Pl's. Good or Bad?

[ikkleste]

Re: Pl's. Good or Bad?

i recently had a horrible dunes experience, (which i posted elsewhere) long and short of it was i ended up as a war in the dunes with a PL. I've leveled mage jobs before but not Melee's this was my first real melee time, i was tanking, PL shows up, tells me not to voke. I reply "well i'm tanking or i'm else where..." he says "fine but don't blame me when you die...".
Well it kinda would be his fault... or at least his presences fault. If he wasn't there the WHM would be focused, the other melees would be ready to voke if i got in trouble.
At least if we died it's be our fault and hopefully a lesson would be learned from it.

In any case after a while, i gave up tanking and got asked to pull instead. My first time pulling. Apart from the chosen prey was far too high for us and me as the highest level was the only one doing any real damage to the clippers, i also learned absolutely nothing about pulling. Noone cared that the level gap was too much and for us to get exp based on my level we had to pull things which were much to tough for everyone else to hit for more than 3. Noone cared what i pulled provided it con'd IT to me... A totally pointless exercise. I went back to soloing after that so i'm now a level 18 war who's never pulled or tanked.... >.<

[Icemage]

Re: Pl's. Good or Bad?

Doesn't matter if you've gone through the exp mil once or not. Each job and how each ability effects the hate line and such all vary. Going through it once doesn't mean you know it all, it only means you understand it for that particular job.

That's not totally true though. Cures are cures; sure some jobs have more +/- enmity, but after you've levelled WHM, you have a pretty good idea how much you can get away with on RDM and SMN as far as curing goes, for instance.

Weaponskills are also similar; DD jobs perform differently at different levels, but good players usually are good at getting a feel for what will and won't turn a monster after a while.

Honestly, it doesn't take long to learn the basics of each job. Perfecting those skills may take some time, depending on what you're doing, but as far as learning how to complete a skillchain or when to cast cures, that's knowledge that you can take into other jobs pretty reliably.


Icemage

[Jei]

Re: Pl's. Good or Bad?

Personally, I think I'm spoiled. Ever since I have my PS2 version I've been bringing along my GF's BLM when I level my own char's low level and for hte most part I PL myself through until around level 25 or so soloing. I avoid PLing a whole PT, too many bad players get a free ride that way. I don't join PT 10-24, most of them are horrible. But if I see good players in search list I will still form my own group. If the group is solid and strong of course I won't PL. I'll just have my GF's char stand by in case anyone needs raise which can be a pain to find at that level.

Usually after 24 when parties start to level on mandragora, most PT do fine on their own so I feel a little better joining random groups at this point. I won't join Qufim PT, only Kazam ones. If they bring along PL, I just ignore.... get my EXP and be done.

[little ninja]

Re: Pl's. Good or Bad?

Good: makes for easier and faster xp

Bad: Creates watered down jobs.
Makes people too reilant on other people
Creates watered down jobs
High levels don't enjoy doing it (muy boring, for me, at least)
Creates watered down jobs

Did i mention that it creates watered down jobs?

Please what aspect of this game isnt water downed. players get power leveled, players buy accounts. players buy gil. players are too mother f'in lazy to take a day to fund there gear. "gosh darn moron whm at 55 who doesnt have a damn dark staff". i bet more then half the player base has gotten help from high lvl peeps to get AF done, get Gen's 1-2 done.

hell maybe blame S.E cause they put out a game that has 1 healing class, 2 tank class, 3 support class. an 99 damage dealer classes.

[Macht]

Re: Pl's. Good or Bad?

That's not totally true though. Cures are cures; sure some jobs have more +/- enmity, but after you've levelled WHM, you have a pretty good idea how much you can get away with on RDM and SMN as far as curing goes, for instance.

Weaponskills are also similar; DD jobs perform differently at different levels, but good players usually are good at getting a feel for what will and won't turn a monster after a while.

Honestly, it doesn't take long to learn the basics of each job. Perfecting those skills may take some time, depending on what you're doing, but as far as learning how to complete a skillchain or when to cast cures, that's knowledge that you can take into other jobs pretty reliably.


Icemage

Cures, WS, and Skillchains are basics those yes you should learn in one pass through. The better effective uses of things like Refresh, Convert, Barrage, Berserk with Defender with Provoke, Flash, etc... comes with practice in using that job in a true XP situation not with help from a PL'er.

You'll learn those faster and be a better contribution if given a chance earlier then later. Sorry but why should I wait and risk my life for someone who didn't care to practice their skill till they got into my party.

[Mog]

Re: Pl's. Good or Bad?

Please what aspect of this game isnt water downed. players get power leveled, players buy accounts. players buy gil. players are too mother f'in lazy to take a day to fund there gear. "gosh darn moron whm at 55 who doesnt have a damn dark staff". i bet more then half the player base has gotten help from high lvl peeps to get AF done, get Gen's 1-2 done.

Who said anything about what downfalls there are outside of powerleveling? I don't deny this, but PLing definately adds to the base list of shitty players.

[Icemage]

Re: Pl's. Good or Bad?

This devolves back to the issue of good players vs. bad players though. Good players will experiment and learn how to do those things whether or not a PL is present.

PLs don't, from my experience, significantly hurt players who already know the ropes and just need some polish to adjust to a specific job. They DO hurt bad players, who don't get those School of Hard Knocks lessons that would otherwise weed such players out of the pool earlier rather than later.

Playing FFXI in a party isn't rocket science. No job is so difficult to play that you can't learn the basics in 30 minutes or less if you're paying attention to what you're doing. Sure, the more subtle things might take some time to learn, and massive stupidity can cause you to miss even major tricks (I know a few WHMs at level 75 that still to this day don't seem to know what a Regen spell is), but it's not like you're learning a new trick every 5 minutes in an XP party and you're going to be forever racing to catch up because of a session or two of powerlevelling.


Icemage

[Hamlet]

Re: Pl's. Good or Bad?

I mentioned in this thread that I've been plvling a friend. First of all, I feel a bit of an obligation because after cancelling my account, I didn't realize I could retrieve my old account without the codes and started on a new server and got her to start playing with me there. When I got Hamlet back, I convinced her to come over to Midgar with me, so I feel I should at least help her get back to where she was and then some. But I'm also paying for all her gear and telling her everything she needs to know. I don't think she's looked up info on the net once. Pretty soon, I'm going to cut the strings so she can become a better player.

That was sort of OT. Really, Plvling is only natural with so many high lvls able to do it nowadays. Unfortunately, it does foster bad players with bad gear, but EVENTUALLY, they will learn how to play. Personally, I know plvls helped me lvl up blm, whm and nin to 37 quicker than if they weren't so common nowadays.

You can turn down an invite to a pl pt if you want, but they're just going to fill in your slot (and easily, too, because they have a plvl, so they can probably get just about anything), so you're only really slowing yourself down. But, hey, that's your own personal decision. But that doesn't mean I have to turn them down, too.

[Asir]

Re: Pl's. Good or Bad?

I love PLers... when they're with another party fighting the same thing I'm fighting.

/ramble on

I play on two servers. This little incident happened on Lakshmi. I was bringing my THF to the dunes to set my HP when I got an Invite. After accepting, I checked the list and we were all level 13 and most of us had subjobs. Some of the members wanted to go for crabs, others wanted to go for lizards. After doing a check of everyone's equipment, I suggested we remain on the highland side of the Dunes and fight goblins until we hit 14 so we could handle the snippers a bit better. We tore through those goblins like a hot knife through butter with only one death, mine.

Once we hit 14, we headed over to the cliff camp with some of us heading to Selbina for extra supplies and to reset our HP. Once we were ready, we began tearing through the crabs and at first, only had downtime when we ran out of crabs to kill. Then a party came and camped on top of us. We were concerned at first that our exp would slow down until I checked the other party. They were levels 11-12 with a PLer. In the time it took them to kill one mob, we were starting on our third and we didn't have a PLer. They eventually left because we were "Hogging" all the mobs to ourselves.

I made some good friends in that party, had some good laughs and earned great exp without the aid of outside help. More people should try that instead of rushing through.

/ramble off

The Dunes is a great place for learning the beginnings of party mechanics and how to use a job in a party setting. The problem is that the new players just want to catch up to the veteran players and the veteran players just want to get through the area as quickly as possible because they only remember the bad things that happen there.

Before I deleted my taru, I used to do PLs but only if my conditions were met. First, I was to be ignored at all costs by the party. The tanks had to voke, the party healers had to cast cures (and at least listen to my advice on MP conservation/gear/etc), and the pullers had to keep their party's MP in consideration. I didn't want hate and if I got it and the tank didn't voke off me, I would leave them. They also had to accept the fact that I would only use my lowest cures on them and none of my higher leveled buffs like Haste. The most I would do to a link their puller brought was sleep it until they were ready to take it on themselves.

It is possible to be a PLer without hindering the learning of the party but I find too few PLers out there care about that. They just want to get their friends through the dunes/whereever as quickly as possible.

[Hamlet]

Re: Pl's. Good or Bad?

The thing with plvlers is, if you can handle the mobs without one, then you really don't need one. A plvl isn't going to help you much if everyone has at least proper gear and subjobs and know what they're doing.

But, when was the last time you had a party in the dunes where everyone played well, had good gear and subjobs, and used food? I think I had one pt like that. It might've been just a dream I had though...

[Macht]

Re: Pl's. Good or Bad?

Ehh, well all I can say is it's painfully obvious when a Tank knows how to hold hate and when they don't. More often then not the ones I've run into that can't hold hate right have PL'd their way up through. Some of them I actually know and they are skilled at doing the job they didn't PL through.

Don't see how in 30 min. a player could now and understand the wide ranges for Barrage he can use. Or understand how much hate he draws if using Barrage in a fight and how that effects were he is on the hate line to whatever the Tanks done to build his hate.

Yeah, like a guy will figure that out and fine tune it out of 6 uses of Barrage. I doubt it...

Then also not to mention the equipment. If they've done any research to the job they may understand some basics of what might be good to wear, but not have enough to fine tune all of the gear they have they are using.

[Cometgreen]

Re: Pl's. Good or Bad?

I'm not sure it's fair to start talking about later abilities. It's pretty rare to get a PL after 30, so citing things like Barrage or Refresh does not make that much sense. Unless of course you're talking about the deeper issues, like holding hate in general; but if someone doesn't know about hate by the time they've leveled two jobs to 30, I wouldn't place the blame solely on PL.

[Aeni]

Re: Pl's. Good or Bad?

This devolves back to the issue of good players vs. bad players though. Good players will experiment and learn how to do those things whether or not a PL is present.

QFT

To the naysayers that say PL is bad period. You're all in denial since you couldn't get a PL to your party even if you wanted to. Maybe bitter about the fortunes of other players? Don't come in with a false sense of holier-than-thou attitude, because, by god, you're not Jesus.

As the majority have already spoken, PLs are both good and bad. It's up to each individual player to determine what instance this can be applied to. Some people believe that the money they spent to play this game was meant to play this game as a challenge. Fine, your entitled to your opinions. That, however, does not make it a fact. Other players believe they should get every single penny's worth out of their fee and thus would rather have a PL along on their exp jaunt.

However, to solely blame PL for the number of bad players on any one server is a copout bullshit. Why? Because that's too easy to just lay the blame on any one thing. As Icemage has pointed out time and again in this thread, there will always be good players and bad players.

[Murphie]

Re: Pl's. Good or Bad?

LoL you just remember you said that when it comes time to do your limit break quests an artifact quests.

I've done the limit breaks twice (once in a normal party of 50s, and once with a level 70 friend), and AF for three different jobs. I know what I'm in for, thanks.

It's not really altruism so much as realism. Refusing a PL for yourself doesn't stop the flood of clueless players in any way, shape, or form, so stressing over it isn't a worthwhile investment in energy, as far as I'm concerned.

I don't stress over it. I just don't participate in it. What do I care if these idiots are getting ahead faster than I am? The game isn't going anywhere. I know that I didn't help them level, and that I didn't take the easy way out.

I'm perfectly happy building my own non-PL parties, or soloing/farming/whatever until I can find one.

QFT

To the naysayers that say PL is bad period. You're all in denial since you couldn't get a PL to your party even if you wanted to. Maybe bitter about the fortunes of other players? Don't come in with a false sense of holier-than-thou attitude, because, by god, you're not Jesus.

Are you kidding me with this? Like, what is this attitude about? I'm not in denial because I can't get a powerlevel. I don't like them because they aren't necessary, and I don't play this game to have someone else take all of the risk away for me. I don't understand why anyone would want to do that, but I suspect it has something to do with being lazy.

As the majority have already spoken, PLs are both good and bad. It's up to each individual player to determine what instance this can be applied to. Some people believe that the money they spent to play this game was meant to play this game as a challenge. Fine, your entitled to your opinions. That, however, does not make it a fact. Other players believe they should get every single penny's worth out of their fee and thus would rather have a PL along on their exp jaunt.

So when does people being of the opinion that they are bad turn into them just being jealous? How on earth do you quantify how much you get out of your monthly fee? Does being powerleveled automatically make up that last $2.50 or something? Where is the logic?

However, to solely blame PL for the number of bad players on any one server is a copout bullshit. Why? Because that's too easy to just lay the blame on any one thing. As Icemage has pointed out time and again in this thread, there will always be good players and bad players.

Yeah, and I don't have to party with the bad ones. If there is a power level there? Chances are high that the players are bad. Because good players, don't need a powerlevel.

[Kailea]

Re: Pl's. Good or Bad?

I run into players all the time that dont have a clue about this or that, you know things they should know like how to SATA or voke right...or heal right, and I am finding these people at level 40+ ........all due to PLs who baby people all the way up, it anoys me, and I dont like PLs