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Playing FFXI the OLD WAY?Follow

#52 Feb 12 2017 at 2:14 PM Rating: Decent
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I would play on a classic realm (Pre-TOAU) if it had the population to support it. It wouldn't though.

I currently don't play FFXI because the last time I came back I literally spent two months playing with myself. (Since I dual box...get it?) It got boring.
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#53 Feb 12 2017 at 2:28 PM Rating: Good
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Zafire wrote:
I would play on a classic realm (Pre-TOAU) if it had the population to support it. It wouldn't though.

I currently don't play FFXI because the last time I came back I literally spent two months playing with myself. (Since I dual box...get it?) It got boring.


Today's FFXI is different, I think.

You don't have to dualbox to get stuff done, and I've seen enough people running around doing Endgame stuff, that if you got into a decent linkshell and had the time, you could do decently well.

Though, to get up to Lv99+119, takes a bit of solo work which might get boring after awhile, but hey... I think JUST being able to make good steady progress while solo is awesome.

And to be honest... at least from XP group perspective, there's not much difference between Trusts and human players in the old XP groups of yesteryear, except...

1). The Trusts perform better half of the time
2). Trusts don't complain about your gear/subjob choices
3). They're willing to sacrifice themselves to save your rear end (stupid ZAM filter...)
4). You don't have to wait hours LFG
5). Trusts and old XP groups talked about as much on average (one line when entering the party and ~5% chance of saying something when using a WS)
6). Trusts on average seem to be better at Skillchains than XP groups from what I remember.
7). Trusts never leave your group too early.
8). Trusts rest MP much faster.
9). Trusts won't aggro mobs.

So......total win? Trusts are better for XPing.

Edited, Feb 12th 2017 3:38pm by Lyrailis
#54 Feb 12 2017 at 2:51 PM Rating: Good
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The only things Trusts are categorically worse at than players is playing support and playing BLM. They are phenomenally bad at RDM, BRD, and WHM. Sure the WHMs will heal you... in fact they'll cure bomb you if your hp so much as glances into yellow. But they'll also vomit all their mp everywhere should an AoE status effect that doesn't matter go off. For instance bat trios do an AoE attack down. Now it's not very much and most human WHMs would correctly ignore it, but Kupipi? She is ON that. She will Erase all of that worthless debuff no matter WHAT it does to her mp.

As for skillchains, I actually was just leveling with Zeid in my party and wondering if he'd gone to the bathroom or something because he randomly just doesn't close the skillchain with me he's been closing for hours. He's got the tp... he just I don't know.. forgets.

Edited, Feb 12th 2017 2:53pm by Callinon
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#55 Feb 12 2017 at 3:20 PM Rating: Decent
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Lyrailis wrote:
Zafire wrote:
I would play on a classic realm (Pre-TOAU) if it had the population to support it. It wouldn't though.

I currently don't play FFXI because the last time I came back I literally spent two months playing with myself. (Since I dual box...get it?) It got boring.


Today's FFXI is different, I think.

You don't have to dualbox to get stuff done, and I've seen enough people running around doing Endgame stuff, that if you got into a decent linkshell and had the time, you could do decently well.

Though, to get up to Lv99+119, takes a bit of solo work which might get boring after awhile, but hey... I think JUST being able to make good steady progress while solo is awesome.

And to be honest... at least from XP group perspective, there's not much difference between Trusts and human players in the old XP groups of yesteryear, except...

1). The Trusts perform better half of the time
2). Trusts don't complain about your gear/subjob choices
3). They're willing to sacrifice themselves to save your rear end (stupid ZAM filter...)
4). You don't have to wait hours LFG
5). Trusts and old XP groups talked about as much on average (one line when entering the party and ~5% chance of saying something when using a WS)
6). Trusts on average seem to be better at Skillchains than XP groups from what I remember.
7). Trusts never leave your group too early.
8). Trusts rest MP much faster.
9). Trusts won't aggro mobs.

So......total win? Trusts are better for XPing.

Edited, Feb 12th 2017 3:38pm by Lyrailis


I played for a few months mid to late 2014, according to FFAH. I know I don't need to dual box, I just do because it's more efficient. I run with a pocket bard, so I always have buffs. I had a good chunk of Trust NPCs.

I was leveling jobs, doing missions I couldn't do before, etc. I don't think I talked to much of anyone the whole time, though. It felt too much like a single player game, and I got bored. Not to mention the catch 22 of "You need to do a tough battle to get 119 weapons but you will never find anyone to do them with because you don't have 119 weapons".


Edited, Feb 12th 2017 4:21pm by Zafire
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#56 Feb 12 2017 at 6:27 PM Rating: Good
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I was leveling jobs, doing missions I couldn't do before, etc. I don't think I talked to much of anyone the whole time, though. It felt too much like a single player game, and I got bored. Not to mention the catch 22 of "You need to do a tough battle to get 119 weapons but you will never find anyone to do them with because you don't have 119 weapons".


This is not true today.

You can get 119s, albeit wimpy 119s, with solo work. All you need to get into vol2 VD ambuscade is full 119+sushi (which can be bought from an NPC for a pittance now).

AF 119 can be done 100% solo with a little gil (you obviously need the normal AF, but at Lv99 that's easy).
AF 119 weapons... well, once you get that AF armor, there are RoE objectives that hand you some starter 115-119 weapons (as well as a full set of Rem's Tales to get the aforementioned 119 AF).
You can buy a 117 weapon with 30k Bayld (which is hilariously easy to get now).

Sometimes special campaigns come up where you might get ridiculously lucky and get handed a 119 weapon. My main and a mule got Anathema's Harpe which is a rather good 119 dagger that normally comes from a rather powerful Unity Concord mob during the UC Gobbie Box campaign. I've also gotten two High Tier AA weapons (the GS and the Sword) from a gobbiebox too.

The main problem I have, is trying to find jewelry. JSE capes, yeah that's easy (at least the Reive version). Everything else? Blah.

Though right now, there's a Walk of Echoes campaign... I'm gonna be checking the AH pretty soon, I bet the +1 WoE accessories will start showing up for cheaper since everybody's doing 119 WoE. I know that Windbuffet Belt+1 looks pretty sweet anyways.

Edited, Feb 12th 2017 7:49pm by Lyrailis
#57 Feb 12 2017 at 9:02 PM Rating: Good
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Callinon wrote:
The only things Trusts are categorically worse at than players is playing support and playing BLM. They are phenomenally bad at RDM, BRD, and WHM. Sure the WHMs will heal you... in fact they'll cure bomb you if your hp so much as glances into yellow. But they'll also vomit all their mp everywhere should an AoE status effect that doesn't matter go off. For instance bat trios do an AoE attack down. Now it's not very much and most human WHMs would correctly ignore it, but Kupipi? She is ON that. She will Erase all of that worthless debuff no matter WHAT it does to her mp.

As for skillchains, I actually was just leveling with Zeid in my party and wondering if he'd gone to the bathroom or something because he randomly just doesn't close the skillchain with me he's been closing for hours. He's got the tp... he just I don't know.. forgets.

Edited, Feb 12th 2017 2:53pm by Callinon


Somehow missed this earlier....

I'm just happy to HAVE heals in my group and unless you're doing 119+ content, the WHM trusts are more than good enough to keep you alive. Not perfect, no, but I've never died on anything <119 'cept for the occasional mob that has Doom (mostly Voidwatch and WoE).

Now, once you get to 119, then Trust problems start becoming rather apparent. Thankfully, Apururu is a monster with MP longevity... with Convert and Nott, she very rarely runs out of MP unless you're too low for her to have those, or you're fighting stuff that's too strong, OR you need an actual tank instead of trying to "tank" as a DPS, lol.

Otherwise, she almost never runs out of MP. Even moreso if you happen to have someone like Koru-Moru casting Refresh II, lol.

But yes, her status removal spam does get annoying, especially when you've got something like an Acuex with Indi-Poison up and she repeatedly casts Poisona trying to get it off of you, lol.

Ah well. The silly mobs usually die fast enough that it isn't THAT big of a deal anyways.

As far as Trusts and WS's, they can be finicky at times. They usually try to skillchain but every so often it seems like their scripts lock up. I've also seen Kupipi let me go into orange before finally deciding to heal me if I'm not the party leader (she wasn't silenced/stunned/slept/etc either).

At least they are intelligent enough to know who they should be casting Silena on, at least usually. Every so often they'll Silena a melee, but that seems to be pretty rare. They usually skip non-mages.

All-in-all, Trusts are very comparable to your average human player back in the day, and I'm more than glad to use them and have them around.

And then you got Kupofried. Best thing ever, lol. Nothing like turning a 1400 CAP Porxie into an 1680 one.
#58 Feb 12 2017 at 9:24 PM Rating: Good
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Quote:
'cept for the occasional mob that has Doom


I still can't kill the Dynamis - Beaucedine boss... Chainspell Death too stronk. Been thinking of going back there on RDM/DRK and Chainspell Stunning him until my trusts win the fight for me.
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#59 Feb 13 2017 at 2:54 PM Rating: Decent
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Zafire wrote:
I would play on a classic realm (Pre-TOAU) if it had the population to support it. It wouldn't though.

I currently don't play FFXI because the last time I came back I literally spent two months playing with myself. (Since I dual box...get it?) It got boring.

Honestly the "2005 retail" server has an alright population, it's just the guy who actually owns the server thinks he's a lot cooler than he is and he's a narcissist. :( The people who play there were great, I just couldn't stand the constant negative changes, and any time you tried to bring something to his attention you'd be met with rudeness from him and he doesn't have any other moderators or admins so he's the only person you can speak to. It was awful.

If you REALLY want to play at 75 cap though, you can do it still.
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#60 Feb 13 2017 at 2:55 PM Rating: Decent
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Doubleposted. Oops.

Edited, Feb 13th 2017 3:55pm by Zackary
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Thank god I stopped playing MMOs.
#61 Feb 14 2017 at 5:30 PM Rating: Good
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Eeew.

Pre-ToAU?

To each their own, I guess, but I really don't understand how anybody found the game fun back then. Doing the same repetitive activity for hours and hours and hours and hours like some kind of robot... even if you could find groups quickly and easily, the content itself was insanely boring.

You were either camping NMs (THE most boring activity I could ever think of to do), or you were doing XP groups (again, boring boring boring, doing the same thing over and over again, killing the same mobs that keep repopping for hours). This is, of course, not counting the countless hours of wasted time LFG or shouting for help for junk.

The few activities that were different, were Dynamis (which was so laggy on our older computers back then and probably still is, that you had to disable most animations and effects just to see what the bleep was going on) and popping the Sky HNMs (though you had to camp NMs to get the pop items, lol).

And when you DID get a reward (most of the time, you did endgame events and got nothing for weeks in a row, hoping your DKP or whatever your group used made it your turn to get something), it was a side-grade piece that gave +1 to this, or +5% to that. A piece of gear you might wear for a split second before doing a WS and then take it right back off for that extra 10% damage on a WS.

The rest of it was as much of a bore as possible.

No offense to you, if you actually like doing the same thing over and over again, but I do curiously have to ask... just what exactly did Pre-ToAU FFXI have that today's FFXI does not? Other than maybe the level-capped Promathia missions (that most players hated and loathed)?

What did they add in ToAU that you don't like? (since you said Pre-ToAU)?

EDIT: I want to make it clear I am not attacking the game, its devs, or even people who enjoyed said content back then. We are talking years back, not too long after WoW came out. Back then, MMO = Grind. That's what MMOs were. Even WoW back then was grindy (though not as bad). It was just the accepted standard back then.

However, rose-colored glasses do not work today with that kind of thing. I'm willing to bet that most players, mayhaps even those in this thread, would log on for a few days, maybe a week or two and quit rather fast because.... face it, that kind of thing just isn't fun anymore, once we've got a taste of much better ways to do MMOs.

Back in the day, Pong was a fun and awesome game that people would play for hours. Try loading up Pong today and see how long it keeps you entertained.

Edited, Feb 14th 2017 6:38pm by Lyrailis
#62 Feb 15 2017 at 2:42 AM Rating: Decent
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Lyrailis wrote:
Eeew.

Pre-ToAU?

To each their own, I guess, but I really don't understand how anybody found the game fun back then. Doing the same repetitive activity for hours and hours and hours and hours like some kind of robot... even if you could find groups quickly and easily, the content itself was insanely boring.

You were either camping NMs (THE most boring activity I could ever think of to do), or you were doing XP groups (again, boring boring boring, doing the same thing over and over again, killing the same mobs that keep repopping for hours). This is, of course, not counting the countless hours of wasted time LFG or shouting for help for junk.

The few activities that were different, were Dynamis (which was so laggy on our older computers back then and probably still is, that you had to disable most animations and effects just to see what the bleep was going on) and popping the Sky HNMs (though you had to camp NMs to get the pop items, lol).

And when you DID get a reward (most of the time, you did endgame events and got nothing for weeks in a row, hoping your DKP or whatever your group used made it your turn to get something), it was a side-grade piece that gave +1 to this, or +5% to that. A piece of gear you might wear for a split second before doing a WS and then take it right back off for that extra 10% damage on a WS.

The rest of it was as much of a bore as possible.

No offense to you, if you actually like doing the same thing over and over again, but I do curiously have to ask... just what exactly did Pre-ToAU FFXI have that today's FFXI does not? Other than maybe the level-capped Promathia missions (that most players hated and loathed)?

What did they add in ToAU that you don't like? (since you said Pre-ToAU)?

EDIT: I want to make it clear I am not attacking the game, its devs, or even people who enjoyed said content back then. We are talking years back, not too long after WoW came out. Back then, MMO = Grind. That's what MMOs were. Even WoW back then was grindy (though not as bad). It was just the accepted standard back then.

However, rose-colored glasses do not work today with that kind of thing. I'm willing to bet that most players, mayhaps even those in this thread, would log on for a few days, maybe a week or two and quit rather fast because.... face it, that kind of thing just isn't fun anymore, once we've got a taste of much better ways to do MMOs.

Back in the day, Pong was a fun and awesome game that people would play for hours. Try loading up Pong today and see how long it keeps you entertained.

Edited, Feb 14th 2017 6:38pm by Lyrailis


I really enjoyed EXP groups. In fact it was the most compelling aspect for me. It was a system no other MMO had. After leveling became extremely easy to do I felt my character had become obsolete. I had spent years developing my character by leveling jobs, and I felt like that method of playstyle wasn't viable anymore. Leveling was now easy, so anyone could have any job they wanted with minimal effort. I no longer stood out by being that guy that could come to any event with any subjob. I had every job to 37 before RoE, and every job to 50 before Abyssea was announced. I made it fun, though. Especially 20-43. I had some very exotic places I liked EXPing that nobody ever considered. Bibiki Bay was an alternative to the jungle, but nobody knew that.

Also, the game now doesn't have something the game did then. People leveling crafts. Everything at every level range was always on the AH. Coming back to the game in 2014, my dual box character was using level 1 gear until RSE, then RSE until AF, then AF until Abyssea stuff from login rewards. That's stupid. XD

In any event, I've been feeling a bit nostalgic and I'll probably come back for a month or two (or three?). Maybe I should transfer to Asura.

Edited, Feb 15th 2017 3:47am by Zafire
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#63 Feb 15 2017 at 3:45 AM Rating: Good
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Well, XI's crafting suffered for a lot of reasons, really.

1) No bind on equip mechanism.
2) Some items were absolutely worthless if not HQ'd, and some actually unwanted IF HQ'd.
3) RNG failures and material loss. (At least XIV let you control the crafting process to mitigate this possibility)
4) NM drops grossly outshining crafted counterparts, sometimes for dozens of levels after the fact.
5) Little incentive to craft non-popular goods like quest rewards or deepening the craft equipment system.
6) HQs drastically affecting consumable quantity. (33/66/99 Shihei, for example)
7) lolAlchemy and medicines being largely an afterthought to players. (non-stackable, long use time, poor performance, medicated effects, etc.)
8) No enchantment/enhancement system to further bolster durables via consumables.
9) Not a big sense of conformity to level tiers across all jobs/classes.
10) Clunky UI, particularly for repeat synths with lots of ingredients.

And there are probably some things I'm just forgetting due to time. Nonetheless, I was one of those people who maxed a main/subs, partially because I hoped there might be a patch to better things, or at least some recipes that let me take advantage of the Gotta Have It Now Tax.
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#64 Feb 15 2017 at 12:35 PM Rating: Good
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Seriha wrote:
Well, XI's crafting suffered for a lot of reasons, really.

1) No bind on equip mechanism.


Agreed, though to be honest, crafting always was about the Cursed Equipment anyways.

Quote:
2) Some items were absolutely worthless if not HQ'd, and some actually unwanted IF HQ'd.


Worthless, only in the eyes of the players. A scorpion harness was plenty good enough; no need for the +1.

Quote:
3) RNG failures and material loss. (At least XIV let you control the crafting process to mitigate this possibility)


They fixed this, you can buy a Ring that gives you 1% less chance of failure, and you can eat a Kitron Macaron for another 7% less failure. I think, I've seen 1 failure out of maybe 200 synths if you're skill cap or above. There is also (Mega) Moglification: Craft, each of my characters that has it loses zero materials 75% of the time.

Quote:
5) Little incentive to craft non-popular goods like quest rewards or deepening the craft equipment system.


They just added a crafting shield quest line that gives you a shield that increases crafting stats, and it is done in steps (only Step 1 is out now, future steps are on the way).

Quote:
6) HQs drastically affecting consumable quantity. (33/66/99 Shihei, for example)


And why shouldn't they? Otherwise you wouldn't care about HQ, and have no reason to want to get better at your craft.

Quote:
7) lolAlchemy and medicines being largely an afterthought to players. (non-stackable, long use time, poor performance, medicated effects, etc.)


Try fighting anything that has doom without Holy Water, lol. Also, +125 Attack Foods that are ~Lv100 cooking are pretty sweet.

Quote:
8) No enchantment/enhancement system to further bolster durables via consumables.


They tried this with Synergy and Evoliths, but nobody used them. Instead, NPCs upgrade our gear now. They also tried Scrap & Tatter synergies too, but it sounds like those weren't that successful either. I never even heard of it until I saw it on a wiki once.

Quote:
9) Not a big sense of conformity to level tiers across all jobs/classes.


This is the one big flaw I feel that FFXI has, there's no job balance whatsoever. GEOs are overpowered, BLUs can pump out ridiculous damage while other jobs just stand there and stare at the mob, swinging once every few seconds.

Some jobs get nice crafted stuff, other jobs...... don't.

Quote:
10) Clunky UI, particularly for repeat synths with lots of ingredients.


This has been fixed. There's /lastsynth command that does as its name suggests, and the Synthesis menu option that saves the last 10 unique synths you've done AND you can mark favorites. All you gotta do is select the one you want, it even tells you what the items required are, and whether or not you have them (it'll put a red 'x' near something you're missing).

And also to reply to the other guy who was complaining about there being no equipment.....

Did you not check the Sparks NPC? There's Level 1-50 (and starter Lv99) armor and Lv1-99 weapons on this NPC. A wide variety of stuff. Not Leaping Boots or Scorpion Harness, mind you, but I found the selection to be rather reasonable; mostly craftable stuff. And the Sparks Cost is not bad either, a Lv78-ish weapon would run you 500-800 Sparks which is a pittance, since my one mule had 20,000+ sparks by Lv40. lol.

Edited, Feb 15th 2017 1:38pm by Lyrailis
#65 Feb 15 2017 at 1:19 PM Rating: Decent
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I made millions of gil off of selling Kurayami and Jubaku tools on the AH. Alchemy was probably the most profitable craft that I found. I didn't even get it that high. 52, I think?

I admit I farmed a lot of my own materials, but the cost of selling the materials vs crafting the tools was a noticeable difference.

Edited, Feb 15th 2017 3:07pm by Zafire
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#66 Feb 15 2017 at 10:56 PM Rating: Good
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Zafire wrote:
I made millions of gil off of selling Kurayami and Jubaku tools on the AH. Alchemy was probably the most profitable craft that I found. I didn't even get it that high. 52, I think?

I admit I farmed a lot of my own materials, but the cost of selling the materials vs crafting the tools was a noticeable difference.

Edited, Feb 15th 2017 3:07pm by Zafire


For me, it was Shihei, because I had both an Alchemy Mule and my main was a Woodworker.

I made a decent amount of money doing both them and Bloody Bolts.

But then, nowadays, you can buy both off the Curio Vendor Moogle. I can understand why SE did this, as lower population servers are suffering from there not being enough merchandise on the AH that people need to get stuff done, but at the same time, it does make it hard to make money with your craft if people can just waltz up to the vendor and buy anything they need.

But then again, Acheron Shields. Who needs to go through all the rigamarole with crafts to make money when you can make 500k-1m in ~3h by going out sometime Gain Experience (which is 3 times a week) is up and fill up on sparks and then buy Shields and vendor the shields, lol.

A part of me thinks it is better this way, that Gil isn't such a huge roadblock to progress. The game is far more laid-back these days, the only real barriers to progress (unless you're seeking cursed armor or something) is getting into some kind of linkshell willing to help you get up to Endgame gear, and even then it's not hard to carry someone up to where they can participate in most of the newest content.

The main thing is getting RoV done (which isn't that bad, 'cept for the part where you need a chunk of Promathia..) so you have access to these endgame zones. But most of that can be done solo.
#67 Feb 16 2017 at 10:41 AM Rating: Decent
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Lyrailis wrote:
Eeew.

Pre-ToAU?

To each their own, I guess, but I really don't understand how anybody found the game fun back then.
That's the sweet thing about the world - not everyone has to enjoy the same things that you do.

The server population speaks for itself. There's a fairly healthy chunk of people there, so obviously there's a demand.
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Did you lose faith?
Yes, I lost faith in the powers that be.
But in doing so I came across the will to disagree.
And I gave up. Yes, I gave up, and then I gave in.
But I take responsibility for every single sin. ♪ ♫


Thank god I stopped playing MMOs.
#68 Feb 16 2017 at 10:59 AM Rating: Good
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That still doesn't satisfy my curiosity as to what exactly people liked about Pre-ToAU and what ToAU in specific did that makes them want to be in a Vana'diel where it was never made.

*shrug*

Personal curiosity.

EDIT: But then again, I'd have to ask, how faithful is this Pre-ToAU server to what the real game was back then? We still don't know the answer to a lot of questions, about how a lot of things work mechanics-wise because SE hasn't released said information, and a lot of this stuff happened server-side. I wonder just how someone can make a private server that stays faithful and true to the original FFXI, when we don't even know or had to make ballpark guesses, as to the variables of things like drop chances, how certain job abilities actually work, etc.

Edited, Feb 16th 2017 12:00pm by Lyrailis
#69 Feb 16 2017 at 11:18 AM Rating: Good
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That still doesn't satisfy my curiosity as to what exactly people liked about Pre-ToAU and what ToAU in specific did that makes them want to be in a Vana'diel where it was never made.


The chief complaint I remember about how ToAU changed the game was the rise of tp burn parties for exp/meriting. Suddenly everyone had to sub NIN and spam ws, and if you couldn't do that (because, for instance, you were a DRK or a BLM or something) you were just sol.
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#70 Feb 16 2017 at 1:51 PM Rating: Good
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Callinon wrote:
Quote:
That still doesn't satisfy my curiosity as to what exactly people liked about Pre-ToAU and what ToAU in specific did that makes them want to be in a Vana'diel where it was never made.


The chief complaint I remember about how ToAU changed the game was the rise of tp burn parties for exp/meriting. Suddenly everyone had to sub NIN and spam ws, and if you couldn't do that (because, for instance, you were a DRK or a BLM or something) you were just sol.


I do remember the Melee TP Burn, but then again, I don't recall the game making the previous style of balanced groups impossible... it's just that if you wanted better XP/hr, you'd go do TP burn. Otherwise you'd get mediocre (which used to be thought of as "good") XP/hr.

The game changed to allow TP Burn, yes, but it didn't force players to TP burn. You could still do old traditional groups and still get it done (albeit slower).

So if these people are willing to drop ToAU just to get old groups back... then why not just form up groups without the TP-Burn setup, then? In fact, even today's FFXI still allows for the old setup, though you'll get the XP faster than you once did. Still, it's quite possible. Grab a 6-person group and go wail on IT++ mobs with no Trusts. The only thing is you gotta find 5 like-minded people, first and that's difficult (for good reason).

But then again, 7-8k XP/hr was never "good". We just accepted it because that was the norm. Then 10k XP/hr TP burns came out and it was a way to get the XP/Merit thing done sooner with less time spent.

And nowadays, you can do 100k+ XP/hr quite easily, which is even better.

The less robotic repetition I have to do, the better. XP groups were never fun, they were merely required. I never found fun in killing the same 5 enemies over and over and over again for several hours in a row. It's a grind, and it's a grind only for the sake of eating up your time.

Edited, Feb 16th 2017 2:53pm by Lyrailis
#71 Feb 16 2017 at 2:11 PM Rating: Decent
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Lyrailis wrote:
That still doesn't satisfy my curiosity as to what exactly people liked about Pre-ToAU and what ToAU in specific did that makes them want to be in a Vana'diel where it was never made.


It became too easy to level after 55, almost every party began to develop the TP burn mentality after that point. All the other pre-TOAU exp-areas post-55 were obsolete. Colibri's were squishy and easy to destroy. Endgame merit parties became so efficient that only about 4-5 classes were allowed to participate.

I actually liked ToAU, this didn't really make the game "bad" for me in any way, I just liked Pre-ToAU a LITTLE better. ToAU was actually the expansion RDM melee became somewhat viable (Death Blossom, Composure, G.Saio, W.Turban for all, etc), so I have fond memories of it.

Edited, Feb 16th 2017 3:13pm by Zafire
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#72 Feb 16 2017 at 2:18 PM Rating: Good
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Callinon wrote:
The chief complaint I remember about how ToAU changed the game was the rise of tp burn parties for exp/meriting. Suddenly everyone had to sub NIN and spam ws, and if you couldn't do that (because, for instance, you were a DRK or a BLM or something) you were just sol.


While I won't argue that that is the complaint of some, it is a bit disingenuous. I started playing in early 2004 and had drg as my main. Prior to ToAU, there were still preferred party setups, predominately with rng and war subbing nin and killing weapons in sky, or mnk subbing nin and killing skeles in KRT. The preferred jobs changed, and added the value of drg/mage, but the style of play really didn't.

Lyrailis wrote:
Callinon wrote:
Quote:
That still doesn't satisfy my curiosity as to what exactly people liked about Pre-ToAU and what ToAU in specific did that makes them want to be in a Vana'diel where it was never made.


The chief complaint I remember about how ToAU changed the game was the rise of tp burn parties for exp/meriting. Suddenly everyone had to sub NIN and spam ws, and if you couldn't do that (because, for instance, you were a DRK or a BLM or something) you were just sol.


I do remember the Melee TP Burn, but then again, I don't recall the game making the previous style of balanced groups impossible... it's just that if you wanted better XP/hr, you'd go do TP burn. Otherwise you'd get mediocre (which used to be thought of as "good") XP/hr.

The game changed to allow TP Burn, yes, but it didn't force players to TP burn. You could still do old traditional groups and still get it done (albeit slower).

So if these people are willing to drop ToAU just to get old groups back... then why not just form up groups without the TP-Burn setup, then? In fact, even today's FFXI still allows for the old setup, though you'll get the XP faster than you once did. Still, it's quite possible. Grab a 6-person group and go wail on IT++ mobs with no Trusts. The only thing is you gotta find 5 like-minded people, first and that's difficult (for good reason).

But then again, 7-8k XP/hr was never "good". We just accepted it because that was the norm. Then 10k XP/hr TP burns came out and it was a way to get the XP/Merit thing done sooner with less time spent.

And nowadays, you can do 100k+ XP/hr quite easily, which is even better.

The less robotic repetition I have to do, the better. XP groups were never fun, they were merely required. I never found fun in killing the same 5 enemies over and over and over again for several hours in a row. It's a grind, and it's a grind only for the sake of eating up your time.

Edited, Feb 16th 2017 2:53pm by Lyrailis


The funny thing is, the best exp you will likely be able to get these days is on apex mobs in Adoulin zones. And how do those parties work? A tank (preferably pld) vokes a mob, two melee DDs beat on it and make an SC (preferably light or darkness) as quickly as possible, and then two or three nuke jobs magic burst off that to incinerate the mob. The final party member is generally a buffer with heal duties. So... yeah, very close to a 2004 exp party structure, just that your exp per kill is measured in the tens of thousands, instead of your exp per hour being measured in the thousands.


Edited, Feb 16th 2017 12:21pm by RenatusofTitan
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#73 Feb 16 2017 at 2:30 PM Rating: Good
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RenatusofTitan wrote:

The funny thing is, the best exp you will likely be able to get these days is on apex mobs in Adoulin zones. And how do those parties work? A tank (preferably pld) vokes a mob, two melee DDs beat on it and make an SC (preferably light or darkness) as quickly as possible, and then two or three nuke jobs magic burst off that to incinerate the mob. The final party member is generally a buffer with heal duties. So... yeah, very close to a 2004 exp party structure, just that your exp per kill is measured in the tens of thousands, instead of your exp per hour being measured in the thousands.


Edited, Feb 16th 2017 12:21pm by RenatusofTitan


How good do you need to be able to do Apex mobs?

By the point you get there, I'd imagine that XP is useless and you'd ONLY do it for the CAP.

I mean, I'm rather intro-to-endgame and I'm careening towards capping on Merits. Everything I touch gives me Merit Points left-and-right and soon I won't have anything left to spend them on (I don't have the potpourri goblin unlocked yet).

What I need badly, though, is CAP. I can do "meh" CAP on my own, but the idea of trying to grind out 2,100 JP that way is... eeew. It takes me the better part of an hour to get one JP so I imagine that JP is the new XP Levels, where you can get them solo, but it takes absolutely forever.
#74 Feb 16 2017 at 2:50 PM Rating: Good
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Quote:
I do remember the Melee TP Burn, but then again, I don't recall the game making the previous style of balanced groups impossible... it's just that if you wanted better XP/hr, you'd go do TP burn. Otherwise you'd get mediocre (which used to be thought of as "good") XP/hr.

The game changed to allow TP Burn, yes, but it didn't force players to TP burn. You could still do old traditional groups and still get it done (albeit slower).


You're right of course, you weren't FORCED to TP burn. You could still obtain exp from a standard party setup. But because it wasn't ideal, people didn't want to do it. A lot of people forget just how fixated players get on efficiency even when it doesn't make sense to. FFXI was no exception to that.
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#75 Feb 16 2017 at 3:24 PM Rating: Decent
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Lyrailis wrote:
That still doesn't satisfy my curiosity as to what exactly people liked about Pre-ToAU and what ToAU in specific did that makes them want to be in a Vana'diel where it was never made.

*shrug*

Personal curiosity.

Yeah, I don't have the answer to that, I liked Treasures of Aht Urghan.
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#76 Feb 16 2017 at 3:32 PM Rating: Good
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Callinon wrote:


You're right of course, you weren't FORCED to TP burn. You could still obtain exp from a standard party setup. But because it wasn't ideal, people didn't want to do it. A lot of people forget just how fixated players get on efficiency even when it doesn't make sense to. FFXI was no exception to that.


But yet there is a server that is Pre-ToAU that has "a healthy population"?

Why wouldn't this "healthy population" of people simply do non-TP Burn?

Or is it simply because they have no self control and immediately take the easiest way to skip the grind, and go to that server to be forced into slower, less-efficient manner of getting things done?

And if you had the choice, why wouldn't you do things the most efficient way? Is there something wrong with the most efficient way? If a less efficient way was actually more fun, you'd think people'd have no trouble doing it? Or maybe... the less efficient way is no more fun than the most efficient one?

Edited, Feb 16th 2017 4:33pm by Lyrailis
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