So in my quest to finish all the main Final Fantasy games, I’m down to FF3, FF5, and FF11. This week I’ve been playing the trial some to get my bearings, and while I’ve installed a few quality of life mods, I have maybe a couple of questions.
The first is that I was watching this video, and in it they mention a mod to allow the game to utilize more ram. A 4GB patch by someone named Thorny. For the life of me I can’t seem to find it. Does anyone out there know of a place it still exists?
Also, what are some of you guys’ favorites? I’m using Windower and have an alright set up now with some of, what I assume, are the staples (the map one, the one that makes you party window like FF14). But I’d like to know what the community thinks are pretty essential.
Thanks!
EDIT: Oof, I didn’t realize that the link that was mentioned in the video included the 4GB patch! I now have it all fixed up.
Most of the essentials have been incorporated into the game over the years (party TP display, buff timers, equip sets) so just make sure those first two are enabled in your in-game settings. Anything else is subjective, and if you’re only playing for the sake of story completion, you’re totally fine playing vanilla.
If you’re planning to stick with the game long term, consider checking out Gearswap or Ashitacast, and if you’re playing Bard in any serious capacity you’ll probably want the modded status icons that colorize song buffs. (Use xiview with xipivot to get just the icons without all the UI mods, and include the modded map dats while you’re there.) The skillchains and timers addons are both globally useful I think.
Besides those, there are a lot of nice QoL addons, but personally, I try to keep the amount of extra crap on the screen to a minimum. I don’t like the minimap or the FFXIV bars for that reason, but they definitely seem popular.
Thanks for the reply.
Last night I went and installed some of the graphical update ones, so that’s fun.
At this point I think I’ve got my setup pretty good to go, but I will look at Skillchains and some timers. Thanks!
I just finally got to the Rank 2.1 quest, so I’m slowly figuring out (with guides, of course) the logic of how to play the game. Coming from FF14, everyone is like “Yeah just trade the item to X,” but it took me SO LONG to realize they mean use the Trade menu. In FF14, the NPC will just ask for the thing and a window will pop up. It hindsight, it makes sense. But my brain just wasn’t thinking in that way.
But I’m having fun so far, so I’m eager to see how the story turns out.
Yeah, a lot of the menu systems are not very intuitive by today’s standards, and a wiki is practically mandatory for navigating a lot of the content. There’s a lot of great stuff there though, and I applaud you for trying the game out instead of skipping over it like a lot of FF fans do with XI and XIV.
If you can find a decent group of people to play with and help answer questions, that will make it all more enjoyable too. Check out the linkshell concierge if you haven’t yet. Hope you have fun :)
I’ve updated the sidebar with the “Make FFXI Beautiful” YouTube video by NextGames.
If your on the Phoenix server and looking for a linkshell please reach out.
Frankly I play largely vanilla with Ashita/Windower and the performance/visual benefits it brings. Gearswap/ashitacast imo is recommended as equipment sets are a big component of the game mechanics. I do use a few quality of life things like findall, pouches, equipviewer. I don’t use any of the ff14 mods, but it’s okay to pay the game how you want. One of the nice things about xi is it supports a variety of play styles.
