1 year of FFXI, about time

Recently, my FFXI playtime finally broke 1 year mark.

Note that I rarely afk. Even if I do need to afk, I often log out to prevent time continue to tick. So my current time is fairly accurate to my actual time spent in FFXI.

I've been active for past 4.5 years, so around 1/4~1/5 of my life in past 4 years are spent on this game, witch means avg 4~5hr a day.

365 days of FFXI, equal to over 8.7k hrs. In order to become a master at a skill, one would need 10k hours of practice. 8.7k hrs is at least 87% close to master a skill.

Do I regret spending this much time in FFXI? I don't think so. I got majority of the experience I wanted from an MMO in past 4~5 years. Although I avg 4~5hrs a day in a video game/MMO in past 5 years, sacrificed quite a lot of opportunity to meet more real life connections, failed school twice because of MMO(D:), lost 2 jobs because of MMO too(D: D: D:), I certainly have gained something in return.....and maybe a ranting blog with a book's worth of content.

I don't think I've made wrong choice....yet.

But there is a strong voice in my mind telling myself to quit. After 4~5 years of playing, this is first time I feel like quitting not because of the lack of playtime, but because I feel it's about the end of adventure in FFXI, that nothing in this game can satisfy me anymore.

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Recently I decided to pop on ARR forum to see 2.2 changes, since I haven't pop on forum for a while.

First thing I saw:"Patch 2.2, Accessibility, Difficulty levels and throwing away content"(followed by pages and pages of argument about gear progression)

Months ago before I quit FFXIV, I already knew it's gonna happen, just wasn't expecting it happen this fast and SE went toward a further direction to invalidate player's time and effort.

It's almost like "SE: Hey look, you wanna spend more time and effort in our MMO product? /slap your face mwhahahaha, we'll /slap anyone spending too much time in our video game so you guys stop playing"

I had to agree, at one point of time, I really, really wanted to continue to invest more time in ARR endgame to do more raid, but I already knew majority of my time spent is probably going to be wasted by the time 2.2 arrives. I'd ended up need to spend slightly less time in 2.2~2.3 because that's clearly SE's direction....the earlier you start your grind, the more work you have to do, and vice versa.

So technically, I can get things done faster if I come back later, catch up, then quit again. I'd spend less time total by playing on and off every 6 months~1 year, instead of full time a game in entire 6 months. SE's so called "difficult content for hardcore", is more like a cockblock to prevent everyone and their mother finish too fast and quit, less about rewarding the players that plays hard. I cancelled sub right away after I realized this game doesn't worth any time investment.

And there you go. Just as I praised last ilv change that rewards people who actually spent time to play their game, SE pulls off this shit again.

This isn't just ARR direction, it was clearly FFXI direction too. The situation got worse after XI start their monthly update.

In Nov RME was upgraded to ILV119, I finished 119 arma in Dec. In Jan a new gun that's superior to 119 mythic and empy was introduced, dropped from a fairly easy BC.

Further more, I finished 119 AF feet in Jan, and about to finish hands too. Last update dropped something that replaces my 119 AF feet and hands in less than 1 week. So yeah, farmed a fuck tone of merit to do AA, spent quite a lot of gil, 1 week later it's a piece of crap.

Of course, one can argue that "this is just a video game, it's meant to waste time and have fun" blah blah. But if I'm going to waste time in a video game, I expect to get something in return. In the case of single player games, maybe collect trophy and beat a title to seal it in the closet, in the case of MMO, to get shiny. I may not consider getting a shiny and use it for 1 year a waste of time in an MMO, but spent a lot of time on shiny only to be outdated it 1 week later is utter waste of time.

Then that's how I finally realize, for dev, they don't care about player's time, and they're willing to do anything to keep players subbed. They can toss zomg crazy epic boss that only 5% can beat by spending 5hr a day 7 days a week death grinding it to find the mechanics to give them artificial sense of accomplishment, when they feel like everyone needs to continue, they can just do w/e they want so the rest of the players can beat it too to hand out more artificial sense of accomplishment. Spending 10hr a day playing the game and spending 1hr a day get same result in the end, because the goal is to hand out artificial sense of accomplishment to everyone. In the name of "please the majority".

Once upon a time, I consider FFXI one of a title that's closest to real life, that my dream of playing a RPG as 2nd life finally fulfilled in FFXI. But in the end, it's all just illusion. Real life is better, at least real life doesn't invalidate your time and effort. I can kinda guess what's the stat on reforge AF2 and reforge AF3, I can kinda guessed reforged AF1 gonna be shit after next month. This game is same dev as ARR, if they can slap hardcore's face in ARR, they totally can do that in XI too.

IMO, choosing what game to play isn't about throwing away life and get no return besides "fun", it's about competing against another hobby and see which investment has greater return. I see zero return if the gear is too easy to get AND outdate every month, like current FFXI direction.

My 1 year of FFXI probably won't come back, but I got what I was after during this year. I don't think I'm going to get anymore by invest anymore time though, it's done. I've been pretty indecisive about whether I should quit ARR months ago and FFXI too, now this 2.2 discussion thread is pretty much the final nail in the coffin. I don't think I'm going to be into another MMO ever in my life, besides TESO which was planned.

I used to work in MMO industry, and wanted to be a MMO game designer forever too, after realizing what MMO really was, I don't think I want to make my own MMO anymore, lol. Quite frankly, I find invalidating royal fan's effort and time every update not a right thing to do. I'd rather make single player games that give royal fans a fulfilling one time experience, instead of wasting their time by dangling a carrot in front of players with a stick so they keep paying every month, only to waste thousands and thousands of their life that could be spent on something else or another game.

I may give one final chance for FFXI until Feb update, since I still have crysta in account. If I feel like SE isn't respecting player's time, then time to cancel account for a while, maybe for the first time in the past 4~5 years.

Been there, done that. FFXI, you're "just another MMO", after all. Well, maybe you used to be a bit different from other MMO, but not anymore.

JP only....or not

I've been paying attention to PT finder search comment in XIV during free weekend campaign, from what I've seen so far:

Most of the extreme primal pt, coil T5 pt are JP only.

Half of the coil T1~T4 pt are JP only, half of them have no JP only comment.

Everything else rarely have JP only comment.

One of the pt actually have comment telling ppl "as long as you can read above JP comment, we don't care if you'r JP or not"

Pretty much every pt accepting both EN and JP are not JP pt wwwwwww. Just like XI, NA/EU are ok with JP but JP not ok with foreigners lol.

Due to my timezone, pretty much every PVP and PVE pt I got from DF are JP pt. However, I haven't got kicked for being a none JP so far.

I tend to avoid JP only pt in pt finder due to my poor JP anyways. I think I've pissed off my FC coil static due to not be able to understand what they said completely in T5 before I quit 2 months ago :X
But kinda glad that I still have pt to join even if nobody want a foreigner D:

I guess this JP only trend is still acceptable by far, I'm not happy about it, but it seems that I still have 10% of pt that I can join, lol. Considering players on official forum been complaining about PVP players being super rude, and ALL of the JP PVP pt always end with otsukare(great work) no matter win or lose, at least JPs are just nicer to play with.

Sadly, when ppl create a thread about "be nice" on OF, most of the replies were "don't PVP if you can't stand ppl being rude". I've played other MMO with PVP, I know it's full of butthurt/whining kids. But if JP can end every match with otsukare and no butthurt, why can't us English community? lol

Speaking of which, pt finder is probably the greatest addition in 2.1, made me kinda want to forgive shallow to the core PVP completely. One reason is because it allows player to tell whether this pt has serious atmosphere or casual atmosphere.

JPs tend to tell ppl whether this pt has serious atmosphere or casual atmosphere in /shout before pt finder implemented. Serious atmosphere means no mistake, experienced player only. If you want to join as a first time player you better watch youtube vid 10 times. Casual atmosphere means it's ok to make more mistake, or wipe over and over again, or join as first time player. If 1 person make a mistake in first time pt everyone tend to reply with np in such pt.

From my experience, NA/EU /shout rarely separate serious pt or casual atmosphere pt. So new players join a pt, pt wiped because of new player, everyone starts blame game and blame noobs for fucking up the run.

Result? Noobs are unhappy because everyone's rude, experienced players are unhappy too because they just want to have a run complete as fast as possible.

New pt finder allows players to check whether this pt are serious pt run by experienced player or full of first time players. Want an efficient run with no noob? Pick a pt full of experienced player then. Don't want experienced player being rude? Pick a pt that welcomes new player. With pt finder, NA/EU leaders no longer have to rely on /shout to tell the ppl what kind of atmosphere their pt has since majority of the NA/EU player are not used to separating 2 different type of pt to begin with.

Free weekend-first day impression

My LS told me this weekend inactive players can play FFXIV for free, so I decided to give 2.1 a try, although I highly doubt I'll sub after free weekend ends unless my in-game connections drag me in.

I mainly wanted to try PVP, new dungeons and maybe new raid if I have time, I doubt I'll have time to do anything hardcore this weekend.

I decided to try new dungeon first, instances are one of the strongest feature in ARR, of course dungeon first! I used DF for new dungeon Pharos sirius, after 30+ min of painful DF wait time finally got in.

Then first thing I noticed was that I can't check my pt member in instance anymore D:

I'm not sure if they just change it so that you can check pt member equipment other way, or just get rid of it so ppl stop flaming other player's gear in an instance. But I can still kinda tell by looking at the player appearance.

This Pharos Sirius pt doesn't seem good D: 

And I knew it D:

Wiped at 1st boss D:

After 2~3 wipes ppl decided to leave D:

I guess I can't rely on DF anymore D:....wait, DF already sucked since 2.0, what a surprise!

I noticed that there's new pt finder feature, which is a great addition. I no longer have to camp in Ul'dah(JPs often /shout in Ul'dah, unlike NAs like to /shout in Mor Dhona) for /shout pt, I can do other stuff and randomly check whether a pt doing content I wanted are recruiting. I even noticed several English pt. Most of the time English community are too small that it takes forever to get ppl by /shouting in English. Finally more chance to interact with English speaking players :)

Planning to play with hard mode dungeons if I have time, 1 weekend is kinda too short :X 

Then I unlocked PVP and played entire night. I don't really have time to get PVP set, and rumor says my current PVE gear is equivalent to IL55 ones, so I may as well just use current PVE gear. Sorry for those who lost in a match due to Afania wearing PVE gears D: I still have 50% win rate solo queue so it's not the end of the world D:

Honestly, I have low expectation from PVP to begin with, due to terrible skill/battle system and job mechanics. On the other hand, PVP is one single aspect I wanted to play the most before 2.1 launch.

Sounds ironic, huh? And my POV toward PVP is just as ironic.

If I want to describe PVP in FTG terms, it's not Street Fighter 4. If it's SF4 I'd praise it to death. I was expecting it to be MvC3, but it's more like Soul Calibur 4.

In case if anyone don't know what Soul Calibur 4 is, at one point of time(when I still had a job and not a job-less gimp like now) I played it with a group co-workers, some of them are used to play more complex titles like SF4 or King of Fighters, one of them used to play in tournaments. I pretty much raped everyone in SC4 until someone decided to bribe me with food. So I continue to accept their challenges while eating food. I played with 1 hand spamming 1 button(1 button, for real, not including directional pad) and still able to use combos by repeatedly spamming one button and won again. 

Then other FTG pros finally rage quit: What kind of shit game is this! Win(and do crazy combos) with 1 button spam and no directional pad? BS

Note that I couldn't beat them in SF4(and I can beat other SF4 noobs or normal or higher difficulty CPU if I play Ken/Ryu), so they certainly don't suck at FTG.

On the other hand, SC4 was the title being played the most, because only a few ppl can play SF4 properly. Nobody have fun with SF4(watching noobs playing SF4 is downright one of the worst experience you can ever have), everyone just plays SC4 all day.

I have to agree, ARR PVP was quite surprising. It's surprisingly fast, some queue matches can end in less than 1 min(but I doubt serious teams of 2 can end it that fast), surprisingly shallow, and surprisingly fun in a brainless way.

It seems that there's not much strategy going on, every pt I've joined is always the battle between BLM trying hard to cast sleep while everyone else try to stop BLM from casting sleep and kill BLM first. I don't even know wtf tank's for with the way they design PVP.

After reading a bit of PVP form looking for more in depth strategy, I realized ARR PVP is:

SMN is da best.

BLM sleep.

Tank DD build plz.

Strategy? What strategy? Get your best PVP IL gear, use most OP class, ???? profit. That's pretty much all the info I can find on forum, rest are about class balance complains.

There are no 200 pages of "what is best" discussion D:

I have to agree, I was fairly disappointed, since PVP seems more like a mini game rather than anything serious(although serious teams can probably perform better regardless). On the same time, I spent entire night playing it. I know I'm probably going to get sick of it after a few days, like majority of MMORPG PVP, mostly with little to no complexity(but still more complexity than ARR PVP). On the same time, expecting ARR PVP to be amazing is as unrealistic as expecting next Soul Calibur title as classic as Street Fighter 4, or expecting FFXI suddenly turn into LOL after an update or expansion. 

PVP is just like rest of the ARR game, no depth, no complexity, just instant gratification. But no way it'd suddenly turn ARR into something else I wish it is.

Now that I see all that ARR v.s 1.23 argument on official forum all over again. It's pretty obvious that I'm on the "I don't like ARR direction and liked XI/1.23 direction more" team, but every time when I see ppl reply with "just give it time, it will get more content with more update" I just want to lol.

Of course it'll get more content and more issues gonna be fixed after more update, this I'm sure of.

But it's not possible, nor a good choice, to change the direction drastically. They can keep adding 100 dungeons, 100 maps, 200 items, 15 jobs, but fundamentally it's still going to be ARR, not XI/1.23. It's going to be ARR with 100 dungeons, 100 maps and 15 jobs, not 1.23 with 100 dungeons, maps and 15 jobs.

If their direction is to make a shallow, instant gratification MMO like every other current-gen title, aim for players that won't spend more time doing research than playing the game, then they should stick with that direction, instead of pissing ppl off and change the direction. But that means the game won't be the type of game I'm looking for.

And it's pretty silly to assume "majority" of players liked ARR direction more than XI/1.23. You can only post on OF if you're active players, those who are not happy with ARR direction already left and not bother with ARR to begin with. Maybe "majority" of player don't like wow clones nor XI, but something else.

But fuck ARR official forum. It's pretty much a fanboy/whitenight fest.

The fact that I no longer get a queue on weekend night during campaign period and SE's free weekend campaign kinda hinted that ARR already been losing ppl after first 1~3 months.

I'll probably play as much as I can this weekend, but I've planned not to sub unless friends make me do so. The way ARR is, is same as 100 other titles out there that I can play for free. I've been playing GW2 whenever I want to have brainless kind of fun in an MMO. I can just play whenever I want without having to feel like wasted money on sub. Last month I probably played GW2 for about 2~5hr entire month, no way 2~5hr of playtime justify a sub. In terms of scope, shallowness and brainless kind of fun, GW2 and FFXIV is pretty much the same......except GW2 is a bit more ambitious than XIV and no sub.

So why pay $10 a month to PVP, help NPCs, do dungeons, play with gears when I can do those in other games for free in a bigger world?

Unless MMO titles have a strong tight-knit community like FFXI/EQ, most of the current-gen theme park MMO don't justify a sub IMO. Yes, I pay $12 a month in FFXI to help NPC, kill NM, grind gears, but I'm not really paying $12 for those, but more like paying $12 for living in a community and virtual world, something I don't get in GW2/FFXIV/SWTOR/insert your title here.

If XIV is F2P, I'd probably be fine with spending 5hr a month, occasionally log on and play here and there. If current-gen theme park MMO wants to offer instant gratification, they probably needs F2P to be competitive, IMO. 

Anyways. I may or may not do extreme primal/CT depending on time, but I honestly don't expect extreme/CT to be anything different from what I've experienced so far. PVP is the last thing I wanted to experience in ARR, and I already got Yoshi-P's intention about game direction after I played it.

Been there, done that.

SE doesn't love Joachim D:

Unlocked Joachim recently. It's nice to have a BRD type character but......

It always used wrong songs D: D: D:

Further more, it uses ranged attack when it engages, but it's ranged animation seems "cut off" when it ends, so the result is very awkward and not very smooth.

It's pretty weird that FF seems to always have high quality animation, no matter how shit the update is, how many bugs and text error exists, they rarely went wrong with animation.

Wish SE fix that damn animation, it's getting annoying to look at.

Dec update review

Recently FFXI server population increased a bit, due to free campaign and new update. So how's the new update? Here's my opinion.


Trust: Shit.

It's basically the same thing as mercenary in EQ, to help players solo in a force grouping MMORPG. Except it's implemented way too late. Further more, it's not implemented very well.

Although it's supposed to be a "Help player solo better" addition, it doesn't really help me much due to their terrible stat, not swapping gears, using wrong WS. I tend to solo in Kamihr drift for 3~4k+ EXP per kill. My trust can barely hit anything there, their 300 dmg WS doesn't help either. The DRK(which cost 500 log in point to get) would cast absorb spell over and over again, then get resisted - -.

Which DRK in FFXI casts lolabsorb spell over and over!

In the end I don't solo faster with trust NPCs. That being said, it's quite fun to have NPCs in FFXI story fighting beside you.

(Would be fun to have Shantotto got ass kicked/MPKed)

RoE:

I have mixed feeling toward this. I'm against being able to solo 119 AF entirely, since FFXI is supposed to be a party centered MMORPG. I can go play single player RPG or GW2 if I want to solo play in a RPG. In fact unless you have a very organized LS/friends that would pop on right time and farm a group in less than 1hr, I ended up solo 119 AF faster than making a group to farm pages, just because it takes much longer to find ppl to do stuff, plus the time to farm pops. The fact that you can solo pages made everyone and their mother unwilling to team up and farm pages too.

However, I also believe that recent population increase is mostly because of RoE. Some ppl may return to FFXI during free campaign, go "OMG I CAN SOLO 119 ARMOR AND MYTHIC NOW, GOING TO SUB YEAHHHH".

I guess it's time to accept the fact that deep in our hearts, nobody want to play with other people in an MMORPG :(

It'd be much better if you can't exchange the pages without getting clear at least once though.

I avg 1k sparks in 5~6 min killing Qutrubs in Abyssea doing 500+ dmg trial, however outside of Abyssea may* ended up better for sparks since you can also do crystal and EXP trial. I haven't try though, and I'm planning to try none-Abyssea camp soon.

Note that I tried qutrub with several weapons I have, only Buramenk'ah(DMG130) and Eminent Scimitar (DMG 122) can hit 500+ dmg in Abyssea on Qutrubs without having to crit. Halachuinic sword(DMG 104) and Aphotic Kukri(DMG 91) are mostly less than 500 dmg a hit without crit.

That means dagger class weapon are kinda out since highest dagger base DMG is only 108. However, Pamun has DMG 124/125, which should be able to hit 500+ dmg a hit. NIN/DNC using pamun x2 may ended up farming sparks faster than I can due to faster melee hits. MNK probably can farm faster than me too.

AA:
A pain in the ass to farm pop, more pain in the ass to /shout 6 person. AA fight is kinda "Get right job and easy mode and vice versa" thing.

(Fatfania again due to aspect ratio)

Can clear VD very easy with RNG setup, but normal can be a lot more pain in the ass if going melee setup and DD don't have enough DT-.

Most ppl don't want to bother with normal anymore, so AA= RNG strikes back kinda. A lot of friends of mine recently been shitting anni out of nowhere.

I find RNG not the hardest to find for VD, BRD is ._.


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Overall I don't find Dec update very amazing due to several reasons, but I think it's one of the best update in 2013 just because 2013 FFXI sucked so much. I hope Matsui don't fuck up next update again.

I want a Tizona D:

I want a banana sword, but I doubt I can throw myself in Mythic hell.

I wasted 3 years of my life playing this game to get a Mythic, missed countless real life interactions because Einherjar/assault starting D: Farmed a FUCK tons of gil from dyna solo(which is boring as fuck), got home early everyday for 1 month to attend LS delve runs when 1 stack airlixir +1 worth 2M.

In the end I got an item that I see little reason to 119. I barely use it, only situation I think I may use it is when I spam req. And even then it doesn't worth the effort. It's no where close to game changing item as majority of other RME.

2nd Mythic Y/N?

Fuck no.

But damn, I really want to attack 2~3 times on a melee job and WS that fast just for once.

JUST FOR ONCE IN MY LIFE D:

Maybe, maybe I picked the wrong mythic to begin with. A thought I'd never have 3 years ago. I changed, after all.

JP only invasion

Haven't play FFXIV for over 1 month, back then JP only mentality didn't exist in FFXIV, no issue joining JP /shout.

Rumor says it's a lot more JP only mentality in FFXIV now, a lot of them are quite rude/mean toward none JP players, just like FFXI. I guess that's another reason not to touch FFXIV again. I have enough JP only in FFXI, ended up having to play in the morning if I want to do group event. In FFXIV even playing in the morning won't solve the issue since English community barely exist on JP servers.

Continue to stay inactive in XIV w.