubergeon remain "expensive" in today's terms, but otherwise everything else is more or less affordable.
It is interesting to note that gil is a bit harder to make for a first time player or a returning player starting from scratch, due to crystals selling much lower than before per stack. Typically, Earth and Wind Crystals are 500g a stack and Fire Crystals are 1000g. One thing to consider is that buying off the Auction House isn't the only option, as for lower levels of gear, buying off the NPCs are now a better option more often than not.
Events/Gear
Zilart HNMs still remain fairly dominant in terms of gear, the prime examples being Defending Ring, Adaman Hauberk and Ridill. From Sky, Byakko's Haidate still remain a dominant and desirable piece. It is no longer as difficult to gather the items to fight Byakko, as the conditions to get such items have been adjusted to a more player friendly manner.
2011 Update: Defending Ring is still a good piece but there are several new pieces of higher level gear such as AF3+1/+2 (yes, a new set of AFs) that provide very good stats that are actually useful for the jobs they are for. Less priority is placed on the HNMs now and instead players are given a more casual system of farming NMs in Abyssea to upgrade their gear.
However, efforts have been made to draw people away from them, but otherwise competition for the mentioned items above remain high. For example, ToAU introduced 5 new events with near equal gear (it's all situational depending on what you think, but all in all it's quite desirable gear).
"Assaults" "Nyzul Assaults" "Einherjar" "Salvage" "Zeni NMs"
Assaults require you to sign up on mini missions as required by the empire and you can earn unique gear and "Assault" gear as prizes.
Nyzul Assaults are designed for small, 3-6 man party groups to go against a series of monsters, puzzles and limitations. It is an instanced event which drops quite good gear for all the available jobs. It is a branch off the Assault system, with better rewards.
Einherjar is a similar to Dynamis but on a 30 minute timer, with possible Abjurations drops from the Zilart HNMs, along with 2 sets of entirely new Abjurations that you can obtain, plus further possible accessories via the "Therion Ichor" system, which are like points you can use to obtain items with.
Salvage is a 6-18 man event with a more focus on smaller groups teamworking well together due to the limitations placed within these areas. You basically start off naked and severely weakened in all aspects of your character, and you'll have to work your way around the dungeon unlocking your abilities, stats, spells, subjobs, armor slots. Salvage provides very good and desirable gear for all the jobs that can equip it.
Zeni NMs are simple NMs which you can pop via the acquisition of "Zeni", another points system. For this, you simply take photos of monsters asked by the specific 2 NPCs and trade the photos in for "Zeni" which can then be used to purchase pop items for specific NMs, dropping quite unique and desirable gear. There is progression as you have to defeat specific tiers of NMs to pop the higher tiers of NMs.
Note: Dancer and Scholar currently do not have Salvage gear available/assigned to them.
WoTG introduced Campaign, in which you can help defend or attack a location for "Allied Notes" which you can trade in for some decent gear, if you do not have options to obtain gear anywhere else. Otherwise for most jobs there are better gear elsewhere.
Otherwise, to sum up, the "end game" events you can now do to obtain gear are:
Sky
Sea
Limbus
Dynamis
Assault
Nyzul Assault
Einherjar
Salvage
Zeni NMs
HNMs I (via camping)
HNMs II (via chasing)
The latest patch (June 2008 patch) for FFXI introduced 2 new versions of HNM, which, can be a future trend:
Ixion: A HNM which roams across several zones and is not really campable as it requires very precise and quick reaction to get a team together to take Ixion down.
Sandworm: By engaging battle with Sandworm, it can use an ability called "Doomvoid" which will suck your alliance in to a special battlefield with one of the other HNMs in the game, Serket, King Arthro or Guivre, each with their respective drops as well as additional drops. These HNMs are buffed up compared to their original counterparts.
Partying/Experience Points
Early 2011 updates doubled EXP gain across the board. For example, an Even Match monster would've provided 100 exp, but now provides 200 exp. This means even while soloing Easy Preys/Decent Challenges will yield you significant EXP and you can make great progress in a party.
Abyssea is nearly/more or less a requirement to level to 95 due to unique dynamics in those areas to EXP parties. It's absolutely possible, depending on group/people, to level 75-95 in one sitting assuming all level cap quests has been achieved.
Adventuring Fellow
Adventuring Fellows cannot access ToAU areas, but however CAN now access WoTG areas.
Level cap has been risen to 70.
A lot more customisable with the introduction of "Fellow Points". Customisable stuff includes personalities and gear.
Job/Gameplay Adjustments
Note that the level updates has significantly changed and added a lot of stuff for all the jobs in FFXI. Therefore, below was a list as of June 2010 before the level cap update. For all updates it would be better to refer to the FFXI Wiki than list it all here.
General
- A Two Handed Weapon patch/fix was introduced sometime in 2007 (I forgot exactly when) which narrows the gap to where the NIN subjob isn't "the only option" anymore.
This is has made jobs that can use Two Handed Weapons much more decent than jobs where Dual-Wield was more overpowered before. Due to this, jobs before that weren't really considered for a party due to their inability to keep up with damage are now much more desirable. For example, WARs should now be wielding a Great Axe.
- "Tier 2" merits were introduced for all jobs except SCH and DNC. This has increased their available abilities and traits at Level 75. For example, WAR can learn a new ability which allows you them throw Axes (consumable Axes, not main/sub weapon axes)
- The maximum amount of merits able to be placed in the categories "Combat Skills" and "Magic Skills" have been increased. Combat skills have increased from 12 -> 20, Magic skills have increased from 8 -> 16.
- A further update expanded the potential of Tier 2 merits. For example, THFs were able to merit a new ability called "Feint". Under the old Tier 2 merit system, when fully merited, the recast of the ability was 6 minutes. Under this new system, THFs were able to further merit it to become a 2 minute recast (each merit put in lowered the recast by 2 minutes).
- The 4 jobs with Circle spells, PLD, DRK, SAM and BST (but BST's one needs to be meritted) grants an Attack and Defense bonus against specific monster families when used. So for example, a PLD can deal extra damage and defend against undead a bit more efficiently.
Specific
NOTE: These are changes made to the job directly NOT related to merits.
WAR:
Retaliation | Job Ability - Allows a WAR to counterattack, but decreases movement speed.
MNK:
Footwork | Job Ability - Allows a MNK to switch its primary mode of attack to kick attacks only. Increase in damage but also an increase in delay.
THF:
Accomplice/Collaborator | Job Ability - Allows a THF to steal 50%/25% Hate from another part member. Shares a recast timer.
Base damage on all daggers above Level 68 have been modified.
WHM:
Repose | Spell - A light based Sleep spell.
Recall (Location) | Spell - 3 new teleport spells which teleports you to the past, Jugner Forest, Pashhow Marshlands and Meriphataud Mountains in the past (WoTG)
4 new spells: Cura, Auspice, Esune and Sacrifice which is better looked up on as there's too much to explain here.
2 new abilities:
Afflatus Solace - Inspires you to draw strength from the healing spells you cast.
Afflatus Misery - Inspires you to draw strength from the damage you take.
Again, best to look them up, these 2 new abilities work with the 4 new spells as well as existing spells providing a large amount of added effects.
BLM:
Retrace | Spell - A spell which sends you or party members to their home nation in the past (WoTG)
RDM:
Composure | Job Ability - Increases accuracy and lengthens recast time. Enhancement effects gained through white and black magic you cast on yourself last longer. For example, Refresh lasts approximately 3x as long.
PLD:
Sentinel now acts as a mini invincible and reduces damage taken from 90% and gradually decreases until the ability wears off. Also an increase in hate.
Rampart grants a Magical stoneskin effect, which reduces damage taken from magic spells.
Shield Mastery | Job Trait - Blocked hits with the shield gives TP.
Auto Refresh | Job Trait - Grants Auto-Refresh.
Reprisal | Spell - Reflects damage blocked by shield back to attacker.
SAM:
Hasso | Job Ability - Grants a bonus to attack speed, accuracy, and Strength when using two-handed weapons, but increases recast and casting times.
Seigan | Job Ability - Grants a bonus to Third Eye when using two-handed weapons. Allows you to anticipate or counter without losing Third Eye's effect, but increases recast and casting times.
Sekkanoki | Job Ability - Limits TP cost of next weapon skill to 100.
NOTE: SAM has become a very powerful subjob choice for all other jobs with a Two Handed Weapon, due to how Hasso and Seigan can be used while SAM is used as a subjob.
DRK:
Absorb Accuracy | Spell - Absorbs a target's accuracy, lowers their accuracy.
Absorb TP | Spell - Absorbs a target's TP, lowers their TP.
Dread Spikes | Spell - Covers you with magical darkness spikes. Steals HP from enemies that hit you. Ineffective against undead.
Drain II | Spell - Steals an enemy's HP, potentially increasing maximum HP. Ineffective against undead.
BST:
Charmed pets have a regen effect if NOT engaged in battle.
Using "Stay" grants a pet a regen effect which is similar to resting HP.
"Reward" timer has been lowered from 3:00 to 1:30.
Snarl | Job Ability - Transfers all emnity to your pet, jug pets ONLY.
Ready | Job Ability - On jug pets ONLY, based on a "charge" system, if you have 100% TP or more you can pick a TP move of choice from your pet. This replaces the "Sic" command. Different moves use up different amounts of charges (minimum 1, maximum 3).
Leave, Heel and Stay now share a recast timer.
EXP Penalty for having an Even Match or lower pet does NOT penalise a BST's or the party's EXP.
DRG:
Call Wyvern is now on a 20 minute timer and is no longer the job's 2 hour ability.
Spirit Surge | Job Ability - DRG's new 2 hour ability, sacrifices wyvern and increases the master's HP, strength and lower delay. All 3 of the DRG's jumps are also affects by this ability, with Jump decreasing defence, High Jump decreasing TP and Super Jump removing 50% emnity depending on who's in front of the DRG.
Super Jump's recast of 5 minutes has been reduced to 3 minutes.
BRD:
Pianissimo | Job Ability - Next song becomes a single target song.
NIN:
Monomi: Ichi | Spell - A sneak ninjitsu.
Yonin | Job Ability - Increases enmity and enhances "Ninja Tool Expertise" effect, but impairs accuracy. Improves evasion and reduced enemy's Critical Hit Rate when in front of target.
Innin | Job Ability - Reduces enmity and impairs evasion. Grants a bonus to accuracy, critical hit rate, and ninjutsu damage when striking target from behind.
Perhaps that Dual-Wield TP nerf? I forget the exact maths/science behind it.
RNG:
Velocity Shot | Job Ability - Increases attack power and speed of ranged attacks, while reducing attack power and speed of melee attacks.
SMN:
Elemental Siphon | Job Ability - Drains MP from your summoned spirit.
Blood Pact has been split into 2 categories, offensive and defensive, known as "Blood Pact: Rage" and "Blood Pact: Ward" respectively, each with their own respective timers. Before you had to wait if you wanted to, for example, perform a Earth IV and then Earthen Ward on Titan. Now, you can do both, 1 after another.
IF YOU CAME HERE EXPECTING A NEW AVATAR SINCE DIABOLOS, NO, THERE ARE NO NEW AVATARS
-- Scrap that, 2 new avatars were added in March 2010, but are not controllable and can only be called using Astral Flow. Upon summoning them they will unleash their special move and then disappear. The 2 new avatars are Odin and Alexander. Odin will attempt to Zantetsuken all mobs in its radius, one shotting normal mobs and doing (varied) heavy damage on NMs. Alexander will use Perfect Defense to reduce the damage taken for 60-90 seconds on party members.
Hobbies
Introduction of other events which potentially allows you to earn gil and other valuable items:
Chocobo Breeding - Raise your own chocobo and eventually it'll grow up and you can even ride it like a normal chocobo.
Chocobo Racing - Participate in races with the chocobo you raised.
Chocobo Mini Games (Hot&Cold) - Dig up potentially rare and valuable items.
Misc
A function that autosorts your inventory has been added.
It is possible to recieve a sound notification if you get a /tell message.
There is now an official Windower for the game. Verdict says that the unofficial one is still far superior, but it does the job.
A function to turn on battle music the moment you are in range of kind of battle, for example, if a party member has engaged, then the battle music will play.
Absolute Virtue still remains undefeatable and all previous "methods" of defeating have been patched up. Previous methods include locking his abilities (somehow) and the wall thing -- Square Enix released a hint video on how to defeat Absolute Virtue. However, after many many many tests done by people throughout various servers no one was able to reproduced the results shown in the video. To conclude, no one has figured out the true hint in the video although there are apparently some. The fight continues...
After the September 2008 patch, Absolute Virtue was tweaked to 100% pop after Jailer of Love is defeated, but will depop in 2 hours. This countermeasure was implemented to stop people fighting it for extended periods of time. Likewise, the Tier 5 ZNM also got the same treatment. Both NMs got tweaked in terms of behaviour and HP values.
However, due to this updated HP value, some shells were able to kill AV really really fast by throwing DRKs at it with zerging weapons such as Kraken Club. This resulted in an emergency maintenance which takes us back to step one. So AV was defeatable for a few days but now it's back to where we started.
2011 update: Due to new level cap, and clever usage of the new summons, both PW and AV are now defeated on a regular basis.
Additions/Changes from the September 2008 Update:
Level Sync System
Level sync allows you to lower your level to match a party member's level, allowing you to play on the same level as them so you can still get EXP or limit points on your main job with no penalties at all.
With the addition to this system, a gear reduction system which alters the gear's stats to match your sync'ed level has also been placed in. So if you're using this feature but have all your gear from Level 75, you can still wear that gear, it just won't be as effective. It is important to note that Square Enix has said that any other gear at the same level would be much better than the gear reduction system, but it serves as a mean to play with other people or do certain events without needing to fully deck out yourself just for say, a Level 50 cap event.
Most players have expressed positive views with the level sync system, as it allows them to play with others/help do events without needing to transfer like 20 items across from another account/mule. However, a few has given negative comments about it such as how unfair or heavy the penalty for the gear scaling system operates. For example, at Level 10 your Kirin's Osode will only give you some DEF, at level 70 your Kirin's
Osode will give you +3 (need clarification) to all stats. Whether it is fair or not is down to you, but either way it opens up a lot of the game (again) for everyone. Also, most bonuses/additional effects are completely lost.
New Relic System
A new relic system called "Mythic Weapons" is in place which serves as an alternative way to get powerful weapons without doing Dynamis (the
previous method to get relics). In this feature, it is important to note that Square Enix has said that the weapons that you're able to obtain here are NOT as good as the original relics, but some people may argue otherwise. This new relic system is based entirely on the ToAU expansion
pack.
For example, looking at it from a PLD's perspective, here's the sword relic (original):
Excalibur Rare/Ex
(Sword) All Races
DMG: 49 Delay: 233 Attack +20
Additional effect:
Damage proportionate to current HP
"Knights of Round"
Lv. 75 RDM / PLD
And here's the new sword relic
Burtgang Rare/Ex
(Sword) All Races
DMG: 46 Delay: 264
Enmity + 10
Physical Damage Taken -10%
Reduces Enmity decrease when taking physical damage.
"Atonement"
Aftermath: Increases Acc./Atk.
Occasionally attacks twice
Lv. 75 PLD
Situational of course, but a few argue that a lot of the new relics are better than the old ones. I'm not going to comment on anything else but as you can see, the sword is much better for tanking than Excalibur is.
The difficulty of obtaining these relics can be classified as the same or as long as the Dynamis way. With the old system, you collect the base
weapon in Dynamis and about 17000 ancient currency (varies) and a few specific items from NMs in specific Dynamis areas.
In the new system, you're required to collect 30000 Alexandrites (rocks or currency, depending on how you look at it) from Salvage, beat the 3 Beastmen Kings (for the title), beat the 3 HNMs (for the title), do all 50 assaults (even if you've completed them), beat Nyzul Isle and collect 150,000 tokens, do Einhenjar until you collect 100,000 ampoules, beat the 3 Tier 4 ZNMs for their trophe items (rare drop rate) and most likely face a mega boss at the end.
2011 update: Empyrean Weapons and Upgrading Dynamis and Mythic Weapons
Empyrean Weapons:
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Category:Empyrean_Weapons
To sum it up, a set of items obtained via the Magian system, but can be more or less summed up as relics. Usually involves killing NM x times and getting x amount of said items from the NMs, which I believe are all poppable.
New Battlefield System
A new battlefield type system similar to BCNM and KSNM has been added which applies to areas in the latest expansion pack (WoTG). You go around killing specific NMs in their respective strongholds and trade these items to a spot to gain access to a battlefield. I believe the unofficial term is "SHNM" - Strong Hold NM.
Seal Storage
It is possible to store you Kindred/Beastmen seals with the NPC in Port Jueno. This saves inventory room for people who may have a few stacks. You then exchange them off the NPC for orbs. So if you deposit 43 Kindred Seals with the NPC, and then talk to the NPC again, the NPC tells how many seals you have for either category, then asks you which orb you want in exchange.
Dynamis and Limbus
Costs to both of these events are halved. So you pay 500,000g for the hour glass to get into Dynamis and pay 15,000g to get into Limbus.
On that note, CoP Dynamis Areas and Dynamis Iceland areas have increased drop rates on AF. Someone over at BG reported 5 RDM hats dropping.
Experience Points
Doubled across the board as mentioned earlier. Even Match gives 200exp now, making soloing a viable option. Can achieve significantly more in parties now.
Fields of Valor
An extension of the Experience Points section, players can now participate in "Fields Of Valor" designed for lower level players (10-50) which pits you with small objectives, where upon completion, grants you small packets of EXP and gil. Typically you're required to kill X number of X mob and Y mob and return back to the starting point to collect the reward. It can be done once per Vanadiel Day.
2011 update: changed it so you can spam these FoVs indefinitely, which is a good option for soloers. However, the tabs and gil can only be recieved once day Vanadiel Day (to prevent RMT and such).
Treasure Caskets/Boxes
Defeating monsters in normal areas (none expansion and also none dungeon) may pop a treasure box which can give you temporary items like TP Wings, Potions, Antidotes which you can use while you're in the zone, to locked boxes where you must figure out the lock combination using the clues provided to provide you with some unique low level gear and synthesis materials.
Moblin Maze Mongers (MMM)
A new once a RL day event (you can join as many as you like, but you can only "host" (lead) once per RL day) which you can participate in and "build your own dungeon" which is essentially being able to customise what you want within the base/template layout. This includes slotting in mobs specifically allowing you to gain EXP, or crafting "missions" allowing you to gain skill ups, and place hard specific bosses (NMs) in the dungeon which can drop new rare/ex weapons (some good, some OK) as well as customising the power (level) of these NMs!
Item Augmentation
Via FoV and MMM and a few other events it is possible to achieve items with "augments" (which becomes unsellable/tradeable). This can greatly enhance or ruin (ruin is more likely, most good augments seem to be luck/determination) a piece of gear. For example with enough determination or luck it's possible to get INT+6 on an Igqira Weskit. Others have been trying +Acc on their Dusk Gloves. The possibilities are endless as long as the item isn't Rare or EX it can be augmented.
New Craft - Synergy
There is a new craft called Synergy. It's quite a complex system but in a nutshell it allows a party to help each other craft items, along with customising it for specific situations.
3 sets of new gear has been released for this purpose, which can also change in colour (Red, Black, White). They can then be further changed into "EX" gear which are more specialised for certain jobs, containing beneficial stats in relation to that job.
The final result of the gear is that it's augmented but with a more situational purpose. For example on the PLD sets of gear, it's possible to get "augments" which allow Divine Spells to have a lesser recast time, or grant a Magic Defense Bonus vs Undead.
Other people have been making gear specifically for "bird" fighting (Colibri), i.e. it's possible to get Augments such as "Vs Birds: Attack +5" on these new types of gears.
3 Mini "Add On" Scenarios
There are 3 add on scenarios which basically grants a questline for $10/each. After registering them you will be able to do them. These scenarios are gotten via download only. They are called:
A Crystalline Prophecy (ACP)
A Moogle Kupo d'Etat (AMK)
A Shantotto Ascension (ASA)
Each pack has you visiting old areas again to do minor quests until the final 2 fights which typically requires a full party to beat. The prizes are level 75 armor (from each pack), ACP gives you a body piece, AMK gives you a head piece and ASA gives you a leg piece, all with selectable list of augments you can put on them. The downside is that there are 3 pieces for each piece (melee, mage, hybrid) and you can only pick 2 augments. The upside is that you can reobtain the armor after dropping it and redoing the quest. The downside to that? Unless you carry 5 slaves around with you, it's quite difficult to get people to redo these quests, primarily because it's all such a pain in the ass.
Want to come back/thinking about coming back?
The "norm" these days requires you to have at least the first 3 expansion packs. If you want to do Moblin Maze Monger, which is still relatively new/fresh, you will need the 4th expansion pack. Otherwise however it is STILL normal to NOT have Sea, but people getting Sky and Dynamis access seems to be "base", and if you get ToAU then you'd be expected to do a few (quite easy) missions to access Assault and later on Salvage/Einhenjar.
In 2011, having all 3 Abyssea is a requirement, as most if not all activities take place in here.
Magian Weapon System
March 2010 introduced the quest "Trial of the Magians". Currently it allows you to pick a base weapon type, and by completing certain "trials" (objectives) upgrade it 5 times down a specific path, giving it a variety of stats, such as "Occasionally Attacks Twice". One thing to note is that all weapons allows you to go down a specific path which will allow it to exceed an equivalent relic weapon, DMG rating wise. For example, on the Great Sword, the DMG rating on it was 83+10 (augmented) but no additional stats, which exceeds Ragnarok's DMG rating by 7 (86).
Relic/Mythic holders, except Shield/Horn, don't worry. The system also allows you to upgrade your mythic/relic, but currently only twice, each upgrade giving a +DMG augment. In the Great Sword case, when fully completed to the second stage, will give Ragnarok a +9 DMG augment, making it 86+9, exceeding the one with no stats already.
This system gives people that already have relics to upgrade their weapon even more, whereas at the same time it gives people with no means to complete a relic an opportunity to get something stronger by making them work for it in a different manner.
All trials in this system requires you do one of the following:
1. Kill a specific NM X number of times (usually low level ones)
2. Kill specific family of mobs X number of times
3. Kill specific families of mobs under X weather and/or X day X number of times
4. On some of the later stages where it contains additional effects, you need to trigger this additional effect X number of times
5. For relic weapons, you need to perform the relic weaponskill X number of times on a specific family of mobs for the 1st stage, and on the 2nd tage perform the relic weaponskill X number of times ensuring you kill the mob with it on a specific family of mobs.
This also added several new abilities/traits to the 20 jobs. Details can be found @ http://www.playonline.com/pcd/topics/ff11eu/detail/5562/detail.html
New Event/Area: Abyssea
An area that can be accessed by purchasing the Abyssea addons. Unlike the previous addons these focus purely on battling. You can earn a variety of good gear here as well as use it as a place to gain experience. Currently as of June 2010 3 Abyssea zones can be accessed:
http://www.playonline.com/pcd/verup/ff11us/detail/5578/detail.html
This is 1 of the 3 Abyssea addons.
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