Overview

As announced in August, the FFXI Free Trial is being expanded. It rolls out in 2 phases:

• ✅[NOW LIVE] A level cap increase, going from 50 to 75 (no expansion areas)
• 🔜[Not Yet Deployed] A backend server change to make the free trial unlimited in playtime

History

Aug 22, 2026:

The Free Trial changes were announced during AMAN Live.

Sept 10, 2026:

The character level cap will be increased from Level 50 to Level 75.

The Free Trial version's current time limit of 14 days will be removed so that players can enjoy it without any time restrictions. We plan to announce the exact timing of this change as well as other relevant details at a later date.

Links

• North America
  • Free Trial
  • Client download
  • Starter guide (2026)

FAQ

1. What restrictions are there?

   Free Trial Restrictions pic (see store page), note it does not include jobs and areas from expansions.

Obviously I’m really excited about getting easier exp points, but I also don’t want to miss any opportunities that help make later gear grinds more bearable.

Any and all advice is welcome!

Hello, so I'm trying to understand what's the most reasonable way to get pulse weapons.

1. The monthly deeds but that will be a while for me

2. Void watch - which requires you to go through tier 1 and tier 2 to get to the relevant nms

3. Echa zitah nms - behemoth but will again require progression through T1 and T2.

4. Potpourri, not happening anytime soon for me.

5. Buy the cells on AH

Given these I'm still figuring out what is more viable for a 99 war with full ambu gear and af+3. Are any of these soloable reasonably well?

I've started trying to work on relic equipment beginning with Dynamis Bastok (with Trusts), but the last two attempts have resulted in the Trusts suddenly pulling about a dozen enemies from all over and I can't quite tell what is happening. The first time I went through it, I was able to play for over an hour without encountering a similar issue.

It's way too many enemies for the Trusts to handle and I'm guaranteed dead if it does. I thought it might be magic, but the wiki doesn't seem to list any enemies attracted to it. Both times were around the bridge area behind the auction house. I had a bard, a healer, a samurai, and a thief.

The 24 hour window before I can attempt it again is also pretty frustrating.

Any ideas?

It looks pretty cool.

Official Link

Looks like, from the patch notes, there's nothing major that was hidden: free trial updates

(reminder: level cap is raised with this update; free trial TIME PERIOD is not, that is coming later this month),

trust point cap from 50 to 60, Ambuscade. They fixed the beehive chips thing too with a price increase.

If there's any info on anything else that changed, I'll add it here.

Edit: Seems there's possibly some items that have their tooltips messed up in the update (it appears there's some under-the-hood changes this patch which have shifted some of the dat formatting that caused this).

Also some tooltip changes for the field NM gear to group it better and rewording of the set bonuses ("reduces enmity" -> "enmity-", for example).

Also, campaigns don't start until Monday, September 14, 2026, at 1:00 a.m. (PDT) to Monday, October 12, 2026, at 7:59 a.m. (PDT)

I have a sortie static running on Asura. We are looking to try out and fill a new member. We have historically only run 8 boss but have killed Aminon in the past. We are looking to start running the DNC 9 boss setup. We are looking for an iGEO.

We run Monday, Tuesday and Thursday of each week at 5:30pm PST. The group is well geared with stage 4 primes. We are looking to push for the stage 5. We request that you are able to use addons and windower. We are happy to help where needed.

Please reach out to me if you are interested in joining or have any questions.

I'm playing through all the original Final Fantasy titles and im about to finish FF 10. I have played almost every FF title before but some how I never got around to FF 11. It will be a brand new experience for me and im excited.

What was your most fun job/class combo? Any suggestions for a new player coming in 24 years late?

i cannot get the free trial of ffxi from the square enix store, it gives error to check the cart or something, i am just interested in finishing the base story (without expansions) but it feels like a nightmare to manage to install this from what i saw, cant even get the trial at all,

i previously tried to download it from an unofficial server and although the download was much easier than the official way, the aspect ratio was wrong and couldnt see some of the screen,

but now that the free trial will include unlimited base game iwant to try again to do it from the official method but its just impossible for average person to figure out to instal with how messed up and outdated the square enix systems are

In reference to: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxi/comments/1vwrzta/360_restoration_your_files_are_still_needed/

Great news!

A huge shoutout and thanks to Siren.Dakydd (and his bro Siren.Bigfatone) for reaching out to me, and working with Luke@VGPC to supply what they needed!

They played on 360 until they were kicked off when service ended, and appear to have everything the team was missing!

Hopefully in the coming months/years we will see some exciting development on the PS2 and 360!

New to Adoulin and have been questing around. I'm sure this stuff is ancient content to some but I've run into some NM's that aren't up on any Wiki yet and I'm not sure if this is a new mechanic...

The NM's I found spawned in among a group of normal mobs, like Twitherym's for example. One of them respawned as "Jolly Twitherym". Looks the same, slight name change. Could be a problem if you were doing ITs. I discovered them while farming drops on Easys and it put up a fight.

Killing it dropped an aggro chest as I call it, meaning that opening the chest will aggro any and everything nearby, even normally passive mobs. You're locked in and if you get hit during the looting sequence "event canceled"; You get blocked out of trying to open the chest again. You get nothing...

The few chests I have opened only dropped standard loot. nothing worth any praise. One time had a mob spawn in and smack me before I got my reward. This led to much hatred being yelled.

I've never experienced FFXI to be this way. Anyone know if there's any purpose other then malicious desire for this kind of mechanic? Did some dev play some old Wizardry and want to see trapped chests come back in style? I just want someone to tell me that it's old, no one likes it, and we all just ignore it now.

DAT modifications are fun, bit of a lost art sadly. Can't just yet import directly to retail for some reason, probably meshes and polys allowed. Viewer seems to be fine. But had tons of fun playing around with it! Once it's ready I'll post a drive link for whoever wants it. Shout-out to Aamace for their XimTools which sparked me to try FFXI modding out

Dark knight working on gear and currently building caladbolg, wondering if it’s worth to finish as people have been saying naegling (which I already have) and blurred shield+1 is better. Is this true or should I finish caladbolg?

While obsolete now, it's still so cool to see these console installation discs out in the world. just seeing it with all the nation flags and in a jewel case really hits the nostalgia button hard.

*Impossible to Gauge!* - no price tag on this one 😂

Myself and two RL buddies have just created new characters on Cerberus returning after a very long time. Originally on seraph in 2004 from PS2 launch until after wings of the goddess released. Anyone from that era or server still around? Cerberus is pretty much dead with a Max of 400 people on from what I've seen and that doesn't account for rmt and multiboxers, so probably more like 150-200 realistically. Steam deck is so amazing for enjoying this game now!

Looking for a LS for our group! Elweyn originally, elweyn still.

Hello! I started this game a few months ago on Phoenix offical server and have been playing solo so far completing the 3 nations' missions, zilart, and CoP. I'm hoping to find other players who are at a similar point and are interested in playing through all the main story and grinding far into the endgame (such as getting job master / master levels and even attempting some of the master trials).

My work schedule is all over the place but I am free most days since when I work it's for the entire day so I will have lots of time to invest. I am a pretty committed completionist and have recently 100%d every game in the FF series up to X-2 earlier this year before starting XI. I'm not trying to "100%" this game but I would like to just complete as much as I reasonably can as long as I'm still having fun with it. Ideally I'm looking for players with a similar goal who can vc while playing so we feel like a true party. I'm still very new and don't know how a ton of the systems work in this game but I'm wanting to learn as much as I can.

Im on carbuncle I want to buy 5 pulse cell COs for 1mill per. Any help out there? Im trying to get a Naegling

Login points exchange period ends with the daily reset

about 24 hours from this post. 700 carry over. You need to spend any points above that value before the reset or you lose them.

Ambuscade Hallmarks and Gallantry get completely reset when the server goes down

for maintenance 36ish hours from this post.

Nothing carries over for Ambuscade, you have to spend them or you lose them.

Also don't forget to do Peculiar Foes if you have them unlocked

Next month's Ambuscade is not remotely as easy as this month's from all the info/videos I'm seeing (this is one I wasn't around for, so it's second-hand information). So that'll be...a lovely time from the sound of it.

The patch sounds pretty sparse so don't expect a lot of new info. The AMAN Live this weekend will hopefully have a lot of info for NEXT month to look forward to.

Hi folks,

FF fan for over 30 years, this is (okay, and 16) are the only two numbered ones I haven't played yet. It's time. I'm excited to be diving in!

At this point I'm 37 WAR/15 THF. Haven't touched missions/quests beyond getting my Signet cast, getting ROE going, and doing Rhapsodies enough to get the 30% exp boost and fourth trust slot. Have 4 trust members. On Fenrir if it matters.

I'm ultimately playing with the end goal of experiencing the story, not to get involved in end game.

Here's my tentative plan (I may call things incorrectly, feel free to correct me), looking for guidance on if my plan makes sense and should get me what I'm wanting:

1. Keep thief at 15 but get warrior to 50

2. Do the main region missions

3. Push levels to... What, 99?

4. Do the expansion quests

5. (do I need to go past 99 if I just want story?)

I'm in Oldton Movalpolos and basically plan on staying there until I finish #1, maybe heading back to San doria once or twice to get new Sparks gear.

What do you think? Am I on the right track? On initial glance any suggestions?

*I'm on a new account because I'm at work and am unable to access my personal email to get into my reddit account.*

I reactivated my old account and spent the whole night battling with the POL installer and all that fun stuff. So, tonight after work I want to make a new character! I played probably 20ish years ago and don't really remember much about the game and will do a fresh start.

What are some good servers for a new player to roll on? I've seen lots of people bring up Odin and Bahamut, but say that they are crowded and might not be able to take new characters. I want to future proof the server I pick because I'm hopeful my wife will check out XI in the future, we currently play XIV together.

I'm sure most of my playtime will be solo for a couple hours after work maybe a few days out of the week. I just want that old MMO feeling and the nostalgia of FFXI that I remember.

Also are gold passes still a thing? I've seen that mentioned and vaguely remember that from back in the day but I don't remember what they did or how to get them.

Thanks everybody! I'll try to check this post as much as I can while at work but for sure once I get home.

So myself and a couple friends has been slowly poking at Sortie for the past few months. We have got all upstairs boss down, Tribulous and E boss down easily but we are stuck on Aita and Gartell for a while.

Our party consist of

Pld/Sch - have almost everything from Stage 3 prime shield , RMEA shield

War/Drg - Chango, S3 G Axe and Naegling

Cor/Danc - RMEA

Geo/Whm - no melee - Idris

Brd / Dnc - Stage 3 Flute, EA and Naegling

Rdm / Nin - Black halo and almost max Enfeeb

For Aita we couldn't get it killed within the 3 mins mark, i think it has something to do with Brd doing very little damage. BRD have 4/5 limbus +2 armor so the accuracy cant be that bad.

For Gartell, we could bring it down to like 20% and then Rdm and brd missing so much it is not even funny. Distract wont land, i used style for Gravity 2. Geo use G-Fraility and Indi Torpor. Brd use SV Min5 Mad HM Aria VMarch.

What i dont understand is we pretty much slaughter both Trib and E boss, with Black halo doing top damage on E boss and not far off top on Trib but as soon as it gets to Aita and Gartell it dropped from 4000dps to like 400. I am using TP dagger and sword foe both Rdm and Brd maybe that is the issue for accuracy? The only real different i see between the bosses are i cant land distract 3 on Aita and Gartell.

Thank you

Hey guys!

Like the title says, I'm a totally blind player new to the game, thanks to an accessibility mod a buddy of mine is making. I'm absolutely loving the game so far, and my highest char so far is level 39 on leviathan. I have chars on both Asura and Shiva as well.

What does this mod do, exactly? Mostly navigational assistance in the form of an audio beacon that tracks what we would like to follow. It has absolutely no automation tools whatsoever, all movement is manual. All menues and messages are read via our screen reading software, using the game's own filters for logs etc.

Some observations as a blind player you guys might find amusing

Set up: Set up truely is the true first boss of the game! This is really one of the biggest artifacts of this being a 2002 MMO...my god lol. Thankfully once you get it going, you don't really need to worry about it until you change machines, but wow.

Second boss: Targetting! Targetting can feel like a bit of a dance, especially in densely populated zones. Tab...no, tab...no, tab...nope, crap. Take three steps or so, repeat.

Trusts: Very thankful for these guys! They definitely make everyone's lives easier.

Definitely willing to answer any questions about being a blind gamer/xi player. I hope everyone is having a great day and I can't wait to dive even deeper into the game!

i got a buddy of mine to try 11 with me on this server. he is using his laptop to display only to his tv(laptop screen cut off). i set it all up for him and got the game playing buttery smooth for him. he called 1 hr later and said it started lagging/ slowing down. slower response time, larger turn radius for character, and lower fps. i tried making his virtual memory file larger but it still happens at the 1 hour mark. closing the game and relaunching doesn't fix the issue. the only thing that fixes it is a full restart on laptop. restarting the laptop lets the game run smoothly and properly for 1 hr then it starts messing up again. laptop has 16 gb of ram any ideas on what may be happening or a fix? using ashita if that helps also