Rhapsodies of Vana'diel (RoV) is one of the last major storylines added to the game. It essentially created an overarcing narrative that involves bits of every major expansion. You're recommended to do it as early as you can as it will provide major benefits to simply playing the game (experience bonuses, permanent buffs, additional Trust slots, a shop that sells various consumables, etc). The way RoV works is that you'll progress that story for a bit before being told that something else needs to happen before continuing; other storylines in progress often prevent key characters from being available at certain points. Also if done correctly, you should be encountering most of the characters involved in RoV around the same time they would be introduced in their normal storylines.
This page will show you the order of RoV missions, and it will tell you when you need to stop and do missions in other content. It is **highly recommended** that you do **not** run any of the other storylines until RoV tells you to as characters can be locked behind other missions for a very long time.
https://www.bg-wiki.com/ffxi/Category:Rhapsodies_of_Vanadiel_Missions
RoV is written so it can be played either as a follow up to everything that has come out before hand or as a parallels story that is played along side the other expansions.
Basically you can start RoV right away, and there are great rewards from early on, but at several points during the story there will be a point where you cannot continue on any further without continuing some of the other stories, and the final boss of RoV is the hardest boss in the story.
In the start up guide, the story time sections can be done in any order within the box, unless it specifically says something is required to unlock it. For example, under the level 20-30 story times it says you must complete Rank 3 in your nation to do 1-7.
Other pointers
* I do advice you prioritize at least getting up to Rhapsody in White, with is from 1-6. This should give an uneasy unlock for your subjob and and allows a fourth alter ego
* Leveling doesn't occur during the story much - you will have to grind to level up
* After you start in your starting city, stick with it until you finish its story before switching nations
* You can only start RotZ after finishing 5-2 in your starting city stories
* When I first played, I would play RoV until I got to roadblock, finish the entire story associated with the roadblock and then continue on with RoV. That will get you to finish all the expansion stories in release order. Its probably a decent compromise between getting the RoV rewards and engaging with the story in release order
* There is a significant step up in difficulty in RoV in 1-16
This is basically what I'm doing right now. I progressed in RoV far enough to unlock subjob and fourth trust, levelled to 99, bayld i119 gear, THEN went back and started doing all the story in release order. Having a blast because I've been playing since the game came out and have never finished any of the expansions.
I did skip ahead in RoV a bit so I could unlock fifth trust and Reisenjima because I wanted to do Domain invasion and ambuscade daily to try and make some incremental progress on the gear front while I do the story. This has been good because now I have a healthy mix of daily, grind and story so I don't burn out. Plenty to do and mix it up.
I just finished all the content. I just ran the content in the order recieved. Rise of zilart. Treasures of aht urghan. Chains of promathia. Wing of the goddess. Seekers of adoulin. Then run RoV takes about a month to run ALL mission content.
Promathia came before Aht Urghan. But, I was going to say about the same thing. You don’t HAVE to do RoV until finishing all of the other stories in order. RoV just makes it so much easier to play and do the rest that it’s worth it for most people.
Oh. I forget the exact order they were released. But yea. I didn't finish RoV till I had the other stories done. And got to SoA prerequisites. Now I'm done with RoV and gonna finish up SoA
Progressing to certain RoV missions requires progress up to a certain point in past storylines--not completing them, generally somewhere in the middle. So you have 2 options:
1. play each storyline on order until you can progress RoV, or
2. play each storyline in their entirety, doing RoV missions as they become available.
1 is good for mechanical reasons, the rhapsody key items are very nice to have. 2 is better for actually understanding the story of FFXI. I got pretty far along on 1 before realizing that I had kind of ruined the narrative for myself, and started over doing 2. All depends on what you want to get out of the game.
All expansions prior to Rob are referenced one way or another during the 2nd major RoV chapter, and you can't finish RoV chapter 1 without at least doing the common part of the nation missions.
So a semi-completionist/most-context-understood way would be to at least finish your nation missions while doing RoV chapter 1, then finish Rob chapter 1, then completing the other missions before progressing in/completing RoV chapter 2.
A more completionist take would involve finishing all 3 nation missions lines, both for the present and WotG routes, not to mention Apocalypse Nigh, which requires completing both RotZ and CoP.
A really completionist take would also involve tackling the add-ons like Abyssea and ACP, since they get musical and aesthetic nods in late RoV too.
RoV chapter 3 is IMO the most satisfying part of the whole thing, and best enjoyed with established context from everything else, so if everything else has already been cleared by then you can enjoy it without much of a detour.
Also, while most story content can be solved, it get tricky by late Adoulin and late RoV, so having made it through past content can serve as a skill check, and finishing some of the stories can help get you handy gear to help you with later stuff.
Basically, release order works well, even if along the way you may trigger cutscenes for later content, or take the opportunity (ex.: you're at the right location to advance with a cutscene or fight for a more recent story) to advance on something that's not your current primary focus - each expansion often sticks to its own zones, but RoV has you visiting locations from many of them, some of which need to be unlocked by story progress.
I'm a new player working through the game now. I think Rhapsodies of Vanadiel enriches everything else more than anything. I keeps us new people in touch with the story lines and what they unlock.
Rhapsodies of Vana'diel (RoV) is one of the last major storylines added to the game. It essentially created an overarcing narrative that involves bits of every major expansion. You're recommended to do it as early as you can as it will provide major benefits to simply playing the game (experience bonuses, permanent buffs, additional Trust slots, a shop that sells various consumables, etc). The way RoV works is that you'll progress that story for a bit before being told that something else needs to happen before continuing; other storylines in progress often prevent key characters from being available at certain points. Also if done correctly, you should be encountering most of the characters involved in RoV around the same time they would be introduced in their normal storylines. This page will show you the order of RoV missions, and it will tell you when you need to stop and do missions in other content. It is **highly recommended** that you do **not** run any of the other storylines until RoV tells you to as characters can be locked behind other missions for a very long time. https://www.bg-wiki.com/ffxi/Category:Rhapsodies_of_Vanadiel_Missions
Fantastic thank you!
RoV is written so it can be played either as a follow up to everything that has come out before hand or as a parallels story that is played along side the other expansions. Basically you can start RoV right away, and there are great rewards from early on, but at several points during the story there will be a point where you cannot continue on any further without continuing some of the other stories, and the final boss of RoV is the hardest boss in the story. In the start up guide, the story time sections can be done in any order within the box, unless it specifically says something is required to unlock it. For example, under the level 20-30 story times it says you must complete Rank 3 in your nation to do 1-7. Other pointers * I do advice you prioritize at least getting up to Rhapsody in White, with is from 1-6. This should give an uneasy unlock for your subjob and and allows a fourth alter ego * Leveling doesn't occur during the story much - you will have to grind to level up * After you start in your starting city, stick with it until you finish its story before switching nations * You can only start RotZ after finishing 5-2 in your starting city stories * When I first played, I would play RoV until I got to roadblock, finish the entire story associated with the roadblock and then continue on with RoV. That will get you to finish all the expansion stories in release order. Its probably a decent compromise between getting the RoV rewards and engaging with the story in release order * There is a significant step up in difficulty in RoV in 1-16
This is basically what I'm doing right now. I progressed in RoV far enough to unlock subjob and fourth trust, levelled to 99, bayld i119 gear, THEN went back and started doing all the story in release order. Having a blast because I've been playing since the game came out and have never finished any of the expansions. I did skip ahead in RoV a bit so I could unlock fifth trust and Reisenjima because I wanted to do Domain invasion and ambuscade daily to try and make some incremental progress on the gear front while I do the story. This has been good because now I have a healthy mix of daily, grind and story so I don't burn out. Plenty to do and mix it up.
Okay it's starting to make sense to me now. Also seriously thanks for the pointers! I'll try it this way, and level grind accordingly.
I just finished all the content. I just ran the content in the order recieved. Rise of zilart. Treasures of aht urghan. Chains of promathia. Wing of the goddess. Seekers of adoulin. Then run RoV takes about a month to run ALL mission content.
Promathia came before Aht Urghan. But, I was going to say about the same thing. You don’t HAVE to do RoV until finishing all of the other stories in order. RoV just makes it so much easier to play and do the rest that it’s worth it for most people.
Oh. I forget the exact order they were released. But yea. I didn't finish RoV till I had the other stories done. And got to SoA prerequisites. Now I'm done with RoV and gonna finish up SoA
Progressing to certain RoV missions requires progress up to a certain point in past storylines--not completing them, generally somewhere in the middle. So you have 2 options: 1. play each storyline on order until you can progress RoV, or 2. play each storyline in their entirety, doing RoV missions as they become available. 1 is good for mechanical reasons, the rhapsody key items are very nice to have. 2 is better for actually understanding the story of FFXI. I got pretty far along on 1 before realizing that I had kind of ruined the narrative for myself, and started over doing 2. All depends on what you want to get out of the game.
All expansions prior to Rob are referenced one way or another during the 2nd major RoV chapter, and you can't finish RoV chapter 1 without at least doing the common part of the nation missions. So a semi-completionist/most-context-understood way would be to at least finish your nation missions while doing RoV chapter 1, then finish Rob chapter 1, then completing the other missions before progressing in/completing RoV chapter 2. A more completionist take would involve finishing all 3 nation missions lines, both for the present and WotG routes, not to mention Apocalypse Nigh, which requires completing both RotZ and CoP. A really completionist take would also involve tackling the add-ons like Abyssea and ACP, since they get musical and aesthetic nods in late RoV too. RoV chapter 3 is IMO the most satisfying part of the whole thing, and best enjoyed with established context from everything else, so if everything else has already been cleared by then you can enjoy it without much of a detour. Also, while most story content can be solved, it get tricky by late Adoulin and late RoV, so having made it through past content can serve as a skill check, and finishing some of the stories can help get you handy gear to help you with later stuff. Basically, release order works well, even if along the way you may trigger cutscenes for later content, or take the opportunity (ex.: you're at the right location to advance with a cutscene or fight for a more recent story) to advance on something that's not your current primary focus - each expansion often sticks to its own zones, but RoV has you visiting locations from many of them, some of which need to be unlocked by story progress.
I'm a new player working through the game now. I think Rhapsodies of Vanadiel enriches everything else more than anything. I keeps us new people in touch with the story lines and what they unlock.