Where has the skill gone??

[HAcoreRD]

And what the hell is up with people /telling you {Hello!} and once you reply (because hey, maybe it's someone I 'know' and I just forgot), they ask you to join their parties? Ask in your first /tell so I can just ignore you! ><

seriously, I don't think there is anything wrong with this at all.

It's way more polite than "pt k" or xxxx invites you to join party out of nowhere. (i've gotten both numerous times at 75 too)

usaully done to tell if the person's afk.

[Evelyn]

I remember way back when, you'd have to turn vacuum tubes on and off if you wanted to attack a mob.

"Oh shit, another bad tube! Quick replace it or I'm gonna delevel!"

Seriously though, in every other mmo I've played there was some kind of mandatory boot camp, either on a seperate island or some mandatory cs you had to go through that explained everything. Need to do that now.

"You're 75? great. Now go talk to that drill sergeant over there. He'll show you how shit gets done. Don't want to? Heres a loaded gun, go have fun."

[Diametric]

And what the hell is up with people /telling you {Hello!} and once you reply (because hey, maybe it's someone I 'know' and I just forgot), they ask you to join their parties? Ask in your first /tell so I can just ignore you! ><

That would be why.

[Kyreth]

I always laugh when people say "I yearn for the olden days when everyone got shitty exp and needed 50% more to reach 75.. why cant we have those gold old days back".

I think they are usually talking in a nostalgic sense, you'd have to be a retard not to see exp'ing/meriting is a lot better now.

The easier it becomes to exp/merit, the stupider your PT becomes.

My best PT's haven't ever been the ones where I feel like I'm towing retards like so many anchors on a chain, no matter how much exp we made. They've been the ones where every mob died smooth as a $100 whiskey shot going down your throat, the tank keeps the mob stuck to him with superglue, and at the end you can say "Good job" to every member of the PT and fucking mean it.

Average meritpo, you can't tell who's got a brain cell nowadays without a parser, because it's all about the e-peen numbers, random WS-smashing, and /NINsturbation. Come to think, that's likely why I only bring out the 75 RDM for Dynamis and such...

[Thistle]

And what the hell is up with people /telling you {Hello!} and once you reply (because hey, maybe it's someone I 'know' and I just forgot), they ask you to join their parties? Ask in your first /tell so I can just ignore you! ><

seriously, I don't think there is anything wrong with this at all.

It's way more polite than "pt k" or xxxx invites you to join party out of nowhere. (i've gotten both numerous times at 75 too)

usaully done to tell if the person's afk.

Exactly, that's why I hate it. It's sneaky. I'd rather just have a "pt?" tell than a "{Hello!}" because I can ignore the pt? one.

A {Hello!} might be crafting business, LS question, or someone I "know" but forgot. I can't ignore a {Hello!} without risking missing something.

If you tell me {Hello!} and I respond, and then you ask me to party, I'm not going to go "Oh fiddlesticks! You caught me! Okay, I'll come party!", I'm just going to be more annoyed at you than I would have been if you asked me outright.

[Plow]

And what the hell is up with people /telling you {Hello!} and once you reply (because hey, maybe it's someone I 'know' and I just forgot), they ask you to join their parties? Ask in your first /tell so I can just ignore you! ><

seriously, I don't think there is anything wrong with this at all.

It's way more polite than "pt k" or xxxx invites you to join party out of nowhere. (i've gotten both numerous times at 75 too)

usaully done to tell if the person's afk.

Exactly, that's why I hate it. It's sneaky. I'd rather just have a "pt?" tell than a "{Hello!}" because I can ignore the pt? one.

A {Hello!} might be crafting business, LS question, or someone I "know" but forgot. I can't ignore a {Hello!} without risking missing something.

If you tell me {Hello!} and I respond, and then you ask me to party, I'm not going to go "Oh fiddlesticks! You caught me! Okay, I'll come party!", I'm just going to be more annoyed at you than I would have been if you asked me outright.

GOD WHY? WHY DOES NO HAVE TO CONSIST OF 2 WHOLE LETTERS FUCK I CAN'T POSSIBLY TURN PEOPLE DOWN WITHOUT COMPLETELY IGNORING THEM WHY GOD WHYYYYYY?!

[Lordender]

ToAU made people more dumb than ever, I blame SE. SE gave this expansion to newbs on a silver platter by dumbing the game down.

[Fridell]

The easier it becomes to exp/merit, the stupider your PT becomes.

[BRP]

ToAU made people more dumb than ever, I blame SE. SE gave this expansion to newbs on a silver platter by dumbing the game down.

10/10 Zam

[Asharah]

Lol i was lvling in CN yesterday and had someone remind me of the days people would train Knight Crawlers to Zone. Locking the place for like an hour while other people aggrod until a group of high lvls did the clear out.

It made me giggle as frustrating as i thought it was at the time i kinda miss that xD.

Same with GC and the Citadel Bats.

People these days will never know all that.

Oh well DietFFXI is the new flavor apparently and ive always hated Diet. =(

[Dexy]

They should make a FFXI+1 server that has all the stuff from 3 years ago, minus the really gay crap. Make shit really hard, HNMs, XPing, all of it.

Man, imagine the 2-3Hr Fafnirs of yesteryear, epic struggles.

[Eldelphia]

At 70s Camping behind Moon gate. I mean, who's went there in the past year?

Funnily enough me. Every camp we were looking at was packed (was levelling my BRD with lsmates static) and so I suggested we go there. We tried it and people hated it but I remember when it was damn good 'secret' xp and it was never packed, although you might have to indicate East or West occasionally in your /seacom.

I kinda miss KRT parties >.> because it was more fun for a WHM than I'd had in a while. I also loved xping on tormentors (late 60's) in Den of Rancor.

[Arkanna]

At 70s Camping behind Moon gate. I mean, who's went there in the past year?

Funnily enough me. Every camp we were looking at was packed (was levelling my BRD with lsmates static) and so I suggested we go there. We tried it and people hated it but I remember when it was damn good 'secret' xp and it was never packed, although you might have to indicate East or West occasionally in your /seacom.

Oddly enough, I was there sometime in the last 6 months as well. Right around when my BLU reached 70, I was pretty desparate to get 75 because in my Limbus shell, you need a relevant job @ 75 before you're allowed to lot on Homam/Nashira, regardless of attendance/points. After a bad day of parties, I received an invite from a PUP who said we were going to Moon. My "Spider Sense" tingled, but I wanted exp, so I joined.

Needless to say, the party was awful. It made me remember back in 2004 when I was exp'ing SMN to 75 on Weapons in Ru'Avitau. The PUP used the melee frame and /WAR, and with Weapon AoE going off every 10-20 seconds, she was more often than not without a pet. Head Butt worked ok, but as everyone should know it's not 100% reliable. I ended up setting Frypan and just spamming stuns as the party went on because I was sick of 2.5k an hour.

It turned out, the party ended abruptly when the other melee DD decided he needed to go. The PUP invited a DRK ... who had no idea what "Moon" is, let alone having the pass to get in.

[Ciaran]

Wow. Alot of memories came back.

I remember when the exp parties were RDM WHM BLM PLD THF and SAM, or THF and DRK, or THF and whoever could setup the SC. The entire point of the party was to set up Distortion so the BLM could magic burst and kill the mob. God, so many crabs. Too many crabs. And Raise III was several mil - you were lucky to know a WHM with Raise 3. And Erase was a mark of status for lower level WHM's. And Joyeuse was a RDM weapon, and hardly any WAR ever used it.

KRT, Valley of Sorrows, Ose camp. God those bring back memories. I remember, in one of my first merit parties when merits just came out, our "tank" was an osode wearing WAR, at the statue camp right before that zone where you fight shorty. The ring with all the statues. Had a RNG and a WHM, and a few others, and wasn't half bad.

And then CoP came out, and all of the sudden we had Bibiki Bay to exp in, and Lufaise Meadows. Perytons, and occasionally the Tavnazian Rams. And back then Bibiki Bay and Lufaise Meadows were awesome exp, not as good as main camp, but better than everywhere else.

But yeah, I agree. Nowadays, we get melee who don't know how to skillchain. It's really, really sad when you see a SAM not hit a single skillchain on Fafnir. It's even worse when he has the best gear possible and Relic GKT because he's a rampant gilbuyer. Then we get BLM's who can't magic burst, because they would rather solo or manaburn. Or who keep nuking to try and achieve the "maximum damage" for epeen, forgetting to cast stoneskin and then getting royally raped by whatever mob they just overnuked. Red Mages who are used to curing, hasting, and one refresh only, so they can't keep a damn Refresh order up, and then fail to realize that they should be silencing spellcasting mobs in dynamis. Or they get overwhelmed with their spellcasting and forget that, hey, Refresh and Haste both have timers. It's perfectly ok to enfeeble during the recasts. In fact, you can easily get 1-2 spells off between Refresh timer. (Actually had a RDM try telling me he couldn't enfeeble a sky god because he was busy refreshing 4 black mages in his party.)

The old days bred good players, because most people would spend days on a single level, instead of 2-3 hours. And either you learned your job, or you developed a good enough reputation as a bad player that nobody invited you, and then they remembered that whenever you tried to join a HNMLS. And as much as I enjoy the changes, I hate that it's allowed so many BAD players to get multiple 75s.

Nowadays, if I'm meriting, it's with LS members and friends only. I don't bother with strangers unless I absolutely can not help it. Though, it'll be interesting to see of WotG will introduce newer, better camps that will outdo ToAU exp by the same amount as ToAU did everything else. In a way, I really hope not.

[Zarath]

Ah I just recalled something...

Arrowburn!!!! god I miss pre-fix/nerf (it's not so bad now, still though... there's some improvements that can be made) RNG ; ; (KC+Slug shot = maximum fun :D)

[Arkanna]

We just need WotG to introduce a couple new things to exp'ing in FFXI.

1) Make the mobs meatier, so it takes things like level 2 or 3 skillchains plus a magic burst to kill them efficiently. Make them take a larger than normal amount of damage from skillchains and bursted magic only.
2) Make them worthwhile for exp'ing over TAU mobs by granting the party bonus exp based on the level of skillchains performed (+5% for a level 1, 10% for a level 2, 15% for a level 3 maybe?..) as well as for magic bursted nukes (20% .. might be a little high, but it would get BLM's a pt slot again).

It would need tweaked, maybe limit each party to one skillchain bonus and one magic burst bonus per mob. Also, spells that don't do (much) damage would either not contribute a bonus or would need modified as to not burst on skillchains. Also, while they're at it, make WHM nukes worth a damn when bursted on a skillchain or against certain mobs. Cure V, Banish III, or Holy on a Qutrub for example should do serious damage. Remember Rosa in FF2E/FF4J? Her Holy was some nasty shit. It may throw WHM's out of balance a bit if it's not kept under control, but there has to be better reasons to invite BLM's and WHM's to exp in WotG. Please SE! >.>

[Aymee]

Nowadays, if I'm meriting, it's with LS members and friends only. I don't bother with strangers unless I absolutely can not help it. Though, it'll be interesting to see of WotG will introduce newer, better camps that will outdo ToAU exp by the same amount as ToAU did everything else. In a way, I really hope not.

I have kinda mixed feelings about this...

More camps would mean much easier chances to merit. We all agree we need more/new camps anyway so people can stop obsessing over the defaultly most-awesome 6-7 ToAU camps that offer chain infinity.
On the other hand, do we really want to average player to be even more lacking in skill, and be babied through things even more easily? I LOVED CoP-- the new EXP spots were good and all had a particular charm to them and it was refreshing. Like... Goblin Anglers drop fishing rods! Nice touch. Even when tweaked out really well, it was probably about 50-60% of what considered the best exp/hr now but it was always fun. Even better--CoP was haaaaard and time consuming if you worked at it asap. Just running through the lvl-capped zones and doing some of the NMs/BCs could notably improve your skills and ability to use your main job. Now, people are lawl'ed through CoP and never actually have to make an effort.

20k/hr is lovely, but there are times when it feels really good to fight harder stuff where it takes a truly intelligent PT to do well. Like, due to everything being crowded, I took a 67-69 PT to decos this weekend. ...Brutal at that level, or at least far more challenging than any ToAU exp mob. The EXP could have been considered awful by the spoiled types, but the PT didn't care. It was nice to have to try for once--I'd totally forgotten how much stronger the old mobs are at an equal level to a puk or colibri. Please note I said 'harder stuff', not 'impossibly stupid' stuff (re: Flayers).

Dear SE: When you add mobs that are VT/IT+ to 75s, make sure you can actually exp on them. For instance, puks are pathetically weak, Mamool are almost about right, and then you give us impossible crap like Flayers. wtf. Why are you putting them there at that level? So the 2 people a day that walk through there have to contend with truesound things? We have enough completely useless zones already--don't make places entirely black-and-white about if it's possible to exp there or not. Thickets, Woodlands = well-constructed. Reef, most of Mire = fail. Gimmick mobs like tonberry = tedious (1-shot for 12k dmg from an NM!), gimmick mobs like formor = clever, gimmick mobs like apkallu = hot.

[Ciaran]

Even better--CoP was haaaaard and time consuming if you worked at it asap. Just running through the lvl-capped zones and doing some of the NMs/BCs could notably improve your skills and ability to use your main job. Now, people are lawl'ed through CoP and never actually have to make an effort.

Yeah. CoP WAS hard, and having a Rajas or Tamas ring was a sign of pride. But those fights had everything in it.

Promies, you had to learn how to ninja your way through true sight monsters without getting aggro. Leading a party no less. Someone really good at MGS'ing their way through monsters could get to the very top without aggroing one monster. (Including the top floor. ) Only took me about a dozen runs to the top helping out various peopole...

Snoll, you had to learn what zerging was. Mithra and most of the other BC's, you had to sit down and plan things, like when a certain person would use a med and who would do what role, and when each would 2 hour. When it was harder, it made people learn how to coordinate, work together.

But then SE went and nerfed everything because the bad players kept crying about how it was too hard. Now they are spoon fed everything just so they'll shut up. SE needs to unnerf some things.

[Lordender]

ToAU made people more dumb than ever, I blame SE. SE gave this expansion to newbs on a silver platter by dumbing the game down.

10/10 Zam

Dunno if we're playing the same game, people have become a lot more retarded since this expansion made everything easier. You got people who hit 75 in a month because of ToAU leveling and they still have 0 understanding of how the game works and how to play their job. You have retarded linkshells killing HNM's that used to take skill because of the PLD changes, there are several linkshells on my server that wouldn't even be able to kill tiamat if it wasent for those pld changes.

I don't see how its a zam quote, ToAU took the elegance out of the fights in the end game for those who were involved in the end game for many years.

[Septimus]

ToAU made people more dumb than ever, I blame SE. SE gave this expansion to newbs on a silver platter by dumbing the game down.

10/10 Zam

Dunno if we're playing the same game, people have become a lot more retarded since this expansion made everything easier. You got people who hit 75 in a month because of ToAU leveling and they still have 0 understanding of how the game works and how to play their job. You have retarded linkshells killing HNM's that used to take skill because of the PLD changes, there are several linkshells on my server that wouldn't even be able to kill tiamat if it wasent for those pld changes.

I don't see how its a zam quote, ToAU took the elegance out of the fights in the end game for those who were involved in the end game for many years.

No, this expansion just allowed noobs to get to 75 faster. I knew plenty of 75 noobs before ToAU, if it takes 1 month or 1 year, an unskilled moron can gimp his/her way to 75 through sheer force of will with zero concept of how to his/her job.