Absolute Virtue feature on Massively.com

[Linktri]

You ever see that movie "23" with Jim Carrey? AV is the number 23, man. This shit is maddening. All the stupid fucking little clues that Squeenix drops aren't enough to pique the interest of the community for more than just a month or two. In fact, I think there's more animosity towards Squeenix from the player base. They threw us a bone and as soon as we bit into it, we realized that they soaked it in piss before letting us at it. Not fucking funny. Now more than ever, when someone tries to post theories on AV, they are mercilessly flamed and told they are not worth the spent placenta their mother expelled after they were born. The reason being simply, it's been tried. It's been discussed. Everything that can be done has been done. I don't remember how many active accounts are playing FFXI at end-game but I'll take a stab at about 100,000 people. If a 100,000 people can't figure out how to beat AV in 3 to 4 years, then it's broken. Fuck Square Enix for their stupid ass joke. It wasn't funny when it was released and it's far less funny now. I hope they all get hairy anal warts.

[The Blackrose]

edit: Also wtf are you talking about Dynamis are instanced

Dynamis is not instanced. The day multiple groups have access to it at the same time is the day it will be instanced. Reservation systems != instancing.

If only I had that picture from VGCats with Light bitchslapping Mega Man.

As for AV, at this point the main reasons have been glossed over, so at this point there's nothing but opinion left.

What started out as an intriguing mob has become an absolute joke. It is the last testament of the Chains of Promathia team, a team who by many opinions made this game a living hell. A mob that can suddenly combine Manafont + Chainspell + Meteor to make your party wipe. A mob that can chain Benediction to eliminate any sort of progress you had made. He hands you your ass without the use of an ounce of lube, promises to call back in the morning only to never show.

The biggest frustration over the years is that every time SE has been asked about AV, they either dodge the question or deflect it with the "Regen" issue. Originally it was like they have the SOP system stuck to their head, but instead of hearing "La-li-lu-le-lo" they replace AV with Jailer of Love. Eventually the playerbase figured out how to eliminate AV's Regen, but when prompted on AV SE still continued on about the regen. This became readily apparent 2-3 interviews ago by Bercus.

When the video of the AV fight was released, everyone was excited. And once all the dust cleared, after all of the card crusher memes played out, after all the jokes about what was going on (RDM meleeing with staff), we were right back at square one: knowing absolutely nothing. The video was written off as nonsensical tripe. If zooming in on the chatlog was supposed to be some sort of viable way to convey a hint, then SE failed with spectacular efficiency.

Around these forums, AV is considered a dead horse, beaten to death time and time again. Any new post on the subject with someone who thought they had the most original idea in the universe (and really did not because it was covered 20 pages ago and was either dismissed outright to much ridicule or failed) is immediately quashed.

AV is considered the last frontier of FFXI (with the exception of Pandemonium Warden, who was recently introduced). His loot table is known, with some desired pieces (one of which was a recent focus on some drama on the Advanced boards). Hell, I'd like to take a Futsuno on a test run. But until someone can magically pull a solution from the depths of their keister, the only people who know about AV is SE. Unless SE decides to release an informational bit on AV that does not suck, AV will remain undefeated.

[Zoot]

In my opinion, the way the mob is designed and the support this company has given its fans on this issue is seriously flawed.

I don't understand the motivation a company would have that would lead them to so continuously drag us along the treadmill after the illusory carrot. Suspense and challenge only carries so far in an MMO; People maintain a level of interest in something so long as there is a glimmer of feasable hope that a goal can be achieved. If you do not know when it is time to give your audience even a fair chance at winning, you are doing it wrong.

They did "try" to give us a hint with thier cryptic video, however, that video did nothing but show us about nuking with the according elementals of the day. Two hours are too impractical of a tool to work with in that they can only be used every two hours and can only be restored every two hours. This is NOT a clever ploy by the development team, and whoever thinks it is is some kind of sadistic. If this is the only way we can discover the 'secret', it is a very unfortunate game design.

A challenge that all people approach, attempt, struggle with and eventually throw aside, frustrated, having wasted so much time in vain is a failure. I am far from a naysayer on Squarenix. They have done a marvelous job, in my opinion, with the new update. However, it only takes a little bit of common sense and a lot of wasted time to realize that they didn't do a good job at all on this mob.

Also, we don't do it anymore (BtL Seraph). Those people who preach that it can be killed and continue to theorize at this point fall into two categrories: Those that will never and have never fought AV, and those that have not yet fought AV and will join our negative sentiment towards this issue once they understand through experience how ridiculous it is.

[ringthree]

In general, I would suggest ignoring over 3/4th of the posts in this thread as whining and not understanding the situation at all.

The first thing to remember is that AV in it's current form is completely defeatable.

The second thing to remember is that we have no idea how to do it.

That is the major problem, the mob is hard, but it has been defeated when certain triggers were accidentally discovered. The problem is that these old triggers were glitches and have since been repaired, and we still do not know how to activate the triggers or prevent alliance wiping attacks from happening. SE has hinted to us on how to do it, but they have been vague and the hints have been unhelpful.

Whenever you discuss AV there will always be a ton of whining about it being unbeatable, or other such nonsense. Here is a metaphor, AV is a very complex puzzle, which you have tried a thousand times to solve but nothing seems to work. You know there is a solution, but you have no frame of reference to even try something new, so you just give up. After a while the creator of the puzzle comes along and gives you the instructions to solve the puzzle, but they are written in a language no one has ever seen before and you have no comparison to translate the instruction.

At this point it is just sheer frustration from the community that keeps people from trying AV any more.

[Charismatic]

The first thing to remember is that AV in it's current form is completely defeatable.

defeatable by who?
The development team that has characters that can use their 2hr abilities over and over within a short amount of time, and lord knows what other differences their characters may have had from our own?

To say that it is defeatable in its current form is merely speculation.

[Zoot]

I'm pretty sure that what this person wants is the general attitude and feel of the people who have had experience with the subject, as well as the general populace of the game. Why ignore what they're looking for? The general public opinion matters as much as the truth, and this is especially true to the company, so it's one aspect of what the article will reflect. Journalism in this form is all about viewpoints.

[isladar]

AV has incredible powers that extend far beyond instant-cast meteor and Aeroga 4 -- it has the capability to turn otherwise intelligent, astute players into slobbering sub-humans who can do nothing but chew over the stale vomit of information that has been regurgitated a thousand times before, and take an unholy delight in spewing utterly ridiculous theories that really only prove that they've fallen into the endless abyss of retardation that the AV situation has become.

[Olo401]

It should be noted that near the end of the last major AV strategy thread there were some small discoveries made that seemed to be working. This included using a single reaction 2hr to AV readying a 2hr, which supposedly would cut down on the duration of AV's 2hrs and increased the time between AV's 2hrs. Unfortunately extensive testing of this theory hasn't been verified because by the time some progress is being noticed, the group fighting AV is wiped. I'm not that surprised - I've been involved in one fight with AV so far, and this mob really is brutal. I won't say it's unbeatable, but it is a very very difficult task that would take several hours, and I'm thinking at least 2-3 rotating alliances of good, hardcore players to even come close to denting him.

[Zoot]

Also, about the mechanics of the fight:

-AV is generally not too hard to keep. He hits like a truck, shared hate and utsusemi can handle that problem well enough. There are common sense things you need to survive like, keeping it's back to the support, having the support outside of AoE perimeter, baraero, very fast cures, etc, it takes more than a braindead monkey to do and some moves can be crippling but it is possible to completey surivive and even damage AV until one of the major problems that I mention later come about.

-AV appears to be immune to all enfeebling based magic; Dia and Bio, dark magic based enfeebles and elemental based enfeebles can land. Elemental nukes of the day lower its regen, over time.

-The only real two hours that are a problem are Manafont and Benediction. Every other two hour can be handled with a coordinated team. Aeroga IV, Chainspell, MS etc are all minor problems. The real problem here is that Manafont, even when started with Comet, tends to wipe out the entire alliance. It is spread damage, but there is a cap off, so even having hordes of people doesn't help.

Enthusiasm starts to wane as you shave off one percent, then AV benedictions himself for 10k HP to bring him back to 99. These two two hours are the obvious obstacles to beating him.

-The only "hint" given to us is ridiculous to test. All we have left are its two hours, and that's overwhelming, it takes: Fifteen hours at least, or more than two hundred people with perfect coordination to have even a minimal data pool. More than likely, even under perfect conditions, you would just waste sixty hours of continuous gametime for minimal results.

-AV appears to use his two hours at random. The mobs surrounding AV seem to have no bearing on which two hours he uses. We tried so many things, even bringing all of the spawns around him all the way across the map, silencing them, sleeping them, and timing their responses to what AV does...it all ended in coincidental circumstance which eventually showed that there was no connection. AV's two hour durations are the same as player two hour durations.

[Kriz]

I'd also note that SE had promised to show us how to take down AV and the 2007 US FanFest.

When the time came to do it, they said that all the work on WoTG prevented them from showing us, and they'd release a video after FanFest.

Needless to say, we (the audience, and everyone who found out online), were nonplussed. The video was slightly different across each region and had to be combined to make a longer video, and still was not overly helpful.

[Talint]

AV has incredible powers that extend far beyond instant-cast meteor and Aeroga 4 -- it has the capability to turn otherwise intelligent, astute players into slobbering sub-humans who can do nothing but chew over the stale vomit of information that has been regurgitated a thousand times before, and take an unholy delight in spewing utterly ridiculous theories that really only prove that they've fallen into the endless abyss of retardation that the AV situation has become.

Completely and utterly true.

So many desperately look for a quick solution with the delusion of becoming the FFXI messiah; they spew forth out tried theories, ridiculous theories, or a combination of both.

Beware of false prophets.

[Shuemue]

In general, I would suggest ignoring ringthree.

[Linktri]

In general, I would suggest ignoring over 3/4th of the posts in this thread as whining and not understanding the situation at all.

The first thing to remember is that AV in it's current form is completely defeatable.

The second thing to remember is that we have no idea how to do it.

No shit? That's some sage advice there. So, all we need to do is figure it out, huh?

If you can't defeat something because you don't know how, then it's undefeatable. If everyone on every server can't defeat it, it's fucking undefeatable. It's not whining, it's a logical statement.

Fuck it. You're clearly retarded. Forget you read this. Go play with something shiny.

[kayn]

No shit? That's some sage advice there. So, all we need to do is figure it out, huh?

If you can't defeat something because you don't know how, then it's undefeatable. If everyone on every server can't defeat it, it's fucking undefeatable. It's not whining, it's a logical statement.

Fuck it. You're clearly retarded. Forget you read this. Go play with something shiny.

ROFL

[Kyreth]

As you can tell from this thread, Absolute Virtue's greatest power is to make most of it's opponents commit mortal sins, blasphemy included. Murdering the devs might end up on the list eventually as well.

Seriously, it's like AV = CoP F.O.E.

A "surprise!" pop off JOL that obliterates any group that engages it, barring glitches in AV's AI- which then get patched. Whatever pattern of behaviour it uses is incomprehensible to the playerbase. Every standard tactic in the book (and a few zillion that weren't) have been tossed at the mob, resulting in constant failure. Even with glitches, it's only been defeated enough times as to have Ninurta's Sash drop twice- and even then, one of the owners was hijacked by RMT's and lost it as a result.

The video S-E released managed to only increase frustration, as it led to no progress on AV's "kill you all" mode of 2hr ability spam. Hello, Chainspell Meteor death and Benediction spam. If anything, it's the poster child for the most frustrating expansion in the game.

[Silenus]

AV is a mystery wrapped in a riddle and surrounded by enigma.

[Apelila]

AV is a mystery wrapped in a riddle and surrounded by enigma.

Covered in fail, shoved up the playerbases ass. If you ask SE how to take it out, they either Laugh, Ignore the question, or break out a hammer.

[Chupunpupun]

SE has accomplished one thing with AV that no other mob in the game has, strike fear into the players. When it's pops, you're either running for your life or you're already dead. No other mob in the game cause such a reaction among the players.

[kyod]

But, as a journalist, I can't just go back to old threads and pull up what someone said and then quote it. I technically don't have the right. When you guys post to me here, and say these things to me, then you understand that I'm going to quote you and what you say may be reprinted.

So it's not that I don't want to read 80+ pages (it's my job to read 80+ pages) it's just that I'd rather not dance with legal issues, and I'd rather directly talk to the people here, who are looking now, and not what X guy said X years ago, which may or may not be accurate to what's going on now.

So, in short, I'm reading your old posts, but I'd like current sentiment, like how much anyone actually cares to do the mob, if anyone still tries, and things like that.

Since you brought up the journalism card...

So you have or haven't read the 80+ page thread? Because if you didn't...

As a journalist you should have read the 80+ pages before making this post. Rule #1 is do research before you even attempt to get an interview. (i work in chicago at newsradio 780)

Also, you could have easily PM'd people from the 80+ page thread who actually were fighting AV and solicited interviews from them. Takes actual work, sure, but would be infinitely better than making this post. Honestly, if you want material that can be sourced, get actual interviews with people via e-mail/aim/pm/whatever so you can have it saved rather than the chance someone edits their posts and when your editor asks for proof you don't have what they wrote. Yeah you write for some random gaming website, but it's just good practice.

OT rant but I hate when people start preaching about journalistic integrity and don't follow some basic journalistic principles/skills.

[Surealistic]

SE has accomplished one thing with AV that no other mob in the game has, strike fear into the players. When it's pops, you're either running for your life or you're already dead. No other mob in the game cause such a reaction among the players.

except that AV doesnt aggro, so yeah, no