I can't help with keybinding, unfortunately. Personally, I've always used a gamepad. I currently use a PS2 Dualshock controller with a USB adapter and it works surprisingly well. Others use PS3 and PS4 controllers, but I struggled to get those to work for me. On retail I used a generic USB controller with the standard button mappings onto it (L1 = autorun, square = menu, circle = cancel, etc.).

As for gear, it varies by class, really. Monk, Samurai and Ninja share some gear and can't equip some of the stuff that other melee classes can. Mages have different gear types and certain items remain useful longer than others overall.

In FFXI, small stat tweaks make noticeable differences. That's why a low level item like Leaping Boots (lvl 7 DEX+3 AGI+3 I believe) is worth so much and so heavily camped. So when you find gear that offers a noticeable bonus, you can often go a dozen or more levels with that piece. And it's not uncommon for players up to lvl 50/60+ to be sporting lvl 7-30 gear, if it's got the stats they want.

Basic rule of thumb is that you get as much of these as possible:
BLM: Intelligence
WHM: Mind
Melee: accuracy, then things like Dexterity and Strength (DEX adds a small amount of accuracy, STR increases damage when you manage to hit)

Do some searching around the wikis for low level NMs near starter cities that drop rare/exclusive gear which might be useful. Swamfisk and Maighdean Uaine come to mind for the staff (+4 resting hp) and earring (acc+1 atk-2) they drop 100% of the time. They're soloable by a lvl ~15 job, and you can farm and maybe even get some xp from Easy Prey mobs while camping. A slightly tougher NM (technically two - Haty or Bendegeit Vran (sp?)) that drops a useful rare/ex ranged item with AGI+1 is in La Theine Plateau is an option later on. Every little bit helps, plus it acquaints you with areas and gets you extra items/xp.

Otherwise, make sure to utilize macros and the /equipset option in them. It makes life waaaaay easier in the long run.

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LSs: DysKai | FunWithJugs | Ragnarok
formerly Krinkle of Kujata
some handy tips for total newbies: Click Here

Keeping on rolling

• Forgetting things at the mog safe - Many people who would join a party but not need one urgently will just set the looking for party flag while doing solo non-combat activities, e.g. crafting, fishing etc. Usually when you craft you leave most of your adventuring gear at your mog house to clear up as much inventory space as possible. If you do get invited to a party, the worst thing to do is rush there only to return because you forgot to grab your gear. Even if you did remember to go to your mog house, chances you've forgotten something (food is a good example). Beginners will not have thousands of items stored so it's wise to go over the entire storage checking whether each item is needed.
• Forgetting to sort inventory while in a party - It's not only about the exp, there are drops and you want your share, but if you forgot to sort your inventory and it's full you won't. Make a habit of sorting your inventory whenever your party has downtime (i.e. break between battles). Also it's a good time to remind you to also /heal so healers don't have to spend precious MP on you once the next battle begins.
• Uncoordinated nuking - The tank (usually WAR or /WAR) has the "provoke" ability, which allows him to, as the name says, provoke the mob into attacking him instead of other party members. This is crucial in case the mob decides so go after the mages (who are not prepared to defend themselves directly). The problem is that provoke can only be used once every ~30 seconds or so. This means that the worst thing for a black mage (or red mage) to do is recklessly nuke right after provoke has been used, because there's no quick way of keeping the mob away from you.
• Marker on the wrong mob - The worst thing that can happen to you is to accidentally aggro an unrelated mob, dragging it into the battle when your friends are unprepared. I learned it the hard way when I accidentally casted Dia on a nearby lizard, which quickly linked with three others and wiped us all. I double check that F8 ever since.
• Mages standing too close - Certain mobs have special attacks against everyone who stands at a certain radius around them. The last thing mages want is to stand in that radius. Mages usually have less HP than melee and a brutal attack against a mage may force the healer to waste MP on the injured mage - something that is usually not taken into account.
• Mages standing too far away - It means that you won't be able to cast your spells at all. If you don't see your character casting the spell look at the log and look for the reason. In many cases it'll be the distance. In other cases you may be out of MP. Don't be ashamed to /heal in such cases even if the battle is far from over - as a mage, without MP you're useless.

To be continued (probably)

For extra storage when you're out and about, you can use the following commands anywhere:

/satchel
/sack

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Leedz

You can't use satchel, sack, or case outside of towns

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Returning/Existing Player? Trouble logging in? Click here |~| New player Gil guide |~| More Troubleshooting

I was going to be so mad if I tried that tonight and it worked.

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Why would being a streamer be helpful? Does anyone watch FFXI streams?

Ariel is just a player who got really angry at being rejected by being a poor team-player and has taken up the flag of "NASOMI SUCKS EVERYONE HERE IS MEAN AND IT'S NOT MY FAULT".

They're just a bad player (not talking mechanically, they blame all their faults on others, etc) who begged for a name change, hides who they are, while accusing others of hiding who they are (most people use the same name here as ingame), etc..

Really a terrible situation. Best to ignore them.

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Returning/Existing Player? Trouble logging in? Click here |~| New player Gil guide |~| More Troubleshooting

Ah didn't realize that. I guess its nice to see be able to view them outside of towns.
But I wonder why you can't use /bank inside towns like /satchel and /sack.

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Leedz

A few more things about transportation:

First I'll give a brief explanation of Vana'diel (the FFXI world) or at least the base territory (i.e. original game only, no expansions). There are four major cities in Vana'diel. Three are the starting cities (San d'Oria, Bastok, Windurst), i.e. the cities where new players begin (according to their nationality). Then there's Jeuno, perhaps the most important city in Vana'diel. In fact, the world is pretty much centered around it. Jeuno is located on the bridge between the two major continents of Vana'diel and by symmetry I mean that the path from every starting city to Jeuno is similar, at least in terms of difficulty.
Let's explain further - There are three types of zones in FFXI: Cities, Outdoor and Dungeons. Cities are safe zones, i.e. monsters cannot enter cities at all, therefore even level 1 players with no gear are completely safe. Outdoor areas vary in difficulty, which is mostly determined by the maximum level of monsters (aka mobs) that exist there (or at least the level and number of aggressive mobs) as well as how easy it is to avoid getting too close to them. Dungeons are on average more difficult than outdoor zones but they are beyond the scope of this post and generally the path between two outdoor zones will not go through dungeons.
The path from each starting city to Jeuno goes through 4 outdoor zones, which gradually increase in difficulty as you approach Jeuno. I'll refer to the difficulty level of each zone as tier, with tier 1 being the easiest to tier 4 being the most difficult. The different paths are:
San d'Oria (safe) --> East/West Ronfaure (tier 1) --> La Theine Plateau (tier 2) --> Jugner Forest (tier 3) --> Batallia Downs (tier 4) --> Jeuno (safe)
Bastok (safe) --> North/South Gustaberg (tier 1) --> Konschtat Highlands (tier 2) --> Pashhow Marshlands (tier 3) --> Rolanberry Fields (tier 4) --> Jeuno (safe)
Windurst (safe) --> East/West Sarutabaruta (tier 1) --> Tahrongi Canyon (tier 2) --> Meriphataud Mountains (tier 3) --> Sauromugue Champaign (tier 4) --> Jeuno (safe)
Basically we can say that a certain tier becomes safe once you reach a level where most if not all mobs check as too weak (as a rule of thumb TW mobs will not aggro even if they're aggressive) and the few that are not can either be soloable or are scarce enough to be easily avoided. Generally I'd say that tier 1 zones are relatively safe at level 15, tier 2 at level 25, tier 3 at level 35 and tier 4 at level 45 (though I'm sure other will have different opinions regarding this one). Your first trip to Jeuno is going to be dangerous (you will have business there before level 45) so you should probably ask some higher level friends to escort you. Note that you can travel safely all the way if you have the Sneak+Invisible combo (achievable by black and red mages at level 25 or by using certain items) or if you're mounted on a chocobo (however you will need to get to Jeuno once to get your license).
Generally I'd say that tier 1 zones are where you solo-grind your first levels. Tier 2 are boring zones, there's generally nothing there other than crags, weird buildings, to which you can teleport using specific white mage spells as well as chocobo renters next to them. Generally you won't really do anything in tier 2 zones except cross them. Tier 3 probably similar, the only thing interesting are outposts, to which you will want to run supply missions at some point. Tier 4 zones are sometimes used for mid-level parties.
In addition there are two tier 2.5 zones - Valkurm Dunes and Buburimu Peninsula (they are relatively safe by level 30). These are the zones where low-level parties form and probably where you will join your first party. Valkurm Dunes is connected to both La Theine Plateau and Konschtat Highlands, allowing relatively easier land travel between San d'Oria and Bastok (easier means without taking long and dangerous detours through Jeuno), so it's a joint low-level party zone players from both cities). Buburimu Peninsula is the Windurst equivalent (Windurst is located in the second continent). It is connected to the corresponding tier 2 zone, Tahrongi Canyon. Also, the two zones are connected to two minor towns - Selbina and Mhaura (they are considered city type zones and are therefore safe). To complete the symmetry there's a ferry ship connecting Selbina and Mhaura, allowing travel to/from Windurst without going through Jeuno and the more dangerous zones.

With that long introduction, here are some mistakes to avoid -

• Entering zones way above your level - Don't overestimate yourself. While you should be able to cross tier 2 zones at level 13 if you're very careful and always watch your back (and you will actually need to in order to get to the dunes / peninsula and join your first parties), enter tier 3+ zones at that level and you're dead.
• Not knowing about the Selbina-Mhaura ferry - You will need to travel to/from Windurst at some point (note that being from a certain nation does not bar you from entering the other two starting cities) and the only land path between them is through Jeuno - which at lower levels you will really want to avoid. Going through tier 3 and 4 zones is not needed at this case.
• Not knowing about ferry related bugs - The ferry on nas is unfortunately very buggy at this point. The worst thing that can happen is that relatively high level mobs can just spawn inside the ship once it leaves port and immediately aggro and kill you. You have to take this into consideration until the bug is fixed. Make sure you're completely geared and if you're a mage, cast all your buffs before going inside. You may want to use an instant reraise scroll, which will raise you back if you're killed (the mobs should already despawn by then). The best solution is probably not to board the ship alone and wait for other players, specifically high-level players, who can usually kill the mobs before they get you (high level players will often use the ferry because of fishing possibilities). Another interesting approach is to exploit the fact that both Selbina and Mhaura have nomad moogles, which allow you to change jobs, and change to a level 1 job before boarding the ship. This allows you to avoid exp loss if you do get killed and you can switch back once you safely arrive at your destination (just make sure your home point is set to a safe place so if you do get killed and have to warp back you won't get stuck in a high level zone where level 1 has no chance of survival).
• Waiting for parties at the peninsula - Unfortunately there aren't too many Windurst players on nas (mainly because it's very remote compared to San d'Oria and Bastok) so in many cases you'll find yourself waiting forever for a party in the peninsula without realizing that it's pretty much deserted. You may have to do what other Windurstians do and take the ferry and join the others at the dunes.
• Not prioritizing supply missions properly - Eventually you will want to avoid using ferries and chocobos as much as possible and use outpost transportation for quick teleport. To be able to transport to an outpost you need to run a supply mission to it once - which you can only do when it's under your nation's control. You can safely ignore some remote outposts until your level is high enough, while for others you may want to ask friends for help to take you through higher level zones just to run the supply mission the moment you can. Your nationality also matters - Currently most of the players on nas are San d'Orians and as long as that's the case you may skip an outpost at first because it's very likely to return to San d'Orian control again relatively quickly. Windurstians however will need to use every opportunity. The most important outposts to get are: Ronfaure / Gustaberg / Sarutabaruta - these are closest to the three starting cities, allowing you quick travel between them. Since they are very close to a city they're mostly held by that city, however if you ever find another city's nearest outpost under your nation's control grab it as soon as possible. Get the Valkurm Dunes outpost so can quickly join a party when invited while doing other stuff in other places. If you're from San d'Orian or Bastokan and don't have Sarutabaruta then try to get Buburimu Peninsula so you don't have to use the damned ferry if you're Windurstian might get it as well, especially if you don't have the dunes outpost yet. When you manage to get to Jeuno, better set your home point there temporarily for quick warp, then try to get Qufim Island (tier 2.75) since it's the closest outpost to Jeuno. The outposts at the tier 3 zones are nice to have, especially if you don't have Qufim, but don't risk your life for them.

To add on/clarify a few things in this post:

Black mages don't learn sneak or invisible, red and white mages do.

You do not need a high level friend to help you get to Jeuno, having an escort just makes it trivial to do so. What you do need to know is which mobs aggro and what method they use to do so. Goblins, orcs, yagudo, and tigers aggro by sight, so you can walk behind them without being attacked. Quadavs, goodbbues, trees, and weapons aggro by sound, so give them 8' (10' to be safe really) of room to avoid aggro. Undead aggro low HP and weapons and elementals aggro magic from farther away than both sight and sound aggro, so don't wander around with yellow hp at night, and don't cast spells (ninjutsu and bard songs don't count) without looking around if there's weather going on.

The zones you referred to as Tier 2 zones are great for soloing while you're waiting for a party. There is other stuff to do in them as well, but probably not your first time through

As for the ferries, yes they are all a bit buggy, but dying on the boat between Mhaura and Selbina is not a bug. It's a rite of passage
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Unrelated to Nightcoder's post, but something newer players should be thinking about: there are 2 types of enmity that build up throughout a fight: Cumulative and Volatile. For the most part everything you do builds both kinds, but your volatile enmity decays over time and your cumulative enmity only decays when you take damage. That's why you often see a mob run over to the black mage for a whack before returning to the tank.

Provoke only spikes volatile enmity. After 30 seconds, the enmity generated by Provoke is completely gone. If you're tanking and you see a BLM start casting a big nuke, or WHM or RDM about to drop a big cure you can preemptively provoke to make sure your enmity stays on top of theirs. Conversely if your tank provokes you can time your bigger nukes/cures to line up with when your tank's enmity is highest so that you don't take hate.

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this was more funny before everyone copied Kanodin