Tuesday, 28 June 2011

The 10th Vanadiel Census

So result of 10th Vanadiel was out, and this year has pretty interesting result.

Main Job Distribution (Level 2-90):

So finally COR is no longer the least played job YAY! It's now No.19, and beats PUP, LOL.

I was kinda surprised to see BLU being No.17 though, but this is data since 2009 so....


Relic weapons:
Apoc still the most popular relic, no surprise.

Mythic weapons:
Only 12 DP accross all servers. Which is not bad, but not too great either.

SE clearly stated that they're going to make mythic easier to obtain again. Makes me wonder if it's worth it to rush on mythic building now. (I've been rushing a lot of Mythic progress recently)

Empyrean weapons:
I was very surprised that there are only 76 lv 90 Armageddon accross all servers o.o, which is lower than all other none-mage lv 90 empyrean weapons(only beats lv 90 staff and club). Even lv 90 empyrean harp has higher numbers. Which is fairly interesting considering empyrean gun is the easiest path. I have no idea why most armageddon owners stopped at lv 85 and won't go for lv 90. I guess that's because lv 90 has limited dmg increase since gun has BS long delay and magical WS not affected by base dmg, making lv 90 less worth the effort. Another reason is probably because ppl don't play cor nowadays....

I'm probably the only NA player I know on this server ever bother with lv 90 gun. I've only seen lv 90 gun on other player on this server once, which is on a JP(for some unknown reason, JPs seems to love Armageddon more than NA/EUs)

Top 100 Monsters that Have KO’d Players:

I can't stop laughing irl when I see Sand sweepers in Abby altepa being No.2 on the list.....this popular EXP mob kills more players than other big bad evil NMs such as Azdaja, Dragua, everything LOL.

GOGO SAND SWEEPERS GOGO!

Linkshells:

Ragnarok server got top 3 for "Combined Wealth of All Linkshell Members" and "Number of GM called made".....Rich ass server is rich ass server....wait, I wonder what LS are those ._.

Closing:

SE said they're going to make a lot of changes in this game.....so time to take a break and focus on new school life? =D

Sunday, 26 June 2011

Virtuous Saint

After one month of failing, finally AV clear with Stealthkiller's LS!




Virtuous Saint title obtained!

This is our "win or bust" last attempt on AV zerg. If fail again, no more AV. So I guess that somehow made everyone determined to get clear.

After kill Bellona's ring(alone with some other stuff) dropped, Stealth wanted to give me Bellonas for free, but I already have Q.Q

Q.Q Now I kinda regret spending 3.5M on it one month ago Q.Q

Q___Q

Anyways, hardest NM title in this game gotgotgotgotgot!

9 Months

After 9 months of release, what has FFXIV become now?

I'll just write a quick review for those who are interested in knowing more about FFXIV, from someone who bought collector's edition on first day of release, been playing since launch on and off, and still haven't ding R50.

Yes, at this point, I have to admit FFXIV is no fun to play, therefore I don't spend a lot of time on it, not as much as FFXI. Although I also have to admit that FFXIV has some extremely innovative idea, but none of them makes the game fun(which is always the most important aspect of any game) to play, sadly.

Note that FFXIV is going to have an update tomorrow, so SE may fix some of the problem tomorrow XD But I doubt the game may change with just one update.

Basically, I really like the causal approach of FFXIV. It benefits those who plays 2~3 days a week and 2~3 hours a day, but punishes those who play everyday for 8 hours. If you play a lot, you will find your class fatigue(that means you level slower) and run out of anima and leve very quickly, make it harder to travel anywhere and no leve to do. However, since I don't play a lot of FFXIV, I'm often sitting with full anima+leve. Those who plays MMORPG like a second job often complain a lot about this, but I don't see what's so bad about only playing the game for few hours a week and still able to catch up quickly. Also, gatherer and crafters are consider jobs, and you can level up by just doing crafts. So if you're kind of player that only want to spend 30 min to play a day and only craft, yes you can do that.


Another concept I like in FFXIV is the freedom. You can use the ability of other class if you have that class leveled. So you can be a lv 10 Lancer casting CureII from lv 20 Conjurer if you have it leveled. You can also equip anything armor on any job at any level, so you can basically dress up however you like, with wide variety of choice for different color. Although armors still has optimal rank and job. But wearing R50 heavy armor on a R1 mage job is pretty cool, I've never really thought about a MMORPG can be played like a social game, and you dress up your avatar the way you like.(Yes, I still hate how every lv90 NIN looks the same in FFXI)

The graphic of this game is top notch, and all the character animations are very nicely done and full of details, makes almost every western MMORPGs look terrible.

IMO, SE is trying to create an MMORPG that is not really MMORPG, instead of playing a MMORPG you kill giant bosses, clear epic dungeons, and obtain epic loot, SE wanted to create a virtual world for players to live in a causal way and play however you like, to interact with other people, with some old MMORPG element such as EXP grind.

Sadly because of it's half baked MMORPG element in it, it ended up as a failure. This game is basically, no fun to play at all.

For example, I don't mind crafting being an important element of the game and one main class. What bothered me the most is that crafting is incredibly boring to do in FFXIV, much worse than FFXI. It takes much longer, but you just sit there spamming buttons. I doubt anyone really craft their way to physical lv 50 - -

The concept of leve quest and behest is pretty cool from a FFXI player's perspective of veiw, you can log on for 30 min, do one quick leve and behest, and log off. You can make progress with 30 min of play time, unlike old FFXI that you have to spend hours to organize an EXP pt to level up. However, leve quest and behest is really just glorified GoV and FoV. You kill x amount of mobs, you get reward. If you want to do GoV/FoV, you can just play FFXI. Not to mention at higher lv you need to get a pt going in FFXIV as well if you want to be efficient. I'm having hard time lving my class after R26 due to the fact that I don't have the patience/time to wait or organize a pt most of the time.

In the end, FFXIV is really nothing but EXP grind. And you can do this in many MMORPG, including FFXI.

Some of the concept in battle system has good idea, but they just don't work very well, that's why the whole battle system ended up as a button mash fest.

I feel like SE has no idea what to do about this game. They wanted to create something different from main stream MMORPGs, but player base doesn't accept it because they want an old MMORPG that's FFXI-2. SE put some of the old FFXI element in it, but it's all half baked. SE wants to attract more causal players, but they didn't do it right, and even real causal players won't find FFXIV fun to play with.

Why this game fail, because SE did not have clear vision of what game they're gonna make, and didn't put the "fun" factor in this game when creating it.

So what's SE gonna do now?

I think they're going to make FFXIV more FFXI like, by implementing instance and dungeons and such. They already said they're going to redo the job system. So in the end this game may really become FFXI-2.

Will this save FFXIV?

To be honest, I doubt it. Ok you make FFXIV into another FFXI, epic dungeon, epic loot, gears takes 5000 hours to obtain, yay. But what's the point to play this particular MMORPG when there are one million other MMORPG on the market that's also all about epic loot?

On the other hand FFXI has become more causal than ever. You no longer have to spend hours to organize an EXP pt, you can do FoV/GoV nowadays if you only have 30 min of play time. Yesterday I was in a GoV pt leveling SAM, with an alliance. GoV alliance can totally be done with any setup, and you can join or leave any time you want. And you can level way faster in FFXI than in FFXIV.

At endgame level you can do abyssea, grind +1/+2/empyrean weapons really fast. The gap between average player base and elite player base are smaller now. I think currently FFXI is just right.

So what's the point to make FFXIV into another FFXI-2? Since FFXI nowadays is causal enough?

When SE made FFXIV, they said they want the players to play both games. But there's no way I'll have enough time to play FFXI and FFXI-2. I personally don't think FFXIV can be saved. But that's mostly because the MMORPG market is already very small, and won't have enough room for another old school MMORPG. Keep FFXIV as it is, it won't attract any hardcore MMORPG players, nor causal players(real causal players don't play EXP grind games). Make it FFXI-2, we can just go play FFXI/WoW/Rift.

And now SE said they're going to make another MMORPG, wtf - -

Well, SE actually made good MMORPG before. I used to love Fantasy Earth Zero very much. It's my first MMORPG, not as time consuming WoW or FFXI and much smaller in terms of scale, but it's really fun to play with, with plenty of new concept and they worked really well. It's not a time sink, and don't need to be played 8 hours a day(in fact if you play 8 hours a day you'd get bored too). But it's certainly causal player friendly. Most important of all, it's fun. If FFXIV can be at least half as fun as FEZ, then it'd be a good game. Too bad it's just too similar to FFXI, but less fun to play with. And even though I rate FEZ a "good" MMO, it's still not that successful.

If SE want to save FFXIV or make another good MMORPG, they need to toss the concept of FFXI completely. And focus on the "fun" concept of a game first. FFXIV, currently is far from being fixed.

Friday, 24 June 2011

Lv 55 Colibri pt

Made a lv 55 colibri pt (SAM SAM SAM SMN WHM PUP)for my lv 65 SAM, mostly just to skill up.

I haven't done any lv 55 colibri pt for 1.5 years. Last lv 55+ job I leveled pre-abyssea is COR, after I got it to 75 I never lv any job 37+ until recently.

After getting spoiled in abby leech pt, I'm not really used to such bad EXP/hr...I mean, for a pt with no COR nor RDM, this pt is not bad at all, much better than average pt with PLD tank. We were getting chain4~5, which isn't that common at lv 55(usually need lv 57+ to kill fast enough), each kill gives 400~700 EXP per kill without EXP band nor EXP roll(with band+roll probably 1.5k per kill XD)

Just that abyssea pt still has better EXP/hr.

I have to comment that SAM is awesome for colibri pt DD, and RNG not as good. RNG gets way too much hate in colibri pt, making the bird go out of the range for other melee jobs, plus mages need to spend more MP to heal the RNG. While SAM has the defensive ability to keep themselves alive, 3 DD taking turn tanking is way better than PLD tank+RNG DD in terms of EXP/hr. I wish I know this 2 years ago when I lv BLU and made colibri pt every night ;(, I used to look for PLD and RNG when I made colibri pt, such a noob I was ;)

I'm enjoying playing SAM so far, another reason why I made a pt instead of leeching, so I actually get to play it. I like the concept of spamming WS, and switching between offensive and defensive mode. Well, NIN and WAR can do the same, but it works differently. Thats why I /SAM on COR a lot recently, being able to spam a huge amount of WS in very short time is fun in Abyssea with WF, plus COR/SAM can full time seigan without sacrificing any dmg.

Anyways, after 1hr of pt, SAM lv 66. Have access to Maat fight now, but I'd rather get it to 75 so I can play it in lv 75 content too.

Been thinking about which Maat job after SAM, most likely THF so I can be TH whore when necessary. I kinda want to play BRD, but just found out ballad scroll now 450k+ - -

I sold my scroll 1 year ago for 90k, because I swear I will never lv BRD and don't need the scroll. Now I guess that's my punishment for breaking my promise - -


Maybe time to make mules and spam the ballad quest for making $$ ;;

Thursday, 23 June 2011

Die-namis at lv 90

Did 2 dyna-xarc run after dynamis update.

First time I did with TE, on COR/RDM, with an alliance of 2 pt.

TE is a pimp LS with almost every member has empyrean weapon(s).

The entire run is just deathga + aggroga. I probably died the most(don't know why I died so fast after doing only 1 WS ;;)
(But TH4 hand dropped into my inventory cuz no one want....I guess that's yay?)

Second time I did with Ager's gang, with only 1 pt, on my 75 RDM/WHM.

Ager's gang is a pimp gang with everyone full +2 5/5, and Ager is an Ochain PLD that can tank anything and solo sky gods+kirin and won't die, and tank 2 Bennu at once easily in abyssea altepa. He also claimed he never need evoker's roll on PLD cuz he never have MP problem)

Again, deathga+aggroga..... plus pimp PLD run out of MP and died as well.
(But RDM pimp hat dropped and I won lot, plus BLM hat dropped into my inv, so yay? =D)

I guess even at lv 90, die-namis still die-namis, no matter how many +2s or empyrean you have, you can't survive after aggroing 5 demons even with a godly Ochain.

Die-namis xarc at lv 90, shows that gears doesn't mean shit if not being careful enough.

I deserve it

The average price of alex is going up by 1~2k every week. I just realized I'm not the only one jacking up the price.....everyone is..

My fault, I deserve it. Now I really need to pay 300M for DP. Good job :(

Tuesday, 21 June 2011

How Abyssea changed fundemental concept of FFXI

In my LS Cynosure, someone is asking what job he should level first. He said he wanted to work on empyrean GS for his DRK multiple times, so I actually want to suggest him to lv NIN, then lv another WHM mule, so he an dual box his Cala all the way to lv 90.

Then somehow I feel kind of sad, to even think that way.

No doubt, lv a NIN or MNK to 90, then lv a WHM mule, is one single fastest way to progress in Abyssea, to get empyrean weapon/+2s done really fast. You no longer have to wait in LS for one million years to start your empyrean weapon, or spend more time to gather helpers+help the helpers back. That's how one of my friend got 3 set of +2s and Kannagi 90(kannagi 90 is much harder than other empyrean btw) done 3 times faster than average players. When most Abyssea LS still getting people +2s, he was already swimming in 3 sets of 5/5 +2 empyrean armor. He even has atma of savior, the way he do things is just extreamly efficent.

Then pretty soon, he told me he get very bored of Abyssea, cuz he already accomplish everything he wanted to.

I can't help but starting thinking how sad it is, that the most efficent way to grind gear in Abyssea is now dual box, with specific jobs.

You no longer do stuff with other player, or interact with other player, if you want to be efficent. Or try different pt setup with different strategy to beat the NM.

And the cost of being efficent? Ppl got bored after everything accomplished.

Is that how playing MMO like FFXI is about? Grind gears 3 times faster than everyone else, but not with other player, but with your mules. And after everything is done, there isnt anything else to be done.

Efficency has always been important in FFXI. In EXP pt, bad EXP/hr=bad pt. If your event LS takes too long to get people gears, then they're not happy. In the end everyone all want to do things faster and more efficent.

I value efficency in FFXI, that's why I came up with such suggestion for someone wanting to do Cala. Sad days for a MMORPG like FFXI, which used to value friendship and companion more than dualbox and grind every gear solo.