M*E*R*C*S

Humble suggestion, I think maybe there should be a pinned topic for MERCs (maybe this one?). A place where MERCs can leave their in-game info for those who want to get some quick and easy content done.

Now, I understand that a lot of people frown upon paying for play. NOTED! I acknowledge your existence and your feelings on the subject. This is for those who, for whatever reason, would like to get content done quickly. It doesn't necessitate people "not knowing how to play a job," though that is a potential by-product. Some people have multiple characters, and simply don't have the time to grind out their Alts. We also know that MLing takes an unreasonable amount of time that a lot of us just don't have. Also, killing the same mobs over and over and over while hunting for an Empy weapon is monotonous.

Bottom line, I was thinking it might be good to have a system here that would make it easier to identify MERCs and schedule game play.

If anything there should be a thread for people to leave information, who are interested in PUG groups and what jobs / gear etc they have.

I don't disagree with that.

RMT trying to sneak in some free advertisment aside, either of those probably make more sense if the threads are made for their respective server subsection.

Agreed. I'm honestly just brainstorming ideas on a Saturday morning out of boredom.

I used to actively attempt to maintain such lines of communication between sellers and buyers. However, eventually the RMT came in and under-priced everyone. I'm not convinced there are many 'real' groups mercing anymore outside of on Asura server. That, or it seems to have gone underground to a more 'by who you know' ordeal.

https://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/53282/comparative-aeonic-mercing-guide

https://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/55206/dyna-d-merc-guide

https://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/56053/odyssey-merc-guide/

Yes! PLEASE

“Mercs help us get content done quickly”

Whats the point of mercing your V25 bumba kill if you have no ingame friends to partake in content that needs R30 nyame for?

So you can do more solo/get into other content? Imagine if you will being on a small server and no one has room in an odyssey group but several are seeking for sortie?

Though at the end of the day, what does the reason matter?

Will the group keep someone who has no idea how to play the game who merced all their gear?

This was you a couple days ago:


This was your response to someone detailing lvlcap cheese exploiting pet levels You did zero individual research and went into the one fight where the boss has a throat stab type attack which completely mitigates the entire cheese. Instead of owning YOUR mistake, you blamed others for not sufficiently educating you.

I dont expect someone with R30 Nyame to have "fresh off the boat" FFXI IQ. I dont want to put words in anyones mouth, but I'm pretty sure most people (99.9% of this playerbase) doing 8/9NM sortie runs will share the same sentiment.

God d@mn. Roasted.

Keep gatekeeping. I'm sure the game will continue to thrive and see updates with *** like you in the lead.

*** you mean gatekeeping?

Was that about the having no friends to do ***with? What are you gonna do with R30 Nyame that you couldnt do now, solo? Nothing. Suggesting to actually make friends in game to do the content is not gatekeeping considering FFXI is literally a MMORPG, or just a MORPG these days, depends what you consider the floor to be considered "massive".

Was that about bringing up your comments about the pet cheese? Do you know what gatekeeping means? Skarwind spelled out in precise detail how to do the stuff on BST. Stepth linked the post for pup attachments and maneuvers. Theyre pretty clear on how to implement the cheese and what you need to do. This is the very opposite of gatekeeping. Gatekeeping would be "its soloable on BST or PUP, figure it out". Skarwind and I even told you rather clearly where you went wrong. And then:
Based on that reply, it seems like you're blaming the failure on BST being bad instead of PEBCAC. ***like this is exactly why no one wants to *** with someone who merced all their gear.

Furthermore, its likely that someone who merced all their gear would be an entitled little ***who would be intolerable to occasional failure or missed runs. They dont want to wait and earn their gear, they want it NOWWWWWWWW,

It matters because the logic behind mercing high level gear to get into other high-level content is super flawed. SE specifically designed this game to be a gear progression/stages model. If someone cannot clear a certain level of content to get the gear, then other horizontal-level or higher-level content is off limits to the player also. What the player should do is group up with other players who are on their level and progress together (whoa, you mean play with actual people!?), and then challenge themselves to harder content when they've improved.

If you look at the model for Ambuscade (VE-VD, Vol 1+2), Sheol A>B>C, Odyssey Gaol V0-25, and even Sortie (upper and lower floors), they made content levels for all types of players so they can pick what they actually qualify for and are able to complete. When they get better, they can scale upwards on harder stuff. Artificially circumventing that process by buying gear to do higher level content that you couldn't clear otherwise is outside of the scope of how they intended you to play the game, but even that's not that big of a deal to me, because play however you want.

The real problem I have found with some people who merc everything is that they set themselves up for eventual frustration, and it afects the players they do eventually party up with. They have all the gear, but they have zero or very little experience in tense scenarios or endgame fights. They don't know the minor details of certain events and mechanics, or their job, because they skipped everything. They didn't bother fighting Arebati V15 on RNG or GEO or whatever, so they rob themselves of game/monster knowledge, and then later when a harder piece of content comes out, that player can be disadvantaged because they skipped the content and didn't learn pertinent information. That aside, they didn't invest the necessary time to work on their jobs, which need to be up to snuff on certain events so everything flows smoothly. Too many instances where player's sets are not buttoned up. They don't know the nuances of certain abilities, and they don't have builds for very useful but niche things. I can't tell you how many times I've checked players and their stuff is all over the place (not capping dt/mdt, not haste capped, like no idle or fc sets, not using the right debuffs at key moments, etc just basic things). Its ultra annoying when you are in higher level content, because you should have already learned this by now. Idk, maybe as I get older, my patience is wearing thin, but my point is player laziness can eventually affect other players. I've found that there's no correlation between players having good top notch gear and being actual good players. So their ML50 and highest statted gear is for nothing; they (not all, but some) generally are terrible players who just have the shinies with zero brain behind it. This is what I consider to be the real impact of mercing high level gear, not the actual act itself.

Now before someone says "Buukki gtfo your high horse/gatekeeping ***", I am totally not against all forms of mercing, and I also don't really care what people buy. If someone wants to buy a piece of gear (like Godhands) and doesn't feel like grinding away old content, that's fine. You don't need to kill 200 monsters from 2018 to get into Sortie groups, lol. I think if players want to skip past older stuff because it's time they want to invest elsewhere, that might be ok depending on the situation. But buying something like a V25 Bumba so they can get R30 Bumba gear so they can join ABCDEG groups in Sortie is so weird, lol

R30 for Sortie is about as overkill as R25 is for segments, if we're honest. Maybe if we didn't broadcast gearscores in recruitment shouts, people wouldn't think it was their key to accessing endgame?

The irony of some of these arguments having the same elitism as the folks arguing for private servers locked at level 75 is not lost on me.

Again, if you're willing to help people get gear, by all means. But the problem is and continues to be that the folks at endgame have little no to incentive to help someone new or learning, and the end result are content walls that people bounce off of because they can't get past it due to lack of people.

You wanna sit here and continue to insult me? Do it, I don't honestly care what you think of me. But I hope you can at least comprehend that people merc for more reasons than just "I want it nooooooow". If the grind to get to 99 was the same level as it was when getting to 75 pre-abyssea I bet you'd be looking down on them too.

I absolutely agree that player laziness affects other people.

One final point before I give up even bothering: I seriously have to wonder if people also don't remember that servers outside of Asura exist and there might not be enough of a pool of people to be forming new statics and pug shouts. But no, clearly it's their fault for "being lazy and entitled".

I definitely agree that it can be rough on smaller servers to find people or groups, but that said I'm on a very small server and I've had at least 3 or 4 groups over the years and played with dozens and dozens of players, including helping with another half dozen groups of friends. It's absolutely not impossible to find a group of 4, 5, or 6 people to do v5s with, even on the smallest server in ffxi. It's not like you need 6 geared out characters to clear v5 kalunga.

Build a group with who you have, add players as you find them. Make a recruitment post on ffxiah, make posts on reddit, join linkshells, shout.

If you're gonna tell me there aren't 4 people on your entire server who need a v5 bumba clear then uh...I guess we solved the newbie problem, they all have their gear now, yay!

I think that's different. If you're on a server where people aren't available, you have to do some community outreach. They would have to ask around here on the forums, discord servers, etc etc. In fact, some people might be like, "hey, I have a static already, but I'm taking a break for 6 months and you can have my spot until I get back". (I've seen this happen).

I'm just trust trying to offer solutions.

Hey, as long as I am showing off my blings in my pug PTs I don't care. That's why I afk in Rabao.

All Nyame r30 are equal. Doesn't matter how you got it.

I didn't see any gatekeeping from Nynja. Just take the L and move on.

What insult?

He probably thinks we called him dumb when we pointed out why his attempt to cheese on BST failed.

No one called him dumb for that. However, depending what his reasons for not doing any research into the applicable battlefields were, he was ignorant and/or lazy.

Imagine (preseved) getting worked up being called dumb on the internet in 2025.

Totally agree but what’s a R30 content? I can’t name one personally

Recall I mentioned that mercing is not just about getting gear you otherwise couldn't. Oftentimes, it's just a time saver, especially when it comes to alts. Other times, it's about not having to waste merits/KIs (like with Cloud of Darkness or Shinryu).

Segfarm!! Otherwise you will lose on parse and embarass yourself.

People often like to pretend that aspect doesn't exist.

Time is money, you're spending it regardless.

If you're sitting there waiting, staring at the screen. You're doing it wrong. Tell them to tell you when it's in the pool.

Covered that.