Isn't it about time to drop the elitism and enjoy the game?

[little ninja]

You can't do anything directly related to your personal ability to hit a mob more accurately. All you can do is say, equip +Acc to increase the odds in your favor. You can flail your arms about, do jumping jacks, poke the mob on your screen with your finger, etc - none of it will affect your character's performance.


no way dude poking it always works for me...

[Gman]

Well said Pounce, good analogy.

It kinda ties into what I was saying about knowledge as well. You dont use skill to sneak at the right time, or use your weaponskill at the right time, you KNOW when to. Once you have a grasp of the game (some people take longer than others) you just know how everything works, skill has nothing to do with it.

[DrSerpico]

Mosklubba

Go ahead and flame me for saying this... But I find most people who make this comment are trying to justify the amount of time they spend playing or doing forum research.

Most jobs in this game have a total of 5 useful /ja's and a total of 5 spells they use per battle... Most have 1 to 3 roles they fill.

Those things are neither hard to do on a timely basis or make the decision when to use them. Making 5k to 7k an hour is never hard with the proper party set up, against the correct mobs. Most people that have a static built on efficiency see this- skill takes a back seat to repetition.

Regardless of your attitude or personality, having the analytical skills of a 6th grader is all you need in FFXI to be a "Skilled player." Mobs are predictable, agro ranges are constant, and parties tend to spam the same skill chain for hours, or even weeks on end.

We can fight about it if you want, but here's what will happen: You will name off about 10 things that skilled players do, and every single one will be an incredibly simple task that a 10 year old could learn to do flawlessly in an afternoon.

There's a lot to *learn* in this game, but memorizing a skillchain chart doesn't make you more skilled than the guy 3 states over that has one printed out beside his computer. Knowing that pugils are weak to lightning doesn't make you skilled player when you consider a mob's elemental weakness is easy to find, and chances are the other 5 people in your party are going to tell you stop casting stone.

Honestly, most people that think there's a great amount of skill in this game are usually the ones that blame other people when a party doesn't gel and gets 3k an hour. Those things happen, there's always extenuating circumstances. Some BLM may have a faster reaction time, remain cooler under pressure, have an IQ of 190, and helped design the battle system of FFXI... But I'd choose the BLM that didn't spam Dia to cap his enfeebling because I know he's not going to waste my time.

It's very comforting to convince ourselves that there's something in FFXI that requires skill, because it means we've learned something useful, and haven't wasted our time. But newsflash: It's a game designed mostly to waste our time. Examine the time you spent doing mindless genkei, time spent mindlessly farming, time spent mindlessly repeating the same unchallenging BCNM, time spent mindlessly hunting coffers and keys, time spent mindlessly killing crabs.

Square DID NOT design FFXI to sharpen or hone our minds. It's a very dangerous approach to think of this game as ANYTHING but an entertaining timesink. If we all spent this much time playing Chess, we'd walk away with enhanced problem solving skills and the ability to process extra actions at once... this much time in FFXI, however, teaches us to suppress the urge to say "LOL" in real life instead of actually laughing.

Go play rdm. ^^

Melee I can agree. You autoattack, go make a cup of tea, go to india and get the leaves, let them dry in the sun, drink the tea, get back and make your tp call.
Maybe renkei ZOMG!

Thieves have to get earl greay instant teabags due to sata.

Tanks have to be content with watching a movie, and ninjas can't watch anything to involving.

Red mages... Well...
Maybe you have time to listen to a limerick between pulls. ^^

[Halato]

Red mages... Well...
Maybe you have time to listen to a limerick between pulls. ^^

That's casting time that makes you feel like that. I guarantee if all spells were instant-cast, you'd be twiddling your thumbs just as much as the melees.

[Pounce]

I've played both sides of the coin - DRG (arguably one of the -least- interactive jobs) and RDM.

While RDM is definitely takes more skill than the average melee job, that level of skill is still relative, and overall is quite low compared to other game genres, or non-gaming activities.

I'm proud of the fact that I've been called the "best RDM ever" by quite a few people I've partied with =P.

FPS, RTS, etc.

n00b------average player -------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------master player

MMORPG

n00b------average player-------------------master player

Honestly, if you can't play your job "well" after a week or two of partying, I seriously question your intelligence.

In comparison, its much harder to improve in FPS or RTS, because raw, natural talent plays so much of a bigger role than in most MMORPGs,

[Lakai]

the JP only thing really isn't even much of a big deal, on my server (Ifrit, pretty damn old server lots of JP) at least. Alot of JP just have way different ways of partying then NAs do its not really anythign personal. The JP only thing doesn't mean they don't like NA its just they are seeking an all jp party, because 99% of the time JP parties won't have random members leaving whenever they feel like it. They have a set time for the pt to end most of the time and stick it out untill the end. Not saying no NAs do this either but I think its pretty obvious that in alot of exp parties its fairly obvious that NA peopel do ditch on their parties alot. I'm not saying JP is perfect either though... there are soem JP elitist mofos out there (ive only encountered one real bad oen so far). The pt I was in was 5/6 members, 4 were japanese I was english, a JP ninja was asked to join and then left when he found out there was one NA in the pt, pretty stupid, but hey doesnt bother me I'm gettign exp and he's sitting there seekign again no skinn off my back lol...

[Pounce]

The rebuttal to that though, is that JPs seem to have absolutely no qualms over inviting NA mages/tanks, while they'll never even consider most NA melee. It's not really something to do with "playstyles" or "we like to be able to chat with party members", etc.

Or if it indeed is, then they're only willing to apply that standard to NA melee, and not NA mages (probably since mages in general are in short supply, while melee are not).

I've played about the same number of levels of mage and melee, more or less.

On certain occasions, I've gotten more JP invites in one week as a mage, than in my entire career as a melee. I fondly remember a week where I leveled exclusively off of JP parties. It's not like I try to get into JP parties either, the invites just come as a mage. I know a lot of people report similar experiences.

[little ninja]

Originally posted by Kailea-D
I have been playing since PC release, and DRG/SAM was way to strong, that is why they TP nerfed it, fully understandable, and I am a DRG as youcan see, but I understand why they did it.

actually it wasnt drg/sam who ruined it, it was mnk with there cursed dynamis claws. asuran fists. over an over an over. they didnt even need sam, they subbed a 37 mob, an soloed some of the toughest shit in the game.

[little ninja]

Originally posted by Pounce
The rebuttal to that though, is that JPs seem to have absolutely no qualms over inviting NA mages/tanks, while they'll never even consider most NA melee. It's not really something to do with "playstyles" or "we like to be able to chat with party members", etc.

Or if it indeed is, then they're only willing to apply that standard to NA melee, and not NA mages (probably since mages in general are in short supply, while melee are not).

I've played about the same number of levels of mage and melee, more or less.

On certain occasions, I've gotten more JP invites in one week as a mage, than in my entire career as a melee. I fondly remember a week where I leveled exclusively off of JP parties. It's not like I try to get into JP parties either, the invites just come as a mage. I know a lot of people report similar experiences.

i been saying that ever since i dropped drk for nin. i have lvled drk to 60, an war to 60. an guess what. my ninja got more pt invites from jp players. in 1 week. then a span of 120 lvls with 2 melee job class. an i play during jp peek hours.

my view is this. if you got a facking problem pt'in with a NA melee. dont even facking bother inviting an NA mage, or tank. deal with it an stick to your own facking kind.. cause you are nothing more then a gosh damn hypocrite!