Shoot first?

[Stockyboy]

/derail

[Sugami]

It takes all of one minute to place a GM call, not exactly "going out of my way" or "time wasting". I don't usually stop to look at SMN skilling up though so the only calls I've made have been on a gilseller mining bot; 2/3 got answered, 1/3 was reasonably quick and 0/3 did anything

Someone find that iDonothing picture for me

[Stockyboy]

It takes all of one minute to place a GM call, not exactly "going out of my way" or "time wasting". I don't usually stop to look at SMN skilling up though so the only calls I've made have been on a gilseller mining bot; 2/3 got answered, 1/3 was reasonably quick and 0/3 did anything

Someone find that iDonothing picture for me

[Tivia]

I'm still confused how you're infringing on their gameplay if they're not at their keyboard playing.

Me personally, I'm not gonna bother to report someone skill-botting, but I'm not gonna sit there and go "You capped your skill, {Good job!}, because frankly? I find it a piss-poor excuse to use one, just cuz you want to have capped skills. You want capped skills, you should work for them. Shirai capped her {Summoning Magic} without using a bot. And that's before it was even possible to get skill ups just from using Blood Pacts. I'd rather level with someone like Shirai, who got their skill honestly. To me, if you don't do the work for your skill, you have no pride in what you've done. There's no sense of accomplishment in setting up a bot and leaving your keyboard. I've capped sword, Shield, Evasion in every level on NIN, I'm working on capping Staff for PLD, Great Sword, Dagger, and slowly working on skilling up Great Katana and Throwing for NIN. I can't just bot away these skills. It's not possible. And I'd feel pretty stupid for doing so if I could.

Capped skills are pretty, yes. But even better is the sense of accomplishment in knowing that you did the work to get them there.

I guess the primary difference between you and I is, I completely fail to find anything meaningful or a sense of accomplishment in mashing the same button over and over for hours on end. Also I tend to judge people on their ability to play their class as my determiniation of if I will party with them, and to me the method they used to cap skills has no bearing or influence on their ability to play. As for me I never cared if the people I was grouped with knew if my skills were capped or not, I wanted them to judge my performance on my ability to play my job.

[Sakino]

It takes all of one minute to place a GM call, not exactly "going out of my way" or "time wasting". I don't usually stop to look at SMN skilling up though so the only calls I've made have been on a gilseller mining bot; 2/3 got answered, 1/3 was reasonably quick and 0/3 did anything

Someone find that iDonothing picture for me

Most of the time the GM can't do anything unless his actions are blantent. What they tend to do is flag the person that is called and a senior GM later looks into that person to see if it warrents a ban. I've seen that occur several times when I called in fishing bots. It would take a day or two before they went "poof".

[Stockyboy]

I'm still confused how you're infringing on their gameplay if they're not at their keyboard playing.

Me personally, I'm not gonna bother to report someone skill-botting, but I'm not gonna sit there and go "You capped your skill, {Good job!}, because frankly? I find it a piss-poor excuse to use one, just cuz you want to have capped skills. You want capped skills, you should work for them. Shirai capped her {Summoning Magic} without using a bot. And that's before it was even possible to get skill ups just from using Blood Pacts. I'd rather level with someone like Shirai, who got their skill honestly. To me, if you don't do the work for your skill, you have no pride in what you've done. There's no sense of accomplishment in setting up a bot and leaving your keyboard. I've capped sword, Shield, Evasion in every level on NIN, I'm working on capping Staff for PLD, Great Sword, Dagger, and slowly working on skilling up Great Katana and Throwing for NIN. I can't just bot away these skills. It's not possible. And I'd feel pretty stupid for doing so if I could.

Capped skills are pretty, yes. But even better is the sense of accomplishment in knowing that you did the work to get them there.

I guess the primary difference between you and I is, I completely fail to find anything meaningful or a sense of accomplishment in mashing the same button over and over for hours on end. Also I tend to judge people on their ability to play their class as my determiniation of if I will party with them, and to me the method they used to cap skills has no bearing or influence on their ability to play. As for me I never cared if the people I was grouped with knew if my skills were capped or not, I wanted them to judge my performance on my ability to play my job.

What confuses me is that you're willing to risk paying $14 or so a month to then use a cheat that could get you banned, meaning all those $14s are to waste. Seems kinda silly.

[Tivia]

I personally risk it for 3 reasons; 1) I disagree with the rule on principle as mentioned, 2) I have carpal tunnel and my wrists cannot stand up to hours of repetative button mashing without me popping loretab like candy, I generally speaking hate taking pills, 3) I am no longer have endless hours to invest in a game, my time is valuable therefore I am unwilling to spend hours doing a repetative action that does not give me any edge other then sating my personal desire for keeping skills maxed at all times. I pay $15 a month to "play" a game, button mashing is not playing it is mindless and unnecessary, and I refuse to pay to do it. If that should someday get me banned so be it, at least the time I spend in game is me playing and under that term I paid for enjoyment I got without paying for miserable work. I work enough at my job, I have no desire to work in game.

[Stockyboy]

Suppose if you can condone it for yourself, as long as it isn't abused, but it's still cheating in everyone else eyes.

[Okuza]

BTW, while we're on the subject of doing things while AFK, does anyone else find the very concept of bazaar mode to be utterly ridiculous?

Surely SE isn't making enough extra money in $1 per month mule fees to cover the resources required to support all the bazaar mules that are online all the time. Why not just expand the AH? Remove the 7 item limit and non-AH non-mail aspect on some sellables. Then get rid of bazaar mode entirely. If you can sell it at all, why restrict the ways in which you can sell it? Compared to an all-AH market, Rolanberry bazaar is absurd. ><

[Tivia]

BTW, while we're on the subject of doing things while AFK, does anyone else find the very concept of bazaar mode to be utterly ridiculous?

Surely SE isn't making enough extra money in $1 per month mule fees to cover the resources required to support all the bazaar mules that are online all the time. Why not just expand the AH? Remove the 7 item limit and non-AH non-mail aspect on some sellables. Then get rid of bazaar mode entirely. If you can sell it at all, why restrict the ways in which you can sell it? Compared to an all-AH market, Rolanberry bazaar is absurd. ><

Concerning that, extra money is extra money. If you consider the very concept of paying $1 per extra character per month is asanine in of itself, and considering thousands if not 10s of thousands of players have 1 or more mules, that quickly adds up into quite a substantial amount of extra income per month. I agree the 7 item limit is silly, but they are making a killing and people are not complaining, so they have no reason to stop.

[Okuza]

Ya, but the reason I have extra mules isn't to run bazaar-bots. It's because of travel and inventory limitations. Mules can buy up vendor items across vanadiel really quick and mail them to me for crafting. This type of muling doesn't cost SE much in terms of bandwidth and other live server resources -- they're on and off pretty quick and it's still me just using up resources to support one live player. Bazaar mules just sit AFK forever and yet they still suck down the resources used by any live character.

Anyway, it irks me that so many MMORPGs basically bludgeon people into buying extra characters via poor design just so they can play a single character. Very few people buy another character to play another character. It's not the extra fees that are irksome, it's the deliberate choice to substitute mules for features.

Rather than having people buy extra characters they really don't want to play, why not just charge more per month for extra features for the actual character? Extra $1/month for +60 inventory, for +80 bank, for +60 locker? Hell, sounds good to me if I can access it directly from my main character. How about another $1/month to be able to directly exit your Mog House to any city? Another for extra AH slots?

SE has argued that more inventory/bank/etc increases hording. Uh, but I *already* horde items. I never sell anything I don't want to sell just to free up bank or inventory. I put those things on mules or in storage for use later. I don't recycle them into gil via the AH. I have full gear sets for NIN from 40-75 as well as current-level sets for all the other jobs I might play again.

I'd love to do away with the entire concept of mules. Extra fees to do it would be fine by me. SE has this really wonderful feature of being able to play any job on one character and then they kill it off with bad inventory management. ><

[Alya Mizar (Tsybil)]

Why not just expand the AH? Remove the 7 item limit and non-AH non-mail aspect on some sellables. Then get rid of bazaar mode entirely. If you can sell it at all, why restrict the ways in which you can sell it? Compared to an all-AH market, Rolanberry bazaar is absurd. ><

Squenix has said that the AH is the most resource intensive part of the game. I do believe thay had planed to have a quest to expand AH slots to 10, but were unable to implement it.

By design, many items are neither mailable nor AHable but can be traded and bazarred. There are good reasons for this. You may not agree with them, but I think it is quite fair to have a class of items between AHable things and Ex things.

[Sugami]

Most of the time the GM can't do anything unless his actions are blantent. What they tend to do is flag the person that is called and a senior GM later looks into that person to see if it warrents a ban. I've seen that occur several times when I called in fishing bots. It would take a day or two before they went "poof".

They said they'll add him to their "watch list" or some BS. I'd do a /sea all Xintwo and garanteed he'd be in Oldton if he was online. Last I checked he was still there, would have been a couple month after the GM calls, which tells me they didn't even bother checking into it.

2) I have carpal tunnel and my wrists cannot stand up to hours of repetative button mashing without me popping loretab like candy, I generally speaking hate taking pills

Then this really isn't a game for you since that's all you ever do anyways

3) I am no longer have endless hours to invest in a game, my time is valuable therefore I am unwilling to spend hours doing a repetative action that does not give me any edge other then sating my personal desire for keeping skills maxed at all times. I pay $15 a month to "play" a game, button mashing is not playing it is mindless and unnecessary, and I refuse to pay to do it.

You don't so much play the game as you do live or endure it. That's how I feel about it anyways, amount of time I actual play the damn thing is probably close to 25% of my time in the game

Extra chars for mulage and extra AH space is good, Bazaars never got anything sold for me tax free sales on expensive items is also good for those 100+6 crafters etc.

Limiting to 7 propably stops retarded farmers/crafters from flooding the market (more so than they do already) and completely bombing the price.

[Karou Ariyen]

Most of the time the GM can't do anything unless his actions are blantent. What they tend to do is flag the person that is called and a senior GM later looks into that person to see if it warrents a ban. I've seen that occur several times when I called in fishing bots. It would take a day or two before they went "poof".

They said they'll add him to their "watch list" or some BS. I'd do a /sea all Xintwo and garanteed he'd be in Oldton if he was online. Last I checked he was still there, would have been a couple month after the GM calls, which tells me they didn't even bother checking into it.

Email response from JadedDragoness: Yes basically what we did, at least the Japanese GMs, is if someone reported botting or such we'd automatically inspect them. Basically it involved putting them on a watch list and our Senior GM would review and monitor the player. Some days if work load got overboard with botters, we'd all take a turn in inspecting the players. Some days we had conferances over what would constitute bans. Usually it took 1-4 days for known botters to be exposed, caught and banned.

Too bad Ayame there quit being an XI GM a year ago, but that's from her mouth in an email sent to her friends called "The truth behind how a GM Works." so if a GM doesnt give reasonable results, or immediate action, their just doing their jobs

[Tivia]

Most of the time the GM can't do anything unless his actions are blantent. What they tend to do is flag the person that is called and a senior GM later looks into that person to see if it warrents a ban. I've seen that occur several times when I called in fishing bots. It would take a day or two before they went "poof".

They said they'll add him to their "watch list" or some BS. I'd do a /sea all Xintwo and garanteed he'd be in Oldton if he was online. Last I checked he was still there, would have been a couple month after the GM calls, which tells me they didn't even bother checking into it.

2) I have carpal tunnel and my wrists cannot stand up to hours of repetative button mashing without me popping loretab like candy, I generally speaking hate taking pills

Then this really isn't a game for you since that's all you ever do anyways

3) I am no longer have endless hours to invest in a game, my time is valuable therefore I am unwilling to spend hours doing a repetative action that does not give me any edge other then sating my personal desire for keeping skills maxed at all times. I pay $15 a month to "play" a game, button mashing is not playing it is mindless and unnecessary, and I refuse to pay to do it.

You don't so much play the game as you do live or endure it. That's how I feel about it anyways, amount of time I actual play the damn thing is probably close to 25% of my time in the game

Extra chars for mulage and extra AH space is good, Bazaars never got anything sold for me tax free sales on expensive items is also good for those 100+6 crafters etc.

Limiting to 7 propably stops retarded farmers/crafters from flooding the market (more so than they do already) and completely bombing the price.

Alot of the button mashing and time contributed to me quitting FFXI for sure, although my primary catalyst still regretfully remains the fact that Good groups were the exception and not the rule, I just could not deal with the sheer amount of people who could not play their job, hopefully things have changed as FFXI to me outside a few gripes was a spectacular game to me.

Concerning the comment of enduring the game, I pose a question. If you are not enjoying Playing the Game, why are you paying for it? I loved FFXI however a few key things caused it to become more of a job then an enjoyable game thus I quit paying for it. Once again I pay for enjoyment, when that enjoyment ceases to be there the vast majority of the time, I see no reason to continue paying. You pay a monthly fee for Enjoyment, if you are only enjoying it 25% of the time that strikes me as a little bleak.

[Stockyboy]

Most of the time the GM can't do anything unless his actions are blantent. What they tend to do is flag the person that is called and a senior GM later looks into that person to see if it warrents a ban. I've seen that occur several times when I called in fishing bots. It would take a day or two before they went "poof".

They said they'll add him to their "watch list" or some BS. I'd do a /sea all Xintwo and garanteed he'd be in Oldton if he was online. Last I checked he was still there, would have been a couple month after the GM calls, which tells me they didn't even bother checking into it.

2) I have carpal tunnel and my wrists cannot stand up to hours of repetative button mashing without me popping loretab like candy, I generally speaking hate taking pills

Then this really isn't a game for you since that's all you ever do anyways

3) I am no longer have endless hours to invest in a game, my time is valuable therefore I am unwilling to spend hours doing a repetative action that does not give me any edge other then sating my personal desire for keeping skills maxed at all times. I pay $15 a month to "play" a game, button mashing is not playing it is mindless and unnecessary, and I refuse to pay to do it.

You don't so much play the game as you do live or endure it. That's how I feel about it anyways, amount of time I actual play the damn thing is probably close to 25% of my time in the game

Extra chars for mulage and extra AH space is good, Bazaars never got anything sold for me tax free sales on expensive items is also good for those 100+6 crafters etc.

Limiting to 7 propably stops retarded farmers/crafters from flooding the market (more so than they do already) and completely bombing the price.

Alot of the button mashing and time contributed to me quitting FFXI for sure, although my primary catalyst still regretfully remains the fact that Good groups were the exception and not the rule, I just could not deal with the sheer amount of people who could not play their job, hopefully things have changed as FFXI to me outside a few gripes was a spectacular game to me.

Concerning the comment of enduring the game, I pose a question. If you are not enjoying Playing the Game, why are you paying for it? I loved FFXI however a few key things caused it to become more of a job then an enjoyable game thus I quit paying for it. Once again I pay for enjoyment, when that enjoyment ceases to be there the vast majority of the time, I see no reason to continue paying. You pay a monthly fee for Enjoyment, if you are only enjoying it 25% of the time that strikes me as a little bleak.

This makes me think of another Russian Reversal joke.

'In Soviet Russia, FFXI plays you!'

[Sakino]

Most of the time the GM can't do anything unless his actions are blantent. What they tend to do is flag the person that is called and a senior GM later looks into that person to see if it warrents a ban. I've seen that occur several times when I called in fishing bots. It would take a day or two before they went "poof".

They said they'll add him to their "watch list" or some BS. I'd do a /sea all Xintwo and garanteed he'd be in Oldton if he was online. Last I checked he was still there, would have been a couple month after the GM calls, which tells me they didn't even bother checking into it.

Email response from JadedDragoness: Yes basically what we did, at least the Japanese GMs, is if someone reported botting or such we'd automatically inspect them. Basically it involved putting them on a watch list and our Senior GM would review and monitor the player. Some days if work load got overboard with botters, we'd all take a turn in inspecting the players. Some days we had conferances over what would constitute bans. Usually it took 1-4 days for known botters to be exposed, caught and banned.

Too bad Ayame there quit being an XI GM a year ago, but that's from her mouth in an email sent to her friends called "The truth behind how a GM Works." so if a GM doesnt give reasonable results, or immediate action, their just doing their jobs

I used to be a GM in two other online games and what she speaks is true. You have a very short leash when it comes to what you can and can't do as a lower GM on the totem poll. In large companies like SE they have a set protocol on what to do in each instance and a canned response to them.

Most of the actions (bannings etc) are done by people higher up on the ladder. Basically most GMs are there to filter complaints like a mail sorter. For anyone who says being a GM would be fun is way off the mark lol. 80% of the time you are answering calls or pouring through e-mails like a receptionist.

Sadly this business model is common in most areas of technical support be it from a video game or IRL stuff. There are a few exceptions however like Jumpgate where a low sever population coupled with an open ended world that allowed players to have an effect on the gaming environment, allowed GMs to take a more proactive role with that players. GMs in Jumpgate would often not only answer complaints and technical issues but they hosted events and flew the "enemy" ships.

As a shameless plug: http://www.jossh.com

It's still a good game but... it has so little press (that and the graphics are outdated) that not many people play it anymore. I assume however that Netdevil will expand on Jumpgate soon now that they have some spending capital when they developed Auto Assault for NCSoft.

[Okuza]

One of the major problems with FFXI is the ratio of drudgery to fun. It's good that gil has value, but SE seems to have made it valuable by requiring folks to spend an inordinate ammount of time doing things that aren't fun in order to obtain the gil needed to do things that are fun.

It's not so bad at newbie levels; 1-60 is pretty much 90% fun. Any deliberate gil'ing you do is by choice rather than as a need in order to progress. Even 60-74 isn't so bad -- maybe 70% fun stuff (yes, I count XP'ing as fun). It's only when you're 75 and need end-game items in order to improve your character that the fun:farm ratio hits the floor and whimpers.

FFXI end-game is just awful, but by that time you have so much invested into a job that giving it up seems to be some kind of self-betrayal.

[Sakino]

One of the major problems with FFXI is the ratio of drudgery to fun. It's good that gil has value, but SE seems to have made it valuable by requiring folks to spend an inordinate ammount of time doing things that aren't fun in order to obtain the gil needed to do things that are fun.

It's not so bad at newbie levels; 1-60 is pretty much 90% fun. Any deliberate gil'ing you do is by choice rather than as a need in order to progress. Even 60-74 isn't so bad -- maybe 70% fun stuff (yes, I count XP'ing as fun). It's only when you're 75 and need end-game items in order to improve your character that the fun:farm ratio hits the floor and whimpers.

FFXI end-game is just awful, but by that time you have so much invested into a job that giving it up seems to be some kind of self-betrayal.

Yeah, all the more reason to not to try to rush to "end game" status and just focus on what you feel is fun in FFXI. Many players in FFXI seem to have a desire rush to level 75 as fast as they can (tearing their hair out while they do so). Once they achive that goal they realize that end game stuff is really not what it is cracked up to be.

To spend all of your time grinding to reach such a goal really detracts from the game, if that is all a person is focused on. They miss the fun quests, missions and other group events they can do at lower levels.

People forget that MMORPGs are games... not real-life ver 2.0 If a game is work and hastle to someone I normally recommend a break or a sampling of the other things a MMOG has to offer. Once a game is no longer fun to a person, it no longer is a game; it becomes a headache.

Do what you like in FFXI and see where the winds take you. I've never had any real set goals in the game... I just do what I enjoy doing.

[Sugami]

Alot of the button mashing and time contributed to me quitting FFXI for sure, although my primary catalyst still regretfully remains the fact that Good groups were the exception and not the rule, I just could not deal with the sheer amount of people who could not play their job, hopefully things have changed as FFXI to me outside a few gripes was a spectacular game to me.

Maybe you should have played a job like MNK where all you do is engage, walk off make tea and come back to hit a button for your WS

And no it hasn't changed. In fact I bump into more noobs now than during my first run to 75.

Concerning the comment of enduring the game, I pose a question. If you are not enjoying Playing the Game, why are you paying for it?

I'm not playing it anymore, not really. 5mins every day to check on VioletSakura doesn't really count. I won't cancel my account as I don't really want to part with Sugami and all the hard work I've put into it plus I see myself getting back into it down the line somewhere.

One of the major problems with FFXI is the ratio of drudgery to fun. It's good that gil has value, but SE seems to have made it valuable by requiring folks to spend an inordinate ammount of time doing things that aren't fun in order to obtain the gil needed to do things that are fun.

It's not so bad at newbie levels; 1-60 is pretty much 90% fun. Any deliberate gil'ing you do is by choice rather than as a need in order to progress. Even 60-74 isn't so bad -- maybe 70% fun stuff (yes, I count XP'ing as fun). It's only when you're 75 and need end-game items in order to improve your character that the fun:farm ratio hits the floor and whimpers.

FFXI end-game is just awful, but by that time you have so much invested into a job that giving it up seems to be some kind of self-betrayal.

Well not quite true if your first job is any DD (that isn't BLM or SMN) you have to pay out big for those must have items or you're gimpo. Sniper's/Woodsmen/Venerer, Scorpion Harness, Haubergeon, Amemet +1 etc. Those are all Lv.34-61.

At 75 there's only god/sky, sea/limbus and dynamis stuff. Requires putting time into events rather than nonstop farming/mining/etc.

[Okuza]

Well not quite true if your first job is any DD (that isn't BLM or SMN) you have to pay out big for those must have items or you're gimpo. Sniper's/Woodsmen/Venerer, Scorpion Harness, Haubergeon, Amemet +1 etc. Those are all Lv.34-61.

Heh -- my first job was melee (THF) and I didn't have *any* of those items. This was pre-sushi, too, so there is more of a case for stuff like snipers back then. Honestly, none of those items you listed make that much difference. People will shout and scream that they're SOO much better than other items, but if you parse the difference it's really incredibly tiny. By FFXI standards, they are much nicer, but the FFXI standard of "much nicer" is +1%. A full set of top armor only maybe shifts performance by 5-10% over well chosen cheap stuff. None of those items are *needs*. You can progress just fine without them.

You really only run into expensive item needs at 75. Once you have capped merits and capped level, the only way to improve is through items. You don't really need them to play, but you do need them to progress. A sense of progress and improvement, imaginary as it may be, is one of the most fundamental hooks for playing an RPG. When people think they can no longer progress, they might coast for a bit, but mostly they quit playing.

That's probably why SE takes RMT so seriously. If left unchecked, it puts everyone into a "pay up or quit" situation. That's a loose-loose for SE. Even people that pay the first time will eventually balk at it and quit sooner than they would otherwise.

[Stockyboy]

Well not quite true if your first job is any DD (that isn't BLM or SMN) you have to pay out big for those must have items or you're gimpo. Sniper's/Woodsmen/Venerer, Scorpion Harness, Haubergeon, Amemet +1 etc. Those are all Lv.34-61.

Heh -- my first job was melee (THF) and I didn't have *any* of those items. This was pre-sushi, too, so there is more of a case for stuff like snipers back then. Honestly, none of those items you listed make that much difference. People will shout and scream that they're SOO much better than other items, but if you parse the difference it's really incredibly tiny. By FFXI standards, they are much nicer, but the FFXI standard of "much nicer" is +1%. A full set of top armor only maybe shifts performance by 5-10% over well chosen cheap stuff. None of those items are *needs*. You can progress just fine without them.

You really only run into expensive item needs at 75. Once you have capped merits and capped level, the only way to improve is through items. You don't really need them to play, but you do need them to progress. A sense of progress and improvement, imaginary as it may be, is one of the most fundamental hooks for playing an RPG. When people think they can no longer progress, they might coast for a bit, but mostly they quit playing.

That's probably why SE takes RMT so seriously. If left unchecked, it puts everyone into a "pay up or quit" situation. That's a loose-loose for SE. Even people that pay the first time will eventually balk at it and quit sooner than they would otherwise.

+10 Accuracy on the hauby over the +6 str on the sipha body piece will make a difference. Having +10 acc for rings instead of 3 makes a difference. A well kitted out player will outparse a poorly kitted out player any day of the week, it's not easy to get those items, but it's certainly worth it for the enjoyment you get with the feeling that you are infact doing the best you can do.

[Sugami]

Accuracy items you'll notice a lot more, especially if you're using two-handed weapons (I still think they need more acc than one-handed ).

I've been told by a few NINs that the SH doesn't add much to evasion (noticiably), on stuff that's IT or higher they'll still hit you 9 times out of 10 and once you start fighting the wimpier stuff you aim for damage over evasion so that aspect is kinda not needed

I hear anal DRGs moan about people using the Corazza over the Assault Jerkin constantly, the attack difference is only like +4 and I never noticed the difference when I swapped to Corazza and then back to AJ. I only use AJ 'cause of the small Accuracy bonus and without the o-glay hat every little helps when trying for meat build

[Pheonixhawk]

And now for something completely off the topic.

Cunning Earrings lvl 29. +1 Int, 20k

Phantom Earrings lvl 60. +1 Int, and 8 mp. 300K. WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Stockyboy]

Phantom earrings require the phantom tathalum to synth, a drop from a lvl 75 HNM that gilsellers try to monopolize. Too bad their Whms suck and don't bar-stone them.

[Pheonixhawk]

Id still be happier with the 210K... I think I can live without 16 additional MP.

[Okuza]

ACC and EVA gear is very situational and you really must parse it or you will have no idea at all what it is really doing for you. For instance, I just recently decided to test out using even more ACC on THF. Added +15 ACC and the parses shifted by about 3% on hit rate; 3% is within the error factor. So, +15 ACC did absolutely nothing for me.

The only time ACC will really make much difference is when you can shift the /check message. If you can make it go from High to Nothing or to Low evasion, then you'll get a worthwhile result. Also, ACC gear will tend to up the averages for your multi-hit WS's. I usually laugh at level 40s that brag about how nice sniper rings are. I *know* exactly how little that +10acc is doing at that level. Somewhere around 60 is where it makes a bit more sense, but you still need a TON of +ACC before it really will make a difference.

EVA is always good for a NIN tank. It's just a matter of is EVA better than Haste or ATK for this situation? On XP stuff at any level, if the NIN has good mage support (always has haste spell, critter always debuffed with slow & dia), the NIN can go all-out on ATK/DD. The more the mages suck, the more EVA the NIN will need to swap in. Swapping in EVA usually means swapping out ATK/DD.

An example: soloing steelshells for skillup in bohyada (DC to T), my NIN's evasion rate parsed ~70%. That was while wearing full +r.acc and then as much EVA has I have. Soloing Aquarius (full haste then eva), it was 65% evasion and 8% parry. Versus XP (T to IT mix) in full ATK gear, EVA rate is usually 15~20%, parry ~5%. EVA gear does make a huge difference even versus IT++, it's just that usually there are more important stats to focus on; eg. for sky gods, you need haste, enmity, def, and vit -- not much space left for evasion.

+10 Accuracy on the hauby over the +6 str on the sipha body piece will make a difference. Having +10 acc for rings instead of 3 makes a difference. A well kitted out player will outparse a poorly kitted out player any day of the week, it's not easy to get those items, but it's certainly worth it for the enjoyment you get with the feeling that you are infact doing the best you can do.

Yes, those do matter. Yes, you might outparse others. But, by how much!? I've parsed those stats comparing me to me (the only really valid parsing you can do). You're talking about a +1-3% gain. OMG, call your friends! You're a DD god now.

When you're at 75, it's all about struggling for that last 1% here and there because that's all that remains for your character to progress and improve. Before then, do it for fun if that's what you like, but you certainly don't need all that expensive armor. Nice weapons really do matter a lot, but armor not so much. People are so funny about armor. I've been running around in full THF AF2 for about a year and half now -- I still get tons of /checks and "omg, your gear is amazing!" And I have to laugh -- thf af2 just sucks. Your average level 60 thf runs about wearing far more effective fighting gear. I just wear it in town for the rarity & wow-factor. Rawr! Go-Go-Gadget placebo-armor!

[Pheonixhawk]

However it sounds like it is the same crap as when I left of having to stand around for hours button mashing to raise skills, Sorry I just do not find that fun or reasonable to be in game.

Hey hey now, raising skills can be fun. Like lvling mnk

Mnk training

or skilling up an every funner job. Like Ninja

Ninja trainin

[Keavy]

With the holidays fast approaching and all the good games coming out I don't see myself playing much FFXI until next year and when I do come back i'll probably level Bard or something else because I am sick and tired of getting yelled at because a fifteen-year-old brat's character had to go five goddamn seconds without Haste because I missed the recast not to mention the fact that I wasted 60K on food for my last three parties because they broke after the leader and one of the melee's got into a fight over which area we should level in. I hate to say it, but I miss the days of Dunes --> Qufim --> Jungles --> Citadel --> CN --> Desert --> Quicksand Caves.

Unrelated but needs to be mentioned: A good friend of mine whose name I can't reveal recently got to spend mucho quality time with LoZ on Wii and Gears of War and he said they're both so f***in' awesome that you won't care what PS3 brings to the table.

Back on topic, I think its the player community that is ruining FFXI. We bitch too much about getting 5-6K exp an hour minimum, about how gilsellers make the game bad, and about how without Rank 6, Level 75 something, or CoP Ch. 2 you can't do anything. I think we all need to lighten up a little and get back to FFXI being a game.

[Stockyboy]

Yes, those do matter. Yes, you might outparse others. But, by how much!? I've parsed those stats comparing me to me (the only really valid parsing you can do). You're talking about a +1-3% gain. OMG, call your friends! You're a DD god now.

When you're at 75, it's all about struggling for that last 1% here and there because that's all that remains for your character to progress and improve. Before then, do it for fun if that's what you like, but you certainly don't need all that expensive armor. Nice weapons really do matter a lot, but armor not so much. People are so funny about armor. I've been running around in full THF AF2 for about a year and half now -- I still get tons of /checks and "omg, your gear is amazing!" And I have to laugh -- thf af2 just sucks. Your average level 60 thf runs about wearing far more effective fighting gear. I just wear it in town for the rarity & wow-factor. Rawr! Go-Go-Gadget placebo-armor!

When I out DD'd the Rng by 25k dmg in one party (came out the top DD) yes, I did consider that a pat on the back.