I just started playing FFXI again actively since the days of Abyssea. Spent a great deal of time catching up and making my gear "good enough" for all the new content (while not really new anymore) Delve, Incursion, Skirmish, etc. I even leveled a job I never dreamed of getting into (Monk) just to get into these things.
Now, I've been playing FFXI on and off since 2004, and I realize the community has always favored certain jobs for certain situations. I find myself caught up on understanding things like Delve. The more I learn about the boss mechanisms, the more I begin to realize what SE was trying to do. For instance, boss monsters have varying degrees of weakness to certain weapon types at different times-- so bring a bit of variety so everyone feels included. When players see this, they think "bring monk and use Formless Strikes." Ok. That's fine.
Monk, monk, monk (or Samurai!), bard, white mage and sometimes corsair or red mage, sometimes scholar. This is the set up for Delve. This is the setup for most tier II BCs with the exception of Ark Angel fights and a few others where you replace monks with rangers. This is what everyone believes is the best possible setup for these events.
Everyone just automagically accepts that there is no better way. So I go along with it about 47 times for Delve. 45 of those times are in Foret de Hennetiel, the other two times against Tojil, over a period of about 3 months with many different people of all shapes and sizes-- all using the exact same tactics.
Some runs go more smoothly than others, but they all have one thing in common: Every single one of them failed. All of these runs ended with a wipe at the last boss. I still haven't won a single Delve run.
I can totally see the appeal of zerg rushing the boss and getting it done as fast as possible, especially considering the time limit. Usually, though, we will get to the last boss with more than 25 minutes to fight it with, and end up dead with still a lot of time left over. Remember that I am the new guy in all of this. Failure after failure after failure I ask these esteemed veterans of Adoulin: "Why not use a tank? Hate is all over the place and we monks can only handle so much before your run out of MP and can't keep us healed." "Oh." they will say. "It's so-and-so's fault. He is a newb healer. It's so-and-so's fault because stuns/sleep started getting resisted too early." It's always someone's fault. "He's so noob. She's so low gear." Over and over and over.
I will frequently record runs and rewatch them to pinpoint exactly where doing really well suddenly became struggling to survive. The only thing I can conclude after all this time is this setup simply does not work.
Sure, there are tight-nit groups and linkshells who use this setup and succeed all the time. This setup will work under EXTREMELY IDEAL CONDITIONS where everyone in your group knows exactly what to do and has the best possible gear for the occasion. When you see a /shout or a /yell in a major city for one of these runs who are picking up whoever feels like doing it at that moment, your odds of everything falling perfectly in place with the setup you want are astronomically low.
So after all of this people are still banging their heads against the wall trying to beat the same two Delve runs over and over. Boss slept your mages? "Oh they were just standing too close" Why not use poison potions just in case? Why not instead of everyone come as DD/Run have at least one person keep the boss's attention so he's not spamming sleepga on the mages to begin with? Why not TRY SOMETHING DIFFERENT FOR GOD'S SAKE. Anything at all! Has anyone tried low-manning these with pet jobs? Could there possibly be a way for one player to kite the boss and all the adds in a circle somehow so the rest of the party can pluck the boss from the crowd without such a sloppy start? Could we, I dunno, try using black mages? They seem awfully squishy against magic damage.
I just really had to get that out there. I realize nearly everyone will skim over this and have no idea what I'm saying. "Well why don't you make your own groups and try--" Stop. You know why. You know they won't waste the time to try something that might not work-- not when there is something that will almost certainly not work.
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Galkaman wrote:
Kuwoobie will die crushed under the burden of his mediocrity.
Think of it as the curse of how easy it is to share information in this day and age. If an event presents any degree of difficulty, the moment a success story is made public, people will attempt to duplicate it, often without all the required information. Some succeed. Many fail. I harp a lot on "raiders" across various MMOs because there's a strong chance any time they're putting someone down for not being good enough, not deserving, or whatever, you can bet their willingness to actually HELP others doesn't go far beyond, "Look it up on youtube!" or "Google a guide!"
Now, these things can be helpful, but in my experience, they're rarely done well. If you're a DPS trying to learn an encounter, watching an encounter from the perspective of a healer probably isn't going to teach you much. Additionally, the timing of videos can not be manipulated at all, even though it isn't at all uncommon to see videos sped up to match some music clip. Which brings me to that, the music doesn't help. In scripted fights, the pacing of the in-game music can actually help predict things. Additionally, sound effects from the mob/environment can do similar. If these are drowned out by Skrillex dropping the bass, people aren't gonna pick up on them.
Text-based guides simply get more reliant on accurate information. In XI's case, what TP moves do are important. This includes factors like range, damage, additional effects, and if it's locked behind a specific condition like HP percentages or mob stances. What I rarely see, however, are also sensory descriptions to accompany these moves. Sometimes the chat log isn't enough. We know what a goblin's bomb toss sounds like, right? Well, what does that effect tell a WHM? Perhaps a curaga is in order if the tank isn't in immediate danger. Know your enemy, but also know yourself.
Unfortunately, people hate failure. Especially if something is at risk. Blaming others is hella easy, and occasionally they may even be right to do so. I've told this story before, but I ****** up one of my LS' Cerb attempts back in the day because I missed a stun of GoH. Why did I miss it? I moved into Ululation range to cure someone in my party and got paralyzed. I tried to call out for a -na, but it didn't come fast enough. Boom. We lost it. I owned up to it and apologized. I have no doubt some hated me for it as I later came to learn more of some personalities there, but my mistake came about as a result of wanting to save another. We lost an 18+ man split on a hide. Maybe 400k or so at the time. Not much of a big deal to me, but whatever. It's done.
Either way, a lot of jobs get underestimated. Maybe the person behind them isn't playing them to their fullest potential. There's no immediate reward for thinking outside the box, though, even if it would work. And the more people you add to the equation, the more difficult deviating from the cookie-cutter is going to become as that collective will to not-fail exceeds that of willing to experiment. And really, this is one of those reasons why missing content implementation is so rough on stragglers. When the strategies aren't out there, people are more capricious. Granted, you'll still find the elitist jerkwads that do their best to make others believe they really know better, but c'est la vie. Trust me, I understand why being told to make one's own group is way easier said than done. And this honestly extends to why some people can't find a good linkshell or guild. Half the battle is just being in the right place at the right time.
Now, these things can be helpful, but in my experience, they're rarely done well. If you're a DPS trying to learn an encounter, watching an encounter from the perspective of a healer probably isn't going to teach you much. Additionally, the timing of videos can not be manipulated at all, even though it isn't at all uncommon to see videos sped up to match some music clip. Which brings me to that, the music doesn't help. In scripted fights, the pacing of the in-game music can actually help predict things. Additionally, sound effects from the mob/environment can do similar. If these are drowned out by Skrillex dropping the bass, people aren't gonna pick up on them.
Text-based guides simply get more reliant on accurate information. In XI's case, what TP moves do are important. This includes factors like range, damage, additional effects, and if it's locked behind a specific condition like HP percentages or mob stances. What I rarely see, however, are also sensory descriptions to accompany these moves. Sometimes the chat log isn't enough. We know what a goblin's bomb toss sounds like, right? Well, what does that effect tell a WHM? Perhaps a curaga is in order if the tank isn't in immediate danger. Know your enemy, but also know yourself.
Unfortunately, people hate failure. Especially if something is at risk. Blaming others is hella easy, and occasionally they may even be right to do so. I've told this story before, but I ****** up one of my LS' Cerb attempts back in the day because I missed a stun of GoH. Why did I miss it? I moved into Ululation range to cure someone in my party and got paralyzed. I tried to call out for a -na, but it didn't come fast enough. Boom. We lost it. I owned up to it and apologized. I have no doubt some hated me for it as I later came to learn more of some personalities there, but my mistake came about as a result of wanting to save another. We lost an 18+ man split on a hide. Maybe 400k or so at the time. Not much of a big deal to me, but whatever. It's done.
Either way, a lot of jobs get underestimated. Maybe the person behind them isn't playing them to their fullest potential. There's no immediate reward for thinking outside the box, though, even if it would work. And the more people you add to the equation, the more difficult deviating from the cookie-cutter is going to become as that collective will to not-fail exceeds that of willing to experiment. And really, this is one of those reasons why missing content implementation is so rough on stragglers. When the strategies aren't out there, people are more capricious. Granted, you'll still find the elitist jerkwads that do their best to make others believe they really know better, but c'est la vie. Trust me, I understand why being told to make one's own group is way easier said than done. And this honestly extends to why some people can't find a good linkshell or guild. Half the battle is just being in the right place at the right time.
Violence good. Sexy bad. Yay America.
Tanks (assuming they can even keep hate, which was a sketchy thing for a while; dunno if it still is) pretty much don't help here with a lot of the bosses because almost everything the bosses do that destroy runs tends to wreck the whole party, or at least the whole frontline, regardless of who's tanking it, if the moves are not stunned or prevented.
A lot also depends on the DDs' ability/willingness to use stuff like pdt/mdt gear when it counts. You'd be surprised how many don't. Even just a Twilight Torque and a couple of Dark Rings can make a world of difference without drastically hampering one's performance.
A lot also depends on the DDs' ability/willingness to use stuff like pdt/mdt gear when it counts. You'd be surprised how many don't. Even just a Twilight Torque and a couple of Dark Rings can make a world of difference without drastically hampering one's performance.
I have had similar experiences - though I have won one set up like this on Tojil. The thing was everyone was pretty much already 119 though... which is why these strategies are ludicrous, because they work for people who are already capped or who are a tight knit machine already - but don't really work for anyone else.
I have literally just given up on Delve, which is a shame since I need lots of gear and weapons from it, but it is just mostly impossible to access the content as it is now.
Edited, Feb 2nd 2015 10:26am by Olorinus
I have literally just given up on Delve, which is a shame since I need lots of gear and weapons from it, but it is just mostly impossible to access the content as it is now.
Edited, Feb 2nd 2015 10:26am by Olorinus
FFXI's most brightly shining feature in combat mechanics is easily the completely mind-blowing flexibility of party makeups (especially now that the idea of a standard 'Relic shield Tank or bust!' is no longer required thanks to ilvl, not that it's not useful, it's just not required like it once was).
There is still one feature of FFXI combat I really don't like (I've talked about it on these forums before in detail so I won't go over elaborate here) but it's the complete reliance on stuns - I'm a big believer that a final boss or "mega boss" as we call them in ffxi, should NOT be able to be stunned at all, period - strategy should actually come from skill of each individual player working as a whole, not one single individual player who everyone's life completely depends on no matter how good their gear is nor how good the healer of the group may be etc... but that's what square chose for a fight mechanic, so that's what we get. Like I don't understand why we can't "turn" to avoid lahar, or /dance etc, anything that is going to bring idividual skill into the battles so the demand for SCH stunner onry! is reduced etc...
Anyhow back on topic...
Yeah starting delve can be rough at first. You are wise to start with the shark, it's easily the best of the first tier of delve to do, mostly because the shark is far and away the easiest mega boss of the tier 1 delve content. That being said, when I came back to the game a for a few months this last year, the people I made friends with and played alongside had never done delve either - so we all learned the content together and we wiped on shark like 10-15 times before we figured it out "as a whole". I can say almost undoubtedly your problem if you are losing with 20+ minutes left to shark, is that you as a DD group need some PDT/MDT gear at the ready, and need something like a whm or rune fencer sub job to assist in mitigating the big hits when they come (and they WILL come). Basically you watch for certain attacks, as well as pay attention to when it is on you (a regular tank doesn't work well on shark because he can reset hate at any given moment and swap to a completely different person, so it's likely as a competent DD it will be on you at some point in the fight)... and when it is on you or readying a big TP move, swap to PDT/MDT gear to help the healer out, when it turns away from you, swap back to pure DD set and repeat that process over and over.
While support classes have a much harder time in delve than in earlier content, there are simple workarounds. Our first wins were actually with 7-8 people, we just had a couple other people tag along as a RDM or WHM to help out - the fights still took forever to win (cut close on time, since our damage was really bad and we gave the boss more hp), but at the end of the day it was a victory. Make sure people are eating food as well. Haste is another huge factor - make sure buffs are up etc. These are really generalized and generic pieces of advice, but when you mention cookie cutter, keep in mind that the easiest way to break away from that mold is to go in with more people than the regular old 6 man setup.
Finally, don't be afraid to break the mold - make your own party and invite some DD's that are non-standard, if you can manage to scrounge up some 119 folks it really won't matter what job they are on - odds are they've done the content a 100 times and will make ensuring victory a lot easier. For example the way we did tojil delve when I stopped playing vs when I very first went into the delve were COMPLETELY different - the whole instance we'd memorized how to handle well enough to just flop through. It's a HELL of a lot more fun coming on different jobs now and again too, instead of the same job over and over and over and over and over for a million delve runs, so you'll be far more likely to pull say, a geared 119 thief who knows what he's doing, than a decked out 119 samurai that doesn't give a **** about your lame *** delve if he has to do one more run with some ****** pug on his awesome omg I'm too good for you sam.
People used to ask us when we ran an LS years ago what jobs to come to events as, and sure, you needed to cover your bases, like a healer and some support (otherwise it was really hard just to hit things back then... oh the legions of BLM at our disposal, lol) but after that we'd generally throw the phrase "Come as whatever job you have leveled up that sounds more fun to you". Some people couldn't grasp that concept AT ALL, they were so used to cookie cutter **** that they'd ask us 5-6 more times panicking that they weren't going to be useful. Maybe some just weren't used to not being given explicit directions and it freaked them out, but 9/10 times people would end up coming as their "safe" event job, always made me sad because very few people learned the joys of doing an event on a different job - people are WAY too afraid to go outside of their comfort zones... but occasionally you'd get that guy who shows up as pup or bst and has the time of his life on a job no one wanted him there as, and if you ran dmg meters of any kind (for events where it was relevant) you'd see them keeping up and usually outperforming people who follow "the norm" - usually those are the people we'd end up doing small group event runs with because they weren't afraid to think outside of the box, and it was far more entertaining to win events with those kind of people, than the people who swear by monk monk monk monk monk whm.. (or whatever job is the flavor of the month)
There is still one feature of FFXI combat I really don't like (I've talked about it on these forums before in detail so I won't go over elaborate here) but it's the complete reliance on stuns - I'm a big believer that a final boss or "mega boss" as we call them in ffxi, should NOT be able to be stunned at all, period - strategy should actually come from skill of each individual player working as a whole, not one single individual player who everyone's life completely depends on no matter how good their gear is nor how good the healer of the group may be etc... but that's what square chose for a fight mechanic, so that's what we get. Like I don't understand why we can't "turn" to avoid lahar, or /dance etc, anything that is going to bring idividual skill into the battles so the demand for SCH stunner onry! is reduced etc...
Anyhow back on topic...
Yeah starting delve can be rough at first. You are wise to start with the shark, it's easily the best of the first tier of delve to do, mostly because the shark is far and away the easiest mega boss of the tier 1 delve content. That being said, when I came back to the game a for a few months this last year, the people I made friends with and played alongside had never done delve either - so we all learned the content together and we wiped on shark like 10-15 times before we figured it out "as a whole". I can say almost undoubtedly your problem if you are losing with 20+ minutes left to shark, is that you as a DD group need some PDT/MDT gear at the ready, and need something like a whm or rune fencer sub job to assist in mitigating the big hits when they come (and they WILL come). Basically you watch for certain attacks, as well as pay attention to when it is on you (a regular tank doesn't work well on shark because he can reset hate at any given moment and swap to a completely different person, so it's likely as a competent DD it will be on you at some point in the fight)... and when it is on you or readying a big TP move, swap to PDT/MDT gear to help the healer out, when it turns away from you, swap back to pure DD set and repeat that process over and over.
While support classes have a much harder time in delve than in earlier content, there are simple workarounds. Our first wins were actually with 7-8 people, we just had a couple other people tag along as a RDM or WHM to help out - the fights still took forever to win (cut close on time, since our damage was really bad and we gave the boss more hp), but at the end of the day it was a victory. Make sure people are eating food as well. Haste is another huge factor - make sure buffs are up etc. These are really generalized and generic pieces of advice, but when you mention cookie cutter, keep in mind that the easiest way to break away from that mold is to go in with more people than the regular old 6 man setup.
Finally, don't be afraid to break the mold - make your own party and invite some DD's that are non-standard, if you can manage to scrounge up some 119 folks it really won't matter what job they are on - odds are they've done the content a 100 times and will make ensuring victory a lot easier. For example the way we did tojil delve when I stopped playing vs when I very first went into the delve were COMPLETELY different - the whole instance we'd memorized how to handle well enough to just flop through. It's a HELL of a lot more fun coming on different jobs now and again too, instead of the same job over and over and over and over and over for a million delve runs, so you'll be far more likely to pull say, a geared 119 thief who knows what he's doing, than a decked out 119 samurai that doesn't give a **** about your lame *** delve if he has to do one more run with some ****** pug on his awesome omg I'm too good for you sam.
People used to ask us when we ran an LS years ago what jobs to come to events as, and sure, you needed to cover your bases, like a healer and some support (otherwise it was really hard just to hit things back then... oh the legions of BLM at our disposal, lol) but after that we'd generally throw the phrase "Come as whatever job you have leveled up that sounds more fun to you". Some people couldn't grasp that concept AT ALL, they were so used to cookie cutter **** that they'd ask us 5-6 more times panicking that they weren't going to be useful. Maybe some just weren't used to not being given explicit directions and it freaked them out, but 9/10 times people would end up coming as their "safe" event job, always made me sad because very few people learned the joys of doing an event on a different job - people are WAY too afraid to go outside of their comfort zones... but occasionally you'd get that guy who shows up as pup or bst and has the time of his life on a job no one wanted him there as, and if you ran dmg meters of any kind (for events where it was relevant) you'd see them keeping up and usually outperforming people who follow "the norm" - usually those are the people we'd end up doing small group event runs with because they weren't afraid to think outside of the box, and it was far more entertaining to win events with those kind of people, than the people who swear by monk monk monk monk monk whm.. (or whatever job is the flavor of the month)
Quote:
Yeah starting delve can be rough at first. You are wise to start with the shark, it's easily the best of the first tier of delve to do, mostly because the shark is far and away the easiest mega boss of the tier 1 delve content.
Whaaaaaaat
Did they nerf that zone or something, because all I remember from it was tears, the continuous sounds of Ice Spikes, and people getting utterly wrecked by the boss
whereas Tojil farming has pretty much been a snoozefest for a while
Shark pretty much just requires erasing debuffs and being in or out of the donut for the insta-kill move. Mechanically he's the easiest of the first three to deal with. Tojil's just easiest period when stunlocked since the killer move you'd stun anyway so hey, why not just stun them all?
And to the TC, tanks aren't used because they're ultimately useless in FFXI. Tanks are used to supertank packs that need to be held off to the side and are too dangerous to attempt to CC, or they're used on fights where the magic damage is so ridiculous that you pretty much *have* to have an Aegis shield to survive.........and you used Relic Gun RNGs that generate very little hate so the tank's threat isn't ripped within 2 weaponskills.
Tanks aren't used because the enmity system in FFXI has been, is, and always will be a laughable pile of ****. When you bring a tank into a boss fight you're essentially letting the weakest damage dealing class that's unable to hold hate anyway a party slot, instead of just bringing someone that can actually swap gearsets appropriately as a MNK or SAM and just kill the damned thing that much faster.
The TP system and a boss's ability to spam moves below 25% is pretty much why tanks fell out of favor: the faster you kill the damned thing the less chances you have of something going wrong. If a tank *CAN'T* hold hate due to the system being horrendous why would you bother to bring one to begin with?
Standing there doing nothing while waiting on VE to decay is a moronic "mechanic" and shows just how bloody broken the threat system is. "I'm a damage dealer....but I can only attack 10 out of every 60 seconds due to threat capping instantly!"
Edited, Feb 4th 2015 8:27pm by Viertel
And to the TC, tanks aren't used because they're ultimately useless in FFXI. Tanks are used to supertank packs that need to be held off to the side and are too dangerous to attempt to CC, or they're used on fights where the magic damage is so ridiculous that you pretty much *have* to have an Aegis shield to survive.........and you used Relic Gun RNGs that generate very little hate so the tank's threat isn't ripped within 2 weaponskills.
Tanks aren't used because the enmity system in FFXI has been, is, and always will be a laughable pile of ****. When you bring a tank into a boss fight you're essentially letting the weakest damage dealing class that's unable to hold hate anyway a party slot, instead of just bringing someone that can actually swap gearsets appropriately as a MNK or SAM and just kill the damned thing that much faster.
The TP system and a boss's ability to spam moves below 25% is pretty much why tanks fell out of favor: the faster you kill the damned thing the less chances you have of something going wrong. If a tank *CAN'T* hold hate due to the system being horrendous why would you bother to bring one to begin with?
Standing there doing nothing while waiting on VE to decay is a moronic "mechanic" and shows just how bloody broken the threat system is. "I'm a damage dealer....but I can only attack 10 out of every 60 seconds due to threat capping instantly!"
Edited, Feb 4th 2015 8:27pm by Viertel
Kuwoobie wrote:
I just started playing FFXI again actively since the days of Abyssea. Spent a great deal of time catching up and making my gear "good enough" for all the new content (while not really new anymore) Delve, Incursion, Skirmish, etc. I even leveled a job I never dreamed of getting into (Monk) just to get into these things.
Now, I've been playing FFXI on and off since 2004, and I realize the community has always favored certain jobs for certain situations. I find myself caught up on understanding things like Delve. The more I learn about the boss mechanisms, the more I begin to realize what SE was trying to do. For instance, boss monsters have varying degrees of weakness to certain weapon types at different times-- so bring a bit of variety so everyone feels included. When players see this, they think "bring monk and use Formless Strikes." Ok. That's fine.
Monk, monk, monk (or Samurai!), bard, white mage and sometimes corsair or red mage, sometimes scholar. This is the set up for Delve. This is the setup for most tier II BCs with the exception of Ark Angel fights and a few others where you replace monks with rangers. This is what everyone believes is the best possible setup for these events.
Everyone just automagically accepts that there is no better way. So I go along with it about 47 times for Delve. 45 of those times are in Foret de Hennetiel, the other two times against Tojil, over a period of about 3 months with many different people of all shapes and sizes-- all using the exact same tactics.
Some runs go more smoothly than others, but they all have one thing in common: Every single one of them failed. All of these runs ended with a wipe at the last boss. I still haven't won a single Delve run.
I can totally see the appeal of zerg rushing the boss and getting it done as fast as possible, especially considering the time limit. Usually, though, we will get to the last boss with more than 25 minutes to fight it with, and end up dead with still a lot of time left over. Remember that I am the new guy in all of this. Failure after failure after failure I ask these esteemed veterans of Adoulin: "Why not use a tank? Hate is all over the place and we monks can only handle so much before your run out of MP and can't keep us healed." "Oh." they will say. "It's so-and-so's fault. He is a newb healer. It's so-and-so's fault because stuns/sleep started getting resisted too early." It's always someone's fault. "He's so noob. She's so low gear." Over and over and over.
I will frequently record runs and rewatch them to pinpoint exactly where doing really well suddenly became struggling to survive. The only thing I can conclude after all this time is this setup simply does not work.
Sure, there are tight-nit groups and linkshells who use this setup and succeed all the time. This setup will work under EXTREMELY IDEAL CONDITIONS where everyone in your group knows exactly what to do and has the best possible gear for the occasion. When you see a /shout or a /yell in a major city for one of these runs who are picking up whoever feels like doing it at that moment, your odds of everything falling perfectly in place with the setup you want are astronomically low.
So after all of this people are still banging their heads against the wall trying to beat the same two Delve runs over and over. Boss slept your mages? "Oh they were just standing too close" Why not use poison potions just in case? Why not instead of everyone come as DD/Run have at least one person keep the boss's attention so he's not spamming sleepga on the mages to begin with? Why not TRY SOMETHING DIFFERENT FOR GOD'S SAKE. Anything at all! Has anyone tried low-manning these with pet jobs? Could there possibly be a way for one player to kite the boss and all the adds in a circle somehow so the rest of the party can pluck the boss from the crowd without such a sloppy start? Could we, I dunno, try using black mages? They seem awfully squishy against magic damage.
I just really had to get that out there. I realize nearly everyone will skim over this and have no idea what I'm saying. "Well why don't you make your own groups and try--" Stop. You know why. You know they won't waste the time to try something that might not work-- not when there is something that will almost certainly not work.
Now, I've been playing FFXI on and off since 2004, and I realize the community has always favored certain jobs for certain situations. I find myself caught up on understanding things like Delve. The more I learn about the boss mechanisms, the more I begin to realize what SE was trying to do. For instance, boss monsters have varying degrees of weakness to certain weapon types at different times-- so bring a bit of variety so everyone feels included. When players see this, they think "bring monk and use Formless Strikes." Ok. That's fine.
Monk, monk, monk (or Samurai!), bard, white mage and sometimes corsair or red mage, sometimes scholar. This is the set up for Delve. This is the setup for most tier II BCs with the exception of Ark Angel fights and a few others where you replace monks with rangers. This is what everyone believes is the best possible setup for these events.
Everyone just automagically accepts that there is no better way. So I go along with it about 47 times for Delve. 45 of those times are in Foret de Hennetiel, the other two times against Tojil, over a period of about 3 months with many different people of all shapes and sizes-- all using the exact same tactics.
Some runs go more smoothly than others, but they all have one thing in common: Every single one of them failed. All of these runs ended with a wipe at the last boss. I still haven't won a single Delve run.
I can totally see the appeal of zerg rushing the boss and getting it done as fast as possible, especially considering the time limit. Usually, though, we will get to the last boss with more than 25 minutes to fight it with, and end up dead with still a lot of time left over. Remember that I am the new guy in all of this. Failure after failure after failure I ask these esteemed veterans of Adoulin: "Why not use a tank? Hate is all over the place and we monks can only handle so much before your run out of MP and can't keep us healed." "Oh." they will say. "It's so-and-so's fault. He is a newb healer. It's so-and-so's fault because stuns/sleep started getting resisted too early." It's always someone's fault. "He's so noob. She's so low gear." Over and over and over.
I will frequently record runs and rewatch them to pinpoint exactly where doing really well suddenly became struggling to survive. The only thing I can conclude after all this time is this setup simply does not work.
Sure, there are tight-nit groups and linkshells who use this setup and succeed all the time. This setup will work under EXTREMELY IDEAL CONDITIONS where everyone in your group knows exactly what to do and has the best possible gear for the occasion. When you see a /shout or a /yell in a major city for one of these runs who are picking up whoever feels like doing it at that moment, your odds of everything falling perfectly in place with the setup you want are astronomically low.
So after all of this people are still banging their heads against the wall trying to beat the same two Delve runs over and over. Boss slept your mages? "Oh they were just standing too close" Why not use poison potions just in case? Why not instead of everyone come as DD/Run have at least one person keep the boss's attention so he's not spamming sleepga on the mages to begin with? Why not TRY SOMETHING DIFFERENT FOR GOD'S SAKE. Anything at all! Has anyone tried low-manning these with pet jobs? Could there possibly be a way for one player to kite the boss and all the adds in a circle somehow so the rest of the party can pluck the boss from the crowd without such a sloppy start? Could we, I dunno, try using black mages? They seem awfully squishy against magic damage.
I just really had to get that out there. I realize nearly everyone will skim over this and have no idea what I'm saying. "Well why don't you make your own groups and try--" Stop. You know why. You know they won't waste the time to try something that might not work-- not when there is something that will almost certainly not work.
You basically just summarized the exact reason why even after weeks of research, Q&A sessions with players, and binge video watching I'm still hesitant to return to FFXI from FFXIV. The fact that many players in FFXI simply don't want to think outside the box when it comes to much of the games content. If it worked by doing X Y Z then by god we're going to keep doing XYZ in that order until we succeed. This has always been a problem. I hope that it ends one day soon. I really want to come back to FFXI. I play FFXIV and continue to think of all the fun I used to have with FFXI. The friends I made, the fun I had experimenting with main/sub job combos, the way that the game used to feel like a living breathing world (i.e., you waited for airships, boats, etc.) the world didn't cater to your every whim. That was positive. The down side has always been the mentality of players and the need for optimization in all situations. No game is free from this problem, but some like FFXI just have it worse than others. I hope one day things change.
Edited, Feb 5th 2015 1:59pm by Alazardragoonz
I think it is changing a bit with SE buffing up other jobs. To be fair, people do the cookie cutter stuff because often the difference in damage dealing capabilities etc is so very wide that it just can't be filled even by uber players.
Like when someone who is an awesome player plays pup and is only only puts out 70 per cent of the damage of a SAM with no significant benefit in return for that DPS loss (a robot that gets killed pretty instantly by a boss isn't really a bonus)... it makes the content harder to complete. That's fine if you're completing it no problem, but if you've already lost 15 times, people are justifiably leery of reducing their chances further by taking sub optimal jobs.
It's not a playerbase problem, it's a balance problem.
THF recently got a massive DPS boost, and lo and behold, now people are willing to take THF even if TH isn't a real bonus in the content. Funny how that works. And guess what, SAMs are still welcome too.
BLU is getting a big boost to additional effects landing, which I hope will make them more desireable for things like stunning and enfeebling.
BST pets are getting a (hopefully) large damage increase and having skillchain properties added to their special attacks. If it's a large enough boost BST could be where THF is, welcome in content as a DD.
Anyway, I just think it isn't fair to blame players for being timid to bring their favourite jobs to content. They just mathematically can't compete with others (sorry if a BST is doing more damage currently than a SAM then the SAM must be afk or not weaponskilling or something). Sure I'll bring my BST to a orb fight or something that I know is faceroll easy but I don't expect people to carry me through content. Nor do I expect people to fail at a time consuming event an extra 15 times so I can feel included.
Edited, Feb 5th 2015 12:04pm by Olorinus
Edited, Feb 5th 2015 12:04pm by Olorinus
Like when someone who is an awesome player plays pup and is only only puts out 70 per cent of the damage of a SAM with no significant benefit in return for that DPS loss (a robot that gets killed pretty instantly by a boss isn't really a bonus)... it makes the content harder to complete. That's fine if you're completing it no problem, but if you've already lost 15 times, people are justifiably leery of reducing their chances further by taking sub optimal jobs.
It's not a playerbase problem, it's a balance problem.
THF recently got a massive DPS boost, and lo and behold, now people are willing to take THF even if TH isn't a real bonus in the content. Funny how that works. And guess what, SAMs are still welcome too.
BLU is getting a big boost to additional effects landing, which I hope will make them more desireable for things like stunning and enfeebling.
BST pets are getting a (hopefully) large damage increase and having skillchain properties added to their special attacks. If it's a large enough boost BST could be where THF is, welcome in content as a DD.
Anyway, I just think it isn't fair to blame players for being timid to bring their favourite jobs to content. They just mathematically can't compete with others (sorry if a BST is doing more damage currently than a SAM then the SAM must be afk or not weaponskilling or something). Sure I'll bring my BST to a orb fight or something that I know is faceroll easy but I don't expect people to carry me through content. Nor do I expect people to fail at a time consuming event an extra 15 times so I can feel included.
Edited, Feb 5th 2015 12:04pm by Olorinus
Edited, Feb 5th 2015 12:04pm by Olorinus
For the record, when we cleared Tojil finally,we used a damn tank.
But yeah it was PLD MNK MNK RDM WHM BRD. And the PLD was an empy/relic so had both choices for shield.
But yeah it was PLD MNK MNK RDM WHM BRD. And the PLD was an empy/relic so had both choices for shield.
I have nothing to add, I quit a few years ago.
Seeing so many names I recognize posting here still though warms my heart.
Carry on!
Seeing so many names I recognize posting here still though warms my heart.
Carry on!
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