Crappy gear; when is it appropriate to say "WTF?"

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Crappy gear; when is it appropriate to say "WTF?"

I wonder if this issue is still rampant

It is.

Especially when there's a shortage of low level players, every poorly geared person is that much more annoying. It's not just not practical to replace anyone in party these days.

These days, I'm advocating bringing a PL to Valkurm Dunes, and just kick any leech and go with 3-5 people party if that's what it takes. If picked up good healer, terrific--the PL can read a book or something and only intervene when things get hairy. If a good tank, easy; just keep the tank targeted and toss out cures in a measured pace.

Badly geared tank? Inattentive healer? AFK melee with Lv.7 weapon? Kick'em all. Downgrade from crabs to lower tier goblin if party size decreases a lot if one has to--people who don't put in a minimum of effort to gear or play, don't need experience points either.

[Karinya]

Re: Crappy gear; when is it appropriate to say "WTF?"

Yes, actually, the issue *is* still rampant, as bad as ever if not worse.

The age of some threads matters a lot (e.g. threads about events, or speculation about the next update). The age of other threads doesn't make a damn bit of difference because the thing they are about hasn't changed.

Accordingly, people who yak about thread age when they're on the second kind of thread, or without even bothering to see what the thread is about, baffle me.


Anyway, I tend to be too softhearted for my own good in parties; sometimes we'd probably actually do better booting the badly geared guy and fighting with 5. (Fighting with 5 is a lot better than it used to be, although it depends somewhat on what job you lost.) The gimp's next party would *definitely* do better if he actually went and improved his gear and didn't just cuss us out and put his flag back up without changing a damn thing. Unfortunately, the latter is probably what would actually happen, but at least *my* party would have a chance at a better replacement.

[Ryoii/Nonomii]

Re: Crappy gear; when is it appropriate to say "WTF?"

Honestly, from Lv1-37, I completely understand many jobs not equipping a full set of gear or keeping it updated, but when melees and mages don't use food I'm sorely disappointed. Of course there are items though that are dirt cheap and very beneficial that shouldn't be passed up. Gear for the sake of added defense is unnecessary on a party member who almost never gets hit.

I highly suggest carrying around stacks of Sausage (+3 STR, +27% ATK w/30 cap) and Ginger Cookies when leveling a subjob. The stuff is dirt cheap, so I just give about 3 hours worth away and tell them where to get more.

[Lunaryn]

Re: Crappy gear; when is it appropriate to say "WTF?"

Somewhat agree with the above sentiments, and things have been getting worse, though I tend to see more egregious offenses from high-level players coming back to low-level jobs. It's pretty clear that a laissez-faire attitude toward xp is the predominant norm and no one makes much attempt at all to educate new players (and the few who do tend to take a lot of flak for it from those who aren't used to being criticized on their in-game behavior). These days most experienced players who care about quality in partying experience either solo or static lower levels, period. They don't even consider seeking in dunes or qufim range.

That said, and my earlier post in this thread spoke to this somewhat, the specific example cited by the OP doesn't strike me as particularly problematic or worthy of a strong reaction. He seems to be offended by the low level numbers on people's gear, as if level numbers alone made a difference. He talks about not expecting the best, HQ, and such, but then criticizes a melee (who doesn't sound like they're tanking) for not wearing Bone. Unless you mean Bone +1, the only difference between Bone and Brass or Bronze (or going naked) is def (and even if you do: def and eva). While being able to take a hit or two matters in some situations for some jobs, in others it can often be seen as a waste of money or a poor choice of priority.

I leveled THF as my first job, and it took quite some time for me to get to a point of buying nice, stat-boosting gear for most slots. I even ended up borrowing HQ gear from someone else in my LS for the jungles. I think the first piece of real, proper, stat-improving gear (not counting rings, I had Amethyst Rings since shortly after getting Sneak Attack) I got on my own was Bastokan Subligar (I did eventually replace it with Republic Subligar, rather later on, after we'd seen our first bouts of deflation).

I actually did keep up in def. But I also know that it did squat for me in almost every party I was in. With Tarutaru HP, against IT mobs, I wouldn't survive long with the mob's attention with or without def from gear. And I almost never got the mob's attention.

Ultimately, the problem really isn't whether any given individual tries hard to meet expectations or doesn't give a shit about them. The problem is that the community as a whole has given up on things like coordination, trying to form a solid party and use it to its best potential. At this point everyone's inclined to just wing everything, and blame the stupidity or general ineptitude of those around them if anything goes wrong. Why plan anything when some idiot might screw up your plan, or argue with it?

The FFXI community as a whole has lost the sense of coherent identity, expectations, and aspirations that once set it apart so strongly from other MMORPGs. We don't know what to expect from each other, we don't even believe we should expect anything from each other. We don't even ask, let alone demand strategy, cooperation, communication...

[TheGrandMom]

Re: Crappy gear; when is it appropriate to say "WTF?"

It is.

Yes, I know. That wasn't the point of my post.

[Boldfinger]

...

[Satori]

Re: Crappy gear; when is it appropriate to say "WTF?"

I hate Pl'ers for the fact that they totally destroy any chances for healers in the party to skill up propperly.
Most people will say just stand somewhere and spam spells but it really shouldnt be the case. When I played Whm I was in parties where they had a Pl. Being new back then I really didnt know any better it wasnt until I got to kazham and realised about skills and such properly. Not only that there are the very basics that people need to learn from timing things correctly.

As for gear there's no excuse unless there are items that you practically have to sell your soul for then if it's benneficial for your job then get it, If you cant
1) farm for it
2) sell your soul.

I mean seriously if you cant afford it then farm you might as well because there's going to be something else you can't afford soon also.
I'm no angel as far as gear goes.

recently with my Drg I went from the dunes to Qufim wearing Bone Harness +1.
I got my Drg to 22 but felt awful doing just even 1 level when I should have been wearing Beetle?

Maybe I'm wrong to think that my example is ok. But turn up to my Pt in a santa hat and
1) it better be the +1
2) you better be a mage.
3)preferably around christmas.

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Crappy gear; when is it appropriate to say "WTF?"

That wasn't the point of my post.

Oh, I know that. But, the new posts were on topic, and it's unlikely this issue will go away this year or next year. Rather than hinting at the thread age, you might have done just as well sticky'ing this; people will be complaining about badly geared players until an hour before FFXI /shutdown, I bet.

But now I'm at the stage where I've managed to get my WHM to 20 but whenever I try to get a party now all I seem to get is "We have PL - no need Healer". So I've tried going whm/bst to get myself some progress but it's REALLY heavy going this early in levels.

I hate PLs solely for this reason.

*shrug* Those are The Stupid PLs.

I rather have less work as a PL, so I can browse web or read something offline while glancing at the FFXI window only every so often. If things are going smoothly enough, can even just ask the friend in party to "Send me a /tell if something bad is happening; I'm semi-AFK."

Happy to have a healer in party, as a PL. Same for a tank.

[Karinya]

Re: Crappy gear; when is it appropriate to say "WTF?"

The FFXI community as a whole has lost the sense of coherent identity, expectations, and aspirations that once set it apart so strongly from other MMORPGs. We don't know what to expect from each other, we don't even believe we should expect anything from each other. We don't even ask, let alone demand strategy, cooperation, communication...

The fish rots from the head down; exping rots from merit levels down. All those things are no longer necessary or even beneficial to a merit party. Spam rampage (or other multihit ws) and utsusemi and get more exp than you would with strategy and coordination. (If you did have a strategy, amnesia would probably wreck it anyway; but imps have such low defense and HP that killing imps with mindless zerging is still faster and gives more exp than killing tougher mobs with intelligence and coordination.) Who cares if you even have armor, you take 0 damage guaranteed with shadows up.

That doesn't actually work before level 74, but that doesn't stop people from trying it.

PLs have something to do with it too, allowing people to get away with and even level up in parties that a few years ago would have left them face down in the sand; there was a time when you needed some level of skill, coordination, and everyone doing their freaking job just to survive, but mostly, I blame ToAU.

[TheGrandMom]

Re: Crappy gear; when is it appropriate to say "WTF?"

I hate Pl'ers for the fact that they totally destroy any chances for healers in the party to skill up propperly.
Most people will say just stand somewhere and spam spells but it really shouldnt be the case. When I played Whm I was in parties where they had a Pl. Being new back then I really didnt know any better it wasnt until I got to kazham and realised about skills and such properly. Not only that there are the very basics that people need to learn from timing things correctly.

Yep had a few p/l'd parties recently that made me groan. One party the p/l'er was worthless because he didn't pay attention or didn't care and same for the healer in the party. I guess our healer thought free exp and went to fix the roof on his house. At another p/l'd party, we had a pld...YIPPEE....not. The pld was obviously p/l'd too often or an idiot. Voke....do you have it? Obviously not and the puller was nearly dying. I was on sam/war and, unfortunately I actually cared, so I started voking. I eventually became the tank for 4 levels.

Oh, I know that. But, the new posts were on topic, and it's unlikely this issue will go away this year or next year. Rather than hinting at the thread age, you might have done just as well sticky'ing this; people will be complaining about badly geared players until an hour before FFXI /shutdown, I bet.

My post was called a joke, sorry you can't take one. As or a sticky, not for a thread that no one will care about in a week or two and adds no informational value to the forums. If you'd like to discuss this further, please PM me.

[skeeterlite]

Re: Crappy gear; when is it appropriate to say "WTF?"

I wonder if this issue is still rampant since...........


THIS THREAD IS NEARLY A YEAR OLD.......

















........in case some of you didn't notice.

I can verify it being an issue I was kicked from a group for not having +mnd gear as a lvl 17 rdm.

I still don't know why I was kicked.


___

Didn't read the other posts after the quoted one btw, just quoted from that point =/

[Effedup]

Re: Crappy gear; when is it appropriate to say "WTF?"

I really don't see what the big deal is about expecting people to wear somewhat appropriate gear. In a non PL'd party people would scream bloody murder when the Tank was wearing garbage gear, why should DD's or any other party role be off the hook? I don't care if you're a NIN with shadows...at some point, shadows are going to drop and you're going to get hit. Same for DD's, nobody plans for the "what if?" anymore. "Oh, I'll never get hit cause I'm just a DD and if I do it's all the Tanks fault..." Bullshit. You should be able to take a punch or two without the Main Heal cure spamming you, and if the gear was semi-appropriate, you could. The NQ gear is pretty cheap through the levels, and no one is asking people to have an Emperor's Hairpin, or Leaping Boots; just gear that is somewhat worth a shit. If you're in the mid-20s wearing some leather gear you are an idiot.

Honestly, it IS the rank 10 peeps that add the most insult to injury. If someone is new to the game then we tend to cut them slack, and take the opportunity to TEACH the young ones about what gear is good for that job, what websites are good for reference, etc. I could care less how many A.F. sets you have, I don't care about all the high level Rare/Ex gears you are carrying around...if you want to party in the Dunes or Quiffim get the gear for it. I don't care if it's your 20th job through the Dunes, if you've been here 20 times before you had plenty of opportunity to buy Bone gear before, didn't you? Let's try treating those low-level parties with the same importance as all the endless Campaign and Sky runs for once and see if things generally improve. I'm betting they would...

It's irritating because it's just laziness. Nobody gives a shit about sub-37 parties anymore and treat it like "who cares?" Then, of course, people that ARE on their first trip through are like, "Oh, I can come out with nothing but a sword and a smile and they'll just have to deal with it" And so continues the cycle. The same people that bitch and complain about how no one skillchains anymore don't say a word about it in parties, either...that level 12 with no subjob doesn't know what the hell a skillchain is. I'll take the 2 minutes at the outset of an exp party and calculate our skillchains for us, and if more people would actually DO IT and stop complaining about how no one does it things would get better.

And as for PL's, I think they are at least half of the reason why things are the way they are now in game. No one wants to actually work and learn anymore, they just wanna be "OMG 75" in like 20 minutes. People don't learn how to play the game if they never really played it correctly.

[Neomage]

Re: Crappy gear; when is it appropriate to say "WTF?"

I used to have a semi-static of three people when I was leveling 50-65. I was the BLM, then we had a WHM and a MNK. The MNK usually made the party, and like me, he thought that having at least decent gear was a minimum requirement. So whenever someone joined our PT with just... horrible gear, as soon as they got to camp, I would D2 them. Usually they ended up in Jeuno and I told them either to disband , or buy some decent gear and then head back to camp. Once a guy ended up in B. Peninsula. At first I felt bad - then I realized if he was to stupid to get decent gear and set his home point in an decent place. he probably deserved it.

[TheGrandMom]

Re: Crappy gear; when is it appropriate to say "WTF?"

Honestly, it IS the rank 10 peeps that add the most insult to injury. If someone is new to the game then we tend to cut them slack, and take the opportunity to TEACH the young ones about what gear is good for that job, what websites are good for reference, etc. I could care less how many A.F. sets you have, I don't care about all the high level Rare/Ex gears you are carrying around...if you want to party in the Dunes or Quiffim get the gear for it. I don't care if it's your 20th job through the Dunes, if you've been here 20 times before you had plenty of opportunity to buy Bone gear before, didn't you? Let's try treating those low-level parties with the same importance as all the endless Campaign and Sky runs for once and see if things generally improve. I'm betting they would...

It's like a huge joke in our ls when they decide to level a low job. They nearly brag about how shitty their equips are and how funny it is. Then they complain about the nubs in their parties....ya riiiiiiiight

[kaibelf]

Re: Crappy gear; when is it appropriate to say "WTF?"

Wow someone's in a crappy mood.