Interesting things you may not know about FFXI….Follow

The purpose of this thread is for everyone to share an interesting fact, tip, or detail about FFXI that others may not already know. For instance, elemental resistance isn’t the same as defense. It doesn’t consistently lower the damage you take from elemental effects (unlike defense, which ALWAYS lowers the damage you take from physical attacks). Instead, it gives you a chance of resisting the damage to minimise its effects. You can be wearing 90 points of fire resistance in gear, Barfira, Fire Carol, whatever, and still take full damage from a goblin’s Bomb Toss. Alternately, you can be wearing 5 points of fire resistance and get a full resist for next to no damage. Also, the same thing goes for status effects. Silence is a wind-based status effect, so the more wind resistance you’re wearing the better your chance of getting a full resist (you’ll resist Silence) or a partial resist (you’ll only be Silenced for a short moment before it wears off). So, what that means is that just because you don’t see it lowering the damage you’re taking, that doesn’t mean it’s not worthwhile. It’s a crap shoot, you may resist the effects or you may not. Since it’s never a “sure thing”, it’s probably not worth investing in gear specifically for the elemental resistance (except during avatar fights, when you know what element you’re going to be facing ahead of time).

Second tip: as was mentioned in a recent thread (though I’m not sure if everyone got the chance to read it, so credit to the topic creator of that thread), you can back up all of your macros and map markers to S-E’s servers. You’re given four sets of macros/markers to store, and you can restore them at any time. So, if you like playing a mage sometimes and a melee sometimes, you could have two separate sets of macros (one that is all melee-oriented and one for all your mage spells). To use this feature, when you are at the “select a character” screen, highlight your character and press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+B (for Backup), and it will ask if you want to save your macros. Press up or down to switch between the four slots available. To restore, press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+R (for Restore) and choose a slot. Not only does this save your macros and map markers, but also any customised settings you’re using (such as window backgrounds, font colours, etc.)

So, those are a few things I can think of that not everyone may already know. Please add to the list, since there are a LOT of finer points about this game that aren’t usually “public knowledge”. My hope is that we can compile all of that obscure info into one big thread. ^_^


Edited, Thu Aug 26 20:55:48 2004 by Saboruto

Turn away from a Lizard as its about to use Baleful Gaze and you have a good chance to avoid petrify.

awesome info about the macro saving!

When you take a screenshot the files end up under your playonline folder.

easiest way to find them, search for XXX*.jpg in that folder. where XXX are the first 3 letters of the player you took the pics with.

Running around a mob does not improve your evasion the least bit.Although,it does increase your chance of looking like a complete idiot.I saw someone doing it,and it was hilarious to say the least.

The Baleful Gaze trick is legitimate. The same trick works on the gaze attack used by Goobbues.

I never knew the macro thing, that's VERY useful to know.

Edited, Thu Aug 26 21:47:48 2004 by Crimanosuke

Anyone have any others?

you can leave items in the AH make a mule THEN delete your character remake the character and when they sell or get sent back they goto the new one also they dont take any room so each time you do that you get up to 7 extra slots in the AH. then my second tip is you can send items to your self and you dont need to use mog house so you can pick up at any of the ppl that send i think

EDIT btw what i do is master the art of making charcters so iv deleted ALOT and seen most if not all servers at least once but if you want help making a job specific character /email me @ coylebaldwin@hotmail.com
im currently working on race wars galka Vs. elvaan mnk/whm mnk/war mnk/thf mnk/drk mnk/rdm mnk/pld mnk/nin and mnk/drg but im leaning galka atm i am looking fir posable roles at each combo also so im realy looking deep in the mnk job and its limits but maybe i will gimp myself in stats and go hume for looks i have 2 accounts and both ps2 and pc and never a real character
always mastering the craft i am but i will soon be settling down with whoever wins in the war i just like wearing my subligar and a gi with elvaan looks well... but if you need any help with making a bastokian wait and i will tell you something that you will very much help you sorry for going on and on and on sorry ill just end message now /farewell sorry

Edited, Fri Aug 27 03:46:58 2004 by hereatm

I'm not sure if this qualifies as a "trick" per se, but I may as well mention it anyway

Time consuming, yet "unlimited" storage space.

Yes, unlimited. Here's how it works. Take 8 items, send them to yourself. Go to your Mog House and access delivery box, but to NOT remove the items. Now that they appear in your delivery, they are no longer in your sent items boxes. Return to AH, send 8 more items.

Back in Mog House, go back to your Delivery Box. Again, do NOT remove the items - instead, hit "Return to Sender" for each one. Exit from Delivery Box, give it time to refresh and go back in. It will now be filled with the 8 items you just sent from the AH. Since you sent the items to yourself before returning the original batch, they will appear first. If you now return each of these to sender and refresh again, the original 8 items will show up again. Since you were the sender, if you keep returning they will be in an endless loop in your Delivery queue.

The problem with this is that it can be a real pain in the *** when collecting money from the AH or items/gil from friends as you have to cycle through all the items you have waiting for delivery before anything new will show up.

Nevertheless, you will have unlimited storage space for non-ex items.

Annoying and impractical, but it works if you're too tight-fisted to pay for mules ^^

I posted this a while back, but I'll throw it up in a condensed version for this thread.

Resting While Weakened
As you may have noticed, the "ticks" that occur while you heal increase in the amount you get back (both HP and MP). By default, both meters tick amount increases by 1. The ticks appear to go about every 10 seconds, the first time you get nothing back. So, +10, +11, +12, etc.. Also, some job abilities, equipment, and food items increase this amount, such as Clear Mind. If you stand up or get hit by an attack, you will have to start over.

Now, deaths happen. And hopefully, Raises happen too ^^!

For that long boring stretch of time while your character is weakened, go into rest mode. Do Not get up during this time if it can be helped. Warning - mobs aggro to resting players, and even Too Weak aggro type mobs that normally leave you alone will aggro you while resting.

If you can stay resting, despite the fact your MP / HP guages will be full, the tick amount keeps growing. If you watch, when the weakened state wears off, you will get a first tick of somewhere around +39 + other stat bonuses. While HP can be cured immediately when weakened state wears off, for mages this is a big help - the WHM doesn't need to Cure as much to bring you full, and if you are a mage character, you will get your MP back in record time.


BST as Pullers
Now, BST players generally play solo or with other BSTs in a duo, trio, or sometimes even a larger size party. If you know a BST, you may have included them in a normal party makeup. If so, you know a BST can add a nice amount of physical damage to your fights (not to mention allowing a Pet to tank). But did you know they also make great pullers? If a BST Fights a mob with his pet, he can use Heel from a great distance to bring the pet + mob back to the party. If Sneak is cast on him after he Charms his Pet (Note: Charm breaks both Sneak and Invis), the Sneak effect will not be broken by the Fight or Heel commands, so he can safely pass sound aggro type mobs on the way back (not sure about Invis both ways).

Now, the Pet will not try to avoid mobs on the way back - which means a good chance of links. If your BST is level 35 or higher, no worries - once the mob and the link (or links) gets within visual range of the party, the BST can Release his Pet - and only the mob the Pet originally attacked will continue to chase down the BST. The rest of the links will lose aggro immediately, and take about 2-5 seconds before they will get linked or aggro again (like when a mob first spawns, or when an aggro Pet is Released near the party). Providing they are out of range of your party, and the aggroed mob continues to move away from them, and no players attack any of the mobs until the mob gets to camp - you will lose all the links, and they will disperse back to their spawn points.

Most BST know this trick, especially if they have been in BST duos or trios. I am not sure about SMN, if anyone has tried this trick and can confirm / deny - this seems like a good thread to do it.

Thanks for reading, and I hope this helps anyone out there ^^



Edited, Fri Aug 27 01:00:48 2004 by Darkraistlin

Naive question: If you are engaged, how do you easily turn away? Disengage? That doesn't seem like it would give you a lot of time...

Same thing works in towns. I was levelling my lowbie summoner in Ronfaure and forgot to dismiss Carbuncle when I ran in to get some new gear etc. Half an hour later I went back out and he was waiting for me at the gate. Apparently, if you zone into any zone where you can't summon your avatars, they still count as "summoned" but don't give you any MP drain, and they'll be there whenever you go to a zone where you CAN call them. I wonder if Carbuncle disappeared for other players when I left him in Ronfaure, or if everyone saw a rogue rabbit sitting at the gates for half an hour... XD

The one thing I've seen work often enough to be more than just an error in the statistics is the double-Provoke manuever to get a goblin to drop its bomb.

Provoke once right when it readies it, and again about one second later (just before it actually does Bomb Toss), and it drops it ~25-50% more often than normal.

When bidding at the auction house....the processing time is not used to check whether your bid goes through or not but merely to make sure you can't bid immediately for each item.

How to take advantage of this:

Let's say you're in a hurry. Bid on the item. Then walk away. As soon as you're out of target range of the auction, your bid will instantly process. :)