PTs better after Howling Fist?

[Funguwari]

How much better do your invites get after Howling Fist?

I'm thinking of switching WAR job to MNK (30 currently).

What subs should I keep Lv'ed? WAR and THF?

What Lv do you get Howling Fist?

[JayblahX]

Re: PTs better after Howling Fist?

Originally posted by Funguwari
How much better do your invites get after Howling Fist?

I'm thinking of switching WAR job to MNK (30 currently).

What subs should I keep Lv'ed? WAR and THF?

What Lv do you get Howling Fist?

Not much better.

Good luck with that.

Warrior and Thief.

60.

[Redlimit]

When you get Howling Fist at 60, a whole new world of Renkei opens up to you. You become the key melee to have in PT's that have a THF due to the power of the Howling Fist > Dancing Edge = Distortion renkei, which is very effective against all mobs you will face until about 70 (although after 65 you may find yourself doing level 3 renkei instead, the distortion is still powerful).

Does all this mean your invites increase? Well I guess it does in a way. To tell the truth I didn't really notice my invites start to go up until I hit 70, and now people message me for EXP PT's constantly. Its really weird to start getting invites without even having seek up after 70 levels where that was an impossibility.

However, once you step into King Ramperes Tomb for EXP for the first time at 70, you will see why they wanted you so bad.

[JayblahX]

Fungawari,

I was told at 60, I'd be getting invites. Didn't happen. Continued leading my own parties.

I was told at 65, I'd be getting lots of invites. Hasn't happened. Continuing to make my own parties.

I'll let you know if it changes at 70.

I've been making parties since level 10. That's many, many levels where I've made and led parties. Shouldered all the responsibility and burden of being a PT leader. Last night I came close to chucking my PS2 out the window. I guess I'm fast become jaded, but this game is supposed to fun, not a chore like its been these past couple levels. Many japanese piss on my invites most of the time, everyone else is in a goddamn static, and when I do get a party going, its built out of sheer desperation so its not an ideal combination (like 4 frontline, 2 backline) and so I just count my blessings and endure crap EXP. I nearly reached my breaking point yesterday. I had even flagged the Bard quest and was close to never looking back.

You will have a long, sometimes bitter road ahead of you if you go MNK (though I assume as an NA Warrior, it won't be much different), that's all I can say. Good luck.

[Thark601]

shinryuken you still lvl twice as fast as me, and from 55-62 my invites have gone up 10 fold... dunno maybe i just got fans now, maybe it's the fact that i can now distortion, but my invites are very fast... 2-3 half sets vowing on me, and several other ppl that just invite me when there forming a pt

get the good gear, be friendly above all else have fun in your xp pt's, and ppl will reinvite you, especially if your good

[JayblahX]

I level twice as fast as you because I put in twice as much efforts as you do.

You also are in a nice NA LS that has a plethora of players around your level (many that I've grouped with), whereas I have no one in my LS within my level range that isn't already tied up in static party. Not sour grapes, just the way it is.

I have a fair, if not very good, reputation amongst people who I get to play with. I don't recall ever having a bad stigma floating around about me, and maybe have gotten into 1 or 2 spats my entire time on Ragnarok (one being that static party bullcrap and the other with a PLD who I believe is in your LS). People like EXPing with me because I usually make great parties (lately though, that hasn't been the case due to total lack of people seeking on Ragnarok), but in the end, my experience has been as I've reported. Answering Fungawari's question, invites don't change all that much at 60+ because;

You are still a melee and not capable of high level bones yet.
You are still not Japanese.
You still have to wait, often hours of waiting.

Some people have better luck than others I guess, Futrid. I think that once bone parties become a tangile reality for me (supposedly at 67+), things will change. But right now they haven't. I'll keep you posted, Fungawari.

P.S. Futrid, level your damn subs and catch up.

[Thark601]

i never form a party, i'm way to lazy, i rarely pt with my ls... i generally don't seek for more than 2 hours before getting a pt, i can generally get 10-20k xp per day easy, and was the same lvl as shin about 10 back...

yes he's now 2 lvls above me and trying to say xp'ing is hard

get's easier and easier, untill you get a bad rep with ppl ^^

[Dano]

from my experience, to be honest it's only slightly better. No one really cares about monks unless when they think of skeletons. After around 66-67 i started getting invites, however i'm already in a static so it's sorta pointless at 70 well.. depends on how many monks are online at the time, ramps tomb can only support about 2 parties (the good spot) and when it's taken you'll have to move to kulfat for the ladons.

I would say, don't keep your hopes up, but dont give up either.

[MeleeFighterFF]

im almost sick of this game...im lvl 42mnk and not having trouble with invites, but that's all i hear EVERY class say: ohhh there's no invites...

is any class good?

all i ever read on these forums is how war, sam, drk, mnk, drg, and thieves wait forever for parties...

why?

do we really play this game for fun? im really starting to not see the point...spend countless wasted hours of your life doing anything on earth to make TONS (it's a fuckin joke...sets of equip costing 700k at lvl 35? come on, that's not fun, that's the way SE keeps you on for another 3 months) of gil all for what? to put your seek sign up and stand around for weeks hoping for a lvl? exp parties suck...period...i used to enjoy it, all that you do though is sit and kill the same thing over and over and over again...wouldnt you think they'd throw some originality into the mobs? You should never kill the same thing even 3 times in a row in a party...but come on, you all know you wind up hunting one or two different kinds of things for sometimes 10 lvls...that's BORING and just a way for SE to save money on servers...

And im still not understanding how EVERY job class can wait forever for parties...someone's gotta be getting exp...some job has to be needed...

how could MNK wait more than other things? it doesnt...go read the drk forums...they never get invites lol, thfs? some of them have had to wait a month for one invite...wars? same...

so really, what is anyone getting out of this? I really enjoy certain aspects of the game myself but am really starting to question the motivation to play anymore, since all that higher lvls do is bitch and moan about what a pain in the ass everything is...

do any of you have fun?

[MeleeFighterFF]

sorry guys...dont mean to rabble, im just really starting to not see the point of putting in all of this time and effort on this game...for what?

every single thing to do in the game is overly time consuming and winds up = not fun, a chore.

every single melee class goes NUTS about waiting for parties..ive heard horror stories.

what are we doing all of this farming, exping off the same mob for 7 months straight, for ? why? is there some amazingly surprising twist later on?

was told there'd be "cinemas"...there's not one.

was told the world was expansive...it's 1/10 the size of every other mmorpg out there...if not even smaller...

and what kind of an ASSHOLE in japan would REQUIRE experience partying to progress? why is there NO option for singular play...we all agree..a good 60+% of party's out there are nothing but a waste of time, why can't we do some things on our own? dont japanese companies realize that americans dont want to do EVERYTHING in a group? i mean i know japanese are ignorant...but can they really be that ignorant? or maybe it's just that they know exp partying takes fuckin forever and that'll keep us paying longer....? any ideas?

like i said, i still play, and im still into it...i just dont see, nor hear from anyone, any FUN...it's nothing but tedious boring, pain in the ass work for.....??? tell me please?

[Dakin]

Get a good core of friends, a good LS, etc. Spend time helping others with things they need to do, that is rewarding in itself. Do garrison, BCNM, missions, quests. Try ballista once or twice. Camp a NM with your LS (makes it much more entertaining). These and other things keep my interest in the game, aside from the constant leveling grind which is in no means fun.

[Ungerpurr]

MMORPGs are not designed to be "fun," per se. Like turn-based strategy games, sim games, they are designed to waste your time while giving you a feeling of accomplishment. People play MMOs for one of two reasons, or a combo of the two: 1) sense of accomplishment, 2) socialization.

Creating a video game that will induce a long-term attachment in the player was something that wasn't tried until the advent of the internet. Some MMOs, like City of Heroes, were so caught up in making a "fun" game that they didn't include enough carrot on the stick, there's no sense of accomplishment, and so there's no reason to play it after a month or two.

It's tough to strike a balance between fun and sense of accomplishment. Right now, FFXI is really in a trough, similar to that of EverQuest after its first expansion. Not enough content was added in the first EQ expansion, and FFXI is in a similar position - there's not enough for us to aspire to, so the primary fun factor, exploration (whether done in actuality or vicariously) is really lacking right now.

If Square plans right with Chains of Promathia, they will drastically increase the time it takes to get to and complete the highest content, similar to what Verant did with EverQuests's Scars of Velious expansion (still referred to by most as the "Golden Age" of EQ). Some content in Velious wasn't even reached until over six months after release, whereas I'm sure that if the level 75 level cap had been in place at the release of Zilart, it would've been completed within 1-2 months.

Not enough content. New content is "fun." Playing the game itself, well, that's work. It's intended to be. No work, no hardship, then no time invested, no emotional attachment, no sense of accomplishment, and eventually, no longer playing the game. Square doesn't want that.

[Brennon]

There are boring, tedious, hard work exp parties, and then there are fun exp parties. Some of my funnest moments in the game have been during exp parties.

Like that one time in alteppa, hunting beetles. . . rng pulled an IT beetle, and accidentally aggroed an antician at the same time. Just then, another beetle poped on his way back to camp, which linked with the first beetle. So now we've got two IT beetles and i think it was a VT antician.

THAT was a fun battle ^^. We all survived, and felt like gods afterwards. It was awesome.

[Shiia]

I never been in static, and probably I never will. Yet I have leveled 2 jobs to 70+. I form my own parties because I hate waiting not doing anything with my precious limited time. Invites? Yeah its SLIGHTLY better. Like Jayblah stated, after 60 I was told with Howling fist I get tons of invite, with result of whooping 1 invite in total. After 65~67 I was told with dragon kick and ending a light skill chain I get tons of invite... I got 2. After 71 when I have obtained asuran fist a whole new world will be opened to me... I have been invited 3 times and 2 of those times I was asked to swap with rdm -_-;

So there. Things are better? Not sure... I think not... This game's balance is somewhat screwed. And above all... too many high levels too little content to level. Honestly when I saw 25% of my server population was 70+ I was freaking out ...

[JexIntrepid]

I must say, the most fun part of the game was probably when I was around level 15-20. I was told of people heading out into Jeuno, and going a long ways to get there.
Everytime I would even think of zoning past Jugner, I would just get scared and come back.
Best time was when a group of people, all varying levels, but within 15-20, decided to head to Jeuno. I tagged along, thinking. we couldn't all die if we head out there together. No raises though, and just 1 redmage. Some guy knew the way, the rest of us were n00bs, and exploring the Jugner forest was definitely fun. Making sure gobs didn't stare at us the wrong way, etc.

Once i got into Battalia Downs, no one had map, and the guide got killed. The rest of us got all scattered cuz staying on the road meant those Tigers would devour us. It was fun, cuz i'd be looking out for some nearby, they'd look out for me. That's what I thought of as fun. By the time some of us made it close to Jeuno, most had died, and i got aggroed right at the door, lag got me and i died before i could step it. Some cool high levelers raised me and my friends though.

Jeuno was fun for a bit, then i saw prices of AH items. Ridiculous. After leveling in Qufim, Kazham, and now Crawler's Nest, the exploration part of the game has really gone low. People still act foolish in parties, and there are alot more bickering, moaning, complaining. It sucks.

I'm just lvl 41, and i've made my own parties ever since the very beginning of the game. Only recently when farming to buy kotes, did i get 2 invites. I was surprised, never really got many invites before. Sucked though cuz when i joined one, i felt totally weak without good acc. I had jujitsu gi and hume RSE gloves, but i feel i need at least Ochuido's Kotes until lvl 48, and 1 sniper ring. I almost have the money for sniper ring, but not for kotes and the ring. So i've been camping NM for kotes.

I guess my luck sucks, but so does S-E for making camping NMs ridiculously long, boring, and painful (especially whenever a jp player pops and just grabs the damn NM that all the rest of us have been eagerly spamming to get).

0/3 with Deggi the Punisher.
I guess he punishes me for playing this game.

I feel even after I do get the damn kotes, i wont' feel this sense of accomplishment. Because by the time i get them, I'll still have to go back and grind, and it' already feels like alot of my friends have gone past me in leveling, so it'll take me awhile to catchup.

I'm really losing sight of the "fun" factor of this game, after having had to do farming/camping/mining. The only recent time i had some "fun" was when iwas seeking the ninjitsu scroll quest in Norg and had to use all those oils to make sure i didn't get eaten.