Regrets

[Osse]

I've been musing about this for a few weeks now, and finally decided to see if anyone else feels the same way.

When you try to do anything significant in game these days, you need at least a party, and often a full alliance to pull it off successfully. That means that if you don't look up the appropriate information online before-hand, you are wasting the time of (and pissing off) 5-17 other players. I've acted this way myself, especially when helping out lower level players. On the surface it seems quite reasonable: I'm giving up my free time to help you, therefore you should be prepared and take as little of that time as possible.

But do you remember when you first started playing FFXI, and everything was totally new? Just going out to fight Tiny Mandragoria's made my palms sweat. I had no idea what to expect. It was fun.

I made my first run to Jeuno at level 12 (no sub job) and with one friend (also level 12) who was leading the way but had no clue what he was doing. We crossed the entire continent from Bastoc to Winhurst like that. Just seeing Jeuno and all the exoticly equipped high level characters was amazing. I didn't even know some of the jobs existed since I didn't have access to them at the time. I can't even imagine the thrill of the very first player on a server to wander into Jeuno by pure luck.

Now days, I never do anything of note without first "reading up" on the details. Not even going to XP in a new spot. If I were to do any differently I'd be considered a lazy SOB.

I can't say that I have a solution to this dillema, or even a point to argue. I'm just bummed by the lack of thrill or newness that we are all trapped into.

 

[Rorschach]

The reason that one would be considered lazy is cause all the info is so redily available. Not to mention that later on the stakes get so much higher for you and other party members if something were to go horribly wrong for you and 5-17 other ppl.

I mean its one thing to mess something up in the dunes, no one really expects all that much from ppl there. Most of the time, people expect to die a lot there. But when you are say lvl 55 and can loose about 2k xp because someone else didnt bother to look up what they need to, it becomes a whole different story. After a while you are expected to know your stuff, its just a given. When you are lvl 10 and rank 1, people know your going to not know anything, its expected. But a rank 6 lvl 55 better know his stuff or else hes just wasting his, and everyone elses time.

And as to a lack of newness and a thrill of not knowing, well we all have to wait for the devolopers to give us some new stuff that doesnt involve CoP. Personally i want to see new jobs. It would be nice to see them put more of an effort into making this game the best it can be other then just lowering the tnl post 50 and making deaths cost less xp. I mean i would love to see new content that doesnt require to have CoP either be finished or installed onto your PC or PS2. I also would like to see better stuff added to jobs, like something that makes DRG more wanted in parties.

 

[BlackMage]

Or SMNS Stronger with their avatars


Ah..the good ol' days of being a total newb...those were my best days playing. I remember when I first logged on. I went out to the field to find a mandy..and died. xD How sad.

 

[Rappa]

Everything's become paint-by-numbers in the game now. When I first started playing, I never even knew or cared about Valkurm Dunes. I leveled my first two teen level jobs in Tahrongi Canyon, Maze of Shakhrami, and Buburimu Peninsula. These used to be hot spots for levelling and it wasn't hard to get a party. Now it takes an act of God to get people to go to these zones (except for the smart BSTs who take advantage of these abandoned joyous locations). Why? Because you're expected to go to the Dunes, it's just the way the game works now.

Everything else is the same. Unless the group is at least 75% people who know, you know where you are going to level ahead of time. Nothing can change that. Oh well.

 

[Courtney]

I agree about not wasting others time when doing missions, etc...

Doesn't mean you can't just go for a run in completely new and strange areas all by yourself though

 

[Osse]

Rorschach wrote:

all the info is so redily available

Not to mention that later on the stakes get so much higher for you and other party members if something were to go horribly wrong for you and 5-17 other ppl.

Which is all true and exactly what is wrong as well. The first players to reach lv 50 (the cap at the time) and later lv 75 truely accomplished something. They took risks and won against the greatest hazard: no information. They adapted, improvised and overcame.

When we reach lv 75 what will we have accomplished? Not much IMO, we will have followed a cookie cutter recipie, knowing all the dangers and all the answers ahead of time. And if you buy gil as well, you may as well have just watched someone else's frapps battle and tried to take credit for that.

I think more people would agree with Rorschach's point of view than mine, but that is exactly my gripe. It's a game, and if we can't bring ourselves to take a risk when it doesn't even matter, what does that say about us overall?

But there is some hope:
Blackmage:

Ah..the good ol' days of being a total newb...those were my best days playing. I remember when I first logged on. I went out to the field to find a mandy..and died. xD How sad.

 

[Rorschach]

I think more people would agree with Rorschach's point of view than mine, but that is exactly my gripe. It's a game, and if we can't bring ourselves to take a risk when it doesn't even matter, what does that say about us overall?

Dont get me wrong, i love the feeling of exploration of areas or jobs and things like that, I honestly wish that SE would put in stuff (other then CoP) where you could explore and have a feeling of accomplishment for your own acheviments(sp), but saddly other then doing prommy missions it just aint gonna happen any time soon. With Alla, everything is set out for us from the simple missions to craft recipies to doing some of the hardest stuff that the game has to offer so it ends up that we just follow cookie cutter ways of doing stuff.

Lets take prommy missions for example. Now before i say anything, i just want to let you know that i havent done one yet, mainly cause its damn near impossible to get a party for one (atleast for me anyway ). But i will be going off of what i have heard from others that have done them so its not like i'm talking completly out my ass. Anyway, from what i heard, you can only do the missions with a certian setup. It usually consists of a Nin/war a hand full of RNG's and a whm. Now this is what upsets me. Why do people think that this party should be the only one that gets play? I mean i have heard of other party setups where they have in a SMN or something, but it usually ends up being a RNG cannon pt. I heard from my own ls that i couldnt come cause i was a blm. What the hell is that? Dont want me cause i'm a BLM?!?! I'm one of the most DD clases out there and i was replaced by a RNG who just happend in randomly. Sorry for the rant lol ^^; it just still pisses me off.

You said that its just a game and that its a game and that we should take risks more often. Well we take risks in this game all the time due to circomstances outside our control. I mean look a HMN LS's. They risk tons of XP when killing HMNs due to other HNM LSs MPK'ing them. And then theres Dynamis. That deserves its own page for the risks in that powder keg. What happes is we end up using all the info that was collected to make this game a lil easier and end up using it as FFXI Gosple. We dont take the time and the risks to make the game more interesting for ourselves because in the end we (and by we i mean most NA's) want to do stuff now now now. We are a quick fix society and look down upon those who take a slower route so we can have more fun in the long run.

Now onto the other side of the coin. One persons fun isnt necessilary another persons fun. If it takes me a few weeks to get to a certian lvl due to either job restrictions or other IRL stuff, we shouldnt have to have it all gone cause someone wants to make the game more interesting for themselves by not looking up their info. I mean wouldnt you be pissed if you worked your ass off to get somewhere just to have it lost cause someone was making their own experience fun?

 

[Osse]

I mean wouldnt you be pissed if you worked your ass off to get somewhere just to have it lost cause someone was making their own experience fun?

Yes.

But I m not talking about that. I explained in my starting post that I do spend time in research before a big event. What I lament is that I'll never find 5 or more players who agree to go in not knowing all the answers ahead of time. All I'll ever get is "{No thanks} Allakazam says to do it with pld, nin, whm, rdm, rng, rng. And the drop chance is 6.3544423%. {I'm not interested}"

 

[BlackMage]

But there is some hope:
Blackmage:

Ah..the good ol' days of being a total newb...those were my best days playing. I remember when I first logged on. I went out to the field to find a mandy..and died. xD How sad.

I don't understand..xD

 

[Zaltana]

Everything's become paint-by-numbers in the game now. When I first started playing, I never even knew or cared about Valkurm Dunes. I leveled my first two teen level jobs in Tahrongi Canyon, Maze of Shakhrami, and Buburimu Peninsula. These used to be hot spots for levelling and it wasn't hard to get a party. Now it takes an act of God to get people to go to these zones (except for the smart BSTs who take advantage of these abandoned joyous locations). Why? Because you're expected to go to the Dunes, it's just the way the game works now.

i hear ya on that. i tried to make a caster party for the maze to lvl my whm. EVERYONE save a handful of newbies ther had never been out of the starting lvling zone was in the dunes. i lvled my rdm and blm to 15 and my rng to 20 in the maze when it was the expected zone for people from windy. i want the good ol' days back. lvling in the maze is was 100% more fun then the damn dunes. and it still is.

 

[Neyla]

i hear ya on that. i tried to make a caster party for the maze to lvl my whm. EVERYONE save a handful of newbies ther had never been out of the starting lvling zone was in the dunes. i lvled my rdm and blm to 15 and my rng to 20 in the maze when it was the expected zone for people from windy. i want the good ol' days back. lvling in the maze is was 100% more fun then the damn dunes. and it still is.

Word. 8)

When I first started playing and was a BLM I got invited to an all BLM party in the Maze and went from level nine to level 13 by fighting worms, and then I was able to walk home instead of settling for Selbina or making an ridiculously long trek to Sandy. I still love the Maze.

 

[Rorschach]

I never lvled in the maze. Actually i only went in there so i could do a windy mission and the Dragoon quest. Maybe when I lvl war again i'll take it there for some kicks^^.

 

[gation]

Or SMNS Stronger with their avatars


Ah..the good ol' days of being a total newb...those were my best days playing. I remember when I first logged on. I went out to the field to find a mandy..and died. xD How sad.

yeah, lol. i didnt even use the /check and kept dying fighting rabbits

 

[deathsvengeance]

ah I remember when I was leveling in east saru for the first time and those damn crawlers kept takin me out.. I just wasn't happy getting xp off of EP, I thought I had to fight only DC lol

 

[Cythe]

Dont get me wrong, i love the feeling of exploration of areas or jobs and things like that, I honestly wish that SE would put in stuff (other then CoP) where you could explore and have a feeling of accomplishment for your own acheviments(sp), but saddly other then doing prommy missions it just aint gonna happen any time soon. With Alla, everything is set out for us from the simple missions to craft recipies to doing some of the hardest stuff that the game has to offer so it ends up that we just follow cookie cutter ways of doing stuff.

Lets take prommy missions for example. Now before i say anything, i just want to let you know that i havent done one yet, mainly cause its damn near impossible to get a party for one (atleast for me anyway ). But i will be going off of what i have heard from others that have done them so its not like i'm talking completly out my ass. Anyway, from what i heard, you can only do the missions with a certian setup. It usually consists of a Nin/war a hand full of RNG's and a whm. Now this is what upsets me. Why do people think that this party should be the only one that gets play? I mean i have heard of other party setups where they have in a SMN or something, but it usually ends up being a RNG cannon pt. I heard from my own ls that i couldnt come cause i was a blm. What the hell is that? Dont want me cause i'm a BLM?!?! I'm one of the most DD clases out there and i was replaced by a RNG who just happend in randomly. Sorry for the rant lol ^^; it just still pisses me off.

You said that its just a game and that its a game and that we should take risks more often. Well we take risks in this game all the time due to circomstances outside our control. I mean look a HMN LS's. They risk tons of XP when killing HMNs due to other HNM LSs MPK'ing them. And then theres Dynamis. That deserves its own page for the risks in that powder keg. What happes is we end up using all the info that was collected to make this game a lil easier and end up using it as FFXI Gosple. We dont take the time and the risks to make the game more interesting for ourselves because in the end we (and by we i mean most NA's) want to do stuff now now now. We are a quick fix society and look down upon those who take a slower route so we can have more fun in the long run.

Now onto the other side of the coin. One persons fun isnt necessilary another persons fun. If it takes me a few weeks to get to a certian lvl due to either job restrictions or other IRL stuff, we shouldnt have to have it all gone cause someone wants to make the game more interesting for themselves by not looking up their info. I mean wouldnt you be pissed if you worked your ass off to get somewhere just to have it lost cause someone was making their own experience fun?

While a lot of this is valid, plenty of it is not. For one, the CoP missions are a HUGE area of new and exciting things to do. To say "other then CoP" is stupid. There is so much to do with the CoP missions...

Oh and whoever said you need a RNG cannon and WAR/NIN tanking isn't very skilled. I straight up tanked all the Promyvion's as PLD and none of my parties had more then 2 RNG, if even one. I've brought several other groups through as well without these rumored 'standard' sets. Obviously, having like 3 RNG is going to make it easier...But still, it is not impossible otherwise. People are just babies and will cry off sooner then accepting that they WILL lose quite a bit before they finally win sometimes. People want challenge, there it is.

I'd rather take the risk of losing EXP after not looking up the info than just take a website, print a page, and play follow the steps. I mean come on...Imagine playing an RPG for any console, and just buying the strategy guide and following it page by page as you go through the game. Hard to enjoy the path to your goal when all you are doing is reading the 100% surefire way to get right to the goal.

One reason I liked the Promyvions and things following them was because most people had NO clue what to do at the time, and there was no page to find and print readily available for you to take the cheapest ass method possible to the top. I died so many times in there, and had so many retarded alliances, but in the end, we beat the damn things. We beat them pre-nerf, and it took us hell and back to do it. But when we finished, it was golden to be able to say we did it that way.

Whoever said that stuff about the first 75's was right. I wish I was playing during those times. Back when if you needed Genkai I, guess what? You weren't getting a level 75 to solo it for you. Or people who fight the SL like it's such an amazing battle(Originally, when you beat the SL, you were basically beating the game) yet bring some absurdly higher level because they 'need' high level help. A party of 55's was the highest level you could get to fight him before they raised level cap I believe. Yet everyone insists on that 65+ PLD or NIN coming, or that 75 BLM and RNG duo.

SE is not the reason this game is easy. It's the people playing it and using every loophole they can to get things done that make it easy. Hell, people complained it was too easy for months before CoP, and then when Promyvion came out...People complained for months and months that it was too hard. :/
_____
Cythe - Rank 10
Hume Male
75 Paladin

 

[Kypdurrondragoon]

I also would like to see better stuff added to jobs, like something that makes DRG more wanted in parties.

You are my hero.......

 

[crookedmidget]

I was feeling this way several months ago. My static had stopped, and I really didn't want to waste time seeking parties, and getting lame ones once I finally got one.

I started to level BST, and it made the game fun again. I never had to seek, I could level when I needed to, even if it was for only 30 minutes. Plus, I had the freedom to go anywhere I wanted. I took BST from 16 to 47 in those months, and I cannot be happier. I know more about the game, make more money, and found the fun in it all again. I am not setting level goals anymore, because the exp trickles in wherever I am. Currently, I am leveling off of Killer Mushrooms and Doom Scorpions in the Crawlers' Nest, but if I want a break, I go in the middle room and take links from the other parties there. Beneficial to me, and others.. It doesn't get any better than that.

I am also pleased to find folks who want me in parties too. It didn't happen at lower levels due to misconceptions of having an EXP hit with a BST in your party.

Now that my static is starting again, I will be leveling Bard, and enjoying that again. Fun times.

I know that BST is not for everyone, and it can be a VERY fustrating job pre 35. But the reward (no pun intended) is there for those who don't Leave (ok, ok... pun intended) it...

Sorry for the rant... looks like I got a little carried away! :lol:

~Crook