New or Returning Players Discussion 3: FFXI Single Player Edition

[WyldFyre]

I didn't consider waiting for a party and finally getting one to be an achievement.

"WOAH I GOT A LEVEL ON PUP SOLO IN THE CRAWLERS NEST BECAUSE NO ONE WOULD INVITE ME! LOOK AT ME GUYS!"

Pup was introduced after XI was bastardized anyway.

RotZ days were the golden era.

[S N K]

Not really, no.

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Gonna have to disagree. Back then leveling was a huge pain in the ass compared to what it is now. If you were a DD, you were seeking in town for hours even if you had good shit. Being a WHM RDM or BRD you had complete command of what parties you chose to join. Sadly as I said before being a DD you were at the mercy of someone searching your name in the hopes that your search message was good enough for whoever needed you to fill a slot.

Also let's be real on the Limit Break items. The Ancient Papyrus was fucking horrible on the drop rate. I remember people spending upwards of 6 to 15 hours farming Liches and never seeing that shit drop. One guy back in the day of Fairy named Revolt made an alliance just to farm that shit. 18 people in the zone killing Liches that day. A paper finally drops, Revolt then QM'd the drop, broke the ally and warped out. You can only imagine how many people were pissed about that.

Coffer Key farming was also a shitfest back then as well now that I think about. Living in zones for hours upon hours even with a thief present and shit not dropping was soul crushing to a lot of people. It might not seem a big achievement to you my man but to some people getting to 75 was a major feat when you think how restricted things were compared to what they are now.

Shit like capping Haste on every job wasn't possible. NMs like King Arthro, Stroper Chymes, Simurgh, Roc, Monster Signa, Ochidu's Kote, and Kings were heavily camped by JPs or RMTs when the game was new to a lot of us NA players and even thinking of getting those "Dream" items was just that, a failed Dream for a lot of people. Not to mention the claim system was pure shit before it got patched and even afterwards it was still shit thanks to botting software like NASA that if you didn't cheat the system you had no way of getting the drops you wanted.

So yeah among all that, EXPing in good groups was sometimes a rarity and you were lucky to keep Chain 5s with Pick Up groups with people who barely knew how their jobs worked or those who under geared themselves to a point they couldn't hit shit much less the idea of spending gil on food was a foreign idea to them. Hell I had a PT in the nest I remember clearly with a NIN tank who didn't have Utu Ni and when I asked him why, He said "Well you don't really need Ni to tank." or the time I had an RDM in Kuftal Tunnal on crabs around level 50 who didn't have Dispel. Fuck just thinking about that now makes me sad. lol

My original first 75 was RDM and I almost gave up getting to it because so many parties were fucking god awful. It wasn't until I finally got a static with a couple of dudes who were looking for an RDM that I was able to painlessly make it to the end which I felt was a major finish even now.

[WyldFyre]

Gonna have to disagree. Back then leveling was a huge pain in the ass compared to what it is now. If you were a DD, you were seeking in town for hours even if you had good shit. Being a WHM RDM or BRD you had complete command of what parties you chose to join. Sadly as I said before being a DD you were at the mercy of someone searching your name in the hopes that your search message was good enough for whoever needed you to fill a slot.

Also let's be real on the Limit Break items. The Ancient Papyrus was fucking horrible on the drop rate. I remember people spending upwards of 6 to 15 hours farming Liches and never seeing that shit drop. One guy back in the day of Fairy named Revolt made an alliance just to farm that shit. 18 people in the zone killing Liches that day. A paper finally drops, Revolt then QM'd the drop, broke the ally and warped out. You can only imagine how many people were pissed about that.

Coffer Key farming was also a shitfest back then as well now that I think about. Living in zones for hours upon hours even with a thief present and shit not dropping was soul crushing to a lot of people. It might not seem a big achievement to you my man but to some people getting to 75 was a major feat when you think how restricted things were compared to what they are now.

Shit like capping Haste on every job wasn't possible. NMs like King Arthro, Stroper Chymes, Simurgh, Roc, Monster Signa, Ochidu's Kote, and Kings were heavily camped by JPs or RMTs when the game was new to a lot of us NA players and even thinking of getting those "Dream" items was just that, a failed Dream for a lot of people. Not to mention the claim system was pure shit before it got patched and even afterwards it was still shit thanks to botting software like NASA that if you didn't cheat the system you had no way of getting the drops you wanted.

So yeah among all that, EXPing in good groups was sometimes a rarity and you were lucky to keep Chain 5s with Pick Up groups with people who barely knew how their jobs worked or those who under geared themselves to a point they couldn't hit shit much less the idea of spending gil on food was a foreign idea to them. Hell I had a PT in the nest I remember clearly with a NIN tank who didn't have Utu Ni and when I asked him why, He said "Well you don't really need Ni to tank." or the time I had an RDM in Kuftal Tunnal on crabs around level 50 who didn't have Dispel. Fuck just thinking about that now makes me sad. lol

My original first 75 was RDM and I almost gave up getting to it because so many parties were fucking god awful. It wasn't until I finally got a static with a couple of dudes who were looking for an RDM that I was able to painlessly make it to the end which I felt was a major finish even now.

Brother from another mother! As a taru rdm fighting Maat back then, believe me when I say I feel your pain.

Red mages should have gotten a trophy for beating Maat on their first job back then (not on subsequent fights en route to Maat's Cap, though).

[Draylo]

I can only roll my eyes so hard so many times.

It was a fun period in the games/my life but read what you wrote, 8 hours farming an item just to raise a level cap lol.

[Spicyryan]

I can only roll my eyes so hard so many times.

It was a fun period in the games/my life but read what you wrote, 8 hours farming an item just to raise a level cap lol.

I knew better than to disagree with a couple of masochists. Glad you get it though.

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[Day]

Getting to 75 was absolutely accomplishment at one point in this game. I don't know if I'd describe it as enjoyable now, it was at the time though.

[Spicyryan]

Getting to 75 was absolutely accomplishment at one point in this game. I don't know if I'd describe it as enjoyable now, it was at the time though.

Depends if you hit 75 in the modern era.

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[Day]

What depends on it? Being an accomplishment? Modern era is trusts and not even gearing your character so obviously it's a joke.

Being enjoyable is entirely subjective to the player.

[Spicyryan]

What depends on it? Being an accomplishment? Modern era is trusts and not even gearing your character so obviously it's a joke.

Being enjoyable is entirely subjective to the player.

You said that you don't know if you'd describe hitting 75 as enjoyable now. I was asking if you have actually hit 75 anytime recently.

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[Day]

Oh, I didn't see a question at all, but to answer it, I hit 75 during CoP era, and have also hit 99 multiple times this year.

[Xno Kappa]

I like how dying is so inconsequential to your exp now lol. I bet it makes spells like Raise 3 absolutely pointless.

RDM was my first 75 job and it absolutely was an accomplishment during the RotZ/CoP era. I can only imagine the poor DRG’s and shit that LFG for entire days without an invite lol.

[Spicyryan]

I like how dying is so inconsequential to your exp now lol. I bet it makes spells like Raise 3 absolutely pointless.

Any spell that isn't arise is rather detrimental.

Aside from that XP was never the main draw to raise tiers. It is the fact that you get more HP while weakened; the higher the raise.

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[Tokitoki]

The % exp raise gave back was definitely a draw years ago. When you were only getting 5k/hr and lost 10% on death it mattered.

[Isiolia]

The % exp raise gave back was definitely a draw years ago. When you were only getting 5k/hr and lost 10% on death it mattered.

Yeah, there was a point where that mattered (a little), though even then only really on jobs like BLM or PLD that tended to not get many invites for XP/merit parties.

These days, like mentioned, Arise/Reraise IV are the thing for that 3 minute weakness timer. Otherwise, it's nice to use the higher tier spells if someone is going to try and get up with AoE going off (or just have multiple recast timers to work with if you had a wipe or something).

[mallister]

i was drk only when i hit 75 back in the day. i don't know if i'd call it an accomplishment, but it certainly was a fucking ordeal. the game was retarded.

i'm actually having fun playing now. it may as well be a totally different game.

[Kalmado]

My first ever 75 was Warrior and it took months. So many nights LFG where I'd end up never getting picked up and would spend the night watching movies. Same with Thief. On my second character I had ready and waiting as many white box, blue box, and rare/ex things for both Warrior and Thief. It would be so gratifying to be putting up huge WS numbers in the early 50s and I made some good friends just from that.

I don't know if I'd call getting 75 an accomplishment for myself, but I see it for others because as already said, if you didn't have the right job you weren't getting anywhere if you didn't have a static or good LS.

[Omnipotent]

Getting 75 was certainly an accomplishment. I remember my first 75 being BLM burning skeletons in KRT. I warped back to Jeuno and saw a Galka run into his MH a WAR and come out a level 75 WHM and I was astonished how anyone could have two level 75's. The biggest PITA that this game had was traveling which has been fixed. Getting a party to fight robber crabs at Cape Terrigan without anyone dying through Kuftal was an accomplishment in itself.

[Enkidu]

I didn't consider it an accomplishment, but more of a relief. Going from 70-75 on Thief was terrible as a first job, and the game didn't make it easy. You couldn't even craft/fish/farm without needing 30 minutes to re-inventory for a party so all you could do is wait. My 2nd/3rd jobs with LS semi-statics with fully geared players was much better, really cemented my love for Vana'diel. We'd level in the most obscure places, pretty much a new location every party, and if we needed to bring a rando out they'd always be so skeptical at first because we weren't at crab camp #5.

That said, I think the game is even better now for leveling. So much more gratifying to be able to summon some of the most interesting heroes and bring them literally anywhere you want at any time. I had tons of fun leveling up 3 jobs to 99 and finishing all the mission content, but then the game got stale fast. I think it's just due to the age of the game and the feeling that it's no longer relevant.

[Kalmado]

Getting 75 was certainly an accomplishment. I remember my first 75 being BLM burning skeletons in KRT. I warped back to Jeuno and saw a Galka run into his MH a WAR and come out a level 75 WHM and I was astonished how anyone could have two level 75's. The biggest PITA that this game had was traveling which has been fixed. Getting a party to fight robber crabs at Cape Terrigan without anyone dying through Kuftal was an accomplishment in itself.

This and the changes made are a huge reason I've stayed subbed recently. I was shocked when I learned I didn't have to run thru Pal Mines to get to the BCNM anymore. And then, all the other added home points and the survival guides. In some respects traveling around was fun to see the zones, but when it would take at bare minimum 15 minutes of travel to do anything, that sucked the fun right out of the game. And yeah, when people could not be bothered to brink sneak and invisible to exp camps, events, etc and it would fuck everything up was a real killer too.

[Omnipotent]

{Teleport-Holla} {Teleport-Dem} {Teleport-Mea} {Do you need it?} $5,000. /tell.

(Still saving up for Altepa, Yhoat and Vazhl).