What Job Is Generally Sought After

The issue that a LOT of the content you need to grind through now are 'dead'. Which is why merc services (if you're on Asura...I merc stuff #shamelessplug) are really taking off even for what people consider "easy" content. Playing a support job like GEO can net you runs into Ambuscade and CP parties practically right away, which lets you leap through content, which will then make all additional jobs much easier to gear.

Why anyone would want to completely bypass what the game offers at 99+ is beyond me. I can understand if they're spamming it and have ***luck with drops or something, but why spend hard-earned gil to not play the game? Besides, there are plenty of linkshells, even on crusty old Asura, who will take returning players and play with them without charge or otherwise doing everything for them.

The big hitters (WAR & SAM especially) can tear ***up on 95% of stuff, more so than Blu and Bst, they just require that the rest of the PT be SKILLED and supportive.
People opt for other strats because they are easier, less stressful on the white magic, and safer. But even with SE giving 2handers no love, they still rape ***if you play the game like pre-2015

people are just lazy at this point. I trio box and heal better than the pick-up whms because I come from a different era where everyone in the PT had something to do.

Since GEO, people can seriously AF'fuggingKay after casting a couple of spells.

When on earth would people farm up extremely outdated gear. Why would anyone spend time, effort, money on augmented Skirmish or Delve gear only to replace it sooner rather then later? Even the most basic stuff from Escha replaces all that came before it, any time spend on lower grade stuff is wasted.

This isn't a single player RPG where there is a beginning, middle and end where the player is expected to progress through and "experience" the game.

why even bother to play? if you're just going to stand in the back blowing bubbles waiting for gear, that nobody else wants, to drop while people that actually enjoy playing the game drag you through content you aren't ready for because you don't want to be bothered with old content or learning a job?

ffxi isn't for you.

go play WoW

So I guess level 1 and trusts are not a thing?

all time spent on a videogame is wasted numbnuts!

that's the whole point!!

SE is pretty HELP I AM TRAPPED IN 2006 PLEASE SEND A TIME MACHINE at this point, they haven't got a friggin clue. They're spending more time developing gear than the shelf life of said gear.

3 months for content that lasts 1 month.. I'm dumbfounded.. how long do they think they can keep up this ridiculously shortsighted strategy to retain people's interest? They're going to burn themselves out.

If they just created an ultimate prize or set of prizes and had everyone work towards those said rewards through challenging, creative and time-intensive content they could give themselves a break every for a couple of years and then come back. But that of course would require that the player base be worth a ***. But not this new era of players, they want everything EASY, instant gratification - just give them a *** "Acquire SSJ mode" button and call it a day.

Not anymore. The XP acquisition rate is such that going from 1 to 99 is really fast, faster then any gear can keep up with. It's going to be all solo and you won't have any of the good trusts because of their requirements. It's far easier and more efficient to just sit in a zone and have your friend kill a bunch of stuff and be 99 within an hour or two. I know a ton of people that came back and wanted to play a different job, exactly zero of them actually leveled it at old camps.

People nowadays just want an "acceptable" level of gear to be viable to start doing current content. This means Ambuscade, Escha T1~T3 in each zone, CP parties, Vagery (Emp 119 upgrades) and the occasional UNM. They aren't bothering with Delve or Skirmish unless it's to sell the materials for gil.

1) The option for solo play and leveling still exists
2) You're not speaking for everyone, a lot of people still like to level the old fashioned way, or have nobody to PL them in Escha or Reisenjima.

yeah and that also magically makes you the best <insert burned up job here> that ever was...

you suck!

Uhh, because of the sheer absurd amount of content that is:

Original Skirmish

AA KI fights

Delve 1.0's

CoP KI fights

Incursion

Alluvion skirmish

Rest of KI fights

Delve 2.0's

Vagary

Escha zitah t1/2

Escha ru'aun t1/2

Escha Zitah t3 / Reisenjima t1

Reisenjima t2 -> 3 -> 4

That's a breakdown of all the content we have 99+. Now how much of that content do people do on any regular basis for a new 99 to join? If they are going to get someone to carry them through the original AA KI fights, why wouldn't they get someone to carry them to some reisenjima t1 gear that's currently still BiS and takes the same amount of time/effort?

The current way to catch up is choose a "useful" job, get it to usable levels asap, then work on tweaking that as you work on gearing the job(s) you wish to play on a more regular basis. There's so much content to catch up through it's not worth it for most people to go through it the way people playing the last 3 years did.

The power creep we've witnessed is in response to the CL getting way out of hand. Big stuff is CL150, our gear level is 119, there is something seriously broke with that.


That's far easier said then done. Players always find a way to get around barriers and do things much faster then designed. Making complicated or hard barriers only ensures that those with "enhancers" end up possessing the items. In general it's really bad design for content to be made exclusive to a very small part of your paying player base. What SE needs to do is ease back on the raw NM stats CL 130+ while also slowing down on the powering up of players. Small regular increase's over long periods of time, not sudden leaps of power.

This isn't a single player RPG it's an MMO. If you can only play by yourself then put down the game and go do something else with your life. There are far too many good single player games to attempt to make FFXI into one of them.

I haven't met a single person in the last five years who has leveled up "the old fashioned way". Occasionally someone will go out and kill ***from 1 to 50~60, realize how annoying XP is past that and then just get friends to cleave dragons for a bit.

Again this is a MMO not a single player game. If you want or are advocating for a single player experience then you are in the wrong place.

no

If you would take a Dunna GEO over a AREM bRd you on crack brah

If you enjoy spending 1 year to play through every end game content in snails pace then go for it, but why pop on a forum and tell others to "play wow"? Both wow and FFXI are not all that different, they're both MMO. And for some players, playing MMO = beat the hardest content, collect the best gears, win parse.

And to do that, you do need to be as efficient as possible.

That's how some people have fun in MMO. So why tell others to pay $13 a month to do things they don't enjoy?

Ever notice Konvict always posts twice in a row? You could have put all of that in one line brah.

then why play at all?

so the problem with blowing bubbles in the backfield is it's not playing the game. and you do it to what end? to get gear for the job you like playing? to then what? go back and crush the content you couldn't be bothered to do in the first place?

your way doesn't make any sense.

final fantasy is was and always will be about grinding to the top.

yes you can "cheat" and skip the whole game but what the hell are you going to do when you get the gear you wanted?

Attempting to put this OP back on track;

All jobs if played well have a place in the game, on Asura at least shouts have moved more toward "need DD" opening up pretty much all jobs to join end game content, as long as they have strong acc.

As far as support goes yes geo reign's supreme atm, whm's are always needed somewhere too.

so imo to OP; a DD with strong acc, geo, whm

My R/E/M BRD mule is on Duna GEO 99% of the time. If I could get Honor March on her, it might be a different story. Depends on if I can still get 4x Ghorn level songs on but I'm fairly sure it wouldn't be possible.

Besides, the mind-f_ck of having to put up 4x Harp songs, Trob/Nightingale 3x Ghorn songs and introducing an additional step of now switching out Ghorn for the Aeonic Honor March seems like a SHITON of effort where I could just entrust indi-haste my main, indy-fury myself and geo-frailty and probably achieve better results.
2x Ghorn Minuets < 1 x Indi-frailty + Geo fury @ 900 geo skill
I can always /whm or /rdm on geo and just indi-haste and cast haste to beat 2x Ghorn Marchs.

Soulvoice is another story, but that's once every 45 mins.


@OP - play BLM. Easiest job to currently gear and be @ end game status for. Took me 4 days of being back to game after 2 years hiatus to pump out 99,9999 Thunder VI magic Bursts. That's not a testestament to how great my blm is, just how awesome idris-geo's are.

Poor brd.. seriously wtf was SE thinking making GEO.. lol...

Totally agree. My main is DRK but like others have said here no matter how well geared it is its still a DRK and will not be useful in high end T3 content.

Level BLM (Like I did) so you can obtain gears from endgame quickly. You will get instant invites for CP and will quickly pump out high damage bursts which are fun and (Useful)

So looking at acumen and focus, a Idris geo has 15 percent more mab and 25 more magic accuracy over a dunna. Sounds huge right?

any job that i dont currently have.

Did you just said playing geo, which a legit job in ffxi, is not really playing the game?

There's really a lotta things to do at the top. Gear another job, make a rmea. Pursue dream augments. Etc

YES! In his case yes. He doesn't even have it at 99 yet.

If you burn geo to 99 just so you can go to end game without actually playing the game then you aren't playing the game!

it's a really simple concept to understand.
why not then just go buy a character with everything already done?

I can see him now... answering a pug shout for a geo when he hasn't played it at all...this is going to be awesome!

maybe you guys should write a macros for him called "let someone else play my character" so he can push it once and then someone else will actually play the game for him and he can just watch....

and then people wonder why everyone would rather take/dual box a mule

Only if you fought your way there.

If you lay on the ground and wait for someone to pull you through, you're already to bored to go on.

There are a lot of things at the beginning and middle too. If you skip it all, the end is meaningless.

I figured by "blowing bubbles" he meant


The point is that people who are returning want FFXI's gameplay and the feeling of overcoming a real challenge, not having it steamrolled for them by others. Don't expect anyone to stay around if all they get to do is see you fight stuff for them and only play jobs that you tell them to.

I wish this were the case, but sadly I think most people just want the endgame stuff handed to them so they can strut around wearing it.

I blame the magian trials which killed a lot of the "takes a linkshell to kill it" content and started us down the "why can't we duo/solo all the things" path to stupid easy