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Thank You, FFXIFollow

#1 May 21 2017 at 10:31 PM Rating: Excellent
I'll keep this brief, because I really don't have a whole lot to say...

Last night, I logged out of Final Fantasy XI for the last time. I left Vana'diel in my favorite spot on Valkurm Dunes, in that cave with the stone monument -- where, years ago, I was in an experience party where I was given a linkpearl for the best group of online friends I'll ever have. I worked for years in a high-stress job with terrible hours, and FFXI gave me an outlet in so many ways. I could lead, have friends, adventure, make money (so much easier to do in virtual life than real life)... really, it was nice to belong to such an interesting community with such a deep, special game to bring us together.

Anyway, life has changed completely over the years. I intended to play both FFXIV and FFXI when the Adoulin expansion launched, but Seekers just didn't really grab me like the previous expansions did. That, and my beloved linkshell fell apart just before the launch of Abyssea. I floated around between a few other linkshells for awhile, but that special in-game social group was no more. And being a storyline guy, I just wasn't really motivated to finish Adoulin. I finished the WoTG storyline and unsubsribed, but didn't really feel like my time in Vana'diel was over. I just needed motivation to finish what I'd started.

Then came Rhapsodies. I finished the first two parts of Rhapsodies last year, and then switched back to chip away at Seekers of Adoulin. Honestly, I never really did get too into that storyline, but it did get better toward the end. I finally finished the Adoulin expansion about a week ago, thanks to some help from a few folks in a new linkshell. Then, early last week, I went on YouTube and rewatched ALL the previous Rhapsodies cutscenes just so I'd remember where I was in that story. I was already about a third of the way through Act 3, so it didn't take long to get to the final fight -- which I beat Saturday night, much to the credit of in-game friend and longtime Zam poster Darkdoom. (And I actually met Darkdoom back at Fan Fest in 2008, when both of us were much younger!)

I made sure to chainspell one last time during that boss battle. I didn't get the killshot, but I drained my MP and won the fight meleeing.

The ending of Rhapsodies was far more satisfying than the Adoulin expansion. I already knew that Rhapsodies would be my finish line, but seeing the game's credits roll sealed the deal. I thanked the folks in my linkshell for the help I'd received from some of them (although really, I didn't know them). And I thanked Darkdoom profusely -- I couldn't have been more thrilled to do one last battle with someone I've known for years. Then, I warped to Windurst -- listened for a minute to that warm, familiar soundtrack -- and then outpost warped to Valkurm. I don't even know if Valkurm Emperor still spawns where he used to (I ran through the area one last time, but didn't see him), then ran to my cave to the southwest.

"Goodbye, Vana'diel!" Thayos shouted the abandoned zone... and then, he was gone.

I'm saying a lot more than I thought I would, but what the hell. Here are some names of people who no longer play -- and they'll probably never see this -- but they meant the world to me back in my golden days:

Zarovich, the beastmaster who earned his Osode.
Kiabrightblade, the most righteous greatsword paladin.
Makina, the taru dragoon who'd give you everything but her polearm.
Aeora, who might hold the record for # of gil sellers D2'd against their wills.
Astoner, who was such a bad*** he fell asleep in the middle of true-sight mobs in a promy.... AND LIVED.
Kaerwyn, one of my few in-game friends who I've actually hung out with in the real world.
Dragel & Jet, who are no longer a couple, but were fantastic teammates.
Gravitusmiasma, my CoP static's amazing taru ninja tank who epitomized "fall down seven times, get up eight!"
Orla, a rock-solid healer, and the first of our core group to hit level 75.
Verrick, another awesome healer, for all the late-night adventures and his impeccable punctuation.
Rayanna, for making dynamis fun and helping me get my duelist hat.. and also for listening when I suggested we tackle Dynamis-Windurst with dual-wielding melee whms.
Gatelord... not a close friend in the game, but a guy who helped us several times during our first climb to 75.
Brotosky, for teaching me the ways of the OG red mage. :)
??????.... a random thief playing from someplace in Europe.. he helped me camp Charby at like 3 a.m. on a Monday. I'd started camping at like 10 p.m. Sunday... and it didn't pop until like 8 a.m. And yes, I GOT MY JOYOUSE!
Daffney, a great ranger and a dedicated leader (and I hope you got that six pack!)
Ziploc, for introducing me to the only video game linkshell/guild/whatever that I'll ever truly love.

There are definitely others who I'm forgetting to include as I write this. Oh, duh! Yeah, one more pretty important name:

Pikko. So many people know Pikko for her work on this site or her ongoing commentary on XI's gardening system. I'll always remember Pikko as that taru who was fishing in Port Jeuno when I gave hear a pearl to my awesome social linkshell... she'd been asking on these forums about joining a CoP static, and I was making one and needed a healer. She hired me as a ZAM writer an admin, and together we had fantastic times both in and out of game. Pikko and I still chat often via social media -- and she actually worked for MY company as a writer for awhile -- so, thankfully, our relationship still goes on.

Anyway, those people MADE my time in Vana'diel what it was. It's only right that in my official goodbye to the game, their names are put out into the FFXI universe. We deserve to go out together.

I don't follow the XI forums much these days, and I don't know how many "old timers" are still around. But thanks to anyone who reads this who helped make this community what it was back in its heyday. The ZAM board was an extension of that in-game magic that neither Wiki nor the official forums could ever reproduce. So, seriously, thank you. Thanks for the help, the laughs, data mining, the arguing, the expert trolling, the Yellow thread -- all of it. Thank you.

I'll still be lurking on these forums, and of course I'll contribute more to the XIV forums, as that has been my primary MMORPG for awhile now... but never again will I log back into FFXI. I'm not going to delete my character data -- I like knowing that Thayos still lives in SE's servers along with so many others who adventured alongside him, like souls of Vana'diel returning to the Mother Crystal.

Thank you, Square Enix. And thanks to the many adventurers of Vana'diel.

I'm hanging up my Duelist's Chapeau... but wow, what a ride.



Edited, May 21st 2017 9:53pm by Thayos
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#2 May 21 2017 at 11:23 PM Rating: Decent
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How is Pikko doing, anyway? I got to meet her here quite a while ago.

Sorry I didn't get to help with the last bit of Rhapsodies.
#3 May 22 2017 at 7:18 AM Rating: Excellent
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Can I have your stuff?
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#4 May 22 2017 at 11:33 AM Rating: Excellent
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Can I have your stuff?


Ha, I don't have anything any regular XI player would want.

And Fyn, no worries! You helped me beat WoTG. And I'll be seeing you plenty in XIV once Stormblood hits.
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#5 May 23 2017 at 8:52 AM Rating: Good
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Cheers, Thayos!
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#6 May 24 2017 at 12:35 AM Rating: Good
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I made sure to chainspell one last time during that boss battle. I didn't get the killshot, but I drained my MP and won the fight meleeing.

Good thing you're quitting because we'd have to delete your account for this! :P
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#7 May 25 2017 at 6:31 PM Rating: Decent
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Melee for the win.
#8 May 26 2017 at 10:04 AM Rating: Decent
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Ah Pikkos pots.. I remember setting my alarm for 3am ever morning just to log in, feed my plants some ice crystals, go back to sleep. Came from her theory on platinum nuggets.
#9 May 28 2017 at 12:10 PM Rating: Good
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DBL Post.

Edited, May 28th 2017 2:12pm by Teneleven
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#10 May 28 2017 at 12:12 PM Rating: Good
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As i read this, i am reinstalling (i lost it due to a hard disk malfunction) XI. It's sad to start seeing the veterans saying goodbye, but it's not surprising. Still, i have to finish WOTG and Seekers b4 i truly call it a day in XI. I also want to jack my character up as bad *** as he can be :). XI really was a special place. A place that no other MMORPG has been able to duplicate. At least we were all a part of that.
With all that said, See ya in XIV! Stormblood looks promising.
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#11 May 28 2017 at 6:51 PM Rating: Good
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Teneleven wrote:
As i read this, i am reinstalling (i lost it due to a hard disk malfunction) XI. It's sad to start seeing the veterans saying goodbye, but it's not surprising. Still, i have to finish WOTG and Seekers b4 i truly call it a day in XI. I also want to jack my character up as bad *** as he can be :). XI really was a special place. A place that no other MMORPG has been able to duplicate. At least we were all a part of that.
With all that said, See ya in XIV! Stormblood looks promising.


Just re-subbed myself this past October-November somewheres, and while I like what they've done with the game, how 117-119 gear makes a good chunk of the game solo-able (as does Trust Magic), I still feel that there's some things they could have done just a slice better.

Some of the stuff seems overly grindy for the sake of being grindy and some stuff that is such a terrible grind seems like it really doesn't have to be, and there's still some content that you really do need groups for but yet not too many do groups for yet (stuff like Skirmish and Delve, for example). Everybody wants to hop right into Ambuscade, but yet trying to get -into- Ambuscade is not exactly easy.

And then you got Job Points. Oi. To get those 3 stars above your head, you need 2100 job points or 63,000,000 Capacity Points.

When you start out, you're lucky if you get 150-200 per kill, and maybe with all the Rhapsodies (I'm stuck on the last boss in RoV) you could get 400, and with a Trizek/Facility Ring, the best you can do (without a campaign) is 1200.

Even at 1200-1500 which is best-case scenario, you still need at least 42,000 kills to get your 1200JP.

There are Capacity Points parties, but guess what? You still get heavy class elitism there too. GEO GEO GEO GEO GEO GEO GEO GEO basically. Everything you gotta be either GEO or BLU for, and of course those happen to be the hardest two jobs to gear up/play and well look at that? BLU basically needs at least 100 JP before you can do much with it and a crapton of time spent trying to get spells (some of which are pretty difficult to get), so you're still stuck in a long, lengthy grind before you're of any use to an average PUG.

And with the population on some servers dwindling, trying to get stuff like Su1-Su2 weapons/armor, let alone Su3 is next to impossible, unless you don't mind paying 10, 20 million+ for one piece (I've been seeing shouts of a few of these things, and that's what they are on Sylph). Yes you can get money easily through vendoring certain items, but it still takes a long amount of time to grind all this junk up.

So.... while I like what they did with the game, I feel there are certain things they could do, like make Pre-Ambuscade 119 armor easier to get, so that players can get into Ambuscade easier and also make Volume 2 Very Easy more reasonable -- easier to do, and slightly more rewarding so you aren't forced to go VD right off the bat (which requires a full 119 geared group) just to get any reasonable rewards.

One thing they could do is lessen the ridiculous CoP requirement to upgrade AF gear, since it is also a step in the RoE objectives to gear up. Not everybody likes having a 20-30 hour roadblock dumped in front of them that is CoP.

Edited, May 28th 2017 8:54pm by Lyrailis
#12 May 28 2017 at 7:53 PM Rating: Good
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There are Capacity Points parties, but guess what? You still get heavy class elitism there too. GEO GEO GEO GEO GEO GEO GEO GEO basically.


I've noticed that too. It creates a perception that caster dps are literally the only jobs anyone cares about, but it probably just means they're the most in demand right now for parties. The others exist, but they're readily available without shouting.

The game is definitely a grind. It's a different grind than it was back in caveman times, but a grind nonetheless. That's just FFXI. That's what you signed up for Smiley: clown

I will point out btw that even though the CoP requirement for AF reforging seems harsh, it's actually pretty quick at item level. Literally nothing in the CoP missions is even sort of a threat to you in sparks gear with trusts so it's really just a matter of sitting there and doing it. Fortunately the CoP story is actually pretty good, so it's not quite as soul crushing as it could be.
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#13 May 28 2017 at 8:19 PM Rating: Good
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Callinon wrote:


I will point out btw that even though the CoP requirement for AF reforging seems harsh, it's actually pretty quick at item level. Literally nothing in the CoP missions is even sort of a threat to you in sparks gear with trusts so it's really just a matter of sitting there and doing it. Fortunately the CoP story is actually pretty good, so it's not quite as soul crushing as it could be.


It's mostly the time spent running your rear-end around all over the place, and those stupid Parradamo climbs, and whether or not you knew to activate the entirely optional quest for additional Geomagnetic Fount teleports to skip the subsequent Parradamo climbs.

And yes, you can easily solo everything including the final boss of CoP easily with sparks 117 gear, it's more the ridiculous time-sink in doing the whole quest-line.

And well, both of me and family member's main characters have CoP done, but we've also taken to leveling our mules to Lv99 and it'd be nice to get something better than Sparks gear for them, but yuck. CoP? No thanks. Not on mules lol.

The only alternative is Delve gear from popped NMs, and we 1 piece of armor thusfar from Kamihr Drifts (Sinaa or something) and so it starts... but bleh. That's even a grind, but at least that's more of a varied grind.

I could maybe get into Ambuscade (after I get 1-2 more spells as I just now got Su2 on my BLU which means the Trait gift), but sadly family member's chosen job happens to be THF.... and THF being allowed into anything is LULZ at best, unless they stick a mob in there that's weak to piercing (she can one-shot such mobs in Reisenjima with a SA or TA+Rudra's quite easily) one of these months, then maybe I could get her into an Ambuscade...

I'd like to do a 2nd job on her that might be in more demand, but eh..... everybody wants GEO for everything. *sigh* I can't really think of a job that's much in demand that doesn't take a crapton of gear, spell acquisition, or ridiculously over-complex macro setups to actually do good enough to get into Vol2 VD groups. I'm not even looking for Ambuscade+1, just NQs would be good enough at the very least.

It helps, though, that Shantotto II was available this month. Big, big, BIG help. Now we can kill stuff a LOT faster thanks to her ridiculous magic burst power.

Edited, May 28th 2017 10:23pm by Lyrailis
#14 May 29 2017 at 5:23 AM Rating: Decent
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When you start out, you're lucky if you get 150-200 per kill, and maybe with all the Rhapsodies (I'm stuck on the last boss in RoV) you could get 400, and with a Trizek/Facility Ring, the best you can do (without a campaign) is 1200.

Even at 1200-1500 which is best-case scenario, you still need at least 42,000 kills to get your 1200JP.

There are Capacity Points parties, but guess what? You still get heavy class elitism there too. GEO GEO GEO GEO GEO GEO GEO GEO basically. Everything you gotta be either GEO or BLU for, and of course those happen to be the hardest two jobs to gear up/play and well look at that? BLU basically needs at least 100 JP before you can do much with it and a crapton of time spent trying to get spells (some of which are pretty difficult to get), so you're still stuck in a long, lengthy grind before you're of any use to an average PUG.


1200-1500 is actually still on the pretty low end. There are various things to work on that will increase CP gains, and it's recommended to capitalize on that if you're actually serious about getting job stars. There's a bunch of RoE objectives that give passive CP gains once completed (for clearing mission paths and for doing reives in all the Adoulin areas), there's Rhapsodies progress like you mentioned, you can get a bit from monster rearing in the Mog Garden, there's a cape you can buy with CP+ on it (you can get better ones from Incursion but that isn't as simple, it's luck-based, and can't be soloed), capacity/trizek rings basically grant a "free" JP with each use, and there's gifts for each job that will increase CP gains while on that job as you get more CP, so as you get closer to the end it starts going faster... you know, like a roll of toilet paper.

Parties aren't really necessary to get decent CP. Thing is, partying with actual people does lower EXP/CP gain so they actually do have to be optimized setups that more than make up for it, or else you'd be potentially able to CP faster by just soloing with trusts.

I also wouldn't go out of your way to grind CP unless a doubling campaign is going on, like now. That would just be working harder, not smarter.
#15 May 29 2017 at 2:15 PM Rating: Good
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Well, there isn't much more I can do.

I'm right before the last boss on Rhapsodies, and we're working to try again (we failed at 50% on the first time to beat the stupid thing, but I think I understand a bit more about it now), and we've got more than half of the RoE Reive objectives done, we have the Aptitude Mantle, we use Rings whenever possible, but it still seems atrociously slow.

And groups, as long as you're in Escha or in a "dungeon" (or, a better term, "indoors") in Adoulin, the penalty is rather small, or at least for a 2 person group. It's something like 20-30 CP per kill, when we're talking 800 or so a kill in Reisenjima. It's barely even noticeable. Not sure about a 6 man group though, I've yet to try one. From what I've heard on forums n such, usually SC+MB to nuke down Apex mobs as fast as possible, to get several thousand a kill without rings or campaigns.

Either way, it's just too slow, and some pretty important game-changing things (like BLU set points/Trait bonus) are locked behind 100+ JP and there's too much legwork you gotta do before you can get anything that could be termed as "decent" CP. And it seems that a job with no CP is almost useless in any kind of endgame that people still do, as if we needed ANOTHER barrier to entry in Endgame. You'd think from the various complaints about Job elitism, and how difficult endgame was to actually start, that they would have approached this in different ways or something... Ambuscade is a nice idea, but again... the solo/low-man content is not rewarding enough (if VE is even do-able that month solo, which is not always the case) and PUGs expect too much out of you unless they're desperate.

Oh, and..... Ambuscade does not reward weapons. Pretty much no place for a newbie to get a decent 119 weapon unless they get lucky and are actually able to get a WKR clear which is hard as frack to do on some servers.

Edited, May 29th 2017 4:19pm by Lyrailis
#16 May 29 2017 at 5:23 PM Rating: Good
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You'd think from the various complaints about Job elitism, and how difficult endgame was to actually start, that they would have approached this in different ways or something...


Bear in mind most of the time when this attitude exists it's not because the game designers wanted it to. It's because the players made it exist.

MMO players seek the peak of efficiency and discard all avenues that don't lead to this goal however slightly. This will lead people to believe that only certain jobs can accomplish things when in reality this is almost never true, other jobs are just not quite as efficient at whatever it is. I remember back when Adoulin launched and Delve weapons were the big thing.... groups literally required you to already have one in order to come. This was like a week after launch. Did you need a Delve weapon to complete Delve? Of course not, but the players decided it was more efficient if you did and so.. there you are.

As far as weapons go, the i117 sparks weapons are actually not that bad. The armor is garbage but the weapons don't suck. There are also i117 Peacekeeper's Coalition weapons you can buy for like 30k bayld, and bayld is trivially easy to obtain. So much so that I gained about 85k of it just progressing through Adoulin missions for Rhapsodies requirements. I'm one boss behind you in Rhapsodies btw. Sempurne was a sufficiently close fight that I want better gear before I proceed. I've been working on other jobs and farming sparks for AF upgrades. Three times per week the rotating challenge is Gain Experience which I complete with literally every kill in Yorcia Weald. So there are avenues you can use to improve your gear. They're just all grinds... because FFXI.
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#17 May 29 2017 at 6:10 PM Rating: Good
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Hmm, suppose I could do the peacekeeper thing...

Yeah, Bayld's easy to get even on my mules, I already got their Inventers' Coalition Imprimaturs going because that's how I've been getting Mog Garden upgrades. Y'don't think I'm spending 180k+ on those when I could instead spend <11k bayld? lol.

I suppose I'm too quick to be wishing for 119s, but still... I have gotten lucky with the gobbie box a few times, though! my warrior has an Ark Angels Greatsword (Resolution out-damages Upheaval anyways), and my BST has two 119 axes that are better than the 117 sparks axe... and I got a Unity 119 dagger for my THF... wish I could grab a 119 g-katana for my SAM from somewheres, though. And fists. Still need a pair of fists. But otherwise, 119 weapons all-around!

I would like to try this geo thing everybody talks about but I've yet to see any 119 armor for offensive casters. I got Skirmish+1 for support/healers, Ambuscade Tank armor, Skirmish+1 shield, ark angels sword, Ambuscade DEX gear, but no offensive caster lol.

I don't really feel like trying to do Geo AF+1... tho I suppose I could consider that. At least I don't need to do AF->109 because GEO gets 109 right off the bat.
#18 May 29 2017 at 11:51 PM Rating: Good
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You're not really wrong on the gap between sparks and ambuscade being a mix of insufficient or too difficult for the soloist/late-comer. What kinda befuddles me is that the NQ ambuscade is never really considered for anything, and not just because HQ versions exist. Rather, there is stuff in the progression tree prior that IS better, but it suffers from the manpower/time sink dilemma to acquire. And of course, since PUGs are probably only running VD, they're not going to want scrubs due to accuracy requirements, which further means a virtually insignificant currency gain if you solo on the easier difficulties.

Putting aside the entirety of the issues with Ambuscade, I'm feeling like they should actually remove the NQ versions from the loot pool and instead move those to some monthly RoE objectives that the player can do on their own. Since they gear tends to be related to specific jobs, the gear can be further tailored around them. From there, if this NQ gear, with proper food, isn't enough to get people accepted into VD groups, then I'd further assert the gear itself needs some upward adjustment. That way, people aren't stuck in Skirmish hell or its overpriced augment RNG.

Of course, weapons are still a valid concern, too. I'm of the mind the Oboro weapons are too expensive for what they offer, in part because of their ties to other weapon currencies. Getting the initial HTBC clear is also a hurdle, since no one got time for dat when all the loot is antiquated. Either way, since there's no getting your money back by AHing the item when you're done with it, that's an easy 3-5m down the drain, which isn't the swiftest of cash to come by with casual play. Maybe a 3-4 full time Dynamis runs depending on your luck, which is obviously super fkn boring. The RoE weapon(s) you can eventually get are decent, but they're also fairly deep into those chains and require some Adoulin work. And since Adoulin is literally gated by time, it could mean a while there. Superior stuff should be something to fill in these gaps, but for whatever reason, SE hates non-cursed crafting.

Either way, I played a bit during free time, but found myself swiftly turned off. Linkshell was doing an Omen run, of which I asked if they were doing bosses or just fodder clears. Got no response. I show up to the gathering point and the leader freaks out on me because I didn't ask to join, when I'm sitting here thinking being in the same LS should be enough of a pass paired with the fact they still had 5 open slots. Had no plans on lotting on the NM drops (or really knew what they did drop), as I just wanted some BLU cards. Nonetheless, this did little to foster my faith in humanity or even the XI community. Didn't really log in again after since I'm at the point where I do have to party for things, but the whole MMO Catch 22 is going on or no one is ever playing when I do, anyway.

Really makes me wish the private server scene would get out of the "CoP is the bestest!" era and finish the rest of the game with some sensible revisions toward low-man populations. Much as I think SE squandered XI's potential, some fans aren't much better. :/
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#19 May 30 2017 at 9:32 AM Rating: Good
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A thought came to me at work today...

Usually, in a J-RPG, or any other RPG system for that matter, you start off at Level 1 and you gain levels quickly, because everything is new to you. You start increasing in strength rapidly, but as you progress through the game, time between levels starts slowing down. Maybe you got Level 2 in just a few kills, Level 3 a kill or more more, etc. By the time you get to Level 50+, you're spending an hour or more on a levelup.

It's similar for Weapon skills. Get a Lv99 character, grab a 119 weapon which you have 0 skill in and go out and start pounding on some Lv90+ enemies. The first 100 levels will come insanely fast (as long as you can hit the enemies reliably which should not be hard if you use Kuyin, sushi, etc). The second 100 levels will still be pretty swift, but around 250 or so it will slow down by a large margin.

These things reflect how the learning process works in general -- when you first start learning something new, you get much better than you were very quickly, but as you learn more, you start to learn slower because the hardest things to learn, take the longest to learn.

When you throw an American football for the first time, it is very awkward in your hands. The ball is shaped awkwardly and it probably wobbles like crazy the first time you threw it. The second time you throw it, it probably goes a bit better, doesn't it? 10 times later and you've probably taken most of the wobble out of the ball, but your aim still is lacking. An hour later, your aim has improved a lot, but you're still no quarterback. As time goes on, your learning process slows down.

.... but...

Let's look at Capacity Point gains. It's backwards. You start off learning slowly and you start learning faster as you get more job points. This makes no sense whatsoever; it SHOULD be the opposite like everything else is. Not only is this backwards, but it is ALSO unfriendly to newbies (it takes them FOREVER to get enough Job Points that their character becomes useful/desirable in groups) and those trying to start a new job.

I really don't get why they chose to do it this way, to be honest. It just seems so backwards.
#20 May 30 2017 at 10:07 AM Rating: Decent
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Well, the rate of CP increases some but I wouldn't say the rate at which you receive benefits does. The distance between gifts increases as you go along (the difference between the first few gifts is like 5/10/15 job points but by the time you reach the end, the difference between the last and 2nd last gift is 100 job points, if I'm not mistaken), and the improvements you get from the actual categories you spend the job points in also become slower and slower because they start costing more and more points.

Also, typically speaking, levels do usually slow down in RPGs but rate of experience points usually increases. It's just that higher levels need so many more points that it ends up ultimately being slower anyway. I'm pretty sure this is what the system is intended to emulate.

Edited, May 30th 2017 12:11pm by Fynlar
#21 May 30 2017 at 10:25 AM Rating: Good
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Fynlar wrote:
Well, the rate of CP increases some but I wouldn't say the rate at which you receive benefits does. The distance between gifts increases as you go along (the difference between the first few gifts is like 5/10/15 job points but by the time you reach the end, the difference between the last and 2nd last gift is 100 job points, if I'm not mistaken), and the improvements you get from the actual categories you spend the job points in also become slower and slower because they start costing more and more points.

Also, typically speaking, levels do usually slow down in RPGs but rate of experience points usually increases. It's just that higher levels need so many more points that it ends up ultimately being slower anyway. I'm pretty sure this is what the system is intended to emulate.



I'm talking about straight up Job Point Gains. Yes, I am well aware that it takes more points to buy higher tier rewards, and that the gifts get more spread out, however, just gaining the Capacity Points takes way too long when you're first starting out, especially if you happen to be a job that actually has a cool thing to buy when starting out (like Blue Mage, for example).

The Capacity Points come by so slowly, and it feels like a ridiculously slow slog... but once you get around 300 Job Points or so, you've got a +19% Capacity Point Bonus and the JPs come in noticeably faster, which means you have JPs to spend noticeably faster.

Upgrading the various upgrades never takes more than 20 JP at a time, and if you spend, say, 20-30 minutes to get a JP with 0%, that same JP would take say, 15-18 minutes after you get ~300JP to get the 19% bonus, it just goes quicker (especially once your character starts killing stuff faster thanks to the gifts).


Edited, May 30th 2017 12:27pm by Lyrailis
#22 May 30 2017 at 7:32 PM Rating: Decent
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Quote:
I'm talking about straight up Job Point Gains. Yes, I am well aware that it takes more points to buy higher tier rewards, and that the gifts get more spread out, however, just gaining the Capacity Points takes way too long when you're first starting out, especially if you happen to be a job that actually has a cool thing to buy when starting out (like Blue Mage, for example).


To be honest, if it feels that dreadfully slow when you're starting out, it's not going to get *that* much better with the gifts (and like I said, if anything it's still going to *feel* slower because of how much longer it will take by that point to get each upgrade). Your problem is moreso your method than it is with how many JPs you have already. From my understanding, CP boosts are additive, not multiplicative... meaning that even if you have the +19% CP gift it doesn't necessarily mean you're receiving 19% more CP than you would without it. In reality, it will probably be a lot less.

In essence, what you get from gifts is only a small percentage of the total potential bonus you can accumulate from other sources.

Edited, May 30th 2017 9:36pm by Fynlar
#23 May 31 2017 at 2:14 AM Rating: Decent
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Weird.

I come by to see what's going on and see this thread... just as I re-upped my subscription. While Thayos hangs up his hat, I've dusted off my knives for one last hurrah.

It's funny, all the above was why I left. I felt the game had moved on without me. Adoulin didn't grab me, linkshell of friends vanished, so on and so on. The free wee, however, reminded me why I loved this game so much for so long. I still have unfinished business with the game. As it stands, I just finished WotG. I don't know how long my last run will be, whether it will just be long enough to finish Rhapsody, or if I'll finish Adoulin as well. But I do love being back.

And to Thayos, happy trails. I've been where you are, for certain. Enjoy the new horizons you find.
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Olorinus the Ludicrous wrote:
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#24 May 31 2017 at 2:15 AM Rating: Decent
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Oh alla, the home of the double post.

Edited, May 31st 2017 4:17am by Pawkeshup
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Olorinus the Ludicrous wrote:
The idea of old school is way more interesting than the reality
#25 Jun 02 2017 at 1:44 PM Rating: Excellent
Quote:
And to Thayos, happy trails. I've been where you are, for certain. Enjoy the new horizons you find.


Nothing terribly new, ha. Will rotate in a couple single-player games with FFXIV. Overall, though, I just play a lot less than I used to. I've got my full-time job, sporadic freelance hours, time with the wife, and I've become active in a local running club, which doesn't really eat more time (I already ran daily) but definitely affects my sleep schedule.

That said, I'm enjoying the time I do get to play, and I have a cool group to hang with in XIV, so life is good.

I highly recommend finishing Adoulin, just because it makes the Rhapsodies storyline that much more all-encompassing. And Adoulin's story wasn't bad, it just wasn't as special as the others.

Best of luck in your final journeys of Vana'diel!
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