FFXI Questions and Answer Thread.

[Shadar]

heh..it's not like it only works on nvidia and ATI cards cause the other cards are so great, the error "Failed to recognize hard TnL" means you don't have a hardware Transform and Lighting renderer... So, if your card doesn't have that it isn't good (for gaming)... nothing to do with ATI and Nvidia, everything to do with requiring a video card with on-board shading/lighting/transform engines.

--Shadar

[PhyreBurn]

So whats up with the linkshell? Are Shirt Ninja Linkpearls still being given out or is there a secondary linkshell going around? Either way I'd appriciate it if someone could send me a linkpearl, the name's Phyreburn and I'm in Bastok right now

[Benjamin]

[quote="Devo";p="202946"]Ok, i have a question.. been trying to figure it out for a while but cant seem to get it right..

How so i set up a quick spellcasting macro? I'm tired of having to go through all the menu's when i need to get a spell off fast..

i know that you can type in the bar /ma Cure ,me. or /ma Cure <t>

but again.. those require typing. theres two sets of macros that can be used with the ctrl and alt buttons.. but i dont know how to edit them and set spellcasting macro's to them. And i am feeling pretty foolish nodding or casting spells on some random target etc ; )

Any help is appreciated =)[/quote]

You can have 200 macros total. 100 (10 macros per macro set, and 10 macro sets) on Alt and 100 on Ctrl.

to edit the macros, toggle the menu twice (either by pressing alt+f twice or the - on the keypad) and chose the macros option. From there you can use CTRL (or ALT) + UP ARROW/DOWN ARROW to change the sets. from there you can set up to 6 lines of commands per macro.

for example this would be a lazy fisher's macro:

/echo [Waiting 15 seconds to fish...]
/wait 10
/echo [Waiting 5 more seconds...]
/wait 5
/echo [Fishing NOW!]
/fish


I don't know many of the shortcuts as I just got the game myself recently but I do know that <t> is target, <me> is yourself and that <tp> is the % of TP you currently have. I don't have many macros myself but will eventually make some when I get more familiar with the gameplay.

[Benjamin]

Even older nVidia and ATI may not work as some of them don't support TnL (Transform and Lighting). It's basically hardware graphics acceleration that cannot be emulated.

nVidia GeForce FX (ALL except maybe some Mobility models)
nVidia GeForce 4 (almost all models)
nVidia GeForce 3 (almost all models)
nVidia GeForce 2 (most models)
ATI Radeon 9800 series (all models)
ATI Radeon 9700 series (all models)
ATI Radeon 9600 series (almost all)
ATI Radeon 9500 series (most models)
ATI Radeon 9200 series (most models)
ATI Radeon 9100 series (some models)
ATI Radeon 9000 series (some models)
ATI Radeon 8500 series (a good majority)
ATI Radeon 7500 series (a small few)
ATI Radeon 7200 series (a small few)

these support Hardware TnL. Most of the exceptions for these cards happen to be the Mobility versions for laptops or even onboard video where applicable.

[Manga no Kami]

Okay, to make any macro, you need to know a few things.

First: What are you using? Is it an Item, A spell, A Job Ability, a Ranged Attack, or a Weapon Skill?

/item
/ma
/ja
/ra
/ws

Then you need the EXACT name as it is spelled (spaces and all). Cure II, Barstonra, Mighty Strikes, Provoke. That MUST go in quotes.

Finally, you need a target. Will you be targeting yourself, a party member, a mob? Some possible include:

<t> Current Target
<me> Yourself, also can use <p0> in a party, or your name
<p1-5> Other members of your party (1-5 refers to the party members whose names come below yours, in the order they appear).

Say you want to cast Cure on yourself. It's a spell, so we use the command /ma (or /magicability). We specify the spell, "Cure" (always in quotes). Then we pick a target, yourself, so let's use <me>

Your Macro would look like this:

/ma "Cure" <me>

What about the Weapon Skill Red Lotus Blade? Using the same reasoning, we get:

/ws "Red Lotus Blade" <t>

It's a Weapon Skill, the name goes in quotes, and the target is whatever you're currently targeting.

The most important thing to learn is that the command line is case sensitive. If you try the following:

/WS "red lotus blade" <T>

It WILL fail for several reasons. Also, check your game manual for more commands. Any commands you can put in the chat window can be saved to fire when you use that macro. This includes quick emotes, fast mesages (like stat pinging), and location pinging. One of my favorite macros is my WHM Cure Others macro. It's a roleplaying macro I use to cure others (I have my own Cure Self macro). It reads like this:

/ma "Cure" <t>
/wait 2
/say Altana's light, bind <t>'s wounds.

Say I use it on a character named Kain. It then returns:

Profion begins to cast Cure.
Profion: Altana's light, bind Kain's wounds.
Profion casts Cure.
Kain regains 30 HP.

Finally, an essential for party play, the stat ping.

/party HP: <hp> MP: <mp> TP:<tp>

Which could return something like:

Profion: HP: 258/290 MP: 0/0 TP: 150%

Of course it would be in Party Speak Blue. Very handy to alert Healers and start Skillchains all in one. Use excessive spaces to make it easier to read.

Oh, and organize your macros. And don't forget to change you macros when you change jobs. There's nothing sadder than a dying warrior trying to frantically perform Fast Blade and only succeeding in failing to cast Stone. There's a really good macro guide a gamefaqs.com, too.

[Shadar]

so that was a pretty good primer on macros

however you missed probably the best <> commands out there for targetting
which are <bt> and <st>

i haven't actually seen them documented in the help files, but rest assured they exist;)

<bt> is used in anything cast on an enemy, it targets first the monster your party is currently fighting (the one in red), and if there is nothing in red, it will target whatever you currently have targetted.

This is invaluable if you want to stand up and cast a nuke w/o bothering to target the monster and prevents you from accidentally casting dia on a monster that wandered in front when you tried to f8 target:(

<st> is used mainly for healing/protection spells, and prevents you from having to have dozens of macros as you get more and more cure spells (ie /ma "Cure" <p1> through /ma "Cure III" <p5>" etc...

the way it works is after you use the spell it will give you a targetting cursor, and you can tab target. or you can use the fkeys to select a party member, for instance if i wanted a Cure II macro, i'd set it up thus:

/macro "Cure II" <st>
/wait 2
/p Castuing Cure II on <t>

and then when i hit my macro, i'd hit f1-f6 to target the person in my party i wanted to cure, and then i'd hit enter.

it would cast the spell and /p me casting it.

learn and love <st> and <bt>

(these are invaluable for redmages, as they allow you to swing and cast simultaneously, and because you get so many spells, you don't want to waste macros casting the same spell on different targets)

but they're plenty useful for the other casting classes as well:)

hope this helps someone.

--Shadar, level 24 rdm/blm

[Manga no Kami]

Ahhhh... see, I haven't played around at all with Red Mage class yet, so I usually don't swing and cast unless I'm soloing. And I have my own Cure Self macro. But that's beautiful. While I knew about <st>, I didn't know about <bt>, or how either really worked. I was unaware of using the F1-6 keys to target party members, either. Thanks. That's really cool. But since even in a party, fighting more than one mob is a rarity, I only use <t> being a primary Warrior (with no subclass yet, stupid skulls ;_;).

[Inubito]

Heh I just started myself, any stragglers on Pheonix server want to form a party and hit things?

[pink_cherry]

I have a question. I get my sgnet thing, go out and kill bunnies. I get a crystal. I start to run back to town. I get a message that I am not qualified to have the crystal and it dissapears. Am I doing something wrong?

(sorry if someone had a question like this but I don't feel like reading every post because I'm just posting because my game just crashed..)

[Manga no Kami]

Yeah, it means your inventory is full. When you get an item, normally you see two messages:

You find an Earth Crystal on the Savanna Rarab.
Azhraala obtains an Earth Crystal.

(Azhraala is my Mithra Monk on another server).

The second one is the line that means you actually RECIEVE the crystal, so if you're only getting the first one, then stop and open up your inventory. Hit the + key to sort, and select Auto. That will take all the stackable items (like crystals) and bundle them into groups of 12. (Some items stack in other sizes, and some items don't stack at all.) Any items that you have found recently will then appear in your inventory until it fills up again. The other way to tell, is when you have items waiting on a full inventory, you'll get this little brown symbol next to your name and HP/MP bars. It's the same one you see when you find treasure in a party using the lot casting distribution.

[pink_cherry]

Umm no it has nothing to do with my inventory. I get a message after I have aready gotten the crystal and killed several mosters since that I am under certain conditions to have it. I would post the exact phrase but I can't remember it, and I haven't gotten any crystals lately.

[Manga no Kami]

The message reads (from memory):

You do not meet the requirements to obtain fire crystal.
Fire crystal lost.

Right?

If it's not your inventory being full, then you must be in a party and someone else's inventory is full. When someone in a party loses an item because of a full inventory, everyone in the party sees that message. Believe me, that's what the problem is. Like I said, you do not get the crystal when you find it, you get it when you obtain it. If you're only seeing the message that you found the item, your inventory is full. I've seen that message far too many times while out hunting for 4-5 days with no acces to the Auction House.

[pink_cherry]

I'm confused. But ok.

[Manga no Kami]

Okay, I can be very confusing at times, let me try tis one again.

When you kill a monster, and it drops loot, you will see TWO messages. First this one: "You find an Earth Crystal on the Savanna Rarab." This tells you what the loot you have found is. It doesn't mean it's in your inventory yet, though. Then you get the second message. "Azhraala obtains an Earth Crystal." This is the message that tells you that, yes, you now actually possess the item.

If you see the message "You do not meet the requirements to recieve ______. _______ lost." Then you cannot get that item, and the game has given up trying to get the item into your inventory. This is usually because your inventory is full. However, if you are in a party and you recieve a rare item, such as an Orcish Axe, and it is awarded to you, it will be discarded in the same way, because you can only have one at a time. Should an item be discarded for whatever reason when in a party, the entire party will recieve that message, not just the person who lost the item.

Bottom line, if you ever see that message, double check your inventory. Since the only limit on crystals (the item you mentioned) is how many you can carry, then it must be that your inventory is full. (Since I'm by no means an expert at this game, I suippose there could be ANOTHER reason, but I've never seen/heard of anything else like it. )

[Felan]

On a quick mention autoloot (when nobody lots) can get quirky with full inventories as for some reason it will throw items randomly away if somebodys inventorys full (even if the item its supposed to go to somebody that has a non empty inventory)

Although I dont care much for autoloot, I dont seem to get anything XD