Patience & Planning

I want to talk a little bit about what I consider to be long term goals for me in Final Fantasy XI. Now, I'm not quite sure all of them will come to completion. Perhaps if I had the same mindset now several years ago when I first started...maybe. Then again, I still think FFXI has plenty of life left in it and if I had the discipline I think I lack (for a lot of things) I think they're all very doable.

Anyhow, in short...I think my goal from the very beginning was to level every job. Now, some people probably think, "Yes, that's extremely unreasonable." However, I don't think it is. There will, of course be a lot of sacrifices. But there are some things you have to keep in mind...not every single job has gear that ONLY it can wear. If you level Dragoon and Dark Knight, you're not going to have 16 Equipment pieces for Dragoon TP, 16 for Dragoon WS, then another 32 for Dark Knight. Especially if you PLAN for it.

Now, granted, that's a pretty easy one to get by. Saying, "Well, it won't be so easy if I level Paladin and a Black Mage." That's very true. There are still ways to cut corners -- and for any naysayers out there, just because we're making sacrifices and cutting corners doesn't mean we're gimping our jobs. I'll get back to that in a moment though.

Since the introduction of allowing people into our Mog House -- I think a LOT of people, well, a LOT more people have begun decorating thier MH. This leads to using up slots that don't need to be used up. You can only have a maximum of 80 Storage. Anything in your Safe past that, is taking up room. So, in a perfect Vana'diel the most inventory spaces you can have between yourself and your Mog House is...306. That's with 4 Book cases, whose Storage total comes to 80.

If you collected...Full Wyrmal, Hecatomb, Zenith, Adaman, Pahluwan, Amir, Yigit, Askar, Denali, Goliard Gear -- between ALL those you would still have 256 spaces AND three of those sets are stored. Relic can be stored, AF can be stored. Assecories such as Rings\Belts\Necklaces\Earrings can easily be shared with different jobs.

So, with all that in mind, I come back to the 'other sacrafices' we would have to make. And those are the sacrafices to gear we don't NEED, but gear we WANT. I'll use my Thief as an example. To be a succesful Thief, I really only need 36 pieces of gear. 16 TP, 16 WS. Done. Some of those even overlap. However, because I want to be the best Thief I can be...I have other sets...

Steal Gear, Enmity Gear, Evasion Gear, Solo Gear, Ranged Accuracy Gear, Kiting Gear, Haste TP, Accuracy TP -- just to name a few (or close to all of them.)

Some of these, I rarely EVER use. Enmity Gear? Almost never. Ranged Accuracy\Kiting Gear? Salvage only. Steal Gear? Dynamis only. If I got rid of all that stuff if would clear up a LOT of space. But, it wouldn't make me gimp. I'd still do the same in Exp\Merits, or on ZNMs\Gods, etc. etc.

So, getting back to the very original point of this topic -- in the long run I'd like to get most jobs to 75. I've actually made a list of the Jobs I'd like to level and those that I really have no interest in (but, at some point would still like to try.) So, with a bit of patient and planning over the next couple years it's my plan to level the following to at least 37...

White Mage, Red Mage*, Bard, Dancer, Scholar, Ninja*, Blue Mage.

And the following to 75...
Thief*, Black Mage*, Ranger, Monk, Dragoon, Warrior, Corsair, Beastmaster, Paladin, Summoner, Puppetmaster, Samurai, Dark Knight.

* denotes that it's already finished.

Now! To finish I just want to mention a few more things that I think the above covers or should be assumed to cover but that some people might still bring up.

"But Kallo! You have to realize a lot of jobs have JSE type armor thats the best or R\E armor thats the best for its job. That takes up a lot of space."

Yes it does. And it's part of making those sacrafices. JSE or R\E might be the best, but that doesn't mean there isn't other gear that will suffice in it's place.

"But Kallo! What about all the junk we collect? All those Quest Items! The chest\coffer keys! Egads man! There is so much junk!"

Then throw it out. =P

That's it! Just wanted to post something today that didn't require me use any pictures. I hate pictures.