What made you quit FFXI?

[Noob]

Noob keeps quoting me, and he seriously doesn't seem to get what I'm trying to say at all. While I do miss the game the way it was, that wasn't the point of my post. It's like he's cherrypicking parts of my post to respond to.

I understand that your point wasn't to condemn the way things are now, but rather to condemn those who bash others for not preferring the way things are now over the way things were before. I'm just quoting what you said because it contains alot of good points as to why some of us prefer the oldschool over the newschool.

I would, and I didn't even do WoE or VNMs. I played each and every day to camp Fafnir, KB, DI, SW, Tiamat etc. years after I already had all my drops from those mobs. Sitting in Aery and mashing enter and grabbing that red mob over everyone else there? Nothing has ever compared to that.

Same here. Everyone likes to assume that just because everyone got their gear from endgame means they no longer find enjoyment in doing those events. Alot of us don't mind, and even get enjoyment out of helping those who helped us get our shit, get their shit too. As far as accomplishments went, their was a greater feeling that came with that accomplishments that current FFXI just doesn't have. Sure you can set goals and even achieve them now like you always could, but the gear no longer has sentimental value like it once did, because the competitiveness that came with obtaining oldschool items was so much greater (in most cases). Now it's so easy to obtain whatever you want, what's the point?

But I simultaneously recognize that most would not. People don't like to be confronted with limitations, and that is what competitive HNMs did for a lot of people. SE finally gave them what they wanted, a system where they could shout group everything and didn't have to fight others for stuff. And even if they sucked, there's a gameshark potion and a proc system that lets you hamstring the mobs. You don't need to be good enough for a shell, you can just leech from shout groups.

I agree completely. You would get this feeling like you got your "fix" with the way things were before, and it kept the top end players around. Now their's nothing that gives you that same fix. And what pisses me off the most is the fact that absolutely anyone, regardless of skill or motivation, can obtain the best gear. So your level of gear shows absolutely nothing more than the fact that you took the time to get it. Back then, in most cases, your gear showed what kind of player you were. It told a story. Sure, back then you had your shitty gimps that would get geared, but it was far harder then than it is today, and most of the time it was only because said shitty gimp was lucky enough to either be related to or a good friend of the shell leader or sacks. But back then, the majority of the time, you had to be in the absolute best HNMLS on your server to even have a shot at obtaining the greatest gear, and you had to know your shit and be a great player not only skill wise but gear wise, just to have a shot at even joining the shell. You also had to prove you were already a somewhat motivated player by already having the gear that was the best you could get outside of what was going to be obtained through the help of the HNMLS you were applying to. Your gear had to tell a story on your application, a story that you actually cared about your performance, and your builds showed that. You also had to undergo trials if you were even considered for acceptance into the shell, which lasted several weeks. This was to filter out the shitty players who happened to be knowledgeable about good gear choices but were shitty when it came time to step up to the plate. In other words, you had to know your shit and prove it to your peers, and just being accepted was an accomplishment in itself.

Their was a sense of pride that came with just being apart of an established HNMLS (unless your server was unfortunate enough to have one of those shells led by the wrong group of people). Their's absolutely nothing like that today. No sense of pride in anything. You have gimps getting the exact same gear as the great players do, and most players today aren't even great because they never had to learn their jobs or how to be a great player. Abyssea gives them a free ride to 99 regardless of their skill or gear and on top of that gets them equipped with the same top of the line, easy to obtain gear as everyone else. You don't need skill, gear, or even merits to obtain some of the best gear out there for your job. Abyssea provides players with buffs that allow even the shittiest of players an easy opportunity to obtain great gear.

Who can even argue this? Their's nothing outside of "do x for y item" to even keep players around anymore other than conversing with their friends. All the feeling and sense of accomplishment that FFXI once had has been completely sapped from the game.

Sure, I will agree that Abyssea DID bring some players back to the game, and it DID breathe new life into the game because of that simple fact, but it lost a ton of it's more hardcore, motivated players who didn't like the direction the game was going, so the "goodness" Abyssea brought to FFXI ends at that. That's something noone can argue. Anybody who tries to argue otherwise just looks stupid to the rest of us who can accept the truth. Am I stuck on the way things were? Absolutely. I started playing this game on July 19'th of 2004, and I had an incredible time from day one right up until Abyssea and the level cap raise. I spent countless hours obtaining the greatest gear, and I got more from 2004 to 2010 from this game than anything else. I took SE's "Gameplan for the next two years to come!" that was outlined at the start of 2010 as a slap in the face from SE to those of us who worked hard to obtain the very best gear from all corners of former FFXI endgame. It was a move to try and get subs up at the expense of so many people's enjoyment. I, and many others who stuck with FFXI through it all, have absolutely every right to, even now, still be upset at what SE did to our accomplishments. Would they have lost subs if Abyssea and the level cap raise had never happened? Absolutely. But they would've kept those who'd been most loyal around for years to come.

[Churchill]

1. Sure, right now everyone regardless of skill can obtain the best gear. VW is a random loot system, Abyssea is pretty mindless.
1a. This doesn't really mean anything because those people still suck.

2. Gear still matters, skill still matters. I love seeing the argument that it doesn't because it always comes from people who either don't play or think because it didn't come from something you botted and got lucky or sucked a lot of dick for that it doesn't matter.

I spent enough time camping HNM's, I miss the drama and I miss the QQ's when everyone got to watch you fight shit every night because you owned both single shell copies of the two best bots on the market.

I do not miss actually camping the NM's and I do not miss the constantly being GM'd or losing friends for the stupidest shit ever and people getting banned for botting/cheating/whatever because someone who bots/cheats/whatever called a GM on the other person.

[Noob]

1. Sure, right now everyone regardless of skill can obtain the best gear. VW is a random loot system, Abyssea is pretty mindless.
1a. This doesn't really mean anything because those people still suck.

2. Gear still matters, skill still matters. I love seeing the argument that it doesn't because it always comes from people who either don't play or think because it didn't come from something you botted and got lucky or sucked a lot of dick for that it doesn't matter.

I spent enough time camping HNM's, I miss the drama and I miss the QQ's when everyone got to watch you fight shit every night because you owned both single shell copies of the two best bots on the market.

I do not miss actually camping the NM's and I do not miss the constantly being GM'd or losing friends for the stupidest shit ever and people getting banned for botting/cheating/whatever because someone who bots/cheats/whatever called a GM on the other person.

You know what I love more? The idiots who think botting was ALL that comprised of oldschool endgame. Pull your head out of your ass. Arenz & NASA didn't even show up until '08. Their were plenty of other events that took skilled shells just to do (like Einherjar pre-nerf). And NO, I have checked in on the game for several days at a time and seen how the players of today are, and they suck compared to the days where you had players lugging around 10 different builds on their jobs, ready for any situation. Today you're lucky if you see players gear swapping for weapon skills...

You refer a player to BG or mention shit like sky and you're only greeted with responses along the lines of "wut?". Skill? What's skill? Getting a "proc"? I can count on one hand the amount of players I've seen equipping themselves appropriately for any given situation. I can count on one hand the amount of times I've crossed players where I wasn't worried they'd fuck something up because of how they behaved during any given event. Players don't carry themselves like they use to. Nowadays, everyone's thrown maximization to the wind, because they no longer have to anymore. Nobody's judging you for your shit now. All the elitists are gone. If you wanna full time AF3, you can, because their's no pride found in anything. People can do whatever they want in gimped gear, and the only way they make gil is by dumping cruor, which doesn't make them enough gil to have what they'd need to be well equipped. It just gets them by, because they're too lazy to take the time to raise the gil necessary to be equipped well, even though most of their best gear is EX and easily obtainable through Aby anyways. Can't tell you how many DDs I've seen wearing absolute shit gear where they couldn't throw their AF3 in (ruby rings and some gimp earring because their's no AF3 to throw in the ring slots, and only one AF3 earring). They full time these items. What's a macro swap? They wouldn't know, but let's just continue defending the way things are now versus the way they were before, because the subs are supposedly up due to Aby "breathing new life into the game".

[Draylo]

Are you kidding me? They were just as gimp before Abyssea came out...

[Churchill]

Mule at khim, bot claim if competition, mule at tia, bot claim if competition, mule at cerb, bot claim if competition.

Mule at SW/DI FP's, autoexec/chat detection when pop, send text messages to LS/alert LS.

Run to B/KB/F/Nid/bot claim, get ToD of Adamantoise full bot Day4+.

Lose claim because bot wasn't updated, watch super skilled other LS Aegis PLD suck at tanking.

[Deader2818]

You know what I love more? The idiots who think botting was ALL that comprised of oldschool endgame. Pull your head out of your ass. Arenz & NASA didn't even show up until '08. Their were plenty of other events that took skilled shells just to do (like Einherjar pre-nerf). And NO, I have checked in on the game for several days at a time and seen how the players of today are, and they suck compared to the days where you had players lugging around 10 different builds on their jobs, ready for any situation. Today you're lucky if you see players gear swapping for weapon skills...

You refer a player to BG or mention shit like sky and you're only greeted with responses along the lines of "wut?". Skill? What's skill? Getting a "proc"? I can count on one hand the amount of players I've seen equipping themselves appropriately for any given situation. I can count on one hand the amount of times I've crossed players where I wasn't worried they'd fuck something up because of how they behaved during any given event. Players don't carry themselves like they use to. Nowadays, everyone's thrown maximization to the wind, because they no longer have to anymore. Nobody's judging you for your shit now. All the elitists are gone. If you wanna full time AF3, you can, because their's no pride found in anything. People can do whatever they want in gimped gear, and the only way they make gil is by dumping cruor, which doesn't make them enough gil to have what they'd need to be well equipped. It just gets them by, because they're too lazy to take the time to raise the gil necessary to be equipped well, even though most of their best gear is EX and easily obtainable through Aby anyways. Can't tell you how many DDs I've seen wearing absolute shit gear where they couldn't throw their AF3 in (ruby rings and some gimp earring because their's no AF3 to throw in the ring slots, and only one AF3 earring). They full time these items. What's a macro swap? They wouldn't know, but let's just continue defending the way things are now versus the way they were before, because the subs are supposedly up due to Aby "breathing new life into the game".

How is this any different then 75 cap?

[Noob]

Are you kidding me? They were just as gimp before Abyssea came out...

Obviously. Only difference is (and what you seemed to miss from my post), it was strongly discouraged back then, and players were forced out of PTs of every kind for it. I can remember the time when your gear had to be good just to get accepted to an EXP PT. This was during a time when you used /seacom to display your competence, and your reputation followed you everywhere. If you sucked, you were getting kicked, and weren't getting reinvited to PT again. Nowadays, noone gives a shit. That is my point.

Mule at khim, bot claim if competition, mule at tia, bot claim if competition, mule at cerb, bot claim if competition.

Mule at SW/DI FP's, autoexec/chat detection when pop, send text messages to LS/alert LS.

Run to B/KB/F/Nid/bot claim, get ToD of Adamantoise full bot Day4+.

Lose claim because bot wasn't updated, watch super skilled other LS Aegis PLD suck at tanking.

All I read in this post is BOT BOT BOT BOT BOT! Yes. Botting was a huge part of endgame. It went on for years, long before Arenz & NASA came about. Long before Wizbot. That's just how it went. We dealt with it though.

Their's more to oldschool FFXI endgame than that. I shouldn't need to be telling you this. You had gear from SKy, Sea, Limbus, Dynamis, Nyzul Isle, Salvage, Einherjar, and WoTG BCNMs. Their was variety.

Yes, their were shitty players who got geared, and even HNMLS full of shitty players with gear they used their credit card to fund, even shell leaders and sacks. No denying that. But the attitude towards shitty players and gimps wasn't so lenient, and players didn't tolerate it. Now it's tolerated. People don't give a shit like they use to. Now it's just a casual MMO that noone gives two shits about. They log on, get gear, log off. No feeling. No pride in anything. No value in gear. You just logon, do a shout in Jeuno, get gear, then log off.

[Churchill]

I don't have a problem with the botting though, what I'm saying is to argue it was something else when it wasn't is silly.

Those other instanced events were easy, only one of them truly required skill. More elitists then? Sure. I don't like seeing people with emps/relics who suck, and while it is more common now that is only because the items themselves are more common. In the end, it doesn't really effect me. It hurts the retards of the game more than it hurts me, I can go to an event with a Widowmaker and shit on everyone's damage. If you base your parties around "do you have emp/relic lol" instead of word of mouth and a sheet of paper saying x/y/z sucks dickcheese then the influx of shit relics hurts shit players more than the good ones.

[Gredival]

Name one event that requires more strategy than a current event?

AV. PW.

Non-zerg Bahamut v.2

Odin or Tier 3 Einherjar

Hell, relative to 75 I'd say Fomor Kings, Lambton, Tiamat, DI, KB, Fafhogg, and Aspid all required much more coordination than Voidwatch.

keep hate on tank (direct enmity, kiting, etc.); and keep people alive

Both were much harder at 75 without Atma(cite), Temp Items, higher amounts of refresh (both gear and spell/song based).

Hell, tanking barely exists now.

That was basically it. If it couldn't be done that way (e.g., KV) or took too long (e.g., Kirin) or time constrictions (e.g., DL) you simply zerged it. How hard was that?

So we moved from content that was sometimes zerged with extremely geared meele in high buff situations to content that is consistently zerged through the use of in game crutches (atma, stat buffs, temp items).

You're right. SO MUCH HARDER.

The answer: not at all. Endgame at 75 was a joke. There wasn't any magical strategy besides selecting the right jobs and having average equipment.

Doing FFXI correct at 75 was like excelling at high school. Not hard, but hard enough that 80% of the population makes you question how they breathe.

Doing FFXI correct post-Abyssea is like being in pre-school. The only failure are those that don't even make it to the classroom because they ride the shortbus.

Because buying gil and therefore better BLM gear to kill Tiamat in time is hard?

Because inviting Bards to parties and using your 2 hours is hard?

Because sac pulling is hard?

Because anything besides the getting lucky on the random number generator at 75 required more than a pulse to do?

Harder definitely.

Abyssea and VW are eons ahead of 75 and pre-75 in terms of complexity. By comparison, there was no complexity or difficulty to this game pre-Abyssea.

lolwat?

If it's truly about the accomplishment, then the end result wouldn't matter. The fact that it has to be both bits means it's more about end result than the way to get there.

The journey is, was, and always will be the same. It is never meaningless.

Tell that to the kid that pulls himself up by his bootstraps to get into college on a full-ride scholarship, busts his ass to get excellent grades, and then ends up getting nowhere in particular because the old boy network infests the OCI process.

A major portion of this game links reward as the accomplishment; people generally don't stop camping an NM after they get the title, they stop after they (and the rest of their associates) get the reward. When you start handing out that reward in a disparately easy fashion, you are setting the effort of everyone who did it the hard way aside.

In the context of THIS particular MMO, that is especially problematic since it had been explicitly centered around sidegrades and long shelf-life gear. People were only willing to put that effort in because of the presumption of shelf-life.

[Darkmagi]

As far as naming content that you couldn't just throw bodies at and win, AV was the only one. This game has always been zerg friendly due to bad enmity mechanics and the survivability gained via gear/subjob options. The more gear/levels we got, only made this that much easier. AV was a case of being either broken, or having some gimmick that we still never managed to figure out. PW(After the initial nerf, not counting the 20 hour fight), was still a simple fight that just required manpower. The final form was just a stupid zombie fest, seeing as there was no realistic way to survive astral flow spam at 75.

[Gredival]

Mule at khim, bot claim if competition, mule at tia, bot claim if competition, mule at cerb, bot claim if competition.

Mule at SW/DI FP's, autoexec/chat detection when pop, send text messages to LS/alert LS.

Run to B/KB/F/Nid/bot claim, get ToD of Adamantoise full bot Day4+.

Lose claim because bot wasn't updated, watch super skilled other LS Aegis PLD suck at tanking.

Copy-pasta to generic botting arguments:

Let me inform you of something funny. The reason cheating exists, and the reason people bitch about accessibility of gear is the same: Feelings of self-deserving You link a world spawn system with inherent cheating, but instances are no better. Look at what happened with Salvage. There are just different results to the cheating. People cheat because there's gains to be made and feel like they deserve those benefits. It's why people duped in Salvage isn't it -- "terrible drop rates." Just having a fair shot at the mob wasn't enough, they needed double drops.

If a larger group brings more people, isn't that more comparative effort that should get rewarded with a proportionally higher claim rate?

Think about it like tests in school. Kids cheat. But holy shit that doesn't mean we get rid of tests. Why? Cause there are things testing accomplishes that are worth preserving. So We just proctor kids better. It's the fault of the teacher if he's dumb and leaves the room and the kids cheat. Likewise if people botted, that's a flaw of SE's policing/enforcement, not of the system.

It was pretty much the argument "Kings sucked because it rewarded cheating." Competition is about proving yourself to be superior/stronger/more skilled/etc. Isn't that meaningless if you cheat? If you cheat it pretty much makes the victory completely hollow doesn't it? It interferes with the purity of the competition and it removes dedication from the equation (don't need to get up to camp; leave your toon overnight to claim and your shell can boot you). That's not to say they aren't cheaters in the world. But it shows that cheaters aren't the ones who truly care about competition. They care about the things that are associated with winning (fame, glory, money) but not the actual victory. A rigged victory would be a sham and leave nagging questions about your ability, worth, skill, etc.

In my experience botters aren't necessarily pro-HNM. Most botters I know in fact hate HNM; they bot precisely because of the reasons people are saying they hate HNMs. It's time commitment without a chance to reward. Because they don't want to waste X hours doing HNMs to not even get anything, much less not get a chance at getting nothing, they want to maximize claiming to reduce wasted time.

There are numerous things SE could AND SHOULD HAVE done to fix botting. They could have downloaded bots and coded the game specifically to break the bots or flag users with the bots. They could have prosecuted bot makers (I don't believe for a second that App was shut down by SE, that was a cover excuse because the guy already got his 100k selling NASA in each server).

My personal favorite? They could have set up a mole faction of employees with fabricated characters; they apply to HNMLS and when they get in they collect info. Then SE bans the shells that are botting. Imagine a Salvage style mass banning slaughter with SE announcing they had moles in HNMLS gathering data on who was using third party programs. At the very least these sorts of things would have instilled the fear of god into people and made botting much more of a secret thing between a few people in an LS vs. people having their whole LS link-camping or using NASA.

SE was just really stupid about third party tools and going after stupid shit like Windower. I hate WoW, but Blizzard knows how to manage their shit. Blizzard was at least rational in delineating harmless add-ons, and even sanctioning them, vs. bots. This allowed them a lot more control over what tools got out there and how users employed them. Then they went after a bot maker in court to prove they were serious about eliminating cheating and protecting the integrity of their games.

You claim that gear shouldn't be rare and allotted to only a few. But if the game is just for fun and isn't a competition, then why do you need the best/rare to have fun? The fact is no one wants to be the chump. No one wants to sit on the side and see someone else with better shit. But the reality is? Even if no one wants to be the loser, some people just are. Lots of people are bad. Lots of people need to get carried on someone else's back to accomplish anything. Ever do a shout group and end up with some retard meele in Courage and Balance rings at 75? The HNM players could regale you with tale after tale of groups of retards rolling into Aery without a clue and getting curb stomped. And the worst part is that they will never accept they are bad and they will never accept that some gear should and is out of their reach.

This isn't little league where everyone's a winner. If you don't care about competition anyway, why should you care about having the top of the line gear?

[Noob]

AV. PW.

Non-zerg Bahamut v.2

Odin or Tier 3 Einherjar

Hell, relative to 75 I'd say Fomor Kings, Lambton, Tiamat, DI, KB, Fafhogg, and Aspid all required much more coordination than Voidwatch. Both were much harder at 75 without Atma(cite), Temp Items, higher amounts of refresh (both gear and spell/song based). Hell, tanking barely exists now.

So we moved from content that was sometimes zerged with extremely geared meele in high buff situations to content that is consistently zerged through the use of in game crutches (atma, stat buffs, temp items).

You're right. SO MUCH HARDER.

Doing FFXI correct at 75 was like excelling at high school. Not hard, but hard enough that 80% of the population makes you question how they breathe.

Doing FFXI correct post-Abyssea is like being in pre-school. The only failure are those that don't even make it to the classroom because they ride the shortbus.

Harder definitely.

lolwat?

I agree so much with this post. Their was at least some coordination with those events. Events of old took teamwork. Lots and lots of teamwork. Without it, you couldn't do a thing. Sure their's teamwork today, but nowhere near what it was back then. Today's teamwork barely qualifies. It's shout parties to events where you're so buffed up, you can be a completely shitty gimp and still win. What coordination is their with the events of today? That's right. Their's none. I can't believe their's idiots trying to say otherwise.

[Deader2818]

I honestly can't believe that after having this discussion about, 10-20 times, going on most likely about a year now, that you still can spew the same non-sense over and over again. Its like you have a note pad of generic bitch fests that you have kept and just copy in paste from that to make the same stupid points over and over again without trying.

[Darkmagi]

The reason cheating exists is the sheer fact that it gives advantages, and usually has an extremely low chance of consequences resulting from said cheating. Since when did SE go after windower? It's common knowledge that the majority of the PC community uses the unofficial windower in some fashion, they could easily shut them down or ban many users if they truly wanted to.

[Noob]

I honestly can't believe that after having this discussion about, 10-20 times, going on most likely about a year now, that you still can spew the same non-sense over and over again. Its like you have a note pad of generic bitch fests that you have kept and just copy in paste from that to make the same stupid points over and over again without trying.

And I honestly can't believe you just continue to reply with the same fucking response, condemning anyone who complains about how things are versus how things were.

[Deader2818]

I wasn't even talking to you, lol.

[Gredival]

I honestly can't believe that after having this discussion about, 10-20 times, going on most likely about a year now, that you still can spew the same non-sense over and over again. Its like you have a note pad of generic bitch fests that you have kept and just copy in paste from that to make the same stupid points over and over again without trying.

Considering no one is able to formulate responses to these arguments, I actually do have boiler-plate responses to the same retarded arguments people throw out every single time. It saves me a ton of time.

The day when someone has the ingenuity and intelligence to say something novel in response to those arguments, instead of spewing generic butthurt at me, I will actually take the time to respond.

[Gredival]

The reason cheating exists is the sheer fact that it gives advantages, and usually has an extremely low chance of consequences resulting from said cheating. Since when did SE go after windower? It's common knowledge that the majority of the PC community uses the unofficial windower in some fashion, they could easily shut them down or ban many users if they truly wanted to.

That's my point. Giving people "a fair shot" won't stop anything. Cheating isn't a flaw tied to the HNM system, it's a flaw of SE policing.

No matter what end game content exists, people will cheat. People cheated in Salvage where there wasn't competition.

[Noob]

I wasn't even talking to you, lol.

Right.

[Noob]

That's my point. Giving people "a fair shot" won't stop anything. Cheating isn't a flaw tied to the HNM system, it's a flaw of SE policing.

No matter what end game content exists, people will cheat. People cheated in Salvage where there wasn't competition.

^This. People who bitch about botting, something SE never policed, are idiots. Cheating sucks, but when SE never did anything about it, it forced players who wanted to get geared well to do it, because everyone else was doing it, and nothing was being done about it. If you were too high and mighty to do it, then that was your choice, but bitching about something that was practically legal with how lenient SE was towards it is absolute foolishness.