Food For Thought

Players generally just do whatever is fun, efficient and incentivized. That is a game design issue.

No, it is not a game design issue. You do not need a R15/boss delve weapon to clear T1-T5 delve bosses. You do not need a R15/boss delve weapon to clear NNI. Yes, it is more efficient, but that's short-sighted thinking, is my point. We put up too many unnecessary hurdles for players to participate in content, and the game has bled players as a result.

Making the norm out of a few exceptions. Ask around how many people would require Senbaak and Oatixur to do NNI...you're more likely to be asked whether you have experience with Nyzul mechanics and movement speed+. Just cause some guy has shouted for megaboss weapons for a content that doesn't require it, doesn't mean you can't do that content with what you have, nor that everyone feels the same.

Just got off the phone with Abyssea, she just sold her "killed the game" title to Adoulin.

I'll say it until I die: Abyssea revitalized FFXI. SE dropped the ball following.

I haven't joined any LS to do any scheduled events. Been going at my pace, getting clears when I want (sometimes with help). Been farming what I need and pretty much been making daily goals for myself in terms of what I should /need to do. The opportunity to do lots of content is there. Tired of half the people who complain of why they can't find any pugs to do stuff. If there's none available ~ start one yourself

Do you exist on all the servers? Didn't think so. Your server conditions may not reflect every one elses. I've heard Odin is humming whereas my server Lakshmi is pretty small in comparison.

Still not paying SE to transfer though.

Right now WK Reives can be difficult to fill depending on time, older content takes a while to fill (saw a Promy Watcher take 2hours to fill last night) and things like Plasm farms have dipped as the established have formed groups and obtained boss weapons + large amounts of plasm in the process. There is little need to join PUGs after lowering the quality of players you're likely to encounter.

I've attempted to form plasm groups where the lack of key jobs resulted in me wasting the time of numerous others. It's like old school XI where you needed a tank, couldn't find one for an hour thus everything went to ***except this time its like 8+ people who you've now annoyed because you can't find someone to zombie/PLD/BRD pull etc.

NA have been notoriously bad creating PUGs for event content and since so much boils down to one person these days (the stungun) even the best constructed groups can have their efforts dashed because someone didn't stun one AOE. That's not even getting into the mess that is party swapping BRDs/CORs.

I can empathize with discouragement, as I too am a person who loses heart easily thinking 'oh I'll never get this done'(and then instead some time later I do..), however a lot of people just complain cause others aren't there to work for them, are you the *** queen of San d'Oria?

Again, not talking about people who can do this content and choose not to, volkom. This thread has been primarily about new/returning players without jobs/gear to be able to get into even the very basic of delve shouts in which to upgrade their gear.

People create, as posted above, unnecessary hurdles, such as requiring Delve rank 6+ weapons for outside Delve Bosses or plasm farms. Can't get the weapons without the KI and plasm, yet you can't get the KI or plasm without the weapon. Stupid FFXI mentality.

Is that also not a game design issue?

It is, but the fractured community of post-Delve and pre-Delve players shrinks the pool of potential BRD/COR/PLDs even further as those post-Delve are less likely to join some scrubs PUG when you can simply go with your shell or just run 5NM+Boss runs and get a larger payout.

With the shrinking XI community this means increased difficulty to get anything done especially when your BRDs need Daurdablas 90+ to be even viable for a run at anything beyond plasm. That further shrinks the number of BRDs available at any given time.

I sometimes shout for people to fill in gaps for Delve content within my LS. If a DD or mage is lacking on gear and shows me specific sets (or at least tries to make them) for their job, they'll have a 90% more successful time getting into a clear/farm.

The game has always been structured for X-job being the best choice for a position at certain events. Get the jobs to get the gear.

I'm still confused on the OP's angle in reposting this interesting article. He just kicked a member of his LS yesterday for being disloyal because he got his Tojil win in a PUG. Poor guy just wanted his KI so that he could upgrade his MNK to help the rest of his LS out in getting their win. After a couple months of trying, god forbid he joins a random group.

Just reiterates what others have said in previous posts. Some people don't want help because they know better. Good intentions don't always pay off.

Taruina, if more LS's did that, this issue would be a lot less of an issue. People just want to overkill stuff and take top notch everything without thinking if they brought 1-2 nontop players everytime, their pool to grab from would steadily increase.

i'm pretty much a returning player~ Basically never did any voidwatch or adoulin content. Only really did salvage and afk'd most of the time. Just started back up after 7 months of not playing. So going right into the new content was a semi hurdle at first because using old outdated gear just sucks. So everyday resulted in going out farming bayld for the npc gear, capping skills and gathering gil for better gear to buy off the AH. Also spent a ton of time leveling up other jobs so that I can have more options to go for any pugs that may pop up. And on valefor~ its pretty dead until the JP get on.

Phoenix drama is always the best. Most dramatic server ever!

There's even a player called Dramatica!

Oh geez. Didn't know this was about the OP. lol

7 month break is a little difficult, but not really. You had a good chunk of Abyssea time and gear. I'm more referring to someone like Dalc in my LS who quit when the banhammer dropped in Jan '09 and just came back a month or two ago. He only had WAR, PLD and NIN @ 75 upon his return. So in addition to leveling everything up, breaking caps, etc, he jumped through those minor hurdles, only to be told PLD is useless without A/O, NIN is laughable in SoA, and WAR was too gimp for anything. He is currently doing the things we have talked about here with leveling up new jobs that are needed, farming bayld gear, etc. He managed to get his hands on a Razorfury for his WAR and sitting in full Karieyh + Razorfury, still is unable to join pugs.

This is why I say to all these people claiming base line gear, it doesn't always matter like you think it does if you get the basic SoA gear. Elitist and pompous *** won't even let him into Outside NM runs for KI's or plasm farms with that base gear. What hope is there for someone without 20m upon return to buy a Razorfury or other such weapon to stand a chance with if a guy with it still can't get in?

If your friend is thinking of getting invited on a DD without at LEAST capping gear haste, he needs to relearn what he thinks he knows about the game's mechanics.

Well said, but I tend to think of all of these problems as game design issues. WoW's dungeon finder system does a good job handling these sorts of problems (when I played them, at least).

My main point is just that, if players are shouting for "delve dd only" or whatever, then there has to be a reason. One could say it's just because their elitist jerks or whatever, but I'd rather give them the benefit of the doubt, even if their motives aren't entirely apparent to themselves.

Sure, some people are rude about it but like Seha said, that's not everyone. It's easy to get the sense that such people are the majority, however, since they are the ones shouting. The system SE has given us currently for making any sort of group (excluding... WoE only?) is either to shout or to gather people privately (LS or otherwise).

As a shout group leader, you have an incentive to make sure the run goes well so that players will continue to want to join your shouts. If not, you end up being one of those mockeries that the good players never join, leaving your shout groups generally doomed to never do very well. Given that DDs with high end weapons are a dime a dozen now, the leader really has no incentive to take on unnecessary risk to both the success of their run and the longevity of their reputation.

You can do analysis like this for all of the events; it goes on and on and on. It's true players could just help a brother out from time to time but ultimately it's SE's fault for not providing us with a better designed system to improve the characters of those just starting out. The incentives just aren't there for players, even if there's only a small final difference between a player with item level X vs item level Y.

That's not really here or there, Taruina. Why spend 2mths soloing old content just to possibly get into new content to get the gear that outdates the 2 months of work you just did? SoA base gear should be good enough for entry level SoA content. The fact that is isn't is half the development team's fault and half the player bases. If he was afforded entry into KI runs and nonboss plasm farms, he could buy Mikinaak and it would more or less fix the issue. This is only 1 example I am giving. There are bound to be hundreds more across all the servers with different gear/jobs/results.

No sorry, wearing random ***doesn't make you eligible for endgame. You need at least common sense(notice you said this in response to someone saying you should at least cap haste).

I just read the OP thread. It was heart warming.

I didn't say it does, Sehachan. I said it should. People came into SoA wearing Abyssea gear/Bayld gear. They got their original clears in that gear. Why was it ok for you to do that in March or whatever, but not ok for someone entering the same way you did in July? Hypocritical much?

Taruina is saying that full Karieyh is a clear indicator he hasn't put effort into his job. With friends like you, he should be aware what to work on. AF3+1 feet, legs along with karieyh hands, hat, and goading belt would net him 25% haste. He won't be a sparkly dd, but it'll at least show he put some thought into what he's wearing instead of expecting his group to compensate.

The problem is people not knowing what to wear, it should not be someone with a friend helping them that's still wearing garbage and expecting to be carried. Educate your friend, and he'll have a better chance of moving forward, that's the problem here.

Provided the game doesn't change radically, the players have to teach each other. Very few will stick to 'full karieyh' because they think it's special.. they think it's useful gear. They don't realize the importance of stacking haste, the relevance of store tp quantity to x-hit builds, etc. They see a bunch of nice stat+ and equip it. People who'd rather not farm gear and expect to be carried don't deserve help. People who are willing to improve but don't realize they're not gearing properly don't. Telling someone their gear looks like ***doesn't help them learn the details they need to fix it, in many cases they'll assume it just means quality or ilevel.

I didn't? I had appropriate gear. I didn't show up as drk with 4% haste and 10-hit build.

The people who blazed the trail would mostly have also had Voidwatch, NNI, Neo Salvage, Neo Limbus, Meeble and Legion gear under their belts. I don't doubt that many leeched wins in abyssea gear but don't try to pretend that was everyone.

Wearing full anything usually indicates some breakdown in proper gearing procedures and the first people clearing Skirmish, WK Reives and Delve Plasm weren't wearing base SoA moreso a combination of post-Abyssean gear with Abyssean swaps and entry level SoA gear.

Don't get me wrong, Comeatmebro, I am constantly working on the gear with him when he is online. I am not saying that Karieyh in it's present state is end all, be all. I am merely pointing out that this is a design flaw in the development of SoA. Entry level gear should be good enough to be able to get into entry level endgame content. Since we keep referencing WoW time and again in this thread, this is rather where I take my mentality from.

When an expansion hits, you do quests/level up and get gear from it. This gear allows you to do Dungeons, Dungeon gear allows you to do Heroic Dungeons. Heroic Dungeon gear allows you to do Entry level endgame raids. Entry level endgame gear allows you to do higher tier, so on and so forth. It's a stepping stone of gear progression to go up.

With SoA's release, this entry level gear *should* again... *should* have been and should still be considered "enough" to warrant entry level into the early stages of SoA endgame, such as Skirmish and Outside NMs and plasm grinds, to allow the stepping stone progression into Inside Clears and Mega bosses.

No, it shouldn't. This game has been about gear swapping for 11 years. You can't expect any set to have all necessary stats.