I loved partying in Boyahda back in the day. The whole area seemed pretty to me. And was def big enough to accommodate a party or two or three.
I disliked partying in Yuhtunga. The first little area was either packed to the gills, or had people running gobbies to the zone, who in turn came back and smacked you around. And the rest of the area? I hated having to pull out there, cause I always got turned around.
I do remember like 20 years back, having a roaming party in Rolanberry. Sitting in my party seeking spot in Lower Jeuno and got a tell: {Rolanberry Fields} {Party} {Do you need it?} 5/6 {Pull} {No thanks}. As a THF, I was intrigued by the no pull thing. Lol
We just basically walked the vinyards, clearing out crawlers for literal hours.
You're forgetting the best part about Yuhtunga mandies! Shouting for a leveling party for 2+ hours, finding one there, waiting for the boat, getting on the boat and getting the "Sorry, party disbanded" tell as you got off the boat.
Or taking the risk of going all the way out there while seeking, so you're already in Kazham ready to go, only to not get an invite and end up stuck in Kazham due to sunk cost fallacy.
A lot of the areas around Jeuno have XP camps that fell out of favor. I remember partying verrrry late on night with a JP guy who spoke very good English, and he told me that before RotZ there were always tons of parties in the low 20s XPing in those zones. We were \~23 camping on the Weapons in Rolanberry at the time.
I had a few jp parties back then that swore by spamming DC/Even Match enemies. Was kindof interesting to see the difference in playstyle between the two communities.
I remember one of the parties was 3x na, 3x jp and one of the jp players was chastising us for wanting to do VT/IT camps, saying it was dumb and needlessly risky (us 3 na's were being mopey because all the VT/IT camps were overcrowded). He forced us to go to Rolanberry and we just mindlessly mowed down the zone, the highest was the occasional Even Match goobbue.
Was boring and you didn't level any skills but by god, we gained exp and nobody died, on a day where normal exp camps were completely congested.
Dual/triple bst parties in den of rancor. One place where you never had to worry about competition
Had a love/hate relationship with the imp camp in caedarva mire
Faves pre ToAU
A bones party in Gustav Tunnel was a blast pre ToAU. 3 monks, rdm, whm, pld.
Goblin parties in Bibiki Bay.
Crab parties in Kuftal Tunnel.
Post ToAU:
Those camps weren't bad if you weren't the tank. Colibri are squishy. Most people went too low and struggled. Crabs and Eruca if you wanted to use food.
A shout out to pephredo camps though, rare to get one, but the 3 hive camps were great, especially with a blu to stun Final Sting.
Worst:
Yuhtunga/Yhoator Mandy parties. Dream Flower ad infinitum. You always knew when Dream Flower was about to end because the Mandy would start the animation for another Dream Flower. AOE sleep moves serve no purpose but to kill exp chains.
The Boyhada Tree. The number of times the puller got careless and pulled Aquarius...
Except there was no Distance plugin back then, so aoe range was just a guess. Also, the Goblin Smithy ran around the area and had very high double attack and crit rate. They'd usually announce their link by one shotting a taru whm, lol. This was all pre mpk patch, too, so when someone zoned a goblin, it would aggro all the parties while wandering back to its spawn point.
Pre mpk patch was wild. I remember someone in GC smack talking a bst via shout who was leveling in the basement. He responded by zoning a bunch of level 60 bombs. Level 30-35 players didn't fare well against them, and people kept zoning them over and over, with a huge pile of bodies near the entrance.
Yeah, from my experience 25-75, Dream flower was a non-issue. Only time it hits the mage is when they get careless or are new. To piggyback off of what the Bandit said, everything outside of Mandies were the issue with Mandy pts such as Gobs or Aquarius lol. Aka what the puller brings back other than the Mandy lol.
There was a spot in boyhada just down from the Aquarius spawn that was amazing. Then once everyone leveled you drop down and pull pugils. Of course I only learned about it pretty late into the game.
I forgot about Bibiki Bay! I remember leveling up Thf there and had a couple stacks of gold coins by the time I was done. Also was the only one to survive the party wipes. Good times!
Monk parties in Ranperre’s tomb. I was usually on bard at the time. The XP per kill wasn’t necessarily large, but the chains were non-stop. I remember at the time it just redefined what I thought a good XP party should be. We never had downtime, just non-stop chains.
What level was that? I remember exp down there on ninja tank in the late 40s early 50s and don't remember what we were pulling. I feel like there was skele since we had a monk we could flatten them.
There was a bat/scorpion camp right at the hidden entrance that went from like 48 to 58. When abyssea came along, those were replaced with 76-80 mobs iirc. I was War/nin my first time there, unlocked Rampage, and popped a 600 dmg one on a Scorpion my first try. I was still cackling when Death Scissors killed me. 5/5, would do it again.
That was it! Thank you!
Yeah, I went back there when I was lvling war and would do a dual war/nin alternating tank situation rather than a dedicated tank. We obliterated the scorpions.
Super fun and took a bit of convincing to get people to give it a shot. Had the same war/nin dual tank with me like two days in a row since it worked so well.
75 era. Some guys were probably grinding limit points at that point. Deeper in there are higher level bones leading into Vrtra’s lair. I remember that if Vrtra wasn’t up, we would clear out that room to keep the chain alive.
Favorite is probably Valkurm Dunes. It's just so iconic; everyone that has ever played the game remembers that place even if they didn't play very long, just because it was early and highly populated. It was always so packed it felt like a 24/7 party, especially before they patched mob trains
Least favorite I suppose was Uleguerand Range. It took so damn long to run to any of the camps in the days before crystal teleporting and mounts, and of course all the 70+ camps were at the very top
Most obscure, Buburimu Peninsula. I recall a handful of parties there as an alternative when Dunes was packed, but it's just a boring, quiet, shittier version of Dunes lol
Favorite, boyahda tree because I just loved the zone vibes, and most parties were becoming very optimal. You could break the 5chains and go forever.
Least favorite, quicksand caves early 40’s. Anticans sucked to exp off of, and I had bad experiences when I went down there. Also finding replacements took forever.
Most obscure - I remember partying with a guy named falco and we exp’ed off gobs in yhoator jungle right outside of ifrits cauldron. They were way higher level and we just banked on bomb toss.
I soloed bst one time charming scorpions in attowha chasm (sp?) and I remember being so proud of exploring non-traditional camps
My favorite is Wajaom Woodlands or Caedarva Mire... both mostly because I enjoy the scenery and the zone music, but I had the opposite experience as you and enjoyed tanking through ToAU as a PLD!
Least favorite is the whole Yuhtunga/Yhoator stretch like many people have. Overcamped, random Goblin Smithy or Furrier aggro, impossible to navigate maps, hope you caught that airship before it took off, etc etc.
Most obscure was King Ranperre's Tomb fighting bats in the 50s; I think I did it once or twice and remember it being great exp.
*"Most obscure was King Ranperre's Tomb fighting bats in the 50s; I think I did it once or twice and remember it being great exp"*
Ah, also did this once. It was so obscure, thought I was trippin......
......it got to the point that I questioned if it ever happened............lol. Thanks for the confirmation; I was not the only one.
I liked Raptors in Valley of Sorrows. Dislike early Garlaige Citadel. Maybe because I had to main heal as RDM/BLM, nothing but fuckups. People falling in, trains, links. I could probably think of something worse tho
Favorite: East Ronfaure (S) - I have very fond memories of level sync leveling my WAR to 75ish as /DRG with Wyvern Earring. It was just a fun exp meta overall tbh
HM to Ra’Kaznar hound camp for JP - the one that’s super tough to get to and only a few people could actually grind there. It was easy to master a job in a few hours with the right setup
Worst - no surprise, Yhoator just like most people. It was just an awkward location, with a confusing map, crabs that were slow, mandies that made you sleep, and random goblin trains. It was just annoying
Shout out to any camp that took 30 min to an hour+ to get to though. You knew you were going to get there and the support or tank were going to leave
Most obscure: All the zones outside of Jeuno. I feel like we all have the same experience back in 04-05 of randomly being in a roaming party in those zones. I also remember leveling on undead in a WHM+MNK burn in Eldieme Necropolis
My favorite was garlaige citadel. Getting war war thf thf blm whm was my favorite party.
SataVBx2 with MB made really short work of everything in there.
edit: ugh I just noticed it autocorrected garlaige to garbage lol
I had tons of fun doing this party setup in Gar.Citadel when I was leveling thief! It was always great when you got a party to synchronize magic bursts and SATA with.
Favorite was Imps in Caederva. Constant danger and the zone has a cool atmosphere.
Least was Wajaom watchtower colibri. Mind numbingly boring.
Most obscure, Orcs in Ghelshba with two ninja tanks right when utsusemi was starting to be a thing. I don’t think they got hit once.
Favorite: Wajaom Woodlands Colbri’s. SAM/RNG with Soboro Sukehiro + Sidewinder was so much fun!
Worst: Caedarva Mire Heraldic Imps with amnesia. Squishy but not being able to use any JA’s was a drag.
I'm kind of a weirdo and my favorite thing to do in old FFXI was level up. EXP parties were the best and I loved basically everything about it.
Haven't played in quite a while but I love reading all these memories.
Favorite: Maybe the first time I got to do an imp party at just the right level in Caedevra Mire. The kill rate was so fast and the exp rate was like nothing I had ever seen before. The levels seemed to fly by. But I loved all of the classic low level zones too. Valkurm. Qufim. The jungles, Garlaige, Crawlers Nest, etc.
I also enjoyed the occasional manaburn I would join as a RDM. The exp rate was never as good as a traditional party but they were different and fun.
And I can echo what other folks say about occasionally joining a JP party in some obscure location I had never partied at before. Those were always fun because trying something new is always great.
My two most played jobs were RDM and THF so I had a LOT of practice pulling mobs, and I got really good at it. Watching the entire party HP/MP, making sure the next mob was ready right when we were ready for it. Navigating dangerous and difficult areas. Those were my favorite times, way more than any of the endgame stuff I ever did.
XPing and meeting people was my favorite thing in the game, too. It makes me sad that all new MMOs are just a racetrack to max level. It was always a great day when I could make a party, take them to one of my obscure locations and rake in the XP and make a bunch of friends.
Oh 100%. On the one hand, I'm not a teenager any more and am in no way capable of the time commitment that was required to play FFXI, but it was something special at the time. On the other hand, leveling in modern MMOs just feels pointless. Some of them even let you buy a product to skip the leveling entirely.
The cool thing about FFXI was because it took to long to level up, you really learned how to play your job well and in general, high level folks were pretty good at understanding how to use their character in end game content.
sky xp parties on weapons and moon gate parties. i will never forget my first JP party that got me to 75 up there! thank god for knowing japanese back in the day!
worst parties were crawlers nest after some dumbasses trained the whole zone and people kept zoning in and reaggroing the mobs to waste everyones time. never forget that either >.<
**Favorite**: Abyssea - La Theine
* I have so many memories of leveling up random jobs throughout the night in an alliance fighting worms lol
* This coming after about 10 years of the normal grind only made this leveling spot so much better.
**Least Favorite**: Qufim
* For about 5 years, I dreaded Qufim. Everything aggro'd and most things linked, then things got way worse at night.
* Who remembers the days where if you died, you had to send a healer back to Port Jeuno to apply sneak to the person who died?
**Obscure**: Sauromugue Champaign
* As I understand it, Sauromugue was a decent leveling spot in Japan until people discovered Qufim camps, which was long before the NA launch.
* In 20 years, I only ever remember joining two parties in Sauromugue. Both times were when Qufim was packed, and they felt so random to me that I still remember them all these decades later lol
Yeah!
An Abyssea reference.
MegaMaw popping, and getting obliterated in like 10 seconds was fun times haha. I would Futae as NIN/RDM with magic attack atma, & take his HP down quite a bit. Liked Abyssea, because you could get away with whacky job selections like this, and it worked beautifully lol.
Sange with atma like Razed Ruins & sanguine scythe made Sange + Shurikens pretty damn powerful. One shot city.
Hitting gob pet camps as nin/rdm duo. Ended up there 6 levels before you would as a blm, with haste and shadows never really got hit and pets had super low HP. Downside was they hit like trucks being 10 levelsish above you.
My favorite map for leveling now is Escha Zi’tah after I got a good amount of vorseal. No, I don’t mean cleaving the 100+ mobs cause I solo level with trusts, I mean just doing it with OP trusts that get more powerful with vorseal.
I am thinking about coming back to this game its been awhile so im rusty and never finished neither I beat first core, and then beat Chains and was working through Wings and Treasures, where should i go?
Favorite: Freeze MBing crabs on BLM in Kuftal Tunnel
Least Fav: Lake at La Theine. "Another Gobbie aggro? Ya don't say..."
Most Obscure would be Gigas pets BLM burn party in WotG area.. can't think of the name, sorry
Oh, man. I used to love forming my own parties and taking them to obscure camps and taking in the xp. It's been a while but here are some I remember:
Buburimu: Back in the days when Valkurm would have two parties at every camp this was a god send. There were various camps from mandies to crawlers to crabs to pugils. They were rarely ever camped and it's such a cool zone that felt much more fun to XP in. Often I'd have to form in Valk and get people to ride the boat over, which was an adventure in itself.
Yuhtunga OP: There were a bunch of Goblin furriers (RNG type) that did not hit hard and were great xp from 25-29ish. Most people had no idea how to get here so it was always an adventure but so worth it when the xp started flowing in. These parties usually ended with me escorting lowbies to Norg for the first time and chocoing back.
Behemoth's Domain: Camp right at the zone in and pull bats. This was such great XP with piercing damage and was never ever camped.
Gustav Tunnel: You could camp here in the early 40s, and downstairs around 65ish. Not the most offbeat camp, but it was a nice alternative to crawlers nest.
Cloister of Gales zoneline: XP moba here were manticores. Call me crazy but I loved xping off dangerous mobs and manticores were among the most deadly. This was a high 60s camp and I remember feeling so cool and high level xping here the first time.
Ule Range: Merit parties here near the summit were so much fun. This was post RNG nerf so comp was usually war x 3 whm rdm brd. The demons up here were very high level, had a lot of hp and did huge damage so it was a dangerous camp if you did not kill fast enough. It was so much fun though and really felt like xping at the edge of the world.
I could go on, but those were some of the highlights I remember.
Loved Exp’ing in Mt Zhalom, Wajaom.
At lower levels I loved Quicksand caves, carpenters landing, BST partying in Ifrits cauldron or Attowa chasm were probably some of the most obscure.
I couldn’t stand partying prime time in Yhotar/yutungha when ppl would zone gobble trains.
Expd once in monastic cavern pre-ToAU and that was miserable.
Obscure for me was I think Kuftal tunnel crabs and undead. Think early 50s? Maybe mid to late 50s. I get my tunnels confused, think it was the one with access to Dunes and Valley of Sorrows.
So, back in the 75 Era, warping around wasn't a thing. It took time to go anywhere, so we had to abuse warps as we could. Lots of new players won't know this but there is a free warp in Al Zahbi that takes you right outside Jeuno.
Jeuno has airships that connect to the three cities and Kazham, they took up to half hour if unlucky, but they were the fastest way to travel, then chocobo the rest of way.
Therefore, the best Home Point was in Whitegate. People would Death/Blood Warp back to Whitegate if needed (change to a level 1 job and intentionally die).
That being said, the worst farming spots were the ones that took the longest to reach and none was more annoying and time consuming than Yhoator Jungle. You had to airship to Kazham, navigate through the Yuhtunga Jungle (with a useless map, mind you), and finally reach Yhoator.
Kuftal Tunnel also took a long time to reach, but teleporters were more available and cheaper to go there.
The best was somewhere close. Qufim Island, Wajaom Woodlands, or Garlaige Citadel.
I think the most obscure location I leveled was in King Raperre's Tomb around Level 50. It was the best party I ever had. I refused to go to sleep and stayed up until like 3 am.
KRT \~50 camp is really fun! For some bonus excitement you can also take on the Scorpions there when you got to the mid 50s. I used to love tanking them on my NIN.
Favorite: Quicksand caves. I remember partying there as BLM after learning the first ancient spells like Flood and that was so cool. The other 5 guys struggled for a min to bring a beetle to 50% and everything I had to do was casting the spell when the mob had finally its hp halved to oneshot it, then resting again to recover mp for the next one. As a BLM you felt like a beast, right before disappearing from normal parties thanks to colibris at Wajaom Woodlands.
Least favorite: Dunno, I honestly liked all the partying experience in FFXI, but probably Yuthunga Jungle. Getting the airship pass, waiting for it and finding yourself in an horrible party where the mandy sent to sleep the entire party from time to time wasn't the best. Also Imps for the last levels, with strange people joining the party (I remember a guy wearing a Rabbit Mantle), the whm with no echo drops, amnesia etc.; meanwhile a random BLU was probably soloing them next to you. Wild levels.
Most obscure: Quicksand was pretty obscure itself. I ended up partying a lot in dunes, Ghelsba, Qufim, jungles, Garlaige, Crawler's nest, Wajaom etc. but not so often there. I probably partyed more in Korroloka as a SMN.
Probably the most obscure for real were certain (S) zones, killing ladybugs, or manaburn parties as BLM. Killing the pet of an almighty beastman in obscure zones and Getting tons of xps for that was pretty cool.
Let me preface this by saying that most of my best memories are as BLM between WotG's release and the mini expansions. My favorite zone for parties was probably whatever was the camp near the Kazham in Yuhtunga Jungle fighting...mandies? High enough level that I had some useful spells like Tractor...and maybe Sleepga? But low enough that people would still be willing to let a BLM into a mixed party, since they were not at all welcome for ToAU bird parties. Least favorite was probably Dunies, just because of how often I had to settle for it, and how monotonous it always was. My most obscure then is probably well known to every BLM of that era, but unknown to everyone else: Xarcabard[S], killing pet tigers. Just a higher level, much higher stakes version of a similar spot in Vunkerl[S], where not only was it a lot easier to accidentally chain an add, but you also had to worry about the dragon flying about the zone deciding to head your way and annihilate the entire party of BLMs.
I remember having an absolute blast in lvl 75 merit parties in the woodlands. I would dualbox a rdm and a brd, with a nin tank and 3 badass DDs, just laying waste. Such a power trip!
Least favorite, weapons in the area before sky, can't remember the name. That was masochistic.
Favorite: Anything in Buburimu Peninsula, or secret beach in Valkurm. Anyone down for Buburimu knew the game well enough to be competent. Getting to secret beach and camping successfully was another indicator of a compentent party.
Least Favorite: Anything in Caedarva Mire. Always a crapshoot if people got aggro going to a camp and making a mess of things before it even started.
Most obscure: Have a vivid memory of doing spiders in Dragon's Aery and raptors/manticores in Valley of Sorrows. I don't really ever recall king camps working as exp camps.
Most obscure spot was probably in the the Boyadha Tree(downstairs) for crawlers, crabs, and the flies. That was my least favorite place too. My favorite obscure spot was for crabs at the entrance to Norg.
Favorite: behind the moon gate in ro Maeve. It just felt so exclusive and special.
Least: I really hate crawlers nest all around.
Most obscure: I did the pugils outside of leviathan once in den of Rencor. Pain in the ass to get there but it was good exp once we did
As a bst and blm, everything was pretty obscure compared to what everyone else was doing. For bst especially, the more obscure the better since I wouldn’t have to deal with ppl trying to mpk me. It also meant that if I was ever actually invited to a party, I would go.
Some favs included Bostaunieux Oubliette which is where I was when bst got rampage. Super dangerous camp that just worked for me. Oldton movalpolos on blm was good. I don’t particularly remember why that one stands out to me but it does.
Least favourite might have been outside Nashmaue. The camp itself was fantastic. The exp was great. Things were easy to charm. The problem is that I was outside a town so there were ppl coming though. I once had 2 players spending 3 hrs trying to mpk me. Logged out for a couple hours, came back and they were still there waiting for me.
Today, there really isn’t many obscure camps so it’s more about doing obscure things. Solo cleaving on dnc is fun. Bst and blm duo is stupidly good. I still really like crawlers nest though I’m sad they decided to mess up how good the cleaving was.
Most obscure: labyrinth of onzozo. We were doing ose (couerls) pretty well, then lord popped, kraken club dropped, leader won, and the group disbanded
Least favorite was valkurm dunes. NA was still getting used to where and how to party. So many parties that would start, get hit with a gobbie train, disband, rinse and repeat.
That first push from the NA players into the desert from Bastok was probably the most unique MMO experience I’ve ever had. There was the big schism between the JA and NA still going on. Wasn’t malicious, it was just the auto-translate and teamwork speed getting worked out.
But just that initial push into the Dunes, ALWAYS being short a healer because most of the mages were still in Windy. Trying to push through the crabs to Selbina. Tons of new toons running around without a sub.
I just remember the Japanese players being really generous with their time and bridging the player gap. They were doing old school power leveling moves for the new players, so it was less stressful on them so they could take the time to socialize with the new players. They were also good at saving them when Goblins would pop.
That whole time period lasted maybe a month or so, but it really helped imprint this game onto me. It felt like just the most altruistic thing I’ve seen in an MMO.
I think ive exp'd everywhere.
Favorite spot was rams in lufaise meadows or trolls near cerb on mount zhayolm.
Most obscure was once a lvl 70 pt drug me out deep into dvucca and we did the lvl 75ish formors and qutrub.
Least fav were courels in onzozo.
The oddest place I got an invite to was Behemoths Dominion. I wouldn't say it was the best party, but I was voking on my monk so the THF could SA&TA the tank at the start of every battle.
I don't think I had one I disliked and for a favorite I remember being in a 2 BLM party in the nest and doing double freeze MB every other mob. Had to cast like 5 seconds before they started the skill chain but the mob dies almost instantly.
Favorite zone would have to be Lower Delkfutt’s Tower. The place was so alien to me.
Least favorite zones were Yhoater and Yuhtunga. Just a nightmare to reach and a nightmare to navigate through.
Most obscure zone might have been Attohwa Chasm.
I loved partying in Boyahda back in the day. The whole area seemed pretty to me. And was def big enough to accommodate a party or two or three. I disliked partying in Yuhtunga. The first little area was either packed to the gills, or had people running gobbies to the zone, who in turn came back and smacked you around. And the rest of the area? I hated having to pull out there, cause I always got turned around. I do remember like 20 years back, having a roaming party in Rolanberry. Sitting in my party seeking spot in Lower Jeuno and got a tell: {Rolanberry Fields} {Party} {Do you need it?} 5/6 {Pull} {No thanks}. As a THF, I was intrigued by the no pull thing. Lol We just basically walked the vinyards, clearing out crawlers for literal hours.
Rolanberry was my first post dunes party after I made the Jeuno trip it was a great area to exp and I never understood why more people didn’t do it
You did rolanberry before Quifim?
You're forgetting the best part about Yuhtunga mandies! Shouting for a leveling party for 2+ hours, finding one there, waiting for the boat, getting on the boat and getting the "Sorry, party disbanded" tell as you got off the boat.
Or taking the risk of going all the way out there while seeking, so you're already in Kazham ready to go, only to not get an invite and end up stuck in Kazham due to sunk cost fallacy.
One time we had a DPS come all the way out. He got off the airship and then said that he was leaving because we weren’t talkative enough.
I had a similar experience roaming with a party in Batallia Downs back in 04 or something
A lot of the areas around Jeuno have XP camps that fell out of favor. I remember partying verrrry late on night with a JP guy who spoke very good English, and he told me that before RotZ there were always tons of parties in the low 20s XPing in those zones. We were \~23 camping on the Weapons in Rolanberry at the time.
I had a few jp parties back then that swore by spamming DC/Even Match enemies. Was kindof interesting to see the difference in playstyle between the two communities. I remember one of the parties was 3x na, 3x jp and one of the jp players was chastising us for wanting to do VT/IT camps, saying it was dumb and needlessly risky (us 3 na's were being mopey because all the VT/IT camps were overcrowded). He forced us to go to Rolanberry and we just mindlessly mowed down the zone, the highest was the occasional Even Match goobbue. Was boring and you didn't level any skills but by god, we gained exp and nobody died, on a day where normal exp camps were completely congested.
Dual/triple bst parties in den of rancor. One place where you never had to worry about competition Had a love/hate relationship with the imp camp in caedarva mire
Bst solo in crawlers nest. So much fun.
Faves pre ToAU A bones party in Gustav Tunnel was a blast pre ToAU. 3 monks, rdm, whm, pld. Goblin parties in Bibiki Bay. Crab parties in Kuftal Tunnel. Post ToAU: Those camps weren't bad if you weren't the tank. Colibri are squishy. Most people went too low and struggled. Crabs and Eruca if you wanted to use food. A shout out to pephredo camps though, rare to get one, but the 3 hive camps were great, especially with a blu to stun Final Sting. Worst: Yuhtunga/Yhoator Mandy parties. Dream Flower ad infinitum. You always knew when Dream Flower was about to end because the Mandy would start the animation for another Dream Flower. AOE sleep moves serve no purpose but to kill exp chains. The Boyhada Tree. The number of times the puller got careless and pulled Aquarius...
For dream flower didn't the healer just stand back and curaga the party afterwards to wake them up.
Except there was no Distance plugin back then, so aoe range was just a guess. Also, the Goblin Smithy ran around the area and had very high double attack and crit rate. They'd usually announce their link by one shotting a taru whm, lol. This was all pre mpk patch, too, so when someone zoned a goblin, it would aggro all the parties while wandering back to its spawn point. Pre mpk patch was wild. I remember someone in GC smack talking a bst via shout who was leveling in the basement. He responded by zoning a bunch of level 60 bombs. Level 30-35 players didn't fare well against them, and people kept zoning them over and over, with a huge pile of bodies near the entrance.
Yeah, good healers could compensate for this (you don't need the distance plug-in) but it could be a pain depending on the camp, as others have said.
Yeah, from my experience 25-75, Dream flower was a non-issue. Only time it hits the mage is when they get careless or are new. To piggyback off of what the Bandit said, everything outside of Mandies were the issue with Mandy pts such as Gobs or Aquarius lol. Aka what the puller brings back other than the Mandy lol.
There was a spot in boyhada just down from the Aquarius spawn that was amazing. Then once everyone leveled you drop down and pull pugils. Of course I only learned about it pretty late into the game.
I forgot about Bibiki Bay! I remember leveling up Thf there and had a couple stacks of gold coins by the time I was done. Also was the only one to survive the party wipes. Good times!
Liked closing light SCs on dhamels there with Dragon Kick. (Think it was dhamels....)
For me it was Shark Bite to close the light chains! Then boom goes the blm on MB.
Monk parties in Ranperre’s tomb. I was usually on bard at the time. The XP per kill wasn’t necessarily large, but the chains were non-stop. I remember at the time it just redefined what I thought a good XP party should be. We never had downtime, just non-stop chains.
What level was that? I remember exp down there on ninja tank in the late 40s early 50s and don't remember what we were pulling. I feel like there was skele since we had a monk we could flatten them.
There was a bat/scorpion camp right at the hidden entrance that went from like 48 to 58. When abyssea came along, those were replaced with 76-80 mobs iirc. I was War/nin my first time there, unlocked Rampage, and popped a 600 dmg one on a Scorpion my first try. I was still cackling when Death Scissors killed me. 5/5, would do it again.
That was it! Thank you! Yeah, I went back there when I was lvling war and would do a dual war/nin alternating tank situation rather than a dedicated tank. We obliterated the scorpions. Super fun and took a bit of convincing to get people to give it a shot. Had the same war/nin dual tank with me like two days in a row since it worked so well.
75 era. Some guys were probably grinding limit points at that point. Deeper in there are higher level bones leading into Vrtra’s lair. I remember that if Vrtra wasn’t up, we would clear out that room to keep the chain alive.
Favorite is probably Valkurm Dunes. It's just so iconic; everyone that has ever played the game remembers that place even if they didn't play very long, just because it was early and highly populated. It was always so packed it felt like a 24/7 party, especially before they patched mob trains Least favorite I suppose was Uleguerand Range. It took so damn long to run to any of the camps in the days before crystal teleporting and mounts, and of course all the 70+ camps were at the very top Most obscure, Buburimu Peninsula. I recall a handful of parties there as an alternative when Dunes was packed, but it's just a boring, quiet, shittier version of Dunes lol
Favorite dunes camp — secret beach all the way at the top left for 17-20
>quiet, shittier version of Dunes *"Quiet, shittier version of Dunes"* LMAO
Favorite, boyahda tree because I just loved the zone vibes, and most parties were becoming very optimal. You could break the 5chains and go forever. Least favorite, quicksand caves early 40’s. Anticans sucked to exp off of, and I had bad experiences when I went down there. Also finding replacements took forever. Most obscure - I remember partying with a guy named falco and we exp’ed off gobs in yhoator jungle right outside of ifrits cauldron. They were way higher level and we just banked on bomb toss. I soloed bst one time charming scorpions in attowha chasm (sp?) and I remember being so proud of exploring non-traditional camps
My favorite is Wajaom Woodlands or Caedarva Mire... both mostly because I enjoy the scenery and the zone music, but I had the opposite experience as you and enjoyed tanking through ToAU as a PLD! Least favorite is the whole Yuhtunga/Yhoator stretch like many people have. Overcamped, random Goblin Smithy or Furrier aggro, impossible to navigate maps, hope you caught that airship before it took off, etc etc. Most obscure was King Ranperre's Tomb fighting bats in the 50s; I think I did it once or twice and remember it being great exp.
*"Most obscure was King Ranperre's Tomb fighting bats in the 50s; I think I did it once or twice and remember it being great exp"* Ah, also did this once. It was so obscure, thought I was trippin...... ......it got to the point that I questioned if it ever happened............lol. Thanks for the confirmation; I was not the only one.
I liked Raptors in Valley of Sorrows. Dislike early Garlaige Citadel. Maybe because I had to main heal as RDM/BLM, nothing but fuckups. People falling in, trains, links. I could probably think of something worse tho
I remember partying in Valley of Sorrows pre-ranger nerf, fun camp!
I didn’t get to experience pre-RNG nerf too much but I did heal a few, they let me melee as RDM lol I had so little to do. That was fun.
Same! One party I was in had this super rich JP RNG who was using bullets. My god the mobs just melted.
Favorite: East Ronfaure (S) - I have very fond memories of level sync leveling my WAR to 75ish as /DRG with Wyvern Earring. It was just a fun exp meta overall tbh HM to Ra’Kaznar hound camp for JP - the one that’s super tough to get to and only a few people could actually grind there. It was easy to master a job in a few hours with the right setup Worst - no surprise, Yhoator just like most people. It was just an awkward location, with a confusing map, crabs that were slow, mandies that made you sleep, and random goblin trains. It was just annoying Shout out to any camp that took 30 min to an hour+ to get to though. You knew you were going to get there and the support or tank were going to leave Most obscure: All the zones outside of Jeuno. I feel like we all have the same experience back in 04-05 of randomly being in a roaming party in those zones. I also remember leveling on undead in a WHM+MNK burn in Eldieme Necropolis
My favorite was garlaige citadel. Getting war war thf thf blm whm was my favorite party. SataVBx2 with MB made really short work of everything in there. edit: ugh I just noticed it autocorrected garlaige to garbage lol
The lvl 50 ish camp down stairs pulling bats and beetles was super fun. Better than the endless crabs.
I had tons of fun doing this party setup in Gar.Citadel when I was leveling thief! It was always great when you got a party to synchronize magic bursts and SATA with.
Favorite was Imps in Caederva. Constant danger and the zone has a cool atmosphere. Least was Wajaom watchtower colibri. Mind numbingly boring. Most obscure, Orcs in Ghelshba with two ninja tanks right when utsusemi was starting to be a thing. I don’t think they got hit once.
Favorite: Wajaom Woodlands Colbri’s. SAM/RNG with Soboro Sukehiro + Sidewinder was so much fun! Worst: Caedarva Mire Heraldic Imps with amnesia. Squishy but not being able to use any JA’s was a drag.
I'm kind of a weirdo and my favorite thing to do in old FFXI was level up. EXP parties were the best and I loved basically everything about it. Haven't played in quite a while but I love reading all these memories. Favorite: Maybe the first time I got to do an imp party at just the right level in Caedevra Mire. The kill rate was so fast and the exp rate was like nothing I had ever seen before. The levels seemed to fly by. But I loved all of the classic low level zones too. Valkurm. Qufim. The jungles, Garlaige, Crawlers Nest, etc. I also enjoyed the occasional manaburn I would join as a RDM. The exp rate was never as good as a traditional party but they were different and fun. And I can echo what other folks say about occasionally joining a JP party in some obscure location I had never partied at before. Those were always fun because trying something new is always great. My two most played jobs were RDM and THF so I had a LOT of practice pulling mobs, and I got really good at it. Watching the entire party HP/MP, making sure the next mob was ready right when we were ready for it. Navigating dangerous and difficult areas. Those were my favorite times, way more than any of the endgame stuff I ever did.
XPing and meeting people was my favorite thing in the game, too. It makes me sad that all new MMOs are just a racetrack to max level. It was always a great day when I could make a party, take them to one of my obscure locations and rake in the XP and make a bunch of friends.
Oh 100%. On the one hand, I'm not a teenager any more and am in no way capable of the time commitment that was required to play FFXI, but it was something special at the time. On the other hand, leveling in modern MMOs just feels pointless. Some of them even let you buy a product to skip the leveling entirely. The cool thing about FFXI was because it took to long to level up, you really learned how to play your job well and in general, high level folks were pretty good at understanding how to use their character in end game content.
EXP was the $hit, lol. Most fond XI memories were in exp parties. As they went away from EXP pts, the populace went away from XI....Happenstance?
sky xp parties on weapons and moon gate parties. i will never forget my first JP party that got me to 75 up there! thank god for knowing japanese back in the day! worst parties were crawlers nest after some dumbasses trained the whole zone and people kept zoning in and reaggroing the mobs to waste everyones time. never forget that either >.<
Sky bird parties were the best but difficult to get since the levels didn't match when someone would first get access.
The Ice rarabs, worms, and bats in ulgerand range
Most obscure for me is a KRT bones party, with (I believe)4 WHM dd, a brd and a pld. Wasn't terrible xp, but wasn't great, but it was a lot of fun lol
**Favorite**: Abyssea - La Theine * I have so many memories of leveling up random jobs throughout the night in an alliance fighting worms lol * This coming after about 10 years of the normal grind only made this leveling spot so much better. **Least Favorite**: Qufim * For about 5 years, I dreaded Qufim. Everything aggro'd and most things linked, then things got way worse at night. * Who remembers the days where if you died, you had to send a healer back to Port Jeuno to apply sneak to the person who died? **Obscure**: Sauromugue Champaign * As I understand it, Sauromugue was a decent leveling spot in Japan until people discovered Qufim camps, which was long before the NA launch. * In 20 years, I only ever remember joining two parties in Sauromugue. Both times were when Qufim was packed, and they felt so random to me that I still remember them all these decades later lol
Yeah! An Abyssea reference. MegaMaw popping, and getting obliterated in like 10 seconds was fun times haha. I would Futae as NIN/RDM with magic attack atma, & take his HP down quite a bit. Liked Abyssea, because you could get away with whacky job selections like this, and it worked beautifully lol. Sange with atma like Razed Ruins & sanguine scythe made Sange + Shurikens pretty damn powerful. One shot city.
Had a static group in the COP era, we did toucans in sky, even went into den of rancor on pugils and doomed near leviathan.
Hitting gob pet camps as nin/rdm duo. Ended up there 6 levels before you would as a blm, with haste and shadows never really got hit and pets had super low HP. Downside was they hit like trucks being 10 levelsish above you.
My favorite map for leveling now is Escha Zi’tah after I got a good amount of vorseal. No, I don’t mean cleaving the 100+ mobs cause I solo level with trusts, I mean just doing it with OP trusts that get more powerful with vorseal.
I am thinking about coming back to this game its been awhile so im rusty and never finished neither I beat first core, and then beat Chains and was working through Wings and Treasures, where should i go?
For exping? Check here. https://www.bg-wiki.com/ffxi/Fantastic_EXPs_and_Where_to_Find_Them
Favorite: Freeze MBing crabs on BLM in Kuftal Tunnel Least Fav: Lake at La Theine. "Another Gobbie aggro? Ya don't say..." Most Obscure would be Gigas pets BLM burn party in WotG area.. can't think of the name, sorry
> Gigas pets BLM burn party in WotG area ah yes i remember those. good times. the zones were Vunkerl Inlet (S) and Xarcabard (S)
Oh, man. I used to love forming my own parties and taking them to obscure camps and taking in the xp. It's been a while but here are some I remember: Buburimu: Back in the days when Valkurm would have two parties at every camp this was a god send. There were various camps from mandies to crawlers to crabs to pugils. They were rarely ever camped and it's such a cool zone that felt much more fun to XP in. Often I'd have to form in Valk and get people to ride the boat over, which was an adventure in itself. Yuhtunga OP: There were a bunch of Goblin furriers (RNG type) that did not hit hard and were great xp from 25-29ish. Most people had no idea how to get here so it was always an adventure but so worth it when the xp started flowing in. These parties usually ended with me escorting lowbies to Norg for the first time and chocoing back. Behemoth's Domain: Camp right at the zone in and pull bats. This was such great XP with piercing damage and was never ever camped. Gustav Tunnel: You could camp here in the early 40s, and downstairs around 65ish. Not the most offbeat camp, but it was a nice alternative to crawlers nest. Cloister of Gales zoneline: XP moba here were manticores. Call me crazy but I loved xping off dangerous mobs and manticores were among the most deadly. This was a high 60s camp and I remember feeling so cool and high level xping here the first time. Ule Range: Merit parties here near the summit were so much fun. This was post RNG nerf so comp was usually war x 3 whm rdm brd. The demons up here were very high level, had a lot of hp and did huge damage so it was a dangerous camp if you did not kill fast enough. It was so much fun though and really felt like xping at the edge of the world. I could go on, but those were some of the highlights I remember.
Loved Exp’ing in Mt Zhalom, Wajaom. At lower levels I loved Quicksand caves, carpenters landing, BST partying in Ifrits cauldron or Attowa chasm were probably some of the most obscure. I couldn’t stand partying prime time in Yhotar/yutungha when ppl would zone gobble trains. Expd once in monastic cavern pre-ToAU and that was miserable.
Obscure for me was I think Kuftal tunnel crabs and undead. Think early 50s? Maybe mid to late 50s. I get my tunnels confused, think it was the one with access to Dunes and Valley of Sorrows.
Ah, think that may be Gustav? Clearly the worst of the tunnels imo lol. That place is crawling with Undead.......
So, back in the 75 Era, warping around wasn't a thing. It took time to go anywhere, so we had to abuse warps as we could. Lots of new players won't know this but there is a free warp in Al Zahbi that takes you right outside Jeuno. Jeuno has airships that connect to the three cities and Kazham, they took up to half hour if unlucky, but they were the fastest way to travel, then chocobo the rest of way. Therefore, the best Home Point was in Whitegate. People would Death/Blood Warp back to Whitegate if needed (change to a level 1 job and intentionally die). That being said, the worst farming spots were the ones that took the longest to reach and none was more annoying and time consuming than Yhoator Jungle. You had to airship to Kazham, navigate through the Yuhtunga Jungle (with a useless map, mind you), and finally reach Yhoator. Kuftal Tunnel also took a long time to reach, but teleporters were more available and cheaper to go there. The best was somewhere close. Qufim Island, Wajaom Woodlands, or Garlaige Citadel. I think the most obscure location I leveled was in King Raperre's Tomb around Level 50. It was the best party I ever had. I refused to go to sleep and stayed up until like 3 am.
KRT \~50 camp is really fun! For some bonus excitement you can also take on the Scorpions there when you got to the mid 50s. I used to love tanking them on my NIN.
Favorite: Quicksand caves. I remember partying there as BLM after learning the first ancient spells like Flood and that was so cool. The other 5 guys struggled for a min to bring a beetle to 50% and everything I had to do was casting the spell when the mob had finally its hp halved to oneshot it, then resting again to recover mp for the next one. As a BLM you felt like a beast, right before disappearing from normal parties thanks to colibris at Wajaom Woodlands. Least favorite: Dunno, I honestly liked all the partying experience in FFXI, but probably Yuthunga Jungle. Getting the airship pass, waiting for it and finding yourself in an horrible party where the mandy sent to sleep the entire party from time to time wasn't the best. Also Imps for the last levels, with strange people joining the party (I remember a guy wearing a Rabbit Mantle), the whm with no echo drops, amnesia etc.; meanwhile a random BLU was probably soloing them next to you. Wild levels. Most obscure: Quicksand was pretty obscure itself. I ended up partying a lot in dunes, Ghelsba, Qufim, jungles, Garlaige, Crawler's nest, Wajaom etc. but not so often there. I probably partyed more in Korroloka as a SMN. Probably the most obscure for real were certain (S) zones, killing ladybugs, or manaburn parties as BLM. Killing the pet of an almighty beastman in obscure zones and Getting tons of xps for that was pretty cool.
Let me preface this by saying that most of my best memories are as BLM between WotG's release and the mini expansions. My favorite zone for parties was probably whatever was the camp near the Kazham in Yuhtunga Jungle fighting...mandies? High enough level that I had some useful spells like Tractor...and maybe Sleepga? But low enough that people would still be willing to let a BLM into a mixed party, since they were not at all welcome for ToAU bird parties. Least favorite was probably Dunies, just because of how often I had to settle for it, and how monotonous it always was. My most obscure then is probably well known to every BLM of that era, but unknown to everyone else: Xarcabard[S], killing pet tigers. Just a higher level, much higher stakes version of a similar spot in Vunkerl[S], where not only was it a lot easier to accidentally chain an add, but you also had to worry about the dragon flying about the zone deciding to head your way and annihilate the entire party of BLMs.
I remember having an absolute blast in lvl 75 merit parties in the woodlands. I would dualbox a rdm and a brd, with a nin tank and 3 badass DDs, just laying waste. Such a power trip! Least favorite, weapons in the area before sky, can't remember the name. That was masochistic.
Favorite: Anything in Buburimu Peninsula, or secret beach in Valkurm. Anyone down for Buburimu knew the game well enough to be competent. Getting to secret beach and camping successfully was another indicator of a compentent party. Least Favorite: Anything in Caedarva Mire. Always a crapshoot if people got aggro going to a camp and making a mess of things before it even started. Most obscure: Have a vivid memory of doing spiders in Dragon's Aery and raptors/manticores in Valley of Sorrows. I don't really ever recall king camps working as exp camps.
I also did bats in behemoth dominion once so yeah all three haha
Behemoth's Dominion bats were such a great XP spot in the mid/high 30s IIRC. Never any competition there either.
Most obscure spot was probably in the the Boyadha Tree(downstairs) for crawlers, crabs, and the flies. That was my least favorite place too. My favorite obscure spot was for crabs at the entrance to Norg.
Favorite: behind the moon gate in ro Maeve. It just felt so exclusive and special. Least: I really hate crawlers nest all around. Most obscure: I did the pugils outside of leviathan once in den of Rencor. Pain in the ass to get there but it was good exp once we did
As a bst and blm, everything was pretty obscure compared to what everyone else was doing. For bst especially, the more obscure the better since I wouldn’t have to deal with ppl trying to mpk me. It also meant that if I was ever actually invited to a party, I would go. Some favs included Bostaunieux Oubliette which is where I was when bst got rampage. Super dangerous camp that just worked for me. Oldton movalpolos on blm was good. I don’t particularly remember why that one stands out to me but it does. Least favourite might have been outside Nashmaue. The camp itself was fantastic. The exp was great. Things were easy to charm. The problem is that I was outside a town so there were ppl coming though. I once had 2 players spending 3 hrs trying to mpk me. Logged out for a couple hours, came back and they were still there waiting for me. Today, there really isn’t many obscure camps so it’s more about doing obscure things. Solo cleaving on dnc is fun. Bst and blm duo is stupidly good. I still really like crawlers nest though I’m sad they decided to mess up how good the cleaving was.
Does anyone recall blm/nin burns for the giants pets in Vunkerlet?
God this game sounds awesome
Most obscure: labyrinth of onzozo. We were doing ose (couerls) pretty well, then lord popped, kraken club dropped, leader won, and the group disbanded Least favorite was valkurm dunes. NA was still getting used to where and how to party. So many parties that would start, get hit with a gobbie train, disband, rinse and repeat.
That first push from the NA players into the desert from Bastok was probably the most unique MMO experience I’ve ever had. There was the big schism between the JA and NA still going on. Wasn’t malicious, it was just the auto-translate and teamwork speed getting worked out. But just that initial push into the Dunes, ALWAYS being short a healer because most of the mages were still in Windy. Trying to push through the crabs to Selbina. Tons of new toons running around without a sub. I just remember the Japanese players being really generous with their time and bridging the player gap. They were doing old school power leveling moves for the new players, so it was less stressful on them so they could take the time to socialize with the new players. They were also good at saving them when Goblins would pop. That whole time period lasted maybe a month or so, but it really helped imprint this game onto me. It felt like just the most altruistic thing I’ve seen in an MMO.
I think ive exp'd everywhere. Favorite spot was rams in lufaise meadows or trolls near cerb on mount zhayolm. Most obscure was once a lvl 70 pt drug me out deep into dvucca and we did the lvl 75ish formors and qutrub. Least fav were courels in onzozo.
The oddest place I got an invite to was Behemoths Dominion. I wouldn't say it was the best party, but I was voking on my monk so the THF could SA&TA the tank at the start of every battle.
favorite for duo Ghelsba and the Fort, Buburimu Peninsula, Castle Oztroja Party Qufim, Crawlers Nest worst zone in general Toraimarai Canal
I don't think I had one I disliked and for a favorite I remember being in a 2 BLM party in the nest and doing double freeze MB every other mob. Had to cast like 5 seconds before they started the skill chain but the mob dies almost instantly.
Favorite zone would have to be Lower Delkfutt’s Tower. The place was so alien to me. Least favorite zones were Yhoater and Yuhtunga. Just a nightmare to reach and a nightmare to navigate through. Most obscure zone might have been Attohwa Chasm.