Hiromichi Tanaka retires and other Vanafest 2012 tidbits

[isiolia]

Can FFXI even be played on PS2 still? I thought the game finally exceeded the HDD's storage capacity. Or is it possible to increase the HDD space?

Yes. They actually just got the space allocated for the game increased in a recent patch. The space issues that the game started having at one point were actually due to the updater not cleaning up old files properly, so the game size was inflating more than it should have.

I'm sure part of the thinking with the new jobs is getting people to grind even more. One thing I really like about the job system is that, one, you can do everything with one character, and secondly, that it keeps some of the lower level areas more populated, since they need to be re-visited to level up lower jobs.

I don't think the new jobs will accomplish that at all. XP is ridiculously easy to get. Barring some artificial limitation, people will be 99 on them within 24 hours of the content going live. Not everyone, of course, but some. Skilling up, gearing, all that will take longer, but XP itself is very fast.

The one thing I wish they would add is easier quests to grind experience from, or to increase the level gap before mobs stop giving experience, so it'd be a little easier to grind stuff out solo.

They've done all those things, multiple times. Fields of Valor, Ground of Valor, letting you repeat them more than once a game day, letting them auto repeat. Signet bonuses, reduced party XP penalty, increased EP/DC XP, twice. They also boosted max XP.

Compared to what the game was like at release it's night and day. At one point, we hoped to get a party for 3-5k XP/hr. Prior to Abyssea, outside of Astral burning, 30-40k/hr was pretty hot for a merit setup. I can solo 50-60k/hr now, get 150k/hr in a trio, with at least double that possible.

Abyssea XP is hard to get in on as a low level if you don't know anyone. Doubly so if you haven't done it before and thus lack Cruor for keys. There are usually popular Ground of Valor tomes with an almost persistent XP alliance though.

[KoLAddict]

Don't a lot of the repeating quest stuff require you to be to a higher level to get to? I'm level 31 and haven't figured it out. Part of that could be because I'm not exploring enough, but the death penalties are high enough (not really that bad, but the walk back sucks) that I try to avoid dying as much as possible.

[isiolia]

Don't a lot of the repeating quest stuff require you to be to a higher level to get to? I'm level 31 and haven't figured it out. Part of that could be because I'm not exploring enough, but the death penalties are high enough (not really that bad, but the walk back sucks) that I try to avoid dying as much as possible.

Abyssea's entry requirement is level 30. All you can really do is help open chests, as even 75 is too low to contribute much other than healing in any but Visions zones, but you can get in (if you haven't, you do want to initiate the quest for access since you'll accumulate the stones you trade for time from then on). (can find info here)

FoV/GoV simply require you to get XP from the kills. I think there are often XP alliances started as low as 11-12. Not sure, as I have two accounts and just leech book XP dual boxing. From that, I know you only need to get to level 10 in order to still get 1 XP from kills a level 99 does.

There's no death penalty until level 30 now. The current collection includes a code for headpiece with auto-reraise under 30, but you may not have that (it was great for running my mule account around, as it has movement speed+ too, again for 30 and under, and more effects).

Your first job up is definitely a bit harder. You've gotta do the limit breaks, get accesses to things, build up resources, all that. It's also harder without connections. When I started playing again last fall, I started my WHM mule before reactivating my main character. I figured I'd reminisce and level the new character. I lasted maybe a couple evenings before I said screw it, reactivated my main and snagged some gil (to be fair, I also wanted to join my LS for some activities the next day).

I still think it's a lot easier than it was back in the day. A lot easier. But yeah, it'll be harder for a newer player than it will be for a long time player taking up a new job. So don't feel like you're just doing things wrong or anything. Point was more that the more experienced players are not going to be stuck grinding XP long at all.