If You Want to Rock and Roll

It's taken me nearly two years but I've finally reached the level cap.

This morning I got up with the intention of heading out to Attohwa Chasm in Abyssea to see about finding myself some stylish new shoes. On a whim I joined a shout for an exp alliance there and figured I could use it to do some of the legwork before I started up a farming session solo. Before I knew it four hours had passed and I was suddenly sitting at level 90 with a full exp buffer. I had also managed to get the footwear I set out to acquire. All was well in the world.

Level caps are a funny thing. You spend a lot of time grinding to reach them, but even after you get there you'll still have plenty of things to chase after. The closer I've come to the level cap the more I've come to realize that there's no shame in racing toward it as fast as possible. In the game everyone's always going to be at different places in terms of game progression, whether it be by level, by gear or simply varying interest in content. The level cap offers an equalized playing field for folks. It's where you can stop playing "catch up" and start playing the game with the rest of the population. Without that stopping point there's no way to really get everyone together. Before you hit the cap you're likely to be relying on help from people higher level than you, but you can't really repay the favor by helping them with their content because you're too low level. Once everyone hits the level cap you can all help each other, which is part of FFXI's core even if it's been muddled as the years roll by.

I wish I'd figured this all out sooner. I remember discussing this all with one of my shellmates many months ago when he finally caved and zoomed to the cap. He told me how much better the game became once you stopped goofing around in zones like Dangruf Wadi and actually got to the level cap. He was right, but it still took me a while to get around to finally doing it.

Some of my reluctance was based on my desire to see if I could pull off some of the amazing feats others had done with all the level 75 content over the years. There isn't a Red Mage out there who hasn't heard of some of the crazy solos that were possible. We all think at some point or other, "Hey, I'd like to try pulling that off". But at some point I realized I would be better off just getting myself up to speed with the current game than trying to live in the bygone era. I am a little disappointed that now all my solos of old content can just be chalked up to level advantage, but overall it's gonna be more fun this way.

Now I just wish I could get some of the lowbies in our shell to make the jump so we can all hang out and do stuff together.

It's all about style.

Abyssea's effect on low level pickup parties

I have now seen the aftermath of Abyssea firsthand and it isn't pretty.

Tonight one of the newer players in our linkshell basically said that the lack of low level parties caused by Abyssea was discouraging him from logging in.

Sure we've all had nights where we sit around with our flag up and no invites, but I think it's reaching the point where there are enough people forgoing low level parties that it's actively driving players away from the game.

A little too easy

Well it's nice that the servers are back online again. I was beginning to go crazy from the lack of FFXI in my diet and had to find something else to fill the void. But now we're back so it's all good, right?

Wrong!

I've been dodging this whole Abyssea thing for a while but now that I'm past Maat I figured it was time to venture into that mystical place everyone's been raving about for the last few months. So after some time with my flag up I landed myself an Abyssea party.

My first impressions were not good. Actually seeing a whole alliance exping together shattered more than a few dreams. There was little to no organization that I could discern. People were constantly pulling in multiple mobs, but no one bothered sleeping anything. There didn't seem to be a designated /assist, it was more just a free for all of Damage Dealers with some Healers tacked on for good measure. I honestly had no idea what was going on and felt largely superfluous to the whole operation. Things were dying too fast to bother with enfeebles other than the occasional Dia, no one was coordinating Haste cycles, Cures were already thoroughly provided for. It left me wondering why I'd been invited in the first place.

Another issue I had was that with a group that large there wasn't much in the way of chatting. That's something I liked about the six man parties, you could usually get one where folks were laid back enough to shoot the breeze so everyone had a good time regardless of how the exp was. In Abyssea....not so much. It was pretty much just maul, maul, maul, oh have to replace someone, maul, maul, maul. That's no way to meet people.

The exp flow's pretty silly. I went from 72 to 75 + capped buffer in under two hours. I can see the appeal for folks looking to race another job to the level cap, but that kind of leveling speed really just took all the satisfaction out of finally hitting 75. You know, one of my big goals for the game...now it's totally not an accomplishment. I feel dirty for taking that party now.



My Little Pony: better than Abyssea.

So you thought removing the level caps on CoP was a good thing...

Well you were fucking wrong.

My linkshell did some CoP tonight.

We did the Mammet fight.

I didn't even get to finish watching the cutscene before they had cleared the battlefield.

Minotaur was similarly trivial.

This is not making things more accessible, this is blatantly removing content by making it trivially easy.

I'm so angry I don't even have a screenshot for you. God damn!

Scholar got me thinking again

This weekend I picked up Scholar again. My friend was going to bring a new person into the game and we had this elaborate plan to have a rad party starting as a level 1 White Mage, Samurai and Summoner. That fell through, so instead I ran around hitting things with a stick on Scholar.

Once I got to level 10 I decided it might be a good idea to actually put together a macro palette.

This is always a defining moment for mage jobs I've found. Putting together a functional macro palette and planning it so that you have room to expand is a bit of an art form. For Damage Dealing jobs it tends to be a little easier since you aren't weighed down with countless spells and abilities, and it can all fit into one line early on without any difficulty. Mage jobs on the other hand require a bit more finesse and planning.

Over the course of leveling a few different mage jobs I've found there's a routine evolution of macros I keep using.

Typically you start with just one line of macros. 20 slots is usually all you need for the very early levels so this works out well. This serves to build the foundation of your most commonly used spells. I generally split mine in half, CTRL for things that get cast on the party and ALT for offensive spells. Since there are a few select spells that you end up casting very frequently it's useful to have one macro line set up as what I internally term a "resting palette". It's the macro line I keep defaulting back to because it holds all the spells I need to cast at the drop of a hat. It always ends up being macro line 2.

Alas, the leveling process dictates that you will eventually amass more spells than can fit on a single macro line. So we must expand if we want to be able to sling spells without losing time fiddling with a menu or mispelling spells manually in the command line. This takes us into the realm of more specialized and comprehensive macro lines. Two new lines to be precise.

Above the resting macro in line 1, I tend to put all my miscellaneous Black Magic. Normally this consists of 6 nukes and various other goodies that expand upon what could not fit in the ALT section of the resting macro line. The CTRL/ALT split isn't as important here beyond keeping the 6 nukes in a row on the same section. I'm just a tad OCD about that, but the rest gets filled with Sleeps, Drain, Aspir and whatever else I could conceivably need. It's also a haven for any Black Magic related job abilities when there's extra slots not taken by spells.

Beneath the resting macro we have our White Magic on line 3. This has our full set of cures, because while typically you'll alternate between two tiers in a party it's still worth being able to call up any of them at any given time. Here's where the barspells and status-curing spells go as well. Not much to say about it really, it holds the White Magic that doesn't fit in our resting macro line.

"But wait," you cry, "where are all the equipment swapping macros?"

Do not fear dear reader, they have not been forgotten. Macro line 4 houses macros for various gear-stances, like INT and MND builds or your hMP(healing MP) set. While I imagine this can get quite crowded for some folks, I haven't hit a level of gear saturation that makes this section overloaded just yet. There are still plenty of free slots and I've taken to filling some of them with job abilities simply for convenience. Once I hit gear saturation though, the whole macro system I've built up to this point is going to dissolve anyway, so I try not to think about it too much.

Macro line 5 has ended up being a wild-card section. It holds things that aren't used that often or aren't exactly critical but still need a macro, like Sneak and Invisible.

So, to summarize:

1. Black Magic
2. Default
3. White Magic
4. Gear/Job Abilities
5. Miscellaneous
6. Fishing

Yes, this was a boring post for most of you but I needed to get this out of my head.

Fireworks over Bastok.

This shot amuses me for some reason. I think it's the Tarutaru.

Front line melee...

I just got out of a party and I'm damn near frothing at the mouth with rage.

Let me back up a minute before I injure myself with all this concentrated hatred.

Last week my friend and I were working on unlocking Samurai and we damn near had it but had to logout before the NPC finished smithing our swords. Figuring it'd be a fun class to tag team with my friend I decided to get off my ass and level a subjob for it, namely Warrior. This is all part of my back-burner plan to level Dragoon some day.

After bouncing past the Dunes levels I spent some time skilling up in the Dunes(oh irony, you slay me). After some time with my flag up I get a party invite to the oddest of places. Rolanberry Fields in the past. Well I haven't been there before so I venture out and it takes freaking forever without chocobos or teleporty goodness or even maps. After burning through a full stack of powders and oils getting to camp I find the party. The setup makes more sense once I learn there's someone Power Leveling the party, but that's irrelevant.

The point being that this was my first party as a Damage Dealer(DD).

After two hours...I have complete and utter contempt for all DDs. It's the fucking lazy man's job, no two ways about it. The difference between playing a front line melee and playing a mage job is like night and day.

The DD does this:

1. Hit things with pointed sticks
2. Use one, maybe two Job Abilities
3. Execute a Weaponskill
4. Repeat

I swear to god, that's all that's required of them and they get a pat on the head and a cookie.

Whereas on Red Mage I get to take care of all this and more:

• Keep everyone alive
• Cure status ailments
• Dispel enemy buffs
• Keep folks Refreshed
• Keep folks Hasted
• Apply Enfeebling magic
• Renew Enfeebling magic
• Sleep links
• Try not to draw hate
• Nuke
• Manage MP while accomplishing all of the above

This is absolutely bananas!

For the entire party on Warrior I was able to play with a PS2 controller in hand.

I can't get away with that on Red Mage. No, on Red Mage I'm hammering macros so frantically I need the keyboard just to jump through 5 macro pages in a timely manner. Don't even get me started on how I have to take in the scope of the battle and give the party the kick in the ass it needs when it comes time to retreat; Setting down the controller and picking up the keyboard to type a message takes way too damn long.

This...this just makes me angry. I don't have the proper words to convey it, just a boiling sensation of rage that the majority of the party workload is getting dumped on the mage. I suspect whatever's left is given to the tank, because the role of Damage Dealer requires no accountability whatsoever.

This...


...turns into this mess.


Shooting bunnies with axes.

The Notorious Monster Addiction

Hi, I'm Cid and I camp Notorious Monsters even though I know better.

Nothing significant mind you, but there is something very appealing about finding and killing a monster that doesn't show up every five minutes. It's even more appealing when you start adding cool treasure to the equation, althogh I'm not convinced that's the sole appeal of the activity.

In many cases it's an excuse to check out new areas I don't usually pass through.

On some level I suspect it operates on the same principle as gambling. Often even finding the monster in and of itself feels like an accomplishment, and then the drop rates are the same thing all over again. Yes, it can be frustrating, but it can also be really rewarding as long as the drop rate isn't too abusive. Once the drop rate gets too abusive I run the risk of repeating the Rambler's Gaiters incident. Trust me, it isn't pretty.

There are some inherent flaws in the system, but I don't think the drop rates or long respawn times are the big ones. The real problem is that most of the treasure isn't level appropriate. Notorious Monsters are robust enemies that will trounce you if you're not a sufficiently high level. But once you reach that high level, the gear they provide is most likely outdated. This is a problem. In order to take down a NM at the level where you would be using the gear, you need to drag multiple friends out to help you fight the critter. Given how frequently these mobs show up and their atrocious drop rates, this means you either can't have nice things or you have to make your friends miserable in order to get nice things. I know FFXI is all about the teamwork and what-not, but this is just silly.

Despite all this, I've spent a good bit of time camping things. There's just this wonderful sense of satisfaction (or is it vengeance?) that comes from slicing up the monster and finally seeing that shiny trinket fall out of their entrails.

If nothing else it's been something to pass the time while I try to figure out what to do next in game. Also the prospect of having stupid good gear when taking up a second job is very appealing. Oh Dragoon, someday I'll actually level you and it will be awesome.



After 18 kills it's just not worth it when I can buy the belt on the Auction House for cheap.


This one might be worthwhile if I can figure out the timing and placement a little better.


I accidentally killed this one back in the day without realizing it was a Notorious Monster.


You know what else is appealing about camping Notorious Monsters? Being able to do stuff like this while waiting. Nothing like taking on a pack of orcs single-handedly.

Aesthetics are important

Screenshot Spectacular, the second

Recently a few of my friends have been bugging me to try out Dungeons and Dragons Online with them. Now I'm pretty deeply entrenched in FFXI at this point, but I'm not opposed to branching out and expanding my horizons a little. Besides, slicing up goblins with friends is usually pretty hard to mess up.

Dungeons and Dragons isn't really new to me either. I'm one of those guys who ran through the Baldur's Gate series and then proceeded to spend a whole Summer raiding his local library for all the 3rd edition rule books and supplements he could find. So what the hell, I thought, I'll give it a try.

While I was waiting for the client to download and install itself I decided to take a look at the game trailer on the website. Boy was that ever a mistake.

The world I saw in the trailers was the standard fantasy setting, yes, but it was also brightly colored and gaudy. It was not the kind of world I associate with a good D&D campaign. In the back of my head there was a little voice screaming: "World of Warcraft clone". Usually I try to ignore this voice but the similarities in the color schemes were a bit too similar. The whole palette was over the top. Garish cartoon colors and architecture littered the video.

This is not what I want from a game. When I want a D&D game I'm there for immersion. I'm there to get sucked into the world, not be constantly reminded that I'm playing a game. When you litter your environment with sharply contrasting colors, it's very jarring and prevents me from losing myself in the game.

FFXI has done a phenomenal job of avoiding this and also providing the correct balance of realistic color scheme with a dash of fantasy. Combined with the insane attention to detail it makes for a world that feels very much alive. The crazy fantasy zones aren't so pervasive in the world that they intrude upon the perception of the game as a fully realized world.

Thankfully the game wasn't able to install itself on my PC on account of a missing .dll file for DirectX, so I was able to scamper away without having to bother with D&D:O anymore. I'll stick with FFXI's world sprinkled with a bit of fantasy rather than a fantasy sprinkled with a bit of world, thanks.



It may be a slow week in terms of gaming progress in Vana'diel but that hasn't stopped me from finding some good photo opportunities.



I think this was somewhere in Ghelsba Outpost. I spent some time there hunting down some Blue Magic as well as a nifty spear to put in storage for that rainy day when I decide to level Dragoon.


Valkurm Dunes: for all the horrors of leveling there, I just don't mind hanging out there on my own time.


I want to raise Notorious Monsters instead of a chocobo next time.


My friend doesn't believe me when I tell him there are small children in Gusgen Mines. Even when they're right in front of him.


I really like the lighting effects of the lamps at night. Could it be better? Yes, but it still looks cool.


This is something of a running joke. My friend gave me lots of grief when we were starting out because his monk had better Mind(MND) than my Red Mage. Then he got an MP pool and got even more uppity. Now I Refresh him for giggles.


Arguing over who gets to steer the ship on our way to Mhaura. I have no sense of direction but he has no maps.


Don't let that passive face fool you.



Bunny Punching. Seriously, this is one of the highlights of the game for me: punching bunnies full of electricity. There may or may not be a song about this later.


Drogaroga's Spine has always been an impressive land mark.


Tahrongi Canyon has beautiful skies at dusk.


Man those are some stylish pants.

Does anyone know of a way to get better resolution screenshots that doesn't involve breaking the EULA? I'm rather discouraged with the built-in screen capture and how it degrades the quality of the pictures.

Worst Design Choice

There's been a lot of new stuff that came with the update. Some of it good, some of it bad and some of it easily ignorable.

However, I think I've managed to pin down the worst design choice of the entire update:

They put a Cavernous Maw right at the zone line for Konschtat Highlands!

I'm sorry, but this is worse than any mechanics tinkering or quest line nonsense. This utterly kills the aesthetic appeal of the game. This thing looks like a big ugly monster and you stick right at the spot where new adventurers from Bastok are going to zone in? What were you thinking? This is a gateway to endgame content, the least you could do is hide it out of the way like you did with the original Maws so players have to go out of their way to get to it. To me this screams "We are ignoring the possibility of new players", not to mention it utterly ruins the immersive atmosphere that I've come to love in this game.

I know the game is fairly old at this point, but there's no excuse for these shenanigans.