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NeoGAF FFXI FAQ/Starter topic Redux

DrForester

Kills Photobucket
Well, Our LS went and camped Fafnir tonight.

The spawn comes, we get the pull, we take our positions.

It's about this time we realize we've gotten hold of Nidhogg, Fafnir's very pissed older brother, who must not have liked us killing his little brother 2 of the past 3 nights.....

We get him down to about 5% health, and once uner 10% he goes into a bit of a berserker mode and we're all wiped out. We quickly return to our home points and run back for round 2. We all return and begin round 2. about 2 dozen stoneskins later the dragon falls. First NA linkshell to beat him on our server.

Have to say thing like this make the game worthwhile. Getting a whole bunch of friends together and killing something like this.
 

Zaptruder

Banned
Damn :(

You guys got lucky.

We've been camping this SOB for well over a month and in between all the server maintenances and JP killing him, he's only managed to pop once or twice after we had our first, unexpected try at him, day right after server maintenance. We got him down to 20% that day, before spike flail wiped us and the JP claimed from the rest of us preventing us from recovering. :(
 

XMonkey

lacks enthusiasm.
People have too much time on their hands:

403_LINK2.jpg


486_taruru.jpg


503_taruru4.jpg


487_taruru2.jpg


More here, including some really good serious ones: http://ffxionline.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=48809
 

Ploid 3.0

Member
Belfast here's a treat for you in case you never seen mimic (My first time seeing it also).

Frame 1
Frame 2
Frame 3
Frame 4

Reminds me of one of those treasure chests in other games like Dark cloud 2, and Maximus or whatever that gouls and ghosts game is called (the 3D one).
 

Kintaro

Worships the porcelain goddess
Tamanon said:
Watch out in town, SO MANY QUADAVS!:)

Ugh, I hate these events. It's like everything stops and food, in FIFTEEN MINUTES sold out and is gouged to ALL hell. No one wants to party cuz they're caught up in all the BS the first day, when in reality, it's the perfect time to party =(

Oh well, Dynamis-Bastok tonight. Looking for 100 Byne Bills this time around. Aquired my Melee Gaiters last time out. 2/5 AFII pieces complete =)
 

Kintaro

Worships the porcelain goddess
Xaerus said:
What are the requirements to get into The Forsaken, Darsh?

lvl 70, Sky access, and they want you pretty much. I have friends within the LS that lobbied for me. Plus they want a MNK ^^
 

Ploid 3.0

Member
Cool picture man. I haven't been in Tavnasia Safehold in a long time. Now that I'm a 45rdm/22blm maybe I should try to get a party with the few Japanese people that are there. If the fact that you have convert is good enough to make you a instant choice (other than BRD) to be in a BCNM40 party it has to be good here too, right? Maybe more English people have made it (doubt any Japanese will invite me. Still have party-phobia left over from lfg as a THF though).

Speaking of party phobia... Anyone else here have a type of resistance to start a party, or become leader at any point of being in the party? I would log before starting a party as anything (with RDM I just have fun with mobs while lfg, and getting a party isn't much of a problem with that job anymore at all). Whenever I'm passed that golden leader orb I pass it to whoever else I can as if it's a hot potatoe.
 

DrForester

Kills Photobucket
Unless they've de-buffed it, the BCNM 40 (in riverne site #A01) is all about luck and cash to buy tons of "yellow liquid, the magical substance only dropped by the mobs IN the BCNM.

The first 40 part, in the aquiducts was easy enough, just need to farm one or two keys (or bring a theif) . The fight can be done in an alliance, the mob isn't terribly hard, but does cast doom.
 

DrForester

Kills Photobucket
Well, only the first few missions once you hit level 60 have even been implimented yet. I've heard mission 6-2 is if far as you can get right now.
 

Mr Nash

square pies = communism
Yeah, I have party phobia too, Ploid. I've got BST almost up to 30 now because of it, and the thing with playing the job is that the more you do it, the more antsy you get doing different jobs because it feels weird having to wait to start getting exp.

I've been bobbing between jobs a lot lately, but I think I'll take BST up to 60 for now at least. Get my AF gear for it and figure out where I want to go from there...
 

Ploid 3.0

Member
lol, I was joking and if I did start a NMLS it would teach the others there of the spawns and that would = more competition. I'll tell anyone in our LS (SoD) spawn, time of spawn, and good NMs to camp no problem though. We need to keep people on our LS :(. Gratz on your kills though.
 

Belfast

Member
Hmmm....I noticed I haven't been playing lately. I think I'm shifting back into my console gaming phase. I tend to do that...during the lulls in console gaming, I play PC games, and vice versa. Not saying I've forsaken FFXI, but at least for now, with all the crap coming out during the pre-holiday rush, I find myself spending more time with other games. So, I may be taking a break, but its sort of an informal one. If I log on, I log on, but I don't think I'm going to be doing so very often for the time being. Sucks, though, you'll all get even farther than me!
 

Kintaro

Worships the porcelain goddess
Ugh, getting sky access has become a major pain in the ass. Oh well.

Anyways, sitting back, I've thought about COP thus far and I have to say...what a dud expansion this has been. Talked with LS about it, and there seems to be agreement. All of the capped missions/areas are pretty goddamned stupid if you ask me. I'm sorry, but I REALLY don't want to be forced to play a job I don't really care for (WAR/NIN or RNG) in order to play through the expansion's storyline. Not only that, play through it CAPPED at low lvls. I really could care less.

Sure, the cap keeps going up, but shit, in retrospect, shouldn't even BE there in the first place. Would it have been so hard to be able to adjust the difficulty lvl according to your lvl? Seriously. Not only that, but it's forced out a ton of jobs from the missions cuz in the player's minds, they honestly don't give a shit either and just want it done. Therefore, you got people forced into playing RNG or something to even be considered for these missions. I would personally love to play through all the missions and see the storyline, but forcing me to play another job to do it? {No thanks}

The new areas we've been able to SEE from the get go are pretty damn weak as well. In terms of exploring and xp. So far, only Bibiki Bay has become the only useful XP spot in the new areas. Attohwa Chasm no one gives a crap for. U. Range, same. Carpenter's Landing is decent for farming/xping, Oldton/Newton Movol is cool to explore, but rather blah for anything useful right now. Not that anyone would want to xp on goblins who escaped from Dynamis-Jeuno anyways o_O The list really goes on. It might pick up once you have access to other cities after passing Proms, but to be honest, xpers don't give a shit to find out.

New abilities, equipment, and so forth in COP thus far have been piss poor. Some new stuff here and there, and once you're past the initial excitement, you realize tons still need to be done. Not every job has it's own JSE yet (useful or not). Not to mention all the bugs, and incredible lack of customer service from GMs. I mean, it's not even funny. It's fucking disheartening.

Anyways, so far COP is a dud. Capped missions suck. Amount of useful zones thus far (I mean, these fuckers haven't even FINISHED making all the damn COP missions available), is very small. And it's just blah. If it wasn't for Bibiki Bay right now, expansion would be near useless as it stands. Dissapointing.

When is WoW again?
 

Belfast

Member
I have to agree. I expected a LOT more from CoP. Honestly. But perhaps some of the blame still lies with the players. As you said, the XPers (the vast majority) don't give a shit about breaking the cycle. Then again, does it matter? You're still XPing on similar mobs. The new areas are, once again, nothing more than quest fodder. The only time anyone ever wants to go to them is for a quest item or something. The Tavnazia areas seem cool, but Promyvion was made way too difficult. If you only had to beat one, OK, but all 3 takes considerable effort. I still think the few LS people who made it through did it by luck. Make the later Prom missions hard, not the very first one. Also, while they promised 40 new areas, and they kind of delivered, it really DOESN'T feel like 40 new areas. Hell, they didn't even change the world map, just stuck stuff in the gaps. Do you honestly want me to believe that tiny-ass island off of Vollbow is the entire kingdom of Tavnazia? Bullshit. And the lack of new equipment is just ass. The enchantment items are fairly useless when you might as well just buy the potions/pebbles/whatever that you want and use them when you need to instead of dealing with the timer.

For a year + worth of work, I would've expected more out of the expansion. Maybe the PS2 really is holding the game back, but S-E doesn't even seem to be putting in the effort to at least try and circumvent the limitations. We ask for customization and they're like "FUCK NO!!!" instead of "Well, the PS2 kind of limits our ability to do full customization, but maybe we can implement a color-dye system or something that really shouldn't tax the system." FFXI still has a lot of potential, but I feel that it is increasingly catering to a certain group.

I'm not about to skip out on it for WoW, because it'll likely turn into the same thing at some point, but who knows. CoP could've been so much more and it should've been because they really hyped it up to be and it just didn't deliver.

What, like 15-20 new quests (not dozens)? New missions (haven't even finished implementing them yet? wtf? but since nobody wants to go through promyvion, nobody cares)? New equipment (huh? where? Most of it is extremely specialized, but specialized for certain classes, leaving other classes out in the cold)? 40+ new areas (Burning Circles/Boss Areas shouldn't be considered areas...they're like one room and serve one purpose. about 10-12 of these new areas are promyvion or dynamis related. Once again, the Tav areas might be neat, but nobody has fucking access)?

Then we have to remember the distinct lack of new classes, abilities, weaponskills, etc. that would fundamentally change/tweak the way our characters play. Sure, some of these things can be added through patches, but why not with the expansion when you have the opportunity?

Anyway, I'm done ranting. You've all discussed this, so you probably already know anyway. Just adding me 2 cents since I haven't been on lately.
 

Xaerus

Member
Kintaro if you or Jae need a RDM for the ZM's, I'd be glad to help. I think Darkshire is willing too (since he's still stuck on 8). You know you guys want to get Chainspell Flared by Suzaku!

CoP was less than I expected too. Zilart had more impact and it came with FFXI when it was released here! Hell, Tetramaster may have had more impact. :D
 

Tabris

Member
All of you complaining about COP, why don't you actually try getting access to these areas?

You're complaining when you don't even have access to the meat and bones of the COP.

God, so many players just don't even try to get here. I farm in Tavnazia, and the only people I ever see (I do /sea a lot) is japanese players from the major linkshells (Kingdom and Will on our server). It's such a beautiful zone too, and the story is very interesting so far.
 

DrForester

Kills Photobucket
Plus, once you get to chapter 4 of CoP you get access to delivery system Auction House in Tavnazia (AH tied to Jeuno), you you can pretty much live there, free from the lagged noob-filled fun of Lower Jeuno.
 

Ploid 3.0

Member
lol yea, I can't wait to get the Jeuno AH there. After exping I can just head to qufim zone through that vortex and make my way to my hideout and camp the AH in peace. ^^
 

nataku

Member
Oh c'mon Tabris. Getting through CoP mission (Promyvion for example) is a PAIN IN THE ASS because of all the stupid people in this game and the way SE designed the damn things. No RNG and SMN in the party? Might as well not even try, because you won't win. I agree with Kintaro 100%... I don't want to be forced to play a job I hate playing. CoP is a shitty expansion so far. The missions are the only thing it has going for it, IMO.

Oh, and before you say "You probably didn't even try to beat it"... I'm 0/11 on the various Promyvion missions. Had several of those alliances with a RNG or SMN in each party.

SE's design with FFXI (especially end game) really pisses me off. MPK wars for HNM spawns is pathetic. Only having 5 jobs useful for those HNMs (and now CoP missions) is even worse. The end game was put together very, very poorly.
 

Tabris

Member
Oh c'mon Tabris. Getting through CoP mission (Promyvion for example) is a PAIN IN THE ASS because of all the stupid people in this game and the way SE designed the damn things.

Completly your own fault for dealing with incompetent players.

Do the Promyvions with 5 other experienced players from your linkshell. I did 2 12-man alliances, than for Promyvion-Mea, no one else was on so we just did a 6-man rush. Which is actually easier except for clearing strays on floor 3.

Pick-up alliances/parties are almost always bad, you need to make friends and connections with experienced players to be able to do these kind of things.
 

nataku

Member
Which is what I did.

Congrats... you just insulted half the people who post in this thread by calling them "incompetent."

The fact is the missons have piss poor design and restrictions that shouldn't have been there in the first place (both level and job). CoP is a letdown.
 

Kintaro

Worships the porcelain goddess
Tabris said:
.

Do the Promyvions with 5 other experienced players from your linkshell.

Ok, cool, I'll bust out the WAR/NIN, RNG, RNG, RNG, SMN, WHM pt now. Jobs I want no part in playing. {All Right!}

We'll do the same thing for Diabolos too. Same for Prom-Vahzl!

Did you completely miss the point?
 

Kweh

Member
One of the reasons I've put FFXI on hold/quit is because endgame is so unfriendly to GMT. CoP just emphasises that even more. I spent from 8pm to 4am just doing Promyvion-Holla with my LS one night, not because we sucked, but because of circumstances out of our control (people leaving, waiting for them to come etc), its just that 4am is a ridiculous time for me staying up playing a game. It's not just Promyvion, its also things like Dynamis. My ls started doing a dynamis run on Wed/Sat, but it starts at 3am GMT. There was a time I would of gone to that without hesitation, but I guess I'm slowly losing interest in the game.

I don't even want to get started on HNMLS rivalry...its fun to begin with, but after the Nidhogg 12 hour session, it kinda puts the game into perspective.

So I'm on a break from FFXI, it sucks, cos I know I'm gonna not go back, and I had a great LS. But WoW is a much more suitable game for me and I can't wait until it arrives.
 

Zaptruder

Banned
Kweh said:
One of the reasons I've put FFXI on hold/quit is because endgame is so unfriendly to GMT. CoP just emphasises that even more. I spent from 8pm to 4am just doing Promyvion-Holla with my LS one night, not because we sucked, but because of circumstances out of our control (people leaving, waiting for them to come etc), its just that 4am is a ridiculous time for me staying up playing a game. It's not just Promyvion, its also things like Dynamis. My ls started doing a dynamis run on Wed/Sat, but it starts at 3am GMT. There was a time I would of gone to that without hesitation, but I guess I'm slowly losing interest in the game.

I don't even want to get started on HNMLS rivalry...its fun to begin with, but after the Nidhogg 12 hour session, it kinda puts the game into perspective.

So I'm on a break from FFXI, it sucks, cos I know I'm gonna not go back, and I had a great LS. But WoW is a much more suitable game for me and I can't wait until it arrives.

You guys took 12 hours for Nidhogg? o_O

I guess our 90 minute fight wasn't too bad then.

But on the other hand you guys haven't been camping fafnir for a fucking month now have you? :p
 

Kweh

Member
Yea, we've been camping the kings for a long time. It was just that Nidhogg incident on Fairy I was referring to where 3 LS's kept mpk'ing each other to get him, which lasted ofer 12 hours and the GM just saying "Sort out your own shit" :)
 

Zaptruder

Banned
Our LS has a monopoly on Fafnir... and Nidhogg has the best King loot. :x

But the whole thing is so draining. We've got 2 thief knife wielding thieves in our LS... and despite that, only had 1 ridill drop and a hecatomb subligar (i.e. the worse drop) dropped off Nidhogg.

30+ days... 18 members on average.... 3 hours a day; 1620 man hours and very little to show for it.
 

Xaerus

Member
Tabris said:
Completly your own fault for dealing with incompetent players.

Do the Promyvions with 5 other experienced players from your linkshell. I did 2 12-man alliances, than for Promyvion-Mea, no one else was on so we just did a 6-man rush. Which is actually easier except for clearing strays on floor 3.

Pick-up alliances/parties are almost always bad, you need to make friends and connections with experienced players to be able to do these kind of things.

Oh right, you're Mr. I'm Greater Than You! God, you're an asshole.

Just because we're having trouble doing a mission doesn't make us or anyone we're doing it with incompetent. I doubt you even got it done on your first try.
 

Tabris

Member
Actually, we broke the record on Dem and Mea :)

It's not that hard. You just have to A) Be prepared (poison potions, holy water, echo drops and hi-potions) ... B) Melees sub NIN so they're not a drain on the WHM as much ... C) Learn to Solid Snake around better to avoid dealing with aggro ... D) Kite the BCNM around until ready for 2HR's
 

DrForester

Kills Photobucket
man, if you guys complain about the Promyvion BCNM fights, wait till you get to the first BCNM fight at Monarch Lin, or better yet, tell me what you think of the Promyvion BCNM fights after you fight Diablos :)
 

Kintaro

Worships the porcelain goddess
DrForester said:
man, if you guys complain about the Promyvion BCNM fights, wait till you get to the first BCNM fight at Monarch Lin, or better yet, tell me what you think of the Promyvion BCNM fights after you fight Diablos :)

It's not the fights itself (did ANYONE get the point?) personally, it's the asinine lvl caps. Fuck that shit. Up it's ass with a barbed wire dildo.
 

DrForester

Kills Photobucket
You know, the level caps were almost certainly put in place due to complaints about Zilart "requiring" (In a pratical sense) people to be over level 60.
 

Shouta

Member
The Promyvion fights themselves are poorly designed. RNGs and SMNs are about the only ones that can do heavy amounts of damage in a fast enough fashion to beat the bosses alongside the fact it ramps up in strength and attack speed as it gets lower in life. It's a downright shitty idea to make all the other classes near useless in a boss battle or only useful in within the confines of a specific subjob (i.e. NIN sub in this case). Level caps aren't so bad but doing low end level caps aren't especially smart if you want to challenge players and still make it accessible to all. If anything, a level 45-50 cap would've been a better idea honestly since classes aren't as limited at that point.
 

Xaerus

Member
DrForester said:
You know, the level caps were almost certainly put in place due to complaints about Zilart "requiring" (In a pratical sense) people to be over level 60.

Minimum caps aren't quite the same as maximum caps. They're not even caps (especially since there are none in this game)!

They put the caps on the missions and battles because the low-level people were complaining that all the high-level people got to do all the fun things. The only problem is: they made them really, really hard. They could still be done but even the early ZM's were not that hard!

You can't honestly expect that all content is available from the start, and can be done. That just defeats the purpose of leveling not to mention also being asinine.
 

DrForester

Kills Photobucket
Early Zilart was not that hard, but if you were not level 60 you could forget about it. The first few Zilart missions themselves might not have needed a lvl 60+ to go, but to beat Shadowlord and get rank 6 so you could START Zilart, pretty much does.

So they make it so, in theory, lower levels can do these things. But they aren't going to make it easy.


As for the Promyvion battles, we got just about everyone in our LS through. Yes RNG is very valuable, but RNG has always been a big time damage dealing class, so for it to be an asset should not really come as a surprise. BLM is also great if you get the anima parts. Only job class I can see being useless in Promyvion is BST, but if you unlocked BST, you have another lvl 30 job, so use that. The promyvion battles just require a team of vary focused players and ITEMS. You need to spend money to do these battles people, you need those hi-potions, yagudo drinks and other stuff.

This is the other BIG thing no one is doing with CoP missions. the Anima for the Promyvion BCNM fights. I have gone through 6 BCNM fight in CoP so far (Including the 3 Promyvion ones). And in 5 of them, we KNOW there is a item that helps make the battle easier. The 5th BCNM battle of the expansion, which is the Diablos fight, we believe there is an item that no one has found yet. We managed to beat Diablos without whatever item may exist, but it took us many, many tries (helpful hint for WHM, if you dont have erase, don't even try this fight). The current BCNM we know the item, we just need to farm items for quest.

This is a big part of CoP it seems. I have not heard what BCNM items may exist for the later fights, but it seems to be a theme.
 

Kintaro

Worships the porcelain goddess
DrForester said:
Early Zilart was not that hard, but if you were not level 60 you could forget about it. The first few Zilart missions themselves might not have needed a lvl 60+ to go, but to beat Shadowlord and get rank 6 so you could START Zilart, pretty much does.

This is untrue. SL was a lvl 50 fight for a long time. Most certainly doable at lvl 50. A much better cap than say lvl 30 or 40 =P. You mentioned the animas, which are a cool idea...which requires hours of farming at lvl 30 cap for a Recollection...ugh.

I read the walkthrough for all the prereq for the Diabolos fight. Jesus fuck...too much running around ><
 

Ploid 3.0

Member
Kintaro said:
Ok, cool, I'll bust out the WAR/NIN, RNG, RNG, RNG, SMN, WHM pt now. Jobs I want no part in playing. {All Right!}

We'll do the same thing for Diabolos too. Same for Prom-Vahzl!

Did you completely miss the point?

Man go NIN/war and unload the shurikens (One stack should be enough each run). I only failed 2 times with the BCNMs (NIN tank), and haven't lost another since. It cost a lot though (archer's knife X2 + Powders + Shurikens + Hi Potions + Food). I know I was lucky and couldn't have done it without the smart parties I was with but I'm just saying NIN/ is just as useful as any other job.
 
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