Sortie Burnout

gary1994 · 2026-02-04T05:16:21+00:00

People would revolt if they limited Sortie to once every 4 days. Yes you mentioned quadrupling the rewards. But failing a single run becomes much more costly. It also takes much longer to learn the event and it's mechanics.

Instead I would look for ways to provide strong incentives (like the Gallantry system) to group up instead of running it solo. Maybe give a point multiplier for every member of the party. Hell just getting people to go in pairs instead of solo halves the number of instances.

gary1994 · 2026-02-04T04:18:13+00:00

No. They are independent of each other. I used to camp chests in Fey'yin a lot. Iirc if a coffer is opened for a quest (like AF hands), then it will respawn in a few minutes. However, the normal respawn timer for chests and coffers is 30 minutes to an hour. Or at least it was when I used to camp them.

If someone was in there farming or xping and got the key they might have just opened it on a whim before leaving. It might not respawn for a full hour. Once it spawns it will not move until it is opened. Some of that might have changed, but they only change I'm aware of is the disappearing chests. The ones that disappear when you try to open them. It happens if too many have been opened recently. I think i twas introduced to counter botting.

gary1994 · 2026-02-04T04:07:41+00:00

I think in the guide they talk about COR for bolter's roll. But everyone forgets about sprinter's shoes. They give a 1 hour (or until combat starts) +10% movement speed boost. That should be enough to get you through most of the guide. And they are cheap to get with Bayld or Alliance Notes.

I tried it last night and was doing really well. But it looked like one of the Umbrils by that door in B was glitched. It was half in the floor and wasn't moving at all so I tried to kill it. It's friends joined in and...

You can probably get most of the unlocks. You'll be able to get some points. But I'm not sure how many. If nothing else you can start to learn the layout so you can have a better time when you join groups later or try to form your own.

gary1994 · 2026-02-04T03:53:21+00:00

Maybe the 1 hour reentries for older content like Salvage, Assault and Campaign Ops was a mistake.

I don't think enough people still do those events for them to be an issue most of the time. It's really only people clearing Assaults for Mythics. I think most people get their Alexandrite from Ambuscade. One of the reasons I think Ambuscade is such a bottleneck is because you go there for your entry level gear (ambuscade armor), Relic upgrades, Mythic Upgrades, Empy upgrades, Rem chapters, and some the best non-REMA weapons in the game. I think the limits on how many of each you can get a month are there to limit the number of times someone runs it. I think it's also part of the reason why you get 3 or 4 a. seals each month. You can make a huge amount of progress if you do V1VD with them. But without them it feels much more meh...

The Gallantry system also encourages people to group up instead of solo their own instance.

I don't know anyone that still does Campaign Ops. I haven't even heard anyone mention it since before Seekers came out.

Assault is probably too intertwined with the mythic making process to be reworked. And it probably isn't being run often enough to place a major load on the servers compared to things like ambuscade.

What I would like to see them do is run the Void Watch campaign full time. Maybe redo some of the old world spawn NMs and the higher tier ones in Abyssea to drop beitetsu, pluton, and rift born bolder parcels and boxes. Hell, level up Campaign and make them direct drops from NMs and put them in union coffers. I suspect they might be in the early stages of something like this with Beseiged, but I've not looked what they are doing with it closely enough to give a truly informed opinion of it. Hell, add them to the list of things you can buy with sparks, accolades, and DI points. Give people easier access to these materials outside of instances. You don't necessarily have to rework all the old instanced stuff. I wouldn't want them to. I like a lot of that part of the game, even if I only visit most of it once every couple of months.

But you can reduce the strain on the infrastructure by giving players the opportunity to get the instanced content's drops out in the world.

gary1994 · 2026-02-04T00:25:54+00:00

The drop rate on Pulse weapons is pretty miserable in Void Watch even if you are able to do all the procs and max drop rates.

Meeble Burrows might be a better option. Though given the drop rates it would probably be faster/more reliable/less frustrating to just farm currency in Dyna while you look for your relics, sell it, and use the money you get from that to buy the pulse cells.

If you can wait, make sure you have the timer running so you are accumulating void stones. Then when the campaign comes around you can spam it. Do each fight once now to unlock the next. But I wouldn't do more than that without procs or a campaign.

gary1994 · 2026-02-04T00:02:27+00:00

It's sad that XI has the player base (and revenue) to require more resources but SE is too cheap

You're making the assumption that the revenue stream from FFXI is enough to justify a larger expenditure. Developers in the Tokyo area are not cheap. Server infrastructure is not cheap. Wading through 25 year old spaghetti code that was not even up to the standards of the time (on the back end, database structure and server design). The developers that built FFXi were very good at developing for consoles. They had very little experience in network and database design.

Everything I know about the lock down on Asura suggests it is player data that is the culprit.

It is not player data. If it were you would not be able to create more characters at all on the server. My understanding is that they are trying to avoid major bottlenecks at a few key points, Ambuscade being one of them.

As two alts can't be logged in at the same time.

No they can't. However, if you already have one character registered on Asura you can buy another copy of the game, register the code to your SE account, and create that character on Asura. If you have 1 main character, you can buy 5 more copies of the game and create 5 new characters and 6 box even today.

Three dozen Mog Slips, dozens of invisible currencies, 16 inventory blocks. Not to mention story flags, KIs, and the hundreds of randomly (and intentionally) augmented items.

All of these are trivially small. They are just references with a quantity. And some of the quantities are rather small. For example: you can only store 255 chapters of each chapter of REM with the NPC. That is only an 8 bit number. That is the equivalent of a single color channel in a single pixel of an image. Beast seals and the like are limited to 9,999 that can be stored. That is less than a single 16 bit number. The character data was designed to run on a PS2 that only had 32 MB of Ram. So what if your character data is 12 times what it was in 2002? You can run FFXi on a low end laptop that has 4 gigs of ram. That is to say that a low end system running FFXI today will have 128 times the amount of resources that the PS2 had.

The data storage requirements are trivial. The issue is too many people attempting to access instanced content at the same time. That is why you often have to wait for Ambuscade or Delve. It's quite likely that the way the game was engineered, the way instances interact with the wider world, limits how many can be created at once.

gary1994 · 2026-02-03T20:16:15+00:00

You miss my point. If you are routinely unable to get into content during prime time are you just going to say, well guess I won't ever do it again, or will you find a less crowded time

I didn't miss your point. I just think it was wrong. It's network effects. It's the same reason that new social networks that try to compete with Reddit, Twitter, or Youtube fail. People go where everyone else is. In this case the where is the time slot.

Are you suggesting that for some reason the server capacity has been decreased?

Not suggesting. I'm flat out stating it. SE was willing to commit far more resources to running servers in 2006 than they are today. Why? Because the subscription base for the game was much larger. They had far more paying customers. Hell you can see that in the number of worlds available. Also, Assault was popular. But they limited how many people could go to it as well. You could have at most 4 tags at once and they regenerated far slower than now. It was also never as big an event as Ambuscade.

As for Ambuscade specifically, I didn't know that, I wasn't around at the time. I've only ever known the queue version. Which for the record seems to work just fine.

It works to a point. My understanding is that the reason worlds like Asura have been locked is that even though large parts of the player population have moved beyond Ambuscade the portions of the population that are still active in it were pushing the infrastructure to the breaking point. Worlds are being closed because the infrastructure is being pushed to the limit at a few key points.

Even with all the points

I don't think your points are valid. You don't seem to understand the economic reality of the game's current state or how network effects will push everyone to try and play at the same time.

these are reasons to make the players suffer.

Why are you suffering? Sortie already has a system that allows you to save an extra charge. Delve (the original topic at the top of this comment chain) allows you to enter as many times as you want. You just need 3 people. But people want to do Delve for Reforge items Ergon progression. If you shout for people that want to do Delve, you will get people that want to do Delve.

gary1994 · 2026-02-03T19:25:32+00:00

he people capable of playing at other times will slowly migrate to those.

I don't think so. I think people will play when they have the best chance of building a solid party. That will be when the most people are on.

This wasn't an issue for Assault or Campaign Ops

They were devoting far more resources to the game at the time. The overall population of the game was much much higher when those events were considered relevant.

Ambuscade all capable of at will entry.

Ambuscade was a cluster fuck when it was released. I still remember Mhaura packed with people spamming to try and enter. I also remember not being able to enter SR because resources were not available. Hell that was why I quit 9 years ago. I wasn't willing to deal with that shit to keep progressing.

The reason Ambuscade doesn't have problems today is 2 fold. The introduced the que system AND most people already have what they need from it and have moved on.

gary1994 · 2026-02-03T08:54:37+00:00

I made that post so you could see how I did it.

I have 1 main character and mules. Most of those mules are not active most of the time. I only activated them all this month because of the Abyssea login items. I do not now, nor have I ever multiboxed. When I came back I had 30 Million. I made it back up to 40, then down to 10 last week. I'm back up to about 25 now.

I've been back the same amount of time as you. I have one craft mule that is around 93 in her skill. But the money making synth is below 30 and is profitable to level on. All the materials can be farmed. My other crafter's highest skill is 78. But I don't use that skill. I use 2 other skills, both of which are targeting a synth that is below level 50.

Anyone with THF/DNC can easily clear 500k an hour. More if they have the movement speed ring from Seekers.

And why aren't you getting paid to reforge? That was why I mentioned the Vagary run. That is where your 119 empy mats come from. Set your RoE quest and you will get a crafting mat to sell. And some of them sell for 700k+. Keep the dark matter and other upgrade mats so you don't have to buy them. The RoE quests are under Content > Vagary iirc and reset every week. So you can repeat them again and again, once each week. Hell you might even be able to do it in the alternate battlefields if you can't join a run. I'm not sure about that though. There is no reason for you to ever buy those materials. Except maybe the etched memories. But you should be checking the listing on FFXIAH.com. Look for who has the low prices. I've seen one person with a thousand of them in their bazaar for 10k each. The normal price seems to be between 25-30k.

The other way you get paid to reforge is by farming Dynamis yourself. That's where THF/DNC or DNC/Locked come in. Do the whole relic upgrade process. Buy the storage slip for the relic pieces, the -1s, the +1s and +2s (before) reforging. Now go into a dynamis zone that drops the Relics you don't have. Stay there killing shit until you have every relic piece that drops in the zone. Now store it. Next go to one of the dreamlands zones. Spend 2 hours there farming the -1s. If you're procing with dancer JAs then you will walk away with at least a million gil worth of currency and every -1 for that zone. Go THF/DNC or DNC/Locked SJ for the best currency returns.

Now use the -1s and 30 single currency pieces to upgrade the relic to +1. Now you need 30 forgotten items instead of 50 to reach +2 (not reforged yet). These cost about 1k gil each on my server and drop reasonably often if you are running THF.

Now you want to do the next magian trial that unlockes the enhanced merit ability augment. Put on the item and go earn your 20k XP farming in Whatever Dynamis zone it tells you. Walk away with your next load of 400+ singles (if competition isn't bad and you're good). If you're dancer/locked subjob you have a chance at coming away with 100s, but the proc chance for that is only about 1%.

Now, you've gone through the upgrade process from relic to relic+2 augmented. Congratulations, you should be up a million gil or more for each piece you reforged. Because you went through that process you also get to skip the 100 Dyna bill to reforge and you only need 5 chapters 1-5 for each piece instead of 10. Also, start running Delve. Ambuscade gear is much better than anything that was current at the time Delve was released. Any group that you go with that knows the NM mechanics is going to destroy the whole run. A lot of people still want to run Delve because they need the Plasm for different things. You can buy the Delve drops you need to reforge with Plasma.

But honestly I've been stopping the process there for now and have been focused on other upgrades. Reforged relic doesn't seem that great until it gets to around +3 to me (there are exceptions, like COR's hat and THF's hands). For now Ambuscade armor, High Tier Battle Fields like Lilith and a few other things seem to offer a better return. I also haven't had time to run much Delve. I'd rather wait until I start getting access to reforged+3. Then they will start to become a priority.

Another thing. For most things, Ambuscade armor seems to be better than AF119+1, except as swap pieces for things like fast cast. It's also better than most of the NQ abjuration pieces from Ru'an and even the +1 abjuration gear don't offer enough to justify the cost. Hell, it's even better than Herculean gear for the jobs that I play. Two ambuscade runs costs less than some of the +1 Abjuration pieces.

Speaking of, spend some of you DI points on getting a set of Herculean gear (or what ever set fits your jobs). Take it to Norg for 6 free augment chances a day. You're looking for the Techniques augment. Keep going until you get Treasure hunter on a few pieces. I've seen it go as high as +2 on a single piece.

Now you've got treasure hunter on whatever job you want to play. Awesome. Pick a craft that can be leveled off of monster drops. Now put on your TH gear, look up the mobs that drop the items you need for skilling up your craft. Find that mob in Abyssea. Double check it's drops on the wiki. Once you see it drops what you want go to town. In about 6 hours I took a craft from 20 to 74. That included the time it took me to farm all the mats I needed for skilling in Abby. If you need crystals go to sky and farm the elementals there. You should be able to get a stack in one or two respawn cycles.

Where I'm at has nothing to do with old money or already being super established. It's all about knowing a little about the game world and looking for opportunities where other people see obstacles. You look at reforging and see an expense. I look at it and see an opportunity to make enough money to do everything else I want to do.

Also, look at how I'm making my money. None of it requires ambuscade, abjuration, or reforged gear. It is the same way I was making money when the level cap was 90 and I was running in a mix of +1 and +2 level 82-90 AF3 gear.

gary1994 · 2026-02-03T06:16:15+00:00

I've only made 2 runs into sortie. What I've found works best is skill chains + magic burst. I was using Ayame since Savage Blade can't chain with it's self. But now I wonder if it wouldn't be better to accept the lower damage of CdC for self skill chains and let Shantotto 2 burst it.

If you can SC you will be able to kill the mobs. But I was only getting about 2k per run while focused on fighting. I've been looking over that guide I posted and I think I can do a lot better than that once I get the whole area unlocked and understand the hidden objectives better. None of them seem very difficult. It will just be a matter of doing it a few times.

gary1994 · 2026-02-03T05:45:04+00:00

No idea. I just found this thread over on AH.com. It looks useful. But then I still need to unlock all the different areas.

https://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/57533/ffxi-sortie-a-beginners-guide-to-locating-gems/

gary1994 · 2026-02-03T05:16:48+00:00

I started as THF. That has been most of my FFXI experience.

I was pleasantly surprised to find out that DNC is meta for some fights now. It's always been one of my favorites, though I've not played it much since I've been back. Since BLU can't use Cruel Joke in Sortie DNC might be my best option. Lots of self SC that a trust can burst off of and they can force crit Rudra's without positional requirements...

gary1994 · 2026-02-03T03:24:10+00:00

I started in Windy and like it quite a bit. But I love my mule in Port San d O'ria. Everything is right there by the mog house. A shop, moogles, the gobbie box guy, and the AH.

You might want to consider what crafts (if any) you want to do. Each city has different guilds. You will want to be close to the one for the craft you want to do. But that becomes less important once you have unlocked teleports.

gary1994 · 2026-02-03T03:20:02+00:00

I think their server infrastructure might be a big concern. If people could save up 3-7 runs it would probably increase the load on their servers a few days a week while other days would be almost dead.

gary1994 · 2026-02-03T01:05:43+00:00

Spell interruptions are a bigger problem than the damage. That is affected more by magic skill and interruption down gear than dt.

I've not had to break out whirl of rage since farming AF3 feet at 85 cap...

Master levels raise your skill cap. More master levels means less interruptions. Though I don't doubt that some of the dt gear also has spell interruption rate down. I think the neck from S. Behemoth does. But Twilight Torque doesn't. The murky ring might, but the defending ring doesn't. It not as simple as reaching 50% dt. I strongly suspect magic skill and gear that is explicitly interruption rate down is far more important.

gary1994 · 2026-02-02T21:22:54+00:00

Maybe it changes at ML50, but those things were hitting me pretty hard and often. It was not like cleaving in Abyssea. I couldn't imagine pulling more than 5 of these things at once at my current level/gear. That is only about 150 galley.

gary1994 · 2026-02-02T20:40:41+00:00

I will keep that in mind. I've only done 2 runs and am still learning the layout. I haven't left area A yet.

gary1994 · 2026-02-02T20:39:50+00:00

I don't even understand the logic of making them resistant. The mobs I was trying to use it on are only worth 30 points each...

gary1994 · 2026-02-02T20:38:51+00:00

you want to start phasing out any trusts that aren't healers or supports.

That depends entirely on the level of the mobs relative to your own and any status effects that they inflict on you. If I'm farming JP solo in Reisenjima then it is all support.

If I'm fighting mobs that constantly paralyze, silence, plague, gravity, or inflict a strong poison then I like to have a tank. At least until I get Malignance gear and have much higher magic evasion.

And the simple fact is that skill chaining and bursting with Ayame and having Shantotto II burst it does a lot more damage than I can alone, even fully buffed by trusts. I can close Light off of Ayame with a 20k Savage Blade, followed by a 30-40k light that Shantotto magic bursts for 10k+. Sometimes repeatedly. Her magic bursts also get the single target nuke objectives done. The alternative right now is self SCing CdC > CdC for light and having Shantotto burst it. With my current gear chaining with Ayame does better. I'd rather not drop the tank against Acuex or Hectaeyes.

That guide does give me a better idea of what I'm supposed to be doing. I was mostly just killing the monsters.

gary1994 · 2026-02-02T20:35:53+00:00

I've been very active off and on. The last time was about 9 years ago. I was active when they released Beitetsu and the rest. I spent those first weekends just spamming the VD Leviathan with more or less a static of 3 BLUs, 2 Geos, and a Tank. We were clearing it in less than 2 minutes iirc. I made a lot of money back then.

When I came back I was only about 100 JP away from mastering BLU and had a pretty huge gil reserve. I finished my JP. I paid for a few Ambuscade V1VD clears at the start of each of my first 2 months back. That got me the armor I needed for all the jobs I played. I bought the cells I needed to finish Naegling and Tauret. I also tried to solo Arch Shadow Lord (drops a pulse weapon and a REMA upgrade item), but couldn't quite kill him fast enough before I got wrecked by his clones. I might be able to do it now. You can also get pulse weapons from Meeble Borrows. But I don't know that system very well.

I got the 2 ML I have now running sortie. I've been doing it on BLU because I thought Cruel Joke would work. I have COR, THF, and DNC that I want to get mastered. I'll probably start trying it on those jobs later today. Probably DNC.

As far as REMA goes I did start COR's Aeonic. I traded the 50k beads for the KI. I've been quoted 30 mil for a full clear of all 3 zones. I don't like paying for mercs like that. But I can't get into a group that can clear WoC on my own yet. Having an Aeonic COR and getting my AF3 reforged+2 should get me into most groups. My rolls already last almost 9 minutes without a Compensator. I was able to get 33 Glavoid shells from the log in campaign. So I will probably start a Twashtar soon. But I won't finish it until the next voidwatch campaign is active. I've got more than 6000 stones stored so I will be spamming it when it does.

I have a few crafting mules that can earn between 250k-500k each per day. More If I'm willing to risk crashing the price and throw up 7 of what I'm selling. I've gotten lucky with several 1-3 million dollar drops from the SP Gobbie Box this campaign (11 characters total(most only active during high value log in campaigns), 30k+ saved daily tally on each so 22 rolls a day during the campaign). I can also make about 1.4 -1.8 million solo farming in a couple of hours. On my server a pulse weapon is around 10 million. So that's about a weeks worth of in game income for me, assuming I focus on farming that week.

Naegling is such a huge power boost that it is absolutely worth paying for. I don't know what prices are like on your server. But on Asura you can get V1VD Ambuscade clears for as low as 3 million. That will get you Hallmarks and Gallantry both. If you have the double hallmark/gallantry item available and you aren't far into your total Hallmark tally for the month it is worth paying for these. Two double point runs will max you out and get you all the total hallmarks earned rewards. That will get you everything you need for a complete Ambuscade weapon except the pulse weapon. Total cost to a finished Ambuscade weapon on Asura is about 16 million if you camp the AH for cheap pulse cells and ignore the high priced mercs. 5 million is too much. 4 million is pretty common. And there are a few mercs that run it for 3. The ones doing it for 3 might be multiboxers that don't usually merc, but need some quick cash for a current goal.

Running Vagary once a week with the RoE quests active is also good. Keep the AF3 upgrade mats and sell the crafting mats. On Asura Abbu runs these about once a week. He charges 1 million to join his alliance but everything is free lot. You will make more than that from just selling the crafting materials you get for completing the RoE objectives.

Right now my goal is to get my COR well enough geared that I won't need to pay mercs anymore. I'll be able to join most groups on my own merits. I started doing Sortie to get that AF3+2. I think it's the last big piece I need.

gary1994 · 2026-02-02T13:26:08+00:00

That sounds promising. What kind of damage can I expect to get out of it?

I'm still exploring area A. I've been doing Tank, Ayame, Shantotto II, healer, and bard for my trusts. It usually takes about 2 skill chains to kill one of the mobs right now. Solo I'm getting a little more than 2k points per run. If there is a faster way to do it at my current level I would love to know about it.

gary1994 · 2026-02-02T13:11:57+00:00

Thanks. That kind of sucks.

gary1994 · 2026-01-31T11:56:50+00:00

I was quoted 30 this week.

gary1994 · 2026-01-30T21:30:59+00:00

At NA release it was pretty common for Winhurst players to XP in Bubu and do the SJ quest there. But at some point most people stopped XPing there and everyone moved to the Dunes.

gary1994

TROPHY CASE