Nostalgy of an old school monk

[Neverslip]

Re: Nostalgy of an old school monk

I guess I should just be happy most if not all of the people I play with are:

need > greed

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Nostalgy of an old school monk

You don't need an army of high level friends to get things done. Certainly not to do "anything, anymore" whatever that means.

It also sounds as though you're putting the responsibility for inviting you to things and for helping you with things. How often do you ask? How often do you help others? I mean, it's entirely possible that you're just in crappy shells, but it's also possible that people just don't really see your interest in these things and aren't willing to assume.

I'm not trying to pick apart your experience in the game. I get that you're having a tough time. I just also see a lot of passiveness and "woe is me" attitude.

Murphie, just kick back and use the ol' imagination for a second here and stroll down memory lane

There was a time in the game people would shout for help and it kinda worked out. I'd say this was in the RoZ/COP.

That died out around ToA and it also was the time frame where "Gee, these starter towns sure do seem empty" began. At this point in the game, shouting for help was already becoming increasingly futile as it was. Even if you just wanted to do Assaults to rank up that was a struggle on par with getting CoPs done because by the point Salvage came along most people were just content to ride the coattails of a summoner on that one particular Op for points.

That or they were burning IDs for Nyzul. This is a whole problem to itself. Three events and all need the same IDs to accrue points of gear, points for Salvage passes or Nyzul Access.

Whether it was Assault or CoPs, your chances of finding like-minded people to get things done had a better chance if you went out-of-game to places like KI and Alla to put together a group.

And even there, you had to separate the wheat from the chaff. MMOs are always fun in that you'll occasionally get that guy with no respect for the group or your time at all.

I'd love to spend time ranting about those lovelies, but I had people falling asleep before BCs started and having nervous breakdowns over Omega/Ultima - a whole potpourri of fucking weirdos I had to sift through and replace while keeping the responsible/faithful members happy.

I've led mission statics and been a LS officer, so let me just say it:

How nice I can be, how generous with my time I can be- it only goes so fucking far. Leading stuff is stressful and the less reliable people are, the more it begins to wear on you.

So few people were helpful before, I imagine there are even fewer helpful people now - why bother when there's no long term reward or appreciation for that. You help people and they forget you as they move on up. You'd be surprised how quickly they move on, too. For some, it just takes a few minutes of you being logged out and someone else shouting.

But shifting gears, let's look at some external factors.

- BG is now almost entirely dried up.
- FFXIclopedia seldom gets updated anymore, even for factual accuracy.
- FFXI podcasts are kinda struggling for new things to talk about, given SE doesn't really supply any.
- DiV is now a place where FFXI gets talked about less than other new video games coming out.
- Japan quake - pretty sure this has put FFXI on the low priority for many Japanese players

Now let's put this all together:

Am I saying FFXI is dead?

No.

Am I saying it is indeed in its twilight years?

Totally. Its best days are indeed behind it.

I've considered returning a couple times but when I look at the subjobs I'd have to level, the new social contacts I'd have to create and the fact I finished thirty games last year as opposed to three - I think I can do without a return.

Maybe I'm just drunk on the actual completion of games again. Instead of having a backlog piling up, I can start looking forward to new experiences. It liberating, actually.

This must be what its like to quit smoking. Not that I ever smoked mind you, just that sense of "I got better."

[Aksannyi]

Re: Nostalgy of an old school monk

Pretty much what BBQ said. I remember that until I stumbled upon a good CoP static, I was trying to get things done via shout groups - and let me just say, that is the most demoralizing way to do any kind of mission. It also worked that way for me when trying to get Captain (I don't think I finished even half of the assaults, because every single one I did was via pickup group), trying to finish ToAU, and trying to climb Nyzul. Good luck finding anyone doing any set of floors that didn't end in a multiple of 20.

By the time I quit, it seriously felt like unless you did something right when it first came out, you were shit out of luck for getting it done. Good luck getting random people who have already done it to help. You know that I even asked my own boyfriend (at the time) for help with some things, and he told me (in less unkind terms) to fuck myself? "Hell, no, that mission/assault/climb sucks. Join a shout group." I tried to put together a new Nyzul static after our old one crumbled (had some people quit), and after one weekend of runs, I couldn't get people to show up. All I wanted was to climb to 100, and our LS had no shortage of people with well-geared mules that could have gone along for the gear and the climb, but no one could be fucked. They'd done it once, they didn't want to do it again. By the time I quit, doing anything that hadn't just come out had become increasingly frustrating.

I know a lot of this is moot now that the level cap has increased, and there is plenty of stuff that can be reasonably soloed where it couldn't before. But you still need three people to enter an assault. So for anyone wanting to do that stuff ... good fucking luck. It got so bad before I quit that on the days where we didn't really have any camps open, I'd idle all day in Whitegate hoping for someone to shout for something I needed. And on the rare occasions that I did the shouting myself, I'd be lucky to find a single person within an hour, at which point, I'd get tired of trying and just give up.

[Murphie]

Re: Nostalgy of an old school monk

And I'm not disagreeing that the game isn't what it was. But it still is something, and that something is fun for some people. Expecting the game to be more than it is at this point is silly. You don't have to play. I'm not trying to convince anyone to play. But it seems pointless to complain that the game isn't what you want it to be at this point.

And both of the above posts illustrate why I'm GLAD that you don't need a shit ton of people for things anymore.

[Aksannyi]

Re: Nostalgy of an old school monk

Yeah, the game would actually be really solo-friendly for old content if SE would remove their arbitrary people minimums on a lot of things, like Assault and Salvage. Soloing salvage would be fun if you didn't have to find five mules to use some assault points to help you enter.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, MMO and all, but it's old outdated content, you should be able to go back and solo it without needing to amass a small army just to allow you access.

[Elwynn]

Re: Nostalgy of an old school monk

What I think what they did with the birds was to try and make it less painful leveling. They could have done it a different way though.

Except they did it in a way that certain jobs were way too desirable (RDM, BRD, SAM, etc.), and others were shut out (BLM). WHM could be settled for if a RDM wasn't around, but didn't have the MP stamina to keep up a 100 chain.

And as for "painful", it depends on your definition of pain. Pain for me would have been heal-botting for hours at a time without breaks. I just can't do that without falling asleep from boredom. So I leveled WHM in campaign battles, where I could take a 30 second break any time I wanted. And it was fun, too.

They should have made it fun, but the mobs that are fun to level on are the harder ones, and no one wants to have fun leveling.

lol

That or they were burning IDs for Nyzul. This is a whole problem to itself. Three events and all need the same IDs to accrue points of gear, points for Salvage passes or Nyzul Access.

But hey, on the bright side you could get an extra one... if you finished ALL the Assaults! Oh, wait. But yes, just as people now burn their abyssea stones spamming mobs for seals, etc. to upgrade armor, they used to burn tags to get Nyzul armor.

The only reason I got Nyzul finished was because I realized that the only way was with a static, and I could also get four or five other people through it too. As it turned out, I probably could have made it all on pugs before Horst turned WG completely into a ghost town, but I had no assurance that I could have done it.

But you still need three people to enter an assault.

And some of them have time sink requirements such that being 90 doesn't help too much with low-manning assaults.

[Grizzlebeard]

Re: Nostalgy of an old school monk

With the coming changes to Dyna getting relic should be a breeze, even if most of it is pure crap now. Only pieces I would bother with as a MNK are the Hands for Chakra macro and Feet for counterstance. The rest is garbage.

Don't forget Commodore Tricorne.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Nostalgy of an old school monk

Yeah, Tricorne is worth getting.

But keep in mind people aren't going to do shit to help others get city wins so GL to future CORs on that one.

[Takelli]

Re: Nostalgy of an old school monk

Except they did it in a way that certain jobs were way too desirable (RDM, BRD, SAM, etc.), and others were shut out (BLM). WHM could be settled for if a RDM wasn't around, but didn't have the MP stamina to keep up a 100 chain.

And as for "painful", it depends on your definition of pain. Pain for me would have been heal-botting for hours at a time without breaks. I just can't do that without falling asleep from boredom. So I leveled WHM in campaign battles, where I could take a 30 second break any time I wanted. And it was fun, too.

I know they did it the wrong way though. I played RDM for a while, and had great fun on it. Then I got to birds, and I was like... WTF? Do people actually put up with this haste/refresh/heal BS? I hated doing that, and just spamming cure III with a regen here and there. On the lesser birds I Dia II though, but other than that... It was pretty boring.

[Kildem]

Re: Nostalgy of an old school monk

I agree with you BBQ about things getting worse as SE makes updates lol.

Anyway... I'll say something that many of you will find stupid, but you know what I decided to go?
I'll get the AFs of the jobs I like.
And no, not because of statistics, but because I like them. Because I want them.
After all, we play a game for fun, don't we?
FFXI is losing fun for me, so if there is one thing I can do (to bring myself back to memories) is to do something that was always there. A must, I might say. An icon.
I'll get my AFs, starting with war, which is half-way to 51 as I type.
Then samurai, and maybe dark knight after this.
Hoping that an eventual merge (or... something, anything, who knows) will give a move on.
I used to do /sea all and find 2000-3000 sometimes even 4000 players. But now, 500?
No way. Ah well, I guess it's not the 2005 anymore lol