9 months of VW

So VW has been out for about 9 months if I remember correctly.

Recently it had been a lot harder to get ppl for VW by /shout, especially none B.rex T6s. T3 is still ok, but T6 is a pain.

And since I'm currently 0/61 Athos body, nearly 0/30 Athos pants, and about 0/24 Athos head, plus nearly 0/100 Toci, it can be a bit frustrating with such bad luck and trouble to gather a group.

How do I like this event in general? Compare with Abyssea and lv 75 era?

Although bad luck getting drop and spending 1~2hr making a pt can be frustrated, I'd say VW is still a fairly enjoyable event, that's very different from 75 era and Abyssea era in many aspect. Note that I've ever done HNM at 75(not like I have an HNM gear job to begin with), so I'll skip that part.

Lv 75 era event are mostly "play this game like a job" era for me. Since you need to enter certain area such as Dyna/limbus/Einherjar on specific time. And there are DKP and lotting right to deal with. So it's an era of log on during certain time when event time is up(and quit possibly skip RL or rush home for it), do the event and get paid. Events in 75 era is pretty serious....at least I took it seriously and would rather like ppl took it seriously too. Most of the event are done with same LS, so it's always same ppl I pt with. Although I only know/interact/talk to maybe 5% of ppl in entire LS as many ppl often come and go.

Abyssea is "play with close friend or mule only" event for me. Ppl with 1~2 close friend or mule can spend all day in Abyssea and get everything. The chance of playing with other none close friend/mule player is pretty low. When Ager just made MLIA, it was a big LS like lv 75 era, with 18 ppl doing events and killing NM. As soon as more ppl discovered the most efficient way of getting Abyssea gears, it no longer works as a lv 75 era event and became a pt of 1~2 player event.

I mostly do VW by /shout or join /shout pt, while dragging ppl I know of if they're interested. I'd say VW is very different from lv 75 era big LS event and Abyssea lowman event. Although /shout can be pretty time consuming, but the fact that everyone gets individual gold chests means at least I don't have to deal with attendance and DKP, which is a pain in the ass IMO. Not to mention I don't really need to do the event like a 2nd job.

Since I make or join /shout pt a lot, I get to know and interact vast variety of player from different LS, who I usually have no chance to play with before. I get to see different players with different play style, and how they perform, which is a good learning process. There are many players I didn't have much chance to talk to before VW........for example I was in Atrele and Ganukay's LS for Einherjar, but rarely talked to them both when I did Einherjar with both LSs. I talked to them a lot often now about VW(and in Ganukay's case, about COR since he's lving it) since we pt a lot for VW.

Slowly I learned who is good at X job and Y job by watching them fight carefully and asked for parse result if someone is parsing, and how to arrange them to have max pt efficiency so ppl with right talent plays right jobs. Sometimes this involves more than looking at their gears....a player with elite gear for A job doesn't necessarily have the talent to play A job efficiently, however he may have talent in playing B job, then I'd still make him come B job. Sometimes if this player have talent in B job, but pt already have B job or doesn't need this job, I'd still make him come B job just so that pt will have better performance.

I find it a lot of fun in a way. To deal with different and new ppl every time, and to learn how they play their job by observing carefully, and make decision for pt management. Since many people plays differently even on same job. Sometimes pt with player who is extremely good at one particular job, sometimes I pt with player that is pretty versatile, have almost every job but none of the jobs stand out. And it's a lot of decision making to decide how to make good use of everyone's ability depending on their talent set.

That's why I'm starting to feel the talk of X job v.s Y job for VW on AH thread is dumb. It's eliminating the difference between each player. And calling others "gimp and not playing right if you're not playing offensively" or "Get better X job to compare" is just assuming we're in a perfect world, with every player perfect and no strength/weakness. That's impractical comparison, and will often lower pt efficiency because the thought of "X job is the best and should do this" will lead to having wrong ppl playing the wrong job or in wrong role.

I know Marquiss plays BLU offensively and have the ability to, that's why I don't see it a big problem to have him enter DD mode when other SAM and DRK couldn't do as much. I know if I play BLU I don't have the ability to deal good dmg especially on T6, so I pretty much always enter full support mode on BLU if it's T6 because it's more beneficial to the pt, and tell other BLUs that can't play that offensively to do so too, and there is nothing fucking wrong with that. I know Returner's DRK has better output than majority of other DRK, so I almost always made him come DRK, and I know a couple of WHM that is skilled, and will have them come WHM. I know my COR contributes in the dmg department a lot, so even if someone else wants to come COR and insisted to, I'd still stay COR myself and make pt double COR. If Blueskysapphire wants to join pt, I almost always made him come RNG also. Sometimes I skipped jobs like SAM, or SMN, even though they can proc and there's a risk of getting locked on proc without one, but it's not always the most efficient way to make pt depending on who I got.

IMO, although dealing with shit drop and /shout for 2hr can be frustrating, VW is still so far the only event I get to pt with this many different ppl, from different timezone/country(I hardly get to pt with JPs before VW exist....none-EXP pt I mean) and Linkshells. I get to pt with many ppl that I will never have a chance to at lv 75/abyssea era.

I guess, in a way I like it. I'm more or less getting tired of close minded nature of Abyssea. In Abyssea dealing with different player's talent set doesn't really matter, it's really the job and proc that matters, with zero pt management element. IMO, VW should really be how this game headed as a direction, as long as they can fix the problem of how I'm running out of players to do B.rex with when everyone else all got Athos body and run ;(